great personages are not supposed to indulge; and in his younger days
he had avoided it. He had allowed the time to take him as it found him,
and had gone with it unresistingly wherever it had led. It was the best
way; the wisest way; the way Solomon found most congenial, despite its
end in 'vanity and vexation of spirit.' But with the passing of the
years a veil had been dropped over that path of roses, hiding it
altogether from his sight; and another veil rose inch by inch before
him, disclosing a new and less joyous prospect on which he was not
too-well-pleased to look.

The sea, stretching out in a broad shining expanse opposite to him,
sparkled dancingly in the warm sunshine, and the snowy sails of many
yachts and pleasure-boats dipped now and again into the glittering
waves like white birds skimming over the tiny flashing foam-crests.
Dazzling and well-nigh blinding to his eyes were the burning glow and
exquisite radiance of colour which seemed melted like gold and sapphire
into that bright half-circle of water and sky,--beautiful, and full of
a dream-like evanescent quality, such as marks all the loveliest
scenes and impressions of our life on earth. There was a subtle scent
of violets in the air,--and a gardener, cutting sheafs of narcissi from
the edges of the velvety green banks which rolled away in smooth
undulations upward from the terrace to the wider extent of the palace
pleasaunce beyond, scattered such perfume with his snipping shears as
might have lured another Proserpine from Hell. Cluster after cluster of
white blooms, carefully selected for the adornment of the Royal
apartments, he laid beside him on the grass, not presuming to look in
the direction where that other Workman in the ways of life sat silent
and absorbed in thought. That other, in his own long-practised manner,
feigned not to be aware of his dependant's proximity,--and in this
fashion they twain--human beings made of the same clay and relegated,