“Her name was Isabel, wasn't it?”
“Yes, her name was Isabel.”
“And she was only nine when she was a queen.”
“Only nine.”
Albert gave Marie-Celeste a look which said as plainly as words: “That jus' American little girls could be awful mean,” and evidently deciding it would be best to leave that kind of a girl to herself, turned on his heel and walked straight off toward the castle with a consequential air, and as though bent on reporting such unseemly conduct to Her Majesty in person.
Marie-Celeste looked after him a moment with a most amused smile, and then growing to feel more at home amid royal surroundings, turned to investigate the little miniature elephants that flank the steps leading down from the eastern terrace. Then she wandered on, making a partial circuit of the garden, stopping here and there to gaze at some statue that struck her fancy or to touch with reverend hand the rich carving of the vases, and finally bringing up at the fountain in the centre.
Meantime, what had not that audacious Albert ventured! The rapid and indignant pace at which he had sought to put as much space as possible between the offending Marie-Celeste and himself had brought him in a trice to the foot of the double flight of steps that ascend from the garden to the terrace. And what more natural, when you find yourself at the foot of a flight of steps, than to walk up them, no matter if the place does chance to be Windsor Castle; and then if at the top you find an open door confronting you, what more natural than to walk in, particularly if there happens to be no one to say you nay, and you have half a mind, besides, to seek an audience of the Queen, and report the ungracious conduct of an ungracious little American, who has been unworthily permitted to tread the paths of the royal garden. A few moments later he was bounding down the stone stairway, flying toward Marie-Celeste with the breathless announcement: “She wants us to come in.”
“Who?” screamed Marie-Celeste, half stiff with fright; “not the Queen?”
“No,” called Albert, who was not to be delayed by explanations, and was already half-way back to the steps again; “the Queen's mother.”
“The Queen's mother!” thought Marie-Celeste; “she must be very old.” But this was time for action rather than thought.