"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't think--"

"A prince's duty is to think."

"Although," observed His Royal Highness, "I don't really believe Miss Braithwaite fainted. She may have thought she fainted, but her eyelids moved."

"Where did you go?"

"To the park, sir. I--I thought I'd like to see the park by myself."

"Go on."

"It's very hard to enjoy things with Miss Braithwaite, sir. She does not really enjoy the things I like. Nikky and I--"

"By 'Nikky' you mean Lieutenant Larisch?"

"Yes, sir."

"Go on."

"We like the same things, sir--the Pike's-Peak-or-Bust, and all that."

The King raised himself on his elbow. "What was that?" he demanded.

Prince Ferdinand William Otto blushed, and explained. It was Bobby's name for the peak at the top of the Scenic Railway. He had been on the railway. He had been--his enthusiasm carried him away. His cheeks flushed. He sat forward on the edge of his chair, and gesticulated. He had never had such a good time in his life.

"I was awfully happy, sir," he ended. "It feels like flying, only safer.

And the lights are pretty. It's like fairyland. There were two or three times when it seemed as if we'd turn over, or leap the track. But we didn't."

The King lay back and thought. More than anything in the world he loved this boy. But the occasion demanded a strong hand. "You were happy,"

he said. "You were disobedient, you were causing grave anxiety and distress--and you were happy! The first duty of a prince is to his country. His first lesson is to obey laws. He must always obey certain laws. A king is but the servant of his people."

"Yes, sir," said Prince Ferdinand William Otto.

The old King's voice was stern. "Some day you will be the King. You are being trained for that high office now. And yet you would set the example of insubordination, disobedience, and reckless disregard of the feelings of others."

"Yes, sir," said prince Ferdinand William Otto, feeling very small and ashamed.

"Not only that. You slipped away. You did not go openly. You sneaked off, like a thief. Are you proud of it?"

"No, sir."

"I shall," said the King, "require no promise from you. Promises are poor things to hold to. I leave this matter in your own hands, Otto. You will be punished by Miss Braithwaite, and for the next ten days you will not visit me. You may go now."

Otto got off his chair. He was feeling exceedingly crushed. "Good-night, sir," he said. And waited for his grandfather to extend his hand. But the old King lay looking straight ahead, with his mouth set in grim lines, and his hands folded over his breast.

At the door the Crown Prince turned and bowed. His grandfather's eyes were fixed on the two gold eagles over the door, but the photograph on the table appeared to be smiling at him.

CHAPTER IV. THE TERROR

Until late that night General Mettlich and the King talked together.

The King had been lifted from his bed and sat propped in a great chair.

Above his shabby dressing-gown his face showed gaunt and old. In a straight chair facing him sat his old friend and Chancellor.

"What it has shown is not entirely bad," said the King, after a pause.

"The boy has initiative. And he made no attempt at evasion. He is essentially truthful."

"What it has also shown, sire, is that no protection is enough. When I, who love the lad, and would--when I could sleep, and let him get away, as I did--"

"The truth is," said the King, "we are both of us getting old." He tapped with his gnarled fingers on the blanket that lay over his knees.

"The truth is also," he observed a moment later, "that the boy has very few pleasures. He is alone a great deal."

General Mettlich raised his shaggy head. Many years of wearing a soldier's cap had not injured his heavy gray hair. He had bristling eyebrows, white new, and a short, fighting mustache. When he was irritated, or disagreed with any one, his eyebrows came down and the mustache went up.

Many years of association with his king had given him the right to talk to him as man to man. They even quarreled now and then. It was a brave man who would quarrel with old Ferdinand II.

So now his eyebrows came down and his mustache went up. "How--alone, sire?"

"You do not regard that bigoted Englishwoman as a companion, do you?"

"He is attached to her."

"I'm damned if I know why," observed the old King. "She doesn't appear to have a single human quality."

Human quality! General Mettlich eyed his king with concern. Since when had the reigning family demanded human qualities in their governesses?

"She is a thoughtful and conscientious woman, sire," he said stiffly. It happened that he had selected her. "She does her duty. And as to the boy being lonely, he has no time to be lonely. His tutors--"

"How old is he?"

"Ten next month."

The King said nothing for a time. Then--"It is hard," he said at last, "for seventy-four to see with the eyes of ten. As for this afternoon--why in the name of a thousand devils did they take him to see the 'Flying Dutchman'? I detest it."

"Her Royal Highness--"

"Annunciata is a fool," said His Majesty. Then dismissing his daughter with a gesture, "We don't know how to raise our children here," he said impatiently. "The English do better. And even the Germans--"

It is not etiquette to lower one's eyebrows at a king, and glare. But General Mettlich did it. He was rather a poor subject. "The Germans have not our problem, sire," he said, and stuck up his mustache.

"I'm not going to raise the boy a prisoner," insisted the King stubbornly. Kings have to be very stubborn about things. So many people disapprove of the things they want to do.

Suddenly General Mettlich bent forward and placed a hand on the old man's knee. "We shall do well, sire," he said gravely, "to raise the boy at all."

There was a short silence, which the King broke. "What is new?"