"I must say, my boy," said the King to his son, as they walked back to the Palace together, "I wish you hadn't gone to that magician fellow. It makes it so very awkward for _me_." "It would have been a jolly sight more awkward if I hadn't. Just think of the licking you'd have had, what?" "Yes, yes--but there's your Mother. She's so set against Magic of any kind. I really don't know what I'm to say to her." "Well," said Clarence, "I should hope, Guv'nor, you wouldn't be such a jay as to say anything." "It might be only distressing her unnecessarily," said the King. "Sidney!" exclaimed the Queen when they met, "I can see by your face that you've been beaten after all!" "Not at all, my love, not at all. Far from it!" "Then you've won?" "Well--er--not exactly _won_, my dear. We--we finished up all square." "Considering how long you've been learning, that's as bad as if you'd lost. Now, mind what I say, Sidney, you must never attempt to play golf again after this. I cannot have you making yourself ridiculous!" "I think you're right, my dear," he said meekly. "In fact, I had already decided to give it up." Clarence clung to his Golf as long as he could, but he found it dreary work going round the course alone. None of the Courtiers could be induced to learn the game, and he felt a natural reluctance to take on the Marshal as an antagonist, even if the latter had continued to be keen. But he had conceived a strong distaste for the game, and it was rumoured that there had been a stormy interview between him and the Astrologer Royal, who kept his bed for several days afterwards. And Clarence, as the Yellow Gnomes were impossible as caddies, had to carry his own clubs, which he particularly detested. So in course of time he ceased to visit the links, and thus deprived himself of his only form of open-air exercise. There was nothing much for him to do, except to lounge and loaf aimlessly about the Palace, with a depressed suspicion that he was not inspiring the full amount of respect that was due to his position as Crown Prince. It would have been a distraction to make advances to Daphne, but, after his somewhat cavalier treatment of her at the Ball, he could not be sure how they would be received. Moreover, either by her own management or his Royal Mother's, he was never given a chance of seeing her except in public. He found a resource in gambling with the gentlemen of the Royal Household. They played for high stakes, but no higher, seeing that he could replenish his purse as often as it was emptied, than he could well afford. His visits to the sacks of gold in the King's Counting-house became more and more frequent, but he would have derived more enjoyment from cards if he had won occasionally. One afternoon when, the usual card-players being absent on some hunting expedition, he was left to his own devices, he wandered forlornly through a suite of empty halls till he drifted out upon a balcony that overlooked the Palace gardens.