“At the hotel. She and grandpa have been talking and talking, and I know mother cried, but grandpa was quite cheerful and joky. He said it would have gone to his heart to send a telegram to say we needn’t come, he was so counting on seeing us. He was going to take Usk and me out to buy us some sweets; but Usk was tired, and mother said he had better not go out until we go to meet father at the station this afternoon, and grandpa said it wouldn’t be fair to Usk to take me out alone. Mother wouldn’t go out; she said nothing should induce her to let Usk out of her sight. Please stoop down, Uncle Cyril; I want to whisper. I think mother’s frightened about something. And nurse wouldn’t come out. She said she dursen’t trust herself in these furrin streets, lest she should be murdered, and so I couldn’t have gone out at all if Wright hadn’t been here. But mother made him promise never to take his eyes off me for a second.”
Cyril looked up and met Wright’s gaze. The coachman shook his head solemnly. “I’m afraid it’s a bad business somehow, my lord; but the rights and the wrongs of it is quite beyond me.”
“Well, Phil,” said Cyril, “suppose I come with you and see your mother? Perhaps I shall be able to cheer her up a little; and at any rate it’s not long before your father will be here.”
“No; only a little more than two hours,” said Philippa, contentedly, putting her hand in Cyril’s as they turned to leave the garden. The sight of the Villa suggested a new topic to her mind.
“Oh, do you live in that big house, Uncle Cyril? It’s a little bit like Llandiarmid, isn’t it? only there aren’t any ruins.”
“No; the little Prince whom I told you about lives there. His father is dead now, and he is King.”
“But they are going to have another king as well, aren’t they? Grandpapa and his friends were talking last night about making a friend of theirs king.”
“Were they, indeed? They didn’t mention his name, I suppose?”
“No; they only said notre ami, just as they did when they were saying nasty things about father being a teetotaller. They said he had amiable peculiarities. Wasn’t it horrid of them? They were talking French, you know. Oh, and who is the Jewess, Uncle Cyril?”
“Why, don’t you know what a Jewess is, Phil?” Yet Cyril’s blood quickened, in spite of his careless tone, as he heard the cant name of the rabble for Queen Ernestine.