A slight exclamation behind me checked my excited confession.
Slowly turning in my tracks I beheld Thusis at the door in cap and apron.
There was a terrific silence.
Then Thusis, her fair face deeply flushed, dropped us a curtsey.
"Dinner is served, sir," she said faintly. And was gone like a shadow.
XV
A TRAVELING CIRCUS
The royal traveling circus was already seated and whetting its appetite with hors d'oeuvres, when I arrived in the dining-room and, saluting my guests, took my place as host at the head of the long table.
Heaven! What a collection! Being incognito, I was not supposed to be aware of the identity of royalty; but Thusis had seated the ex-queen of Greece on my right and Tino on my left, and, beyond Queen Sophia, she had put the Tsar of all the Bulgars,—with a clean napkin where he had soiled the cover.
The new accessions to this traveling show had, very evidently, decided among themselves the places at table to which they were entitled by precedence of rank. And these they now occupied.