“Quiet—with good sea air.”
“I was once at Hastings—when I was a child. Is it anything like that?”
“Smaller, more select, and quieter.”
“Then I will go there to-morrow and call myself Madame Bernard,” she said decisively. “Leucha will go with me in search of apartments.”
Having gained her freedom, she now wanted to see what an English middle-class house was like. She had heard much of English home life from Allen and from the English notabilities who had come to Court, and she desired to see it for herself. Hotel life is the same all the world over, and it already bored her.
“Certainly. Your Majesty will be much quieter and far more comfortable in apartments, and passing as an ordinary member of the public,” Leucha said. “I happen to know a very nice house where one can obtain furnished apartments. It faces the sea near the pier, and is kept by a Mrs Blake, the widow of an Army surgeon. When I was in service with Lady Porthkerry we stayed there for a month.”
“Then we will most certainly go there; and perhaps you, Mr Bourne, will find it possible to take the sea air at Worthing instead of being cooped up here. You might come down by a night train—that is, if you know a place where you would be safe.”
He shook his head dubiously.
“I know a place in Brighton—where I’ve stayed several times. It is not far from Worthing, certainly. But we will see afterwards. Does your Majesty intend to leave London to-morrow?”
“Yes; but please not ‘your Majesty,’” she said, in mild reproach, and with a sweet smile. “Remember, I am in future plain Madame Bernard, of Bordeaux, shall we say? The landlady—as I think you call her in English—must not know who I am, or there will soon be paragraphs in the papers, and those seaside snap-shotters will be busy. I should quickly find myself upon picture postcards, as I’ve done, to my annoyance, on several previous occasions when I’ve wanted to be quiet and remain incognito.”