“Why, Phil, I have been looking for you everywhere! I could not think what had become of you until the Prince of Arragon told me that he had left you with her Majesty.”
“Yes; I was seized with a sudden faintness, and Philippa was kind enough to remain with me until I felt better,” said Ernestine graciously, bestowing one of her rare smiles on Philippa as she turned towards the Thracian consul, who was anxious to present a relative to her.
“Phil,” said Lord Caerleon, taking his daughter aside, “the King has been speaking to me about you.”
“Oh, father!” exclaimed Philippa, in dismay.
“I suppose I ought to feel honoured,” continued her father ruefully, “but that youth riles me—there’s no other word for it. He asked to be allowed to visit me to-morrow at the hotel, graciously intimating that he considered me as in a sort of way a brother monarch, and therefore felt able to dispense with strict etiquette. I guessed what he wanted, and thought we might just as well settle matters without getting your name mixed up with his, so I said I couldn’t think of giving him the trouble. Thereupon he did you the honour to request me in so many words to regard him as a suitor for your hand, this being merely preliminary, as he explained, to a formal proposal through the proper channels. I said I hadn’t had any conversation with you lately on such subjects, but judging from the sentiments you expressed on the last occasion, I couldn’t give him any hope. Upon that he informed me that I wasn’t up to date. He is now a reformed character, father of his country and so on, the condescending patron of everything that’s good. I don’t want to laugh at any man’s reformation, Phil, but the fellow takes himself too seriously. I told him I didn’t see that it was much good bothering you about the matter, and he became very high and mighty indeed. He reminded me that young ladies did not receive offers of marriage from crowned heads every day, and intimated that such an honour ought to be accepted in a proper spirit. In other words, he warns you not to reject his offer without due consideration. I am telling you about it because he insisted I should, and I thought he might turn rusty and make some unpleasantness if I didn’t, but having laid the proposal before you, I can now go with a good conscience and tell him you refuse it.”
“Wait, father, please!” cried Philippa, in an uncertain voice. “I—I think I will take time to consider.”
Her father turned and gazed at her. “Phil!” he said, with more sorrow and disappointment in his voice than she had ever heard in it before.
“I think it’s only proper, as he says,” went on Philippa, with a laugh that was a little hysterical. Don’t you, father? I—I should not like to be too hasty.
“Phil, I wouldn’t insult you by imagining that you could be induced to marry a man you didn’t love for the sake of a crown, but what in the world are you driving at? You needn’t think anything of what I said just now about the fellow’s making himself unpleasant to your uncle and the Queen, for what harm could he do, after all?” Philippa shuddered. Her father did not know what terrible harm King Michael might do if he chose. “But at any rate, don’t give him a moral claim upon you in this way. It’s quite unnecessary to be so tender of his feelings.”
“Oh no, no moral claim,” said Philippa entreatingly. “You can tell him you are perfectly certain that delay will make no change in my feelings, but that if he wishes it, I will consent not to give him a final answer until the day after the wedding. It’s—it’s due to his position, father.” She laughed again. “I’m sure you can make him see it in that light.”