service done me, or had got into a scrape, I would go to a friend not a man bound to me by blood. Relations give ton-loads of good advice, and there they stop."
"I never had any," I say; "and I always have been so sorry that I had not. Why should one always be getting into scrapes?"
"It is human nature," says Mr. Vasher. "Now, does she not look a little duck?"
The "little duck" is our queen, and the photograph represents her as she was in her beautiful youth, with the gentlest, prettiest, most lovable face in the world; looking upon it one's heart aches as one thinks of the long, dark, empty years that came to her after those blessed and happy early days. Her daughter-in-law looks from the opposite page, with her exquisite tender smile. As Englishwomen beat all other women, does not our princess beat all empresses, queens, and princesses with her fair face? Our prince was in luck when he went a-wooing.
"Are you loyal?" I ask, looking up at Paul Vasher; "I hope so, for I could never like you if you were not. Some people say rude things about royalty; they think it sounds grand, but I think it is simply very bad taste."
"Shall you think I am disrespectful if I say that in my opinion kings and queens are not as good-looking as every-day people?" he asks.
"No, for that is often true. For instance," I say, looking across at Silvia and her lover, "where would you see such a pair as that?"
He does not wince in the very least, as his eye falls upon them, and yet he is going to stay on here for her sake.
So that is the couple for whom you are kindly going to act the part of gooseberry?" he asks with a smile. "I thought you said you were going to play it for me?"
