All of which is a digression, and not in the least intended as being applicable to Max, unless, indeed, some reader of virulent morals so chooses to apply it; for far be it from this historian to prevent any reader forming his or her own judgment on the facts set forth. And if to any of these Max appears as one whose springs have run riotously down and now need setting up again—if his seems to be a heart that has never yet ticked domestically, because it had not been legally registered, I can at least promise them this—that before they come to the end of this history they will have an eminent ecclesiastical authority agreeing with them, and expressing their sentiments with an eloquence which I cannot hope to rival. And so having done with digression, let us return to the social education of Max, now trying to become acquainted with the lowest stratum of all.
After a few weeks he began to distinguish in the squalor of the faces that surrounded him the separate causes of their malady—to know drink from disease, dissipation from destitution, the drug-habit from hunger. Complexion and facial expression stood more than dress as an indication of trade, habit, and environment; from physiognomy he began to learn history, and from Monday's streets a commentary on the linked sweetness long drawn out of Jewish followed by Christian sabbath. He became inured to smells, to the breathing of foul atmosphere, to contact with foul bodies, to a nakedness of speech such as he had not dreamed of, to a class-hatred that struck from eye to eye like murder, to an apathy of dead hopelessness that revolted him yet more. From Sister Jenifer he learned the hardest lesson of all, that to understand social conditions he must refrain from gifts of charity. And so, afraid of his own frailty, he came to his district with empty pockets, and going hungry himself spent hours among sale-dens, pawn-shops, the alleys where half-starved middle-men received the piece-work of sweated labor, and the black staircases where rent-collectors, hard-driven by competing agencies, plied a desperate piece-work of their own.
In every place he visited cleanliness was discouraged, and the water system seemed a mere after-thought. In most cases the taps were buttons requiring continuous pressure, and then yielding only an exiguous supply; a kettle took nearly a minute to fill, so that while one tenant drew service others stood waiting. He spoke indignantly of it to Sister Jenifer. What were the sanitary authorities doing? he asked.
"Oh, yes," she said, "those buttons are a new device; the old taps were taken away—they became too dangerous; these poor people found a way of turning them to effect."
"You mean they stole the fixings?"
"No; though they used to do that now and then. But this was at the last strike which happened to come during a drought. One of their leaders said to them: 'Take all the water you can; drain the city dry, make the rich give up their baths,—then perhaps they will attend to you.' They actually had the power; they organized the whole of the working district, and one night they turned on all the taps, the street fountains as well. And we, because at last they were taking their full share, were threatened with a water famine! Yes, if they had those tenement baths which the last Housing Commission recommended they could run us dry as their leader proposed,—hold the whole city up to ransom and dictate terms. As it was even those taps proved dangerous, so we gave them buttons instead; and of course the death-rate has gone up."
"And now the next strike has come."
"Ah, yes, but this is not such a large one and so, as it isn't reckoned 'dangerous,' the Government doesn't interfere, and no one outside troubles about the rights of it."
They were moving on the outskirts of a crowd in the center of which a demonstration of strikers was going on. Gaunt, hungry, apathetic faces formed the bulk of them; in their midst a man with a big voice talked heroically of the rights of labor and prophesied victory. They stood to listen for a while, then moved on. At the corner of a side-street which they crossed stood a smaller group; a woman, her hat tied round with a motor-veil, stood waving her arms from an orange-box.
"Who are those?" inquired Max.
"Women Chartists," said Sister Jenifer.
"What are they doing here?"
"They go wherever they can get a hearing."
Max stopped to listen a little satirically; he had never heard a woman speaking in public before. Presently he turned to his guide and found that her eye was on him. "Shall we go on?" he said.
"This does not interest you, then?"
"It is a subject about which I know nothing."
"But you came to learn."
"Well,—is that woman telling the truth?"
"No, not exactly."
"Does she know what she is talking about?"
"Not as well as she ought to."
"Then, isn't that sufficient?"
"You have listened to men here whose statements were just as wide of the mark, and whose proposals were just as useless."
"Yes, so you warned me; but what I find instructive is not the speaker but the crowd."
"You have a crowd here."
"A much smaller one."
"So you are for the majorities?"
Max acknowledged the stroke. "Very well," he said; "let us go back."
"No, I only wanted you to notice the crowd. Did they seem interested?"
"They listened."
"That is something, is it not, when she was talking of things that to their minds hardly concerned them?"
"But you say she was not telling the truth."
"She was ignorant, and she exaggerated; but for all they know what she is saying might be gospel."
"Is that how you would have it preached?"
"If gospels had to wait for the wise and prudent," said Jenifer, "they would wait till eternity. That woman was speaking not for an institution but for a movement."
"Do not such exaggerations condemn it?"
"By no means; if some did not exaggerate none of us would get a hearing—especially if we happened to be in a minority; and reformers always are."
"Though I embroider it for myself," said Prince Max, "from others I prefer to get plain truth."
"Plain truth," she replied, "is only that manner of dealing with a thing—with some wrong, say—which makes it plain to people that the wrong exists. Short of that you haven't got truth into them."
"Now you are preaching pragmatism," said Max.
"Do you suppose," she went on, "that to that dull, sunk, slow-witted crowd we have been looking at, a mere niggardly statement of facts would make the truth plain, or stir them to any action or feeling for others? That woman on some points over-stated her case quite ridiculously—especially as to the benefits and rewards which the women's Charter would bring—but the effect upon her hearers fell far short of what the real facts justify. Oh, people have to be bribed even to do no more than open their ears to the truth."
"By false promises of reward? Yes, you have the Church with you there. It deals with our ordinary everyday morality, in very much the same way. Tells a maximum of untruth so that a necessary minimum may spring out of it. How many Christians to-day really believe in the doctrine of hell?"
"Surely," she said, "to see the light of its fires in so many faces is proof enough."
"That is not the doctrine," said the Prince, "and you know it. Hell here and now may be very real; but it is not what your Church preaches. Many of those lit-up faces that you speak of are aglow with mere lustful enjoyment. But the Church does not teach that men can make the mistake when in hell of actually believing themselves in Heaven; that would be too dangerous. Turn on that tap, and the jasper sea in which your angels take their baths will run dry."
She looked at him half quizzically. "And what is your doctrine?" she inquired. "When you are enjoying yourself—saying things like that, for instance, hoping to hurt—do you ever think that you are in hell?"
"No," said Max, "I do not make enjoyment the test. Just now, for instance, I rather feel that I may be at the gates of Heaven; but I am not, therefore, superlatively happy. Can you promise me that the heavenly road is one of pure happiness?"
"To any one who accepted absolutely the Divine Will it must be."
"The Divine Will," said Max, "gave me my body and my reasoning power. You must not ask me to forfeit them. I agree with that old collegiate (a doctor of divinity like myself) to whom one of more austere piety had declared 'abject submission' the only possible attitude of the creature toward his Creator. 'No, no!' protested the Doctor, with outraged dignity, 'deference, but not—not abject submission!' Deference is all a man can honestly promise so long as reason remains to him; abject submission is fit only for lunatic asylums."
"And yet," she retorted, "abject submission to antecedents is all that science can infer when once it starts to investigate the springs of action."
"That is not to deny reason; that only conditions it. I wanted you to accuse me of blasphemy; but as you do not give me my legitimate openings I have to make them for myself. To me the abrogation of reason, on any pretense, is the most rooted blasphemy of which the mind of man is capable. Some modern Romanist penned once a hymn which had in it these or like words for its refrain—
That, to my mind, is a blasphemous utterance, for it juggles with the fundamentals of all morality. The person who adopts that attitude as an act of surrender to earthly love is a sensualist. It is a form of sensualism rampant in women; and men encourage it by bestowing upon it the names of womanly virtues. To adopt a similar attitude in spiritual matters seems to me sensualism none the less. And what a hot-bed for that sort of sensualism the Church has always been and still is!"
His ugly talk roused her spirit of resistance.
"How can it be sensual," she protested, "when it results in self-denial and self-sacrifice?"
"Self-sacrifice," he replied, "may be merely sensualism in its intensest form; it is peculiarly a woman's temptation; the scientific name for it (since you throw science at my head) is 'negative egoism.' You yourself are quite capable of it; for you cannot get rid of the results of your training all in a day."
She did not flinch from his attack.
"What do you know of my training?" she asked.
"I know this: here are you the superior of any Bishop on the bench now preparing to play injured martyr at the loss of his political privileges; and what position of authority and influence has your Church to offer you—you and the thousands like you whose practical humanity alone has made its antiquated forms still possible? Yes, you are its life-preservers, and they tuck you away into subordinate positions and back slums where nobody hears of you. And you have been trained to think that it is right!"
"The training was all my own," she said. "I tucked myself."
"Wastefully, under parental conditions—you yourself have owned it."
"There is always more work than one can do."
"There is much more work that you could do; but here, what is your chance? Has it not struck you—if you had only the position given you, what a power you might be, in that direction, I mean, of bringing the two halves of society face to face, which you say is your main object? If that position were offered you would you accept it as a thing sent to you from God, or would you——?"
And then Max stopped abruptly, for he realized that in another moment he would have been offering her the succession to the throne, and he felt that the street was not exactly the right place for it. Not that he minded making the offer anywhere; but she, self-sacrificingly, might refuse; and a crowded street was not the place where he could tackle a refusal of the throne to advantage. It was not like an ordinary proposal; there were too many points to urge and objections to be met; while a certain amount of preliminary incredulity was almost inevitable. She might know that he loved her still; but it would take a considerable amount of knowing that he also wished her to sit with him upon the throne; nay, for that matter, to sit with him off it, if Court etiquette and the fates so ordained. And if they did so ordain, where would that great position be which he was proposing to offer?
And so as Max has ended his declaration abruptly let us also end the chapter abruptly, and wonder what the next, or the next but one may have to bring forth.
Bad-as-Bad was a hardy annual which grew high up among the hills and pine-forests on the borders of Schafs-Kleider and Schnapps-Wasser. With its roots extending into both States it flourished exceedingly for three months of each year. During the winter it was bottled up in its native passes by snow, and for at least five months no visitors ventured thither to expose their constitutions to the rigors of its climate or of its waters. But in another bottled-up form, of a more portable character, it made a great trade and reputation for itself throughout Europe; and during the three summer months crowned heads visited it in turn (often by careful diplomatic arrangement when they or their countries happened not to be on good speaking terms), and drew after them a steady influx from that class of their communities on which a town composed almost entirely of hotels can most safely flourish.
The medicated springs, to which so many came but for which nobody thirsted, rose in Schnapps-Wasser territory; and being the property of the reigning house brought to it a huge revenue. Every red-stamped label broken so carelessly in the restaurants and sanatoria of Europe meant twopence halfpenny to the princely pocket of its highly descended ruler. And it was upon these proceeds that the young heir had absented himself for three years and fitted out an expensive expedition of a semi-military character to the unexplored wilds of South America.
Behind his back local warfare had gone on. Not for nothing had he said "crocodiles" to those orchestral scramblings in the bass of an imperially inspired oratorio; and Schafs-Kleider, receiving certain mysterious grants in aid (for its own funds were nil), had started to sink shafts at a lower level on the outskirts of the town; and after many failures had secured at one point a trickle of water which tasted suspiciously like the real article, and was declared by interested experts to be chemically the same.
News had gone out to the Prince in the wilderness that by this earth-stroke his revenues from the retail business might presently be very seriously affected.
His remedy had been simple; he had directed the town authorities to lay out a new cemetery at a strategic point on the slopes lying towards Schafs-Kleider; and though it had little actual effect upon the chemical properties of this new breach in his patent it created a prejudice in unscientific minds, and the Schafs-Kleider variant of the Bad-as-Bad waters failed to "catch on." And thus it came about that on returning from his three years' exile Berlin had not restored him to favor, and he, one of the richest and least encumbered princes in Europe, was more or less going a-begging—an easy prey to the match-making net which, by assiduous correspondence, his aunts and others had prepared for him.
Bad-as-Bad, though economically its most important asset, was not the capital of the principality; but when the Prince arrived at Schnapps, thirty miles distant, Bad-as-Bad fired off a salute from a toy cannon in the gardens of the municipality, and hoisted the royal ensign on the flag-staff beside the kiosk. The principality having been without its head for three years had recovered it.
On hearing that salute her Majesty, Queen Alicia of Jingalo, at once knew what it referred to. "Ah!" she remarked, in a tone of complete satisfaction, "that means that the dear Prince has arrived. What a distance he has been! I was afraid we might miss him." And as she spoke her glance traveled across to her daughter Charlotte, and in the peace and plenitude of her domestic musings she smiled with more meaning than she was aware of. Princess Charlotte caught sight of that smile, and sitting observant saw presently that her mother was studying her with some attention.
"You are looking very well, child," remarked her Majesty. "I am sure that the place suits you."
"Getting out of the place suits me," said the Princess. "I like the hills, and the forest. Three miles away one meets nobody, except the peasantry."
"Well, be sure you don't overdo it; and don't let your face get too brown. Remember that sort of thing doesn't go with a low dress."
"But I am not wearing low dress while I am here."
"You may be before we go. We may have to give a dinner in the Prince's honor; or he in ours. Now he has arrived he is sure to come over and see us. What very nice-sized countries these principalities are! I wish we had them everywhere, then being kings and queens would be really no trouble whatever. If Jingalo had only been smaller how much younger it would have made your father; and, besides, it would have got rid of all that socialist element."
How it would have done so the dear lady did not stop to explain; she rattled on merely because she had become aware that Charlotte was looking at her with a suspiciousness that was rather disconcerting. In her heart of hearts she was a little bit afraid of Charlotte, or of what Charlotte might do. She had not the key to her character; and when the Princess took advantage of a so-called holiday and a change of locality in order to develop new habits and drop certain conventions—especially conventions of dress—her Majesty became uneasy. But just now she was trying for special reasons to drive with a light rein; she wanted Charlotte to enjoy herself, to feel that in this place she could have things more her own way than was customary, and so develop associations which would draw her back to the locality. So far the quite unusual experiment of accompanying the King to his cure had been a success; the people of Bad-as-Bad were delighted at the compliment of receiving Jingalese royalty in the form of a family party; all the aunts and other female relatives of the absent Prince had been most pleasant and attentive; and Charlotte herself had responded to the release accorded her from Court etiquette by becoming wonderfully well and looking really very handsome.
One day, quite unbeknownst to her mother, she had gone right up the inside of the green copper spire of the old Rathhaus, and there seated within its perforated cupola had drunk from a glass of native wine, and thrown the rest of it, glass and all, down the spire—an ancient custom which, as she only heard afterwards, entitled its performer, though of outside extraction, to make her own selection and marry locally.
"So now you have become a native of us," said a chuckling old Margravine, great-aunt to the Prince, when informed of the exploit by one of her grand-nephews who had mischievously lured Charlotte on. "Now you cannot go back!"
For these small princelings were ready enough to make a Jingalese princess feel at home in their midst. But the whole thing, in view of its local color, was rather precipitate and indecorous; and when the Queen heard of it, and of its special application, from the old match-making Margravine with whom she had shared confidences, she was aghast. "Charlotte," she cried, "whatever did you do that for?"
"I did it for fun, mamma."
"But, my dear, it was such a very—forward thing to do!"
Why it was so "forward" Charlotte afterwards found out; for the moment she only thought that she had broken the maternal conventions; things which she did not hold in much regard.
Bad-as-Bad had now been in the enjoyment of its Jingalese visitors for over a month. The town prided itself on knowing how to behave to royalty; and every day when the King went down to take the waters, or strolled in the municipal gardens, people pretended not to look at him; and only when he was not actually there did the conductor of the famous band, in the ranks of which operatic first-fiddles kept themselves in practice during their summer holidays—only then did the conductor throw out a delicate compliment, for chance ear-shot, by performing, with variations such as were heard nowhere else, the National Anthem of Jingalo. But each day the musical program was submitted for his Majesty's approval; and if he or the Queen made any suggestion—as it was always hoped they would—then so surely as they approached the kiosk the strains of that particular selection were heard, telling them that Bad-as-Bad was always in attendance upon their wishes, always anxious to give them pleasure, always appreciative of their presence in its midst.
Every day the King paid for his six glasses of water at the fountain-head; every day he bought a buttonhole from the pretty flower-seller in peasant costume who was not herself a peasant at all; every day he bought a Jingalese newspaper at the garden kiosk, and sat under the shade of the trees reading it; and nobody, looking at him, would know that even there he was assiduously followed, ringed round and watched by six detectives, nor could they have any idea how carefully the bona fides of each newly arrived visitor was examined, inquired into, and verified all the way back along the route from place of arrival to place of origin; nay, how thoroughly the luggage of any who were in the least suspicious was searched behind their backs in order to discover whether they had any political opinions likely to prove dangerous to a King taking his holiday.
When the Queen drove out little girls sometimes threw flowers into her carriage, but never often enough to make it a nuisance or to seem mechanical; and when they happened to be very small the Queen would stop and ask them their name and their age and how many brothers and sisters they had; and then a silver coin would pass to the hands of the patient little sentinel. And when the Queen had driven on, a large she-bear or elder sister would come out of the wood and devour it. But everybody would hear about the domestic inquiries and the gift, and would say what a really nice lady the Queen was. That is always the great surprise of the common people when they meet royalty.
But what pleased the inhabitants of Bad-as-Bad most of all was when the Queen came out and sat upon her balcony in the cool of the evening and knitted,—doing it, as someone who watched her through opera-glasses was able to affirm, in the German manner. It was even asserted that she could turn a heel and narrow at the toes without either looking or interrupting the flow of her conversation; and we who have had the cobbling habits of a king of Montenegro held up to us for admiration, must we not think that this also was a most queenly act and an example to all haus-fraus?
Princess Charlotte (the reason for whose being with her parents on this occasion was beginning to leak out) was more elusive in her habits and was seldom on view. She never took the waters, nor sat in the balcony to listen to the band; but kept unheard-of hours—early in the morning, late in the evening—slipping out by back ways and going off on long day expeditions with only one of her ladies. One day she even got lost and spent the night at a hill-chalet. On a lake she had been seen rowing: some said that far out from shore she had actually bathed, but that was not possible; probably she had only fallen in.
The Queen kept what count of her she could, and now and then would counsel moderation, or would try to impose it by getting some of the more elderly gentlemen-in-waiting to join her expeditions. They came home limping and exhausted; in her pursuit of health and vigor Charlotte was ruthless.
"They shouldn't come," she said. "If they do, and find it too much for them, they can sit down at the boundaries and wait for us."
And so she went her own way quite happily, till suddenly there came an upheaval and all semblance of moderation was thrown aside. The cause of this upset was the calculated indiscretion of a Berlin newspaper which had caught Charlotte's eye. There set forth was the story of her ascent of the Rathhaus spire, there also the local custom with its meaning carefully explained, there pointed inquiry as to its particular application if certain rumors were true; and then followed the circumstantial evidence.
The Princess flamed into her mother's presence, paper in hand. "Is this true?" she demanded.
"Dear, dear," said the Queen, having read no further than the preliminary anecdote; "well, you shouldn't do such things!" Then she came upon commentary and surmise, with dates, chapter, and verse. It did not amount to very much, but such facts as there were to go upon were insidiously underlined, and the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser was named.
"Oh, dear," she complained, "I do wish these papers would not be so previous and officious and meddlesome and pretending to know so much."
"But is it true?" demanded Charlotte.
"Is what true?"
"Is it true that you have brought me here to meet him; that we have been waiting for him to come; that some one has sent him my photograph and that he——Oh, it is unbearable!" She broke off and snatched at the offending paper, that she might once more sear her vision with its triangular allusions.
"You oughtn't to read such tittle-tattle!" said her mother. "Why can't you leave the papers alone?"
It was nothing much in itself, the usual coinage of the society journalist intelligently anticipating events. It pointed with sleek pleasantry to the fact that the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser, returning to his inheritance after long exile, would find greeting awaiting him from a royal house which had apparently been very anxious to make his acquaintance. Then followed an account of the visit and prolonged sojourn at Bad-as-Bad of the royal family of Jingalo; the beauty of the Princess was spoken of, her accomplishments, her exploits in climbing and walking; it was rumored that even in South America her photograph had been seen and admired. It was known that the Prince had arrived unexpectedly at his port of departure, and finding a boat on the point of sailing had gone on board. Was it the knowledge that only till a certain date——? The rest we need not set down here. As though it would help her to blot out the record with its attendant circumstances, Princess Charlotte tore the paper into little pieces.
"My dear, don't be so violent!" said the Queen.
"I have been brought here so that he may come and look at me!" cried the Princess, white with wrath. The Queen took up her knitting.
"Nothing of the sort; you were brought here to be with us and to be kept out of mischief."
"Why are we staying a fortnight longer than we intended to?"
"I don't know what you mean by 'we'; I intended to stay till your father had completed his cure. This year it has taken longer."
"It hasn't! He is putting on weight again; only yesterday he told me so. You can't get more cured when that has begun, because it means that you are acclimatized."
"It's no use your talking as if you were a medical authority, my dear, and offering your advice, for we shan't take it."
Charlotte opened her mouth and bottled a breath before she next spoke.
"Who sent him my photograph?"
"Gracious me, child, anybody can get your photograph. Isn't it in all the shop-windows?"
"Not in South America."
"Oh, yes; they are getting quite civilized over there now."
Charlotte struck at a venture.
"You sent it; you know you did! Yes, and then he sent you that thing of himself."
"My dear Charlotte," said the Queen composedly, "you needn't get excited; these little exchanges do sometimes happen quite naturally in the course of correspondence, and I have a great deal of correspondence as you know. Now do forget everything that foolish newspaper has been saying, and look at the thing sensibly. Isn't it my duty to give you every chance of meeting those—those whom it is suitable for you to meet? Are you always going to begin by saying you won't know people?"
"Begin what?" Charlotte shot the question; the Queen turned it aside and went on.
"Now here is a case: this young man who has been away three years among savages—I wonder he wasn't eaten by them—running into all sorts of dangers and doing a lot of foolish brave things that he needn't have done; and then his uncle, the Prince, dying behind his back and everything left to a regency waiting his return. Isn't it quite natural, seeing how things are, that he should be wishing to settle down? Now I am going to be quite frank with you. He has seen your photograph, I know; but I didn't send it to him, and he didn't send me his. We heard that he intended coming to see us—to Jingalo, I mean—and after that I got it; as a matter of fact his aunt, the Margravine, sent it to me; and I, in exchange, sent her yours."
"Ah! so that was why she came to see us directly we got here, and why she looked at me so, and kept asking me so many questions about myself. I couldn't understand it at the time—her being so curious. But you knew, yes, you knew!"
"Well, what if I did?"
"Oh!" cried the Princess, "why, why was I born?"
And then her indignation broke loose, and she became, as the Queen afterwards remarked to her husband when describing the scene, "most unreasonable, and more violent than any one could believe."
After about ten minutes of it her Majesty rose quietly from her chair and rang the bell.
III
A message came to the King that her Majesty wished to see him.
When he arrived in the Queen's boudoir he found his wife sitting in all her accustomed composure; and yet somehow the scene suggested disturbance. Away from her mother at the furthest window stood Charlotte, a charmingly disheveled figure; flushed and bright-eyed she was looking out over the Platz and mopping vehemently at her nose with a handkerchief.
"Don't do that there!" remarked the Queen, "any one might see you."
"Why shouldn't they? They'd only think that I had a cold."
"It isn't the time of the year for colds. Either leave off, or come away from the window."
"There, you see!" cried Charlotte, stung to fresh exasperation, "I can't even stand where I like now!"
"What is the matter?" inquired the King.
"Tell your father what you have been saying," said the Queen, finding it better that the culprit herself should explain.
"I don't know what I've been saying."
"I should think not; it didn't sound like it. Now that you've got both parents to listen to you, talk to them and tell them your mind."
This threw Charlotte into a fresh paroxysm. "Oh, why did I ever have parents?" she cried.
"Yes, that appears to be the trouble," said the Queen. "John, this is a revolting daughter. I've heard of them, and now I've got the thing brought home to me. Look at her!"
"What are you revolting about, my dear?" inquired the King kindly.
"Everything!" exclaimed Charlotte.
"Quite true," said the Queen, "everything."
"Well, begin at the beginning." And Charlotte screwed herself up to speak.
"I came to talk to mamma about something," she said, "something that mattered very much. I suppose you know about it too."
The Queen gave her husband an informing look.
"And what do you think she did?" Charlotte continued. "First she told me not to be foolish; and after that, to everything I said she went on—just as if she didn't hear me—knitting, knitting!"
"She says," interrupted the Queen, "that she is not going to marry anybody, and particularly not the Prince, because she hates him. I say how can she know when she hasn't seen him."
"I won't marry him!" cried Charlotte, "I've seen his photograph."
"Yes, and you liked it," said her mother. This did not improve matters.
"But nobody is forcing you to marry him," said the King. "I don't know why it has even been mentioned." And, seeking a clue, he cast a troubled glance at the Queen.
"It's in all the papers!" retorted Charlotte, indulging in poetic license. "And you know it! Yes, he is coming here to look at me, to see if he likes me, and to see if I can pretend to like him. But I won't be looked at, it's an indignity I won't stand. I'll not even see him!"
"But why ever not?" exclaimed her father.
Charlotte wriggled with impatience.
"Oh, can't you see? Supposing he comes and does look at me; and then goes away without—without caring!—That's what you are asking me to put up with. For me to know, and for him to know, and for him to know that I know! How would you like it yourself?"
"I tell her she is very ridiculous," said the Queen. "A Princess can't marry a mushroom. Does she want to fall in love with her eyes shut. Something has to be done beforehand, or we should never be anywhere——"
"I don't want to be anywhere," said the Princess.
"Outside a lunatic asylum," said her mother, completing the sentence.
"My dear child," put in the King, "don't you see that nothing is really settled—and will not be until you agree to it?"
"Then why did you ever tell him anything about it? Why couldn't we have just met? It's this picking of us out beforehand behind our backs, and then telling us of it; that's what I can't stand!"
"My dear, nobody is forcing you," repeated the King persuasively.
"Then I won't see him."
"I tell her she must," remarked the Queen in a tone of comfortable finality.
"Mamma, will you stop knitting!" cried Charlotte. "You treat me as if I were an insect!"
"You have got the brains of one," retorted her mother. "John, will you please speak to her? Perhaps you can understand what it all means; I can't. She has been talking Greek to me—something or other about the Trojans."
"Yes; the Trojan women," corrected Charlotte.
"She says she's like one of them!"
"So I am."
"I don't know which one, you mentioned so many."
"All of them. Yes, papa, they had to go and live with foreigners—men they had never seen."
"Don't say 'live with'; it's an objectionable term."
"Die with them, then: some did! One of them killed a king in his bath; at least his wife did, but it's all the same."
"Yes; she began quoting some verses to me about that bath affair," said the Queen. "And I must say they didn't sound to me quite decent."
Charlotte was quite ready to repeat it.
"Oh, don't quote poetry to me!" begged the King. "I don't understand it."
"And I try not to," said the Queen. So Charlotte's quotation was ruled out of the discussion.
"Don't you think, my dear," persuaded her father, "that meeting him here, as it just so happens, will seem sufficiently accidental?"
"Not after we've waited for him all this time; not after I climbed up that spire and threw my cap at him without knowing it," said the Princess. "Oh, you don't know what that paper has been saying!" And she pointed to the bits.
The King stooped and began gathering them up.
"It's all nonsense, John," said the Queen. "Don't indulge her by paying any attention."
And at that renewed proof of her mother's imperviousness of mind Princess Charlotte ran out of the room.
"Leave her alone!" remarked the Queen, sure of her own sagacity, "she'll calm down. My belief is that she really likes him. I saw her looking at his photograph; it wasn't only once, either."
Three days later the King and Queen of Jingalo were at home by special appointment to receive a call of ceremony. The streets of Bad-as-Bad were hung with flags—here and there of the two nationalities, side by side, their corners (delicate symbol!) tied together by a knot of white ribbon.
Grooms of the Chamber had donned full Court dress for the occasion, and a complete staff of servants, equerries, attachés, and ministers in attendance lined the route from the portico of the converted hotel which served as the King's villa to the large private apartment where the actual meeting took place.
"His Royal Highness, Grand Duke and Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wasser," pronounced the Master of Ceremonies in that awestruck tone which is exclusively reserved for the introduction of crowned heads or territorial princes; and a youthful giant, six feet four in height, entered the room, struck his heels together with military precision, and bowed low.
He wore his own clothes—one of his own uniforms, that is to say—and the King of Jingalo wore one of his, for they had not hitherto exchanged regiments in token of peace and amity—a matter to be put right on a future occasion.
The Prince wore sky-blue trimmed with sable, and brightened with silver facings; tunic and trousers of an extremely tight fit set off a muscular frame. From his shoulders, presumably in case of accident, hung an extra tunic; but the other extra did not show. Boots reaching to the thighs and a head-dress of almost equal height borne upon the arm, completed the splendor of his array. Bowing his way in, he had so martial an air that the Queen's heart was quite won by it, and she regretted that Charlotte, belated in her attendance, had not been there to see.
The Prince uttered with correctness, though in a rather heavy German accent, the formula of royal greeting; and throughout the interview continued to speak in Jingalese. As soon as the doors were closed—leaving only royalty, he dropped into homelier speech. "I hope the cure has done you no harm," he said, "that it has not too greatly diverted your digestion; some people are much upset by it."
The King and Queen hastened to reassure him. Bad-as-Bad, its air, its waters, and its society had treated them in the handsomest way possible. "We are quite sorry," said the Queen, "that so soon we shall have to leave."
The Prince glanced round before asking abruptly: "And the Princess—she is still here?"
"She will be here presently," answered the Queen, "I am expecting her any moment. She goes on long walks," she added, by way of explanation.
"Ah, good!" commented the Prince.
Many minutes went by, conversation alternately flowed and halted. They were all conscious of an impediment, for still the Princess did not appear; and at last her Majesty was impelled to send one of her ladies to make inquiry. "She takes such very long walks," explained the Queen once more.
"Ah, good, very good indeed," remarked the Prince in a spirit of acceptance.
And then, after a little more waiting, the lady came back to say that the Princess could not be found; she and one of her ladies had gone out together.
"How very forgetful of her!" exclaimed the Queen.
Just then, very discreetly, but with a look full of meaning, a private secretary came and put a telegram into the King's hand. Excusing himself to the Prince he opened it; it was postmarked from the station office at Schnapps, and it read thus—
"I have gone home. Charlotte."
It was no use; the surprise of it was too much for him. "She has run off!" he ejaculated; the compromising phrase had slipped out before he was aware.
"Who?" cried his wife, though knowing quite well.
"Charlotte; she has gone home."
Husband and wife stared at each other mute and amazed; while the Prince sat trying with amiable look to excuse himself for being there.
Then the Queen did her best to cover matters; but it was not a great success. "I knew that she wanted to get home," she murmured. "And she is so impulsive; sometimes there is no holding her at all."
"I must apologize," said the King. "This is really quite unaccountable."
The Prince's eye flashed with a curious light; he smiled good-humoredly.
"I think it is very interesting," said he. "When will it be allowed that I shall see her?"
On their return to Jingalo the Princess heard from her parents how badly she had behaved.
"But I had to do it!" she protested. "After what that paper had said, and all the other things, how else could I show that I hadn't come on purpose?"
"And pray, do you always mean running away from him?" inquired the Queen.
"I shan't go to Bad-as-Bad again, I know that."
"But if he comes here."
"Why, are you going to ask him?"
"He has asked himself," said her father.
"Oh!" This came as a surprise.
"But, of course," he continued, "if you mean to go on being rude to him, it wouldn't do."
"I have never been rude to him!" protested Charlotte. "I only refused to be trapped into meeting him. I shouldn't have minded if it had just been by accident; but it wasn't."
"I'm afraid it can never be by accident now," replied her father. "But you needn't be here when he arrives, or when he goes; though in between whiles, of course, you would have to meet him. And then—well, if you wanted to see more of each other—he might come again."
Charlotte showed her distaste for any temporizing of that sort. "The only difference I can see," she remarked, "is that first you were for offering me to him openly and now I'm to be a sandwich."
"You are not to be anything you don't like, my dear," said her father with gentleness. "But you know, child, we have not the whole world to choose from; being kings and queens and princesses doesn't make life a fairy tale."
"But it does, when we have to end by marrying princes. That's the bother of it."
"Well, I am trying to make it easier for you. Oh, I admit the drawbacks; but why make them out worse than they are?"
Charlotte's moods always softened under her father's cajolery; not that she was more fond of him than of her mother; but these two had more ground for mutual sympathy and understanding; and pity for his vaguely harassed countenance was never far absent from her heart.
"I am having just now," the King went on, "a very trying and disturbing time—in ways that I don't want to talk about. Do try, child, not to add to my anxieties."
Charlotte, feeling compunction working within her, thought hard for a while. "Before he comes——" she said, and stopped. "Papa, when does he come?"
"Not till after the winter session has opened—perhaps about Christmas."
"Well, before he comes, then, I want to go away quite by myself for three weeks or a fortnight, and then—I'll think about it. If, when the time comes, you want me to see him I will, and I promise not to be rude to him. But he shan't think that I have been waiting for him, or that I want to have anything to do with him; I shall make that quite plain."
"Then I do hope that you know what not being rude means," put in the Queen; "for I must say that doesn't sound like it."
"Oh, I will provide a safe margin," replied Charlotte. "He shall have nothing to complain of. If I do see him I will be as nice to him as ever I can; much nicer than you have been to me!"
"Now, my dear, don't begin scuffling again!" said her father deprecatingly. "Very well; that's settled then."
"And you will give me that fortnight?"
"Longer, my dear, if you wish."
"No," said the Queen, "a fortnight is quite enough, if she means to spend it pretending to be a Trojan woman."
"If I stay away longer than a fortnight," said Charlotte, "you can send and fetch me." Then she turned to her father. "I am very sorry, papa, ever to have to pain you: but you don't know how dreadful it feels if one isn't allowed to be oneself."
"Oh, don't I?" exclaimed his Majesty. "My dear, if you knew what being a king was really like—but there, we won't talk politics now! By the way, as you came back before we did, do you happen to know what has become of Max?"
"I haven't seen him," said Charlotte with a certain air of discretion; "but I had a line from him in answer to one I wrote on my arrival: and he does seem to have been doing something at last."
"What has he been doing?"
"Getting his head broken."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the Queen. "However did he come to do that?"
"He says he was working among the strikers and got hit. Nobody knows about it, and he doesn't want it known. He writes that he is being very well looked after at some private nursing place."
"Did he give you the address?" inquired her Majesty suspiciously.
"No; he said he would be home in a day or two, and then we might all come and see him."
"So this is what goes on while I am away!" complained the Queen, as though her being at home might have prevented it. "And I wonder how it was we didn't hear the news. To think of poor Max getting hit like that and the papers saying nothing about it!"
Later in the day the King heard more of the matter from the Comptroller-General. It had not been kept out of the papers quite as completely as it should have been. There were rumors, allusions; but none of the leading dailies had said anything.
"I gather, sir," said the General, "that the Prince has been preparing himself very thoroughly for the work of the coming Commission, making personal investigations, mixing daily with the people in the very poorest districts. Of course it was the duty of the detective service to know of it and to take what steps they could to insure his safety. I am told that what actually happened was that on one occasion his Royal Highness went to the aid of the police, hard pressed by a gang of rioters; and he was injured in the general mêlée. It all took place in a moment and of course no one had any idea that he would involve himself in it. When he was picked up by the detectives he gave a certain address." Here the Comptroller assumed an air of the utmost discretion. "To that address he was taken; and there I believe, sir, still remains."
"Dear, dear," said the King, "very distressing, very unfortunate. I had hoped all that was over."
"There is no reason, sir, to doubt that he has been properly looked after; certificated nurses have been in attendance, and at no time was there any danger."
"And how much of this has got into the papers?"
"Nothing, sir, as to the origin of the affair; but there have been some interrogations as to his Highness's present whereabouts, and an idea is abroad that he is not where the Court circular continues to say he is. Of course, when such rumors creep out there are also undesirable suggestions, which it would be well to put a stop to as soon as possible. I am glad to hear from your Majesty that the Prince intends coming back into residence. I have been in communication with his secretary, but I have not that gentleman's confidence and he has told me nothing."
"Well," said the King, "at all events the cause of it all—however much the result of indiscretion—was quite reputable."
"Oh, quite."
"Commendable even."
"I am told that his Highness showed great dash and determination." Yet whatever he had been told, there was embarrassment in the General's manner.
"Very well, then," said the King, "if there is any more tittle-tattle—in the press, I mean—you might let the facts be known; surely they ought to strike the popular imagination; and I'm sure the police need all the support we can give them just now."
The General hesitated.
"Would not that tend somewhat to prejudice his Highness's position as an impartial head of the Commission? Talking to the workers themselves, before the sittings have yet begun, has a certain air of parti pris. Some of the Commission, I fear, would not like it."
"To tell the truth," said the King, "I very much doubt whether the Prince will serve upon that Commission at all. He will probably be called elsewhere."
The Comptroller seemed considerably relieved. "Ah, that, of course, entirely removes the difficulty. I am afraid, sir, things are in a very disturbed state; so many people with new ideas are airing them just now; sympathy is being shown for criminals, and respect for government is not increasing. I know that the Prime Minister is getting very anxious; he hopes that to-morrow he may see your Majesty."
The King did not welcome the news; during the past few months he had quite lost any remnant of liking that he might once have had for the head of his Government. But when the Prime Minister arrived they exchanged the usual compliments and each was glad to see the other looking so well after change of air and occupation. In the Prime Minister's case, however, that was already over; politicians were in harness again to their respective departments, and on reopening his portfolio he had found a pack of troubles awaiting him.
The nuisance of Jingalese politics was this, that the political situation never would keep itself within the bounds of the ministerial program; and to-day not only had certain voting interests become obstreperous, but other interests which had not the vote were obstreperous also. In these last few months, while its rulers had been taking their well-earned rest, Jingalo had remained agog, obstinately progressive on foolish lines of its own; nothing any longer seemed content to stay as it had been: movement had become a craze.
Under his monarch's eye the Prime Minister thumbed his notes. He spoke of falling revenue, stagnation of trade, strikes, and the increase of violence. Police had actually been killed and the riot leaders were on trial. Presently he came to lesser matters.
"Sedition," said he, passing them in review, "is now openly preached every week in the Women's War Cry."
"Why do you not suppress it?" inquired the King.
"It is difficult to do that, sir, without disturbing trade. The paper is highly offensive and seditious; but it has an enormous advertising interest at its back, and so we don't like to touch it. When shop-looting began three years ago as a form of political propaganda it was noticed that those firms which advertised in the Women's War Cry escaped the attentions of the rioters. Immediately the rush to advertise in its pages became tremendous—especially as further loots were then threatening. It has now some forty pages of advertisement and can afford in consequence to retain upon its staff the best journalists and critical writers of the day. Its War Cry, printed separately, inserted as a loose supplement, and with the statement 'given gratis' stamped across it in red ink, occupies a comparatively small portion of its space; all the rest is advertisement and high-class journalism. The circulation has gone up by leaps and bounds, and the profits are very considerable. If we prosecuted we might only find that in law the two portions were wholly distinct and independent of each other (I am told that they have even different printers), and the failure of the Crown's case would be a blow to the prestige of the Government; while if we succeeded altogether in suppressing it we should be more unpopular with the great middle-class trade interests than we are already."
"Why should you try to be popular?" inquired the King.
"A Government cannot exist upon air," remarked the Prime Minister; "and, after all, we do endeavor to deal fairly by all the interests which go to make up the prosperity of the country."
"You mean the trade prosperity?"
The Prime Minister did; but he did not like it to be stated thus baldly. "I was only wondering," went on the King, "what price you were prepared to pay for it. We must tolerate sedition, it seems; must we also, in the same interest, encourage disease?"
"I fear that I do not follow your Majesty's argument."
"I was merely recalling what the Prince told me for a fact just before I went abroad. He had been informed of it by a social worker who gave him chapter and verse. Two years ago the medical profession published a book exposing all the fraudulent patents and quack medicines which occupy so large a space in the advertising columns of our newspapers. The book was put authoritatively upon the market, and, as I understand, was advertised in all the leading papers. When the paid-for advertisements terminated not a single paper would renew the contract. The holders of those quack medicines and patents had found means to shut down (so far as the advertising of it was concerned) a scientific work which threatened to diminish their profits. That is why I ask what price we are prepared to pay for the protection of trade interests."
"I should like to be assured of the truth of that statement, with all respect to your Majesty, before I pass any comment."
"You can write to the College of Medicine if you really wish for the facts. I myself made very much the same query, and was shown as proof a letter from its president to one of the medical journals."
But even this did not induce the Prime Minister to regard the matter very seriously. "After all, sir," said he, "viewed in a certain light it is only a method of trade competition; for when the sales of patent medicines decrease no doubt the doctors begin to profit."
"The State has thought it worth while," said the King, "to give to the medical profession a certificated monopoly. Is it outside its province to warn the public against charlatans?"
"Is not charlatans an extreme term? I believe, sir, that many of these patents are quite excellent and in their first effects a stimulant to health; and in these days when 'suggestion' and 'faith-healing' are so much talked of it is an arguable proposition that those drugs which give to mind and body a certain preliminary incentive afford the best leverage for faith to work on. Of course there are a great many matters which need control, supervision, and reform; vested interests do tend to create abuses; but I must remind your Majesty that in the pushing of its reforms the Government has not been quite a free agent. In many respects we have been greatly hindered; that is still the crux of the political situation."
"Ah, yes," said the King, "you do well to remind me. You are, I take it, now engaged in educating the country; the terms of your proposals are before it. May I ask whether your anticipations of popular support have proved correct?"
"We find no reason to alter our opinion as to the necessary solution."
"Or as to your determination to proceed with it?"
The Prime Minister was very urbane. "Your Majesty has been good enough to indicate a date when all difficulties will be removed."
It was a sufficient statement of what was in store.
"Thank you," said the King, "I did wish to know. Have you done well at the by-elections?"
"Beyond the inevitable tear-and-wear due to our period of office we have nothing to complain of."
"I have been longer in office than you," said the King, smiling rather sadly, "and I suppose that in my case the inevitable wear-and-tear has been proportionately greater. You will make allowances, therefore, if I have been slow in arriving at my conclusion. After the date we agreed upon I think you will have no ground for complaint."
"I hope your Majesty has never regarded as a complaint the advice which I have felt bound to offer."
"There is a complaint somewhere," said the King; "perhaps a constitutional one. All I wanted to avoid was quack remedies."
He was rather pleased with himself at thus rounding off the discussion: for while reiterating his promise he had indicated that his own opinion was quite as unchanged as that of his ministers. And so with a little time still left in which to turn round he bethought him of the duty which lay on him to set his house in order against future events. And then it struck him how very important it was that Max should now "settle down" and eliminate for good and all certain elements from his life. Yes, it had become quite necessary that Max should marry.
III
Max was back again in his proper quarters, and the Queen had been to pay him a visit of motherly condolence. She, too, was set upon eliminating from his life those things which ought not to be in it; and finding him still rather feeble from the blow that had fallen on him, and with a head still bandaged, she thought it a seasonable opportunity to press him in the way he should go. But she was not one of those who have any taste for probing into young men's lives; she had an instinctive feeling that such a line of ethical exploration lay entirely beyond her; and so when she approached the subject her touch was only upon the surface.
"Max, my dear," she said fondly, "I do wish you would marry."
Max smiled at her with filial indulgence, and then, perceiving that there might be entertainment in a conversation well packed with double meanings, he fell in with her suggestion.
"I wish I could," he said, "but there are difficulties that you don't understand."
"Oh, yes, I think I do," she answered. "Of course with us there are always difficulties. The choice is so limited."
"I should rather incline to say that it is fixed."
"You mean just to the two I told you of? But you wouldn't have either of them."
"Perhaps I ought to say that I am fixed, then; I can't very well see myself changing."
"Oh, no, Max, no! Don't say that!" cried his mother, alarmed. "It is so very important that you should marry. And people are beginning to expect it."
"Yes, but as I say, there are difficulties—religious ones."
This was strange news for the Queen. Had Max a conscience then? It was a portent for which she had not been prepared.
"Of course," she said, "I don't want to ask questions."
"Perhaps you had better not."
"But I do want you to settle."
"I am settled," said Max.
It was dreadful to hear him say so, and a horrible idea that he had contracted a secret marriage with that foreign woman crossed her mind. Was this the difficulty that she did not understand? She grew timorous, afraid that he was going to tell her something—set before her some moral problem which she could not possibly solve. What if he were trying to entrap her, to lure her into taking sides with him over something no King or Government could countenance? From such a danger as that all her conventional femininity gathered itself in a panic-stricken bundle and fled.
"Max, dear," she said, "I would much rather you didn't tell me."
"I quite agree," he replied.
"But——" She paused, searching her mind for succor; and then, having found it, "Why not see the Archbishop about it?" she urged; "I am sure he could remove all your difficulties."
Max almost jumped out of his skin before he perceived how guileless had been his mother's remark. But the opportunity was certainly not to be missed.
"I should be delighted to see him," he said. "Indeed, I think he more than any one might solve my difficulty."
"Then you shall!" cried his mother, and fondly believed that, without becoming entangled herself she had wrought a good work and provided means to a solution. The Archbishop would, of course, be able to solve for him any difficulties of conscience, and to put such things as—well, anything he might have done in the past—in its right and proper place.
Her Majesty had a great belief in archbishops. At the hands of one she had been confirmed, it had taken two of them to marry her, and by one or another each of her four children had been well and truly baptized. They had also preached sermons of eloquent optimism over the two who had so prematurely died. And since she regarded all that they had done for her as eminently successful in result, they stood out in her world as the most efficient aids to the spiritual etceteras of life; and if any moral difficulty dimmed for a moment the clear horizon of her soul she would turn to the nearest archbishop for advice and encouragement.
And so the Archbishop came to see Prince Max in his convalescence, and sat by his side and talked to him, and tried by various diplomatic shifts to draw his confidence in the salutary direction desired by her Majesty; for he and the Queen had held conversation together on the matter. And Max, lying back at ease upon his cushions, and pretending to be a little further from complete recovery than he really was, examined that face of stern ecclesiastical mold, and seeking therein for some likeness to his beloved found none.
Nevertheless he listened respectfully without protest to the voice of the Church, when at last the Archbishop started to deliver his charge: he heard how necessary it was for the nation that those who were its rulers should set before it an example of regular family life, and how inexpedient it was for that example to be too long delayed; he heard of duty as though it came by inheritance to the accompaniment of a position and a title, and of many other things that he had heard tell of before and profoundly disagreed with; but for once he was not argumentative. He let the Church speak to him and advise him to do the thing he was longing to do, and to leave that life which (without a word said on the matter) he was known to have been leading in the past. And when the Archbishop had quite done and taken his departure, then Max rose up from his bed of sickness and went down to Sister Jenifer and, presenting to her gaze a broken and a contrite head and a rather pallid countenance, spoke as follows: "I have been having a talk with your father, O Beloved, and he tells me that I ought to marry you."
On the next day Max received a visit from his father.
"Well," said the King, wishing to bestow commendation on a wound honorably come by, "you have been on the side of law and order for once at any rate."
"I?" cried Max.
"I hear that you assisted the police."
"On the contrary," said Max, "I went to rescue a poor youth from their clutches."
"Good gracious me!" cried the King, horror-struck.
"Oh, they were quite right to arrest him, but having arrested him, they proceeded to assault him; and when I interfered they assaulted me. And had I not been the person I am, with detectives at my heels to vouch for me, I should have been doing a fortnight hard for interfering with the police in the execution of their duty."
"But I heard it was a beer-bottle thrown by one of the rioters!"
"Oh, no; a truncheon,—having I believe your image and superscription stamped somewhere upon it. Your own mark, sir." And Max pointed to the scar upon his head. "When I, in turn, have to wear the crown its rim will probably rest on that very spot. What a coincidence that will be!"
"Max, this is really too bad of you!" said his father.
"It comes of trying to mix with the people."
"Well, you shouldn't; for we can't do it."
"Not without paying the price. I have, and it was worth it."
"What good has it done you?"
"Can you not see how it has steadied me? You behold here a reformed character who is now only waiting for his father's blessing to lead a good and holy life ever after. Oh, yes, I know what you have come about, sir; my mother has been at me, the Archbishop has been at me,—you have all of you been at me one time or another; and so far as I am concerned, if we can only agree upon who the lady is to be, I am ready to marry her to-morrow."
Then, perceiving a terror in his father's eye (for the Queen had breathed in his ear some word of her apprehensions), Max, divining its cause, spoke to reassure him. "No," said he, "it is not the Countess; she had thrown me over, and is now only a second mother to me. This was largely of her mending." He again pointed to the scar. "Can such things be done, you wonder, in a second establishment? Well, remember it is now only a mausoleum. For three weeks I have lain there like a mummy with my head swathed in bandages."
"Max, I wish you would not talk like that," said the King. "I wanted to speak seriously to you."
"And I to you," answered Max. "But when I start I shall only shock you more."
"Well, we had better get it over, then. Say the most serious thing you have to say, and be done with it!"
Then Prince Max drew a bold breath. "Conditionally upon your consent, sir"—he began—"(I myself regret the condition, but on that point the lady is adamant)—I say all this in order to let the whole case be stated before giving you the necessary shock——"
"Oh, go on!" groaned the King.
"Conditionally, then, I am already engaged to be married."
The King's mind went vacuously all round the Courts of Europe, and returned to him again empty.
"Whom to?" he inquired.
Max made his announcement with stately formality.
"The lady who honors me with her affection is the daughter of our Primate Archbishop."
"Good Heavens!" cried the King. "Does he know of it?"
"No more than the babe unborn; two days ago he sat there telling me it was my duty to marry; and I thinking of his daughter all the time."
"Impossible!" exclaimed the King.
"I knew you would say that,—so did she. That I believe is why she gave me her consent."
"Then she does not really——"
"Love me? Very much, I believe. But her life is a strange mingling of sincerity and self-sacrifice; and it will in some strange way give her almost as much joy to have owned that her heart is utterly mine, and then to be irrevocably parted, as it would to share all the splendor of my fortune as heir to a throne."
"You know, Max, that it is quite impossible."
"Yes; by all the conventions of the last three hundred years, so it is. That is why I trust that you will rise to the occasion, sir, and do what is not expected of you. To allow your son and heir to marry the daughter of the great political antagonist of your present Prime Minister in itself creates an almost impossible situation—for party politics, I mean. But as party politics have already created an almost impossible situation for monarchy, the best thing to do is to have a return hit at party politics. I believe that the monarchy will survive."
"No, no, Max," said the King, "this won't do."
"You know that it would greatly upset the Prime Minister."
"I have other ways of doing that," said the King.
"Without upsetting yourself?"
This gave his Majesty a little start. "It depends what you mean by upsetting; perhaps it would upset you much more. But there, we won't talk about that!" For this was danger-point, and having touched it, he hurried cautiously away from it. Then he returned to the original charge: "Whatever put the idea into your head?"
"A vision of beauty that I had not believed to be possible."