While they were standing together, a Colonel of Artillery and two ladies entered, the former showing them the private cabinet of the head of the War Department. The women recognised the Princess by the decoration she wore at the edge of her bodice, and bowed low and awkwardly before her as she passed out, followed by Hubert.
With hurried steps he conducted her to the main entrance, and at once sent a servant for one of the royal automobiles, saying that Her Royal Highness was not well.
Together they waited in an ante-room almost without speaking. She seemed too nervous and overwrought.
“I trust you, Mr Waldron,” she said suddenly, looking up into his face. “Yet—ah! what can you think of me! How you must scorn and despise me! But—but I hope you will not misjudge me—that—you will make allowances for me—a girl—a very foolish girl?”
“Do not let us discuss that now,” he hastened to reply in a low, hard voice, for he never knew until that moment how mad was his affection for her.
And just then one of the royal flunkeys entered, bowing, to announce that the car was awaiting Her Royal Highness.
Their hands clasped in silence, and she walked out through a line of obsequious servants and down the flight of steps to the royal car.
As she went out a waiter stood behind the line of soldiers drawn up in the great vestibule, watching intently. Unobserved he had followed the pair when they had emerged from His Excellency’s private cabinet, and his shrewd eyes had noticed something amiss.
He was the same man who had passed Hubert earlier in the evening and whose face had so puzzled him.
The Englishman, after the royal car had driven away, turned and made his way back in search of Ghelardi.