“And if you had,” said Usk, “it wouldn’t have done you much good. Do you think her Royal Highness the Princess Philippa would have condescended to be aware of your existence?”
“Usk! as if I should ever forget old friends, or pretend to make any difference with them!” cried Philippa indignantly.
“I am sure you never would,” said Mansfield, so fervently that Usk laughed aloud, and Princess Soudaroff smiled a placid smile. They had now reached the Königspark, and were passing one of the outlying restaurants with which it is dotted. Before the door stood three dusty travelling-carriages loaded with luggage. The drivers were refreshing themselves after the not very lengthy journey from Charlottenbad, and a number of servants, swaggering about, were displaying their liveries before the admiring eyes of the waitresses. As Princess Soudaroff and her companions passed on, they came in sight of a group of rather noisy young men, who were gathered round a table on a terrace overlooking the river, apparently recruiting their exhausted energies with the help of beverages not exactly of a temperance character. One of the drinkers, who sat by himself on one side of the table, made a remark to the rest, and the whole party turned round and stared at Philippa. The blush called up on her cheek by the fervour of Mansfield’s remark changed into a flush of anger when she became aware of their rudeness, and she held her golden head very high as she addressed a studiously careless observation to Usk, but her displeasure appeared to fail of its intended effect.
“A la belle Anglaise!” cried the youth who had already spoken to his friends, who were now all standing up round the table, and the words were followed by the crash of broken glass as the goblets were dashed down after the toast had been drunk.
“I say, this is beyond a joke!” cried Usk angrily, but Mansfield gripped his arm, with a look that said, “We will come back and settle things when the ladies are gone indoors.” Philippa was too much discomposed to observe this piece of by-play, finding it necessary to relieve her feelings by a sweeping denunciation of the manners of foreigners, in which both the young men heartily agreed with her. When Mansfield had stigmatised the unknown roisterers as a set of cads, and Usk had added that they were probably shop-walkers from Vindobona out for a holiday, she felt better, and made haste to turn the conversation to more agreeable themes. Before very long, however, a hurried footstep became audible in the direction from which they had come, and an officer in undress uniform, catching them up, bowed profoundly to the Princess and Philippa.
“My august master, the King of Thracia, regrets deeply that the indiscreet remarks of some person in his company annoyed mademoiselle,” he said, in French. “It will afford his Majesty much gratification to be permitted to offer his apologies in person later in the day.”
“We are much honoured by his Majesty’s solicitude, monsieur,” replied Princess Soudaroff promptly, “and neither my god-daughter nor I could dream of demanding further apologies. Karl, you may go on.”
And with a bow that equalled his own in courtliness, the Princess left the discomfited emissary standing in the road.
“It is nothing but a trick to discover where we are staying,” she remarked to the rest, when they were out of earshot.
“I shall have something to say to that youth,” said Usk, jerking his head in the direction of the distant monarch. “Wretched little whippersnapper, how can he summon up the cheek to look a Mortimer in the face?”