"Someone to see you, Miss."
Thus Mary at about nine o'clock on an April evening at the door of my
tiny sitting-room.
There was a strange little quiver in her voice.
Mary is so extremely well trained, and so accustomed, moreover, to queer
visitors at the flat, that I looked up in surprise.
"Yes?" I said. "Is it a lady?"
Mary did not reply immediately; she seemed half-dazed.
"Is it a lady?" I repeated a little sharply. My usually imperturbable
parlourmaid appeared to have taken leave of her senses.
"She said she was a queen, Miss," she gasped.
At that moment the visitor, evidently grown tired of waiting, calmly
floated in through the half-open door and settled down gracefully in the
centre of a large gold cushion lying on the end of the Chesterfield.
Fortunately I grasped the situation at once.
"Thank you, Mary," I said, with what I now feel to have been most
commendable coolness in the entirely unprecedented circumstances; "I
will ring if I want tea later."
When the door had closed upon the still gasping Mary I turned
apologetically to my visitor.
"I'm so sorry, your Majesty," I said. "You see, my maid was not
unnaturally a little surprised--"
"It's _quite_ all right," said the Fairy Queen graciously; "I thought
you wouldn't mind my coming in."
"Of course not," I said; "I am only too delighted. Won't you come nearer
the fire?"
She looked down at the cushion on which she was sitting, then she looked
up at me and smiled.
"I don't like to leave it," she said; "it's so pretty." And she stroked
the soft gold stuff with her tiny hand.
"Yes," I said; "and your lovely frock goes with it so beautifully. But
how would this be?"
I stooped, gently lifted the cushion with its delicate burden and put it
down on the floor in front of the fire. "There--how is that?"
"That's delightful," said the Fairy Queen. "I'm so glad you like my
frock," she went on. "Paris, of course. That is to say, the idea came
from there. My own people did the actual making. After all, no one can
touch the French when it comes to real _chic_. Don't you think so?"