The ladies evidently approved of my suggestion, for they forthwith, one and all, flung themselves upon the colonel's neck; and he, though flurried and a little annoyed, had to submit with the best grace possible to this volley of kisses under the eyes of the princess, who laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks.
When I apologised to him afterwards for the abominable trick which I had played him:
"Ah," he sighed, "if only they had been good-looking!"
The fact is that none of the ladies evoked the most distant memories of the Venus of Milo!
Thanks to the recollections of those bygone years, of which any number of charming and amusing stories could be told, I was no longer a stranger to the Duke and Duchess of York when, after the accession of King Edward VII, they were raised to the title of Prince and Princess of Wales and travelled across France, under my protection, on their way to Brindisi, where they were to take ship for India.
"I will present you to the prince myself," said Princess May, with exquisite and simple kindliness, when she saw me waiting for them in the railway station at Calais. And she continued, "George, this is M. Paoli: you remember him, don't you?"
"I remember," said the prince, giving me his hand, "how much my grandmother liked you and the affection which she showed you. I need hardly say that we feel just the same to you ourselves."
I could not have hoped for a more cordial welcome from the prince, whose features bore so striking a resemblance to those of the Emperor of Russia, whom I had just left.
This journey was a particularly pleasant one for me, as it enabled me to foregather once more with an old and faithful friend in the person of the prince's secretary, of whom I had seen a great deal at the time when he was private secretary to Queen Victoria and who now occupies the same position under King George V; I refer to Sir Arthur Bigge.
Sir Arthur belongs to that race of servants of the monarchy whose zeal and devotion cease only with their death. He met with a striking adventure at the time of the interview between Queen Victoria and the late M. Félix Faure at Noisy-le-Sec. The story has never been told before; and I have no hesitation in publishing it, because it does great credit to the generosity of feeling of the then President of the Republic.