“Please wait for me, Albert;” for Albert had scaled the stairs, and in another second would be out of sight; and for a wonder, Albert waited—touched, perhaps, by the entreaty in her voice, and perceptibly enjoying the turn of affairs that left him master of the situation.
“Did the Queen's mother come out and ask you to come in?” whispered Marie-Celeste, detaining Albert by main force, while she straightened his necktie and gave his hopelessly frowsy curls a rearranging touch.
“No, I went in and asked her to tome out; nes I did, really,” in refutation of the astonished incredulity on Marie-Celeste's face.
“The door was open, an' I jus' walked in, an' I dess dey sought I was jus' a little prince or somethin', cause nobody said anythin' to me till I tame to the room where de Queen's mother was; an' I asked her wouldn't she tome out in de garden an' see you; an' she said no, she did not feel able to walk very much, but for me to go an' bring my little friend in.”
And nothing could, by any possibility, have been more patronizing than the tone in which Albert uttered the words “my little friend.” And this was all the light that was ever thrown on Albert's unsolicited entree into Windsor Castle. If he met with a rebuff from any quarter or had to push his way in the face of any difficulties, he has never owned up to them.
Be that as it may, a very sweet-faced lady met them at the door as they entered, and saying reassuringly, “Come this way, children,” led them through a corridor resplendent with statues and portraits, and thence by a wide folding-door into a large room, with windows looking out over the Long Walk and away to the grand old Windsor Forest.
Albert, who had already become familiar with the appointments of this apartment, stepped at once to the table, near which an elderly lady was sitting, and laying his sailor-hat, nothing loath, atop of a miniature of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, announced cavalierly, “And—and now, this is my little American friend, Marie-Celeste.”
“How do you do, dear?” said the lady, extending her hand, which Marie-Celeste, her cheeks aflame with the unexpected abruptness of Albert's introduction, took in hers, in a pretty deferential sort of way, as though fully conscious of the dignity of her surroundings. Albert, on the other hand, apparently as much at home in the Queen's private sitting-room as anywhere else in the world, had worked himself way back into a deep-seated, gilded armchair, so that his dusty little feet stuck straight out into the air before him. Meanwhile, the sweet-faced lady had drawn a little tête-a-tète sofa nearer the table, and invited Marie-Celeste to take a seat beside her, and then there followed a few general remarks as to the warmth of the weather and the beauty of the garden, etc., while Marie-Celeste gazed in unconcealed admiration at everything about her.
“It is very beautiful,” she said in the first pause of the conversation, “to be allowed to see the inside of this part of the castle, but I am afraid it was very rude in Albert to walk right in the way he did.”
“Very rude?” Indeed! Albert's eyes flashed, and there is no telling what rejoinder he might have made but that the sweet-faced lady gave him no opportunity.