"Look out!" he would cry to anyone entering the room. "Be careful! Don't disturb the lovers!"
In the evening, at dinner, the suite were present. The King changed into evening-clothes, with the collar of the Golden Fleece. At half-past ten, he left for the station and returned to San Sebastian by the Sud-Express.
After a few days, although they were not officially engaged, no one doubted that the event was near at hand.
"She's nice, isn't she?" the King asked me, point-blank.
A significant detail served to show me how far things had gone. One day, the two young people, accompanied by the Princesses Frederica and Beatrice and the whole little court, walked to the end of the grounds, to a spot near the lake, where two holes had been newly dug. A gardener stood waiting for them, carrying two miniature fir-plants in his arms.
"This is mine," said the King.
"And this is mine," said the princess, in French, for they constantly spoke French together.
"We must plant the trees side by side," declared the King, "so that they may always remind us of these never-to-be-forgotten days."
No sooner said than done. In accordance with the old English tradition, the two of them, each laying hold of a spade, dug up the earth and heaped it around the shrubs with shouts of laughter that rang clear through the silent wood. Then, when the King, who, in spite of his strength of arm, is a poor gardener, perceived that the princess had finished her task first:
"There is no doubt about it," he said, "I am very awkward! I must put in a month or two with the Engineers!"