London - The latest, perhaps greatest royal baby ever (the Anglo-American one) is soon to arrive - and the atmosphere is growing positively (negatively?) febrile here.
Fever being the go-to metaphor the British press like to use when they are readying for royal babies.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expected to give birth soon - any minute, day or week now.
But - egads - Meghan and Harry have gone dark. They've zipped their lips. They've not shared the intimate details. The press and public don't know who (the medical team is), or where (the hospital is) or when (the baby will be presented to news service photographers).
According to an April 11 statement from Buckingham Palace: "Their Royal Highnesses have taken a personal decision to keep the plans around the arrival of their baby private. The Duke and Duchess look forward to sharing the exciting news with everyone once they have had an opportunity to celebrate privately as a new family."
Meghan, the 37-year-old American former TV actress, has disappeared from public view. She hasn't been seen out in public in, like, forever.
Though, to be honest, she looked marvelous on March 11, "in her printed Victoria Beckham dress, cream coat and a pill box hat, paired with a satin clutch and pumps," said Town & Country.
Harry showed up solo on Easter Sunday at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. Or, as the tabloids put it in big bold letters: "Someone's missing! Pregnant Meghan is nowhere to be seen as Harry joins The Queen on her 93rd birthday Easter Sunday service."
Then Harry popped up again on Thursday - an un-announced surprise - at the annual Anzac Day Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey, to honor those from Australia and New Zealand who served the Commonwealth.
But he was mum on everything baby related.
We've been told that the pre-babied Super Couple have decamped from their newlywed digs at Kensington Palace in London and are now nesting (hiding?) up at Frogmore Cottage (not to be confused with the bigger, better Frogmore House) on the Windsor Castle grounds in Berkshire.
The Sun's royal correspondent, Emily Andrews, tweeted in November that the cottage needed "major building work to turn it back into a luxury family home, boasting 10 bedrooms & a new nursery plus space for a gym & yoga studio."
There is some contention about the number of bedrooms. And a suggestion that the nursery will "be a monochrome palette - whites and grays."
What other scraps do we know? Not to expect an immediate mass-media photo-op.
The silence from Harry and Meghan has created a vacuum, which both nature and the British tabloids abhor, and so it has been filled with all kinds of speculation.
For example, that the headstrong (read, American) Duchess of Sussex "has delivered an astonishing snub to the Queen's highly-regarded doctors, insisting she doesn't want 'the men in suits' to oversee the birth of her first child," the Mail on Sunday reported.
Then there's been the speculation about baby names. The Daily Express went with this headline: "Royal baby name REVEALED? The shock name bookies predict Meghan Markle will call daughter."
The shocker was: Grace?