"I am quite sure father was wrong about our being the rightful heirs to the throne," she said. "Anyhow, I don't feel the least like a queen."
"You mustn't be so exacting," replied Tony. "You look like one; and that's all that any reasonable girl has any right to expect."
"Still," persisted Isabel, "I expect that proper kings and queens have a special sort of Royal feeling inside. I haven't got it in the least. I have been a thousand times happier since I ran away than I ever should be if I was stuck up on a throne. It's the silly pretence of it all that I should hate so. Even the sort of semi-state that we used to keep up when Father was alive nearly drove me mad. It was like being surrounded by a lot of stupid shadows. Do you know that except for Miss Watson, you and Cousin Guy are the first real people I have ever met."
"There are not many about," said Tony. "At least that's how it seems to me. I always feel as if I was in the stalls of a theatre looking on at a play. The only real people are one's friends who are sitting alongside, criticizing and abusing it."
Isabel nodded. "It's the first time I have been in the audience," she said. "Up till now I haven't even done any acting. I have just been waiting behind the scenes as a sort of understudy."
They had just finished dinner and were dawdling pleasantly over coffee and cigarettes in the soothing atmosphere of the Café Bruges. They had chosen that discreet but excellent little restaurant as the one in which they were least likely to run across inconvenient acquaintances, since its clientele consists almost entirely of Board of Trade officials, who take little interest in anything outside of their own absorbing profession. Compared with these deserving but sombre people Isabel looked very young and charming. The strained, hunted look had quite gone out of her face, and in the softly shaded light her amber eyes shone with a contented happiness that Tony found extremely attractive.
"I think you will find Aunt Fanny real enough," he said, tipping off the end of his cigarette into the saucer. "At least she always seems amazingly so to me."
"I am sure we shall get along together splendidly," said Isabel. "She sounds a dear from what you have told me about her."
"She is," replied Tony with as near an approach to enthusiasm as he ever attained. "She is the most complete and delightful aunt in the world. Fancy an ordinary aunt of seventy-two offering to come with us on the Betty!"
"I am looking forward to it so much," exclaimed Isabel happily. "I love the sea. I should like to go right round the world and then back again."