“Could you get him to talk to you?”
“Not very much,” said Philippa thoughtfully. “We wanted him to tell us why you had a different kind of crown on your brushes and things from what father has, and he said it was because you were a different kind of gentleman. And we knew that before.”
“Dietrich is always cautious,” said Cyril; “but his most useful characteristic is his extreme truthfulness.”
“Gratifying, no doubt,” said Caerleon; “but in what way useful?”
“Because he is the most stolid person I know. Every one who sees him jumps to the conclusion that no one could possibly be as stupid as Dietrich looks, and hence, when he tells the exact truth about my movements, they always suspect him of trying to put them off the scent for some reason or other, and they go off in the wrong direction, which is sometimes a very good thing for me.”
“Why?” asked Usk, gazing at his uncle with astonished grey eyes which were exactly like his mother’s.
“Because I don’t particularly want them to follow me about everywhere, that’s all.”
The two children meditated upon this answer for a minute or two, and then, apparently failing to arrive at any satisfactory solution, gave it up, and dragged their father to the side-table to show him a picture in one of the illustrated papers. Cyril looked after them with a smile.
“It strikes one as queer that if things had fallen out differently that little fellow would be Crown Prince of Thracia to-day, instead of Otto Georg’s son,” he remarked to his sister-in-law.
“Yes,” said Nadia, with a slight shiver. “Tell me,” she added suddenly, “do you think Carlino looks well—happy?”