“What you say is, in a sense, quite true,” I admitted. “But I’m so sorry if I’m really very dull. I don’t mean to be.”
“Oh! You’ll improve under my tuition—and Dick’s—no doubt,” she exclaimed reassuringly.
Her Highness was nothing if not outspoken.
“The fact is, Uncle Colin,” she went on seriously, “you’re far too old-fashioned for your age. You are not old, but your ideas are so horribly antiquated. Girls of to-day are allowed a freedom which our grandmothers would have held as perfectly sinful. Girls have become independent. A young fellow takes a girl out to dinner and to the theatre, and even to supper nowadays, and nobody holds up their hands in pious horror—only you! It isn’t fair,” she declared.
“Girls of the people are allowed a great deal of latitude, I admit. And as far as I can see, the world is none the worse for it,” I said. “But what other girls may do, you, an Imperial Highness, unfortunately may not.”
“That’s just where we don’t agree,” she said in a tone meant to be impertinent, her straight nose slightly raised as she spoke. “I intend to do as other girls do—at least, while I’m plain Miss Gottorp. They call me the ‘Little Alien’—so Miss West heard me called the other day.”
“No,” I said very firmly, looking straight at her as she lolled easily in her chair, her chin resting on her white palm as she gazed at me from beneath her long, dark lashes. “You really must respect the convenances. If you take a stroll with young Drury, do so at least in the daylight.”
“And with Dmitri watching me all the time from across the road. Not quite,” she said. “I like the Esplanade when it is quiet and everybody is in bed. It is so pleasant on these warm nights to sit upon a seat and enjoy the moonlight on the sea. Sounds like an extract from a novel, doesn’t it?” and she laughed merrily.
“I fear you are becoming romantic,” I said. “Every girl becomes so at one period of her life.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, smiling. “Myself, I don’t fancy I have any romance in me. The Romanoffs are not a romantic lot as a rule. They are usually too mercenary. I love nice things.”