“Well I’m not very fond of it either,” her Dreaminess admitted, surrendering her skirts to a couple of rosy boys, and leading the way with airy grace towards an adjacent salon, “although,” she wistfully added across her shoulder, to a high dignitary of the Church, “I’m trying, it’s true, to coax the dear Archbishop to give the first act of La Tosca in the Blue Jesus.... Such a perfect setting, and with Desiré Erlinger and Maggie Mellon...!”
And as the Court now pressed after her the rules of etiquette became considerably relaxed. Mingling freely with his guests, King William had a hand-squeeze and a fleeting word for each.
“In England,” he paused to enquire of Lady Something, who was warning a dowager, with impressive earnestness, against the Ritz, “have you ever seen two cooks in a kitchen-garden?”
“No, never, sir!” Lady Something simpered.
“Neither,” the King replied moving on, “have we.”
The Ambassadress beamed.
“My dear,” she told Sir Somebody, a moment afterwards, “my dear, the King was simply charming. Really I may say he was more than gracious! He asked me if I had ever seen two cooks in a kitchen-garden, and I said no, never! And he said that neither, either, had he! And oh isn’t it so strange how few of us ever have?”
But in the salon, one of Queen Thleeanouhee’s ladies had been desired by her Dreaminess to sing.
“It seems so long,” she declared, “since I heard an Eastern voice, and it would be such a relief.”
“By all means,” Queen Thleeanouhee said, “and let a darbouka or two be brought! For what charms the heart more, what touches it more,” she asked, considering meditatively her babouched feet, “than a darbouka?”