“Well I’m not very fond of it either,” her Dreaminess admitted, surrendering her skirts to a couple of rosy boys, and leading the way with airy grace towards an adjacent salon, “although,” she wistfully added across her shoulder, to a high dignitary of the Church, “I’m trying, it’s true, to coax the dear Archbishop to give the first act of _La Tosca_ in the Blue Jesus.... Such a perfect setting, and with Desiré Erlinger and Maggie Mellon...!” And as the Court now pressed after her the rules of etiquette became considerably relaxed. Mingling freely with his guests, King William had a hand-squeeze and a fleeting word for each. “In England,” he paused to enquire of Lady Something, who was warning a dowager, with impressive earnestness, against the Ritz, “have you ever seen two cooks in a kitchen-garden?” “No, never, sir!” Lady Something simpered. “Neither,” the King replied moving on, “have _we_.” The Ambassadress beamed. “My dear,” she told Sir Somebody, a moment afterwards, “my dear, the King was simply charming. Really I may say he was more than gracious! He asked me if I had ever seen two cooks in a kitchen-garden, and I said no, never! And he said that neither, either, had he! And oh isn’t it so strange how few of us ever have?” But in the salon, one of Queen Thleeanouhee’s ladies had been desired by her Dreaminess to sing. “It seems so long,” she declared, “since I heard an Eastern voice, and it would be such a relief.” “By all means,” Queen Thleeanouhee said, “and let a _darbouka_ or two be brought! For what charms the heart more, what touches it more,” she asked, considering meditatively her babouched feet, “than a _darbouka_?” It was told that, in the past, her life had been a gallant one, although her adventures, it was believed, had been mostly with men. Those however, who had observed her conduct closely, had not failed to remark how often her eyes had been attracted in the course of the evening towards the dimpled cheeks of the British Ambassadress. Perceiving her ample form not far away, Queen Thleeanouhee signalled to her amiably to approach. _Née_ Rosa Bark (and a daughter of the Poet) Lady Something was perhaps not sufficiently tactful to meet all the difficulties of the rôle in which it had pleased life to call her. But still, she tried, and did do her best, which often went far to retrieve her lack of _savoir faire_. “Life is like that, dear,” she would sometimes say to Sir Somebody, but she would never say what it was that life was like. ‘_That_,’ it seemed.... “I was just looking for my daughter,” she declared. “And is she as sympathetic,” Queen Thleeanouhee softly asked, “as her mamma?” “She’s shy--of the Violet persuasion, but that’s not a bad thing in a young girl.” “Where _I_ reign, shyness is a quality which is entirely unknown...!”