"Oh, I hope the Baron will make haste--and--and if your Majesty _could_ only prevent him from seeing the Court Godmother till after we are gone!" "She will probably be asleep," said Daphne, "but in any case he shall have instructions to take you home the very moment he arrives at the Palace. I think," she added, "that is all we had to say to one another." "Except," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "that your Majesty really must allow me to express my deep sense of the very handsome----" "No, _please_!" said Daphne, turning away, for she felt that she had had as much of Mrs. Stimpson as she could stand just then. That good lady, having partially recovered her equanimity, retreated to her husband and family. "I've been talking it over with her Majesty, Sidney," she announced, "and she has _quite_ brought me to see that, under the circumstances, we shall really be more comfortable in dear old England. So she has kindly arranged for us to be taken home in the car directly it gets back from Clairdelune." "Glad to hear it, my love," said the ex-Monarch. "Personally, I much prefer 'Inglegarth' to this sort of thing." "But I say," Clarence put in, glancing down at his fantastic attire, "I don't quite see myself going back to Gablehurst in _this_ get up. Wish I knew what had become of the kit we came in!" It was now the hour when the Court was accustomed to go up and change their costumes before dinner, and Daphne felt a difficulty as to the proper course to pursue with the Wibberley-Stimpsons. Could she without indelicacy invite them to sit as guests at what had lately been their own table? And yet it seemed hardly human to leave them out. She decided that the former course was on the whole less open to objection. "I hope," she said to Mrs. Stimpson, with a touch of shyness, "that you will all give me the pleasure of dining with us this evening? You see, you must have something to eat before such a long journey." "Your Majesty is most kind," said Mrs. Stimpson in a great flurry, "but, if you will excuse us from accepting what--no one knows better than I--is really a command, I--I really _don't_ think we should have time to sit through a long dinner. We--we might miss the car--and besides, there's the question of dressing. If we could have a few sandwiches and a little wine in one of the vestibules while we are waiting for the car, that will be all we shall require!" "You shall do exactly as you please about it," replied Daphne. She was greatly relieved, as one reason for her hesitation in asking them had been the dread that Mr. Stimpson might think himself called upon to make an after-dinner speech. Her ladies-in-waiting were already in her Tiring-Chamber, highly delighted by the prospect of arraying a Queen whom, even when she had been nominally one of themselves, they had always not merely admired but adored.