“I-I thank your – Royal Highness.”

The Prince kissed Maria’s hand, bowed to Gretna and then went from the room, moving with a grace that did not in any way detract from his masculinity.

As the door closed behind him, Maria gave a sigh.

“Isn’t he kind?” she asked Gretna. “You see, he thinks of everyone. And now that he has promised to sponsor your debut you are made, dearest, as far as Society is concerned.”

“I know, Aunt Maria, I – ” Gretna began only to be interrupted.

“Oh, my love!” Maria exclaimed. “I beg of you not to call me ‘Aunt’. I know you have done so from your childhood, but it makes me seem so old, so very old, and as you know, I did but reach twenty-nine years on my last birthday.”

“No, I do understand,” Gretna said at once. “But what shall I call you?”

“Just ‘Maria’. Really in appearance we might almost be sisters, only you would be a very little sister compared with me with my height.”

They both laughed, but it was true.

There was a resemblance in their colouring. But while Maria Fitzherbert, for all her prettiness, had a pronounced aquiline nose, Gretna’s tiny little tip-tilted nose was very different. And she was much smaller. In height she barely reached to the older woman’s chin and her eyes seemed almost too big for the small oval of her face.

But they both had abundant hair of pale gold, which Maria, in defiance of the fashion, wore unpowdered and their complexions were like wild roses and their figures full of grace.

But while they did not realise it, they actually resembled each other more in other ways in their vivacity, their good nature and their unaffected manners, which in both rose from a kindness of heart and an unfailing love of people and of life itself.

“And now, dearest, we have so many things to talk about,” Maria said, drawing Gretna down on the sofa beside her. “First let me look at you. I hardly recognise my little girl, you have grown so pretty.”

“You always were lovely,” Gretna answered, “but somehow you – too have altered.”

“In what way?” Maria asked.

“You seem gayer and – much more elegant. You appear to me, although, of course, I am very ignorant, to be dressed in the height of fashion and that somehow is unlike you.”

Maria rose from the sofa and walked to the fireplace. For a moment she had her back to Gretna, but the mirror reflected that her eyes were troubled and the smile was missing from her red lips.

Gretna waited apprehensively. She wondered if what she had said was wrong.

Then Maria turned.

“Gretna,” she began, “I have loved you ever since you were a baby and I think you have loved me.”

“You know I have,” Gretna answered. “I have loved you always – more than anyone else in the world, except for Papa and Mama.”