A Down-to-Earth Royal Twosome

"I'll do my best to get through it," the duchess said, as those around her laughed. "I'll need my specs."

Camilla first met Charles in the early '70s. She was more than a year older. If you believe the lore, she reminded him that her great-grandmother had been his great-great grandfather's mistress.

"How about it?" she is supposed to have said.

They were it for a while, and then they weren't, and then she married someone else, and later so did he. We know all about that.

These days, the prince wears the same steep hair part he always has, but the hair is gray. He will be 57 later this month. He keeps his hands busy, tugging at his shirt cuffs, fiddling with a coin, sliding four of his fingers into the flapless pocket of his finely fitted gray jacket. The world has come around to him, or at least stopped criticizing him so roundly, just as it has for Camilla. In middle age, they seem to have found their equilibrium.

In the afternoon, Prince Charles scored a victory of sorts. He was awarded the National Building Museum's Vincent Scully Prize in recognition of his passion for traditional architecture, which critics once attacked as backward.

Twenty years ago, he opined, disapprovingly, of a proposed addition to London's National Gallery. (Princes used to have an off-with-their-heads power, but Charles made do with words.) "What is proposed," he said at the time, "is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend."

The hounds were released; the response was vicious. The prince's comments were called "reactionary," and designers he admired were dismissed as "brogue-footed lickspits," whatever that means. Yesterday's award was approbation for Charles's years of work in the face of what renowned architectural historian Vincent Scully called "implacable opposition."

"I cannot thank Professor Scully enough for having the courage to put my name forward for it," the prince said when he rose to speak. "After all, I seem to be a dangerous commodity in certain circles, and receiving such an award is a relatively novel experience for me," he said, to laughter from the audience of 1,200 invited guests. In his talk, Charles spoke against "uglification" and in favor of "tradition." Like vast numbers of his country folk, he also approves of gardens (his own, he said, has given him cause "to ponder what it means to be a part of nature rather than apart from it"). He also approves of sustainable development and of "courtesy, good manners."

The prince said he would give away the $25,000 that accompanies the prize to help repair communities damaged by Hurricane Katrina, and he and Camilla, who were "utterly horrified to see the terrible scenes of destruction," are to travel to the storm zone today to meet victims.

Later, the prince, who years ago called for greater understanding of Islam by the West, went to Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, and there he found another victory: a cheering crowd of 1,000. No one could mistake 2005 for 1985, when the nation made a fuss over a younger, more beautiful royal couple. But America does love celebrities, and royalty is the original thing.

When the royals left NIH, a woman named Catherine Little shrieked as the caravan drove away: "Bye-bye! Bye-bye! Oh, I'm so excited!"