deliveries
of a royal courier from abroad came to divert his attention to more
particular and family affairs.

Nevertheless his mind had again reverted to its vetoed notion when, an
hour later, on his way to the Queen's apartments he met the Princess
Charlotte tripping gaily along the corridor. She stopped to give him her
"return home" embrace. "How well you are looking, papa!" cried she,
admiring his flushed countenance. But the King, though he smiled,
remained preoccupied with the embryos of statecraft.

"My dear," he said abruptly, "do you think that I am popular?"

"Why, yes, papa, of course!" she said, opening sweet eyes at him.
"Doesn't everybody cheer you when you go anywhere?"

"I think," said her father dubiously, lending his ears in fancy to the
sound, "I think that crowds get into the habit of cheering,--not because
they care for me, but just because there are a lot of them, and they
like to hear the sound of their own voices."

"But sometimes you have quite small crowds," said his daughter, "and
still they cheer."

"Yes, yes," he allowed, "so they do. Yes, even the nursemaids, I notice,
wave their handkerchiefs when I ride by them in the park. And I daresay
some of them do it because they are sorry for me."

"Sorry for you, papa?"

"My dear, wouldn't you be sorry to have to be King now-a-days? It's no
fun, I can assure you."

"I wouldn't like to be King always," said Charlotte, with honesty; "but
you know, papa, with all the Silver Jubilee celebrations coming on you
are quite immensely popular."

"Ah!" said the King. "Thank you, my dear, that is what I wanted to
know."

He went on to the Queen's apartments, and Princess Charlotte stood
looking after him. "Poor dear!" she said to herself. She was sorry for
him too--very sorry just now; for she had a secret growing within her
somewhere between heart and head which, if he knew of it--and some day
he would have to know of it--would cause him a great deal of worry.

This young woman with her growing secret was at that time twenty-three.

II

The Princess Charlotte had a way of drawing in a breath as if to speak,
and then bottling it. This little performance was at times very telling
in its effect--it spoke volumes: it told of a long training in
self-repression which still did not come quite naturally: it told of
inward combustion, of a tightly cornered but still independent mind.
Ladies-in-waiting had seen the Princess run out of her mother's