“Then Otto Georg would abdicate, which would be a European calamity.”
“He certainly keeps you with him most persistently. I don’t know how he made up his mind to let you take a holiday now.”
“Well, the fact is—this mustn’t be mentioned, of course—that the domestic horizon at the Palace has been somewhat clouded of late years, and I have often thought it might conduce to peace and happiness if I took myself off for a little while; but Otto Georg has never consented to let me go before.”
“Yes, I was afraid from what the papers said that you two didn’t exactly hit it off with the Queen and her relations. What’s all the fuss about?”
“I’ll tell you about it when we have a smoke to-night. We’re too close to the Castle now.”
“Yes, and there’s Nadia waiting for us on the steps,” said Caerleon, quickening his pace.
“So she is. Why, Caerleon, your wife looks younger than when you married her! And though I never used to be able to see it, she is certainly wonderfully handsome.”
“Thanks,” said Caerleon drily. “I knew that all along.”
It seemed almost incredible to Cyril that the queenly woman who came down the steps to meet him could ever have been the girl against whose marriage with his brother he had once waged a bitter and by no means scrupulous war. Nadia Caerleon would never be one of those who take life easily; but she had lost the half-startled, half-suspicious look which had set Cyril against her at the beginning of their acquaintance, and to her natural dignity there was now added something of the repose and assurance of manner which mark the grande dame.
“I was so sorry not to be able to meet you, Cyril,” she said, as she shook hands with him, “but the Needlework Guild were holding a committee meeting here, and I could not forsake them.”