Sir Roger obeyed, and the King, stepping forth from the pavilion, walked slowly along the terrace, watching the sparkling sea, the flowering orange-trees lifting their slender tufts of exquisitely scented bloom against the clear blue of the sky, the birds skimming lightly from point to point of foliage, and the white-sailed yachts dipping gracefully as the ocean rose and fell with every wild sweet breath of the scented wind. Pausing a moment, he presently took out a field-glass and looked through it at one of the finest and fairest of these pleasure-vessels, which, as he surveyed it, suddenly swung round, and began to scud away westward. “The Prince is on board?” he asked. “Yes, Sir,” replied De Launay--“His Royal Highness intends sailing as far as The Islands, and remaining there till sunset.” “Alone, as usual?” “As usual, Sir, alone, save for his captain and crew.” The King walked on in silence for a minute. Then he paused abruptly. “I do not like it, De Launay!”--he said decisively--“I do not like his abnormal love of solitude. Books are all very well--poetry is in its way excellent,--music, as we are told ‘hath charms’--but the boy broods too much, and stays away too much from Court. What woman attracts him?” Sir Roger’s eyes opened wide as the King turned suddenly round upon him with this question. “Woman, Sir? I know of none. The Prince is but twenty----” “At twenty,” said the King,--“boys love--the wrong girl. At thirty they marry--the wrong woman. At forty they meet the only true and fitting soul’s companion,--and cry for the moon till the end! My son is in the first stage, or I am much mistaken,--he loves--the wrong girl!” He walked on,--and De Launay followed, with a vague sense of amusement and disquietude in his mind. What had come to his Royal master, he wondered? His ordinary manner had changed somewhat,--he spoke with less than the customary formality, and there was an expression of freedom and authority, combined with a touch of defiance in his face, that was altogether new to the observation of the faithful equerry. Arrived at the palace, and passing through one of the long and spacious painted corridors, lit by richly coloured mullioned windows from end to end, the King came face to face with a lady-in-waiting carrying a large cluster of Madonna lilies. She drew aside, with a deep reverence, to allow him to pass; but he stopped a moment, looking at the great gorgeous white flowers faint with fragrance, and at the slight retiring figure of the woman who held them. “Are these for the chapel, Madame?” he asked. “No, Sir! For the Queen.”