QUEEN.  You have had a long, tiring journey, I fear.

LORD B. It was long, Madam.

QUEEN.  I hope that you slept upon the train?

LORD B. I lay upon it, Ma’am.  That is all I can say truly.

QUEEN.  Oh, I’m sorry!

LORD B. There were compensations, Ma’am.  In my vigil I was able to look forward—­to that which is now before me.  The morning is beautiful!  May I be permitted to enquire if your Majesty’s health has benefited?

QUEEN.  I’m feeling “bonnie,” as we say in Scotland.  Life out of doors suits me.

LORD B. Ah!  This tent light is charming!  Then my eyes had not deceived me; your Majesty is already more than better.  The tempered sunlight, so tender in its reflections, gives—­an interior, one may say—­of almost floral delicacy; making these canvas walls like the white petals of an enfolding flower.

QUEEN.  Are you writing another of your novels, Lord Beaconsfield?  That sounds like composition.

LORD B. Believe me, Madam, only an impromptu.

QUEEN.  Now, my dear Lord, pray sit down!  I had that chair specially brought for you.  Generally I sit here quite alone.

LORD B. Such kind forethought, Madam, overwhelms me!  Words are inadequate.  I accept, gratefully, the repose you offer me.

(He sinks into the chair, and sits motionless and mute, in a weariness that is not the less genuine because it provides an effect.  But from one seated in the Royal Presence much is expected; and so it is in a tone of sprightly expectancy that his Royal Mistress now prompts him to his task of entertaining her.)

QUEEN.  Well?  And how is everything?

LORD B. (rousing himself with an effort).  Oh!  Pardon!  Your Majesty would have me speak on politics, and affairs of State?  I was rapt away for the moment.

QUEEN.  Do not be in any hurry, dear Prime Minister.

LORD B. Ah!  That word from an indulgent Mistress spurs me freshly to my task.  But, Madam, there is almost nothing to tell:  politics, like the rest of us, have been taking holiday.

QUEEN.  I thought that Mr. Gladstone had been speaking.

LORD B. (with an airy flourish of courtly disdain).  Oh, yes!  He has been—­speaking.

QUEEN.  In Edinburgh, quite lately.

LORD B. And in more other places than I can count.  Speaking—­speaking—­ speaking.  But I have to confess, Madam, that I have not read his speeches.  They are composed for brains which can find more leisure than yours, Madam—­or mine.

QUEEN.  I have read some of them.

LORD B. Your Majesty does him great honour—­and yourself some inconvenience, I fear.  Those speeches, so great a strain to understand, or even to listen to—­my hard duty for now some forty years—­are a far greater strain to read.

QUEEN.  They annoy me intensely.  I have no patience with him!

LORD B. Pardon me, Madam; if you have read one of his speeches, your patience has been extraordinary.