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monarch. He excused himself from Voisey and moved towards her.
    “Lady Vespasia,” he said with undisguised pleasure. “I am so pleased you were able to come. The evening would have lacked a certain quality without you.”
    She met his eyes for a moment before dropping a slight curtsy. She could still make it seem a gesture of infinite grace, her back ramrod straight, her balance perfect.
    “Thank you, Your Royal Highness. It is a splendid occasion.” It flickered through her mind just how splendid it was, like so many others these days, extravagant, so much food, the best wine, servants everywhere, music, chandeliers blazingwith light, hundreds of fresh flowers. Nothing that could be imagined to add to the glamour was missing, nothing stinted.
    There had been so many occasions in the past when there had been more laughter, more joy, and at a fraction of the cost. She remembered them with nostalgia.
    But the Prince of Wales lived well beyond his means, and had done so for years. No one was surprised anymore at his huge house parties, shooting weekends, days at the races where fortunes were gambled, made and lost, at his gargantuan dinners or overgenerous gifts to favorites of one sort or another. Many no longer even commented on it.
    “Do you know Charles Voisey?” he enquired. Voisey was at his elbow, courtesy demanded it. “Voisey, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould. We have known each other longer than either of us cares to remember. We should telescope it all together.” He gestured with his hands. “Take out all the tedious bits between and keep only the laughter and the music, the good dinners, the conversations, and perhaps a little dancing. Then we should be about the right age, shouldn’t we?”
    She smiled. “That is the best suggestion I have heard in years, sir,” she said with enthusiasm. “I don’t even mind keeping some of the tragedy, or even the quarrels—let us simply get rid of all the tedious hours, the exchanging of phrases that neither of us means, the standing around, the polite lies. That would take years away.”
    “You are right! You are right!” he agreed, conviction in his face. “I did not realize until this moment how much I had missed you. I refuse to allow it to happen again. I spend years of my life in duty. I swear I am not convinced that those I spend it with are any better pleased with it than I am! We make utterly predictable remarks, wait for the other to reply, and then move on to the next equally predictable response.”
    “I fear it is part of royal duty, sir,” Voisey put in, “as long as we have a throne and a monarch upon it. I can think of no way in which it could be changed.”
    “Voisey is a judge of appeal,” the Prince told Vespasia. “Which I suppose makes him a great man for precedent. If it has not been done before, then we had better not do it now.”
    “On the contrary,” Voisey retorted. “I am all for new ideas, if they are good ones. To fail to progress is to die.”
    Vespasia looked at him with interest. It was an unusual point of view from one whose profession was so steeped in the past.
    He did not smile back at her, as a less confident man might have done.
    The Prince was already thinking of something else. His admiration for other people’s ideas seemed highly limited.
    “Of course,” he dismissed airily. “The number of new inventions around is incredible. Ten years ago we would not have conceived what they could do with electricity.”
    Voisey smiled very slightly, his eyes on Vespasia’s for an instant longer before he replied. “Indeed, sir. One wonders what may yet be to come.” He was polite, but Vespasia heard the faintest thread of contempt in his voice. He was a man of ideas, broad concepts, revolutions of the mind. Details did not hold his regard; they were for smaller men, men whose view was conceived from a lower level.
    They were joined by a noted architect and his wife, and the conversation became general. The Prince glanced