He signified the impossibility in a burst of gesticulations, motions of the mouth, smiling frowns; various patterns of an absolute negative beating down opposition.

’Things printed can never be stopped, Richie.  Our Jorian compares them to babies baptized.  They have a soul from that moment, and go on for ever!—­an admirable word of Jorian’s.  And a word to you, Richie.  Will you swear to me by the veracity of your lover’s heart, that paragraph affords you no satisfaction?  He cannot swear it!’ my father exclaimed, seeing me swing my shoulder round, and he made me feel that it would have been a false oath if I had sworn it.  But I could have sworn, that I had rather we two were at the bottom of the sea than that it should come under the princess’s eyes.  I read it again.  It was in print.  It looked like reality.  It was at least the realization of my dream.  But this played traitor and accused me of being crowned with no more than a dream.  The sole practical thing I could do was to insist on our starting for Riversley immediately, to make sure of my own position.  ’Name your hour, Richie,’ my father said confidently:  and we waited.

A rather plainer view of my father’s position, as I inclined to think, was afforded to me one morning at his breakfast-table, by a conversation between him and Jorian DeWitt, who brought me a twisted pink note from Mdlle.  Chassediane, the which he delivered with the air of a dog made to disgorge a bone, and he was very cool to me indeed.  The cutlets of Alphonse were subject to snappish criticism.  ‘I assume,’ he said, ’the fellow knew I was coming?’

‘He saw it in my handwriting of yesterday,’ replied my father.  ’But be just to him, acknowledge that he is one of the few that perform their daily duties with a tender conscience.’

’This English climate has bedevilled the fellow!  He peppers his dishes like a mongrel Indian reared on mangoes.’

’Ring him up, ring him up, Jorian.  All I beg of you is not to disgust him with life, for he quits any service in the world to come to me, and, in fact, he suits me.’

‘Exactly so:  you spoil him.’

My father shrugged.  ’The state of the case is, that your stomach is growing delicate, friend Jorian.’

’The actual state of the case being, that my palate was never keener, and consequently my stomach knows its business.’

‘You should have tried the cold turbot with oil and capers.’

‘Your man had better stick to buttered eggs, in my opinion.’

‘Say, porridge!’

‘No, I’ll be hanged if I think he’s equal to a bowl of porridge.’

‘Careme might have confessed to the same!’

‘With this difference,’ cried Jorian in a heat, ’that he would never have allowed the thought of any of your barbarous messes to occur to a man at table.  Let me tell you, Roy, you astonish me:  up till now I have never known you guilty of the bad taste of defending a bad dish on your own board.’