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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18498-8.txt b/18498-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ace6e49 --- /dev/null +++ b/18498-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14930 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of King John of Jingalo, by Laurence Housman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: King John of Jingalo + The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties + +Author: Laurence Housman + +Release Date: June 4, 2006 [EBook #18498] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING JOHN OF JINGALO *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + KING JOHN OF JINGALO + + THE STORY OF A MONARCH IN DIFFICULTIES + + BY LAURENCE HOUSMAN + + + NEW YORK + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + 1912 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. A Domestic Interior + + II. Accidents Will Happen + + III. Wild Oats and Widows' Weeds + + IV. Popular Monarchy + + V. Church and State + + VI. Of Things not Expected + + VII. The Old Order + + VIII. Pace-making in Politics + + IX. The New Endymion + + X. King and Council + + XI. A Royal Commission + + XII. An Arrival and a Departure + + XIII. A Promissory Note + + XIV. Heads or Tails + + XV. A Deed Without a Name + + XVI. Concealment and Discovery + + XVII. The Incredible Thing Happens + + XVIII. The King's Night Out + + XIX. The Spiritual Power + + XX. The Thorn and the Flesh + + XXI. Night-light + + XXII. A Man of Business + + XXIII. "Call Me Jack" + + XXIV. The Voice of Thanksgiving + + + + +KING JOHN OF JINGALO + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A DOMESTIC INTERIOR + + + + +I + +The King of Jingalo had just finished breakfast in the seclusion of the +royal private apartments. Turning away from the pleasantly deranged +board he took up one of the morning newspapers which lay neatly folded +upon a small gilt-legged table beside him. Then he looked at his watch. + +This action was characteristic of his Majesty: doing one thing always +reminded him that presently he would have to be doing another. +Conscientious to a fault, he led a harassed and over-occupied life, +which was not the less wearisome in its routine because no clear results +ever presented themselves within his own range of vision. By an unkind +stroke of fortune he had been called to the rule of a kingdom that had +grown restive under the weight of too much tradition; and +constitutionally he was unable to let it alone. So must he now remind +himself in the hour of his privacy how all too fleeting were its +moments, and how soon he would have to project himself elsewhere. + +Glancing across the table towards his consort he saw that she was still +engrossed in the opening of her letters--large stiff envelopes, +conspicuously crested, containing squarish sheets of unfolded +note-paper; for it was a rule of the Court that no creased +correspondence should ever solicit the attention of the royal eye, and +that all letters should be written upon one side only. The Queen was +very fond of receiving these spacious missives; though they contained +little of importance they came to her from half the crowned heads of +Europe, as well as from the most select circle of Jingalese aristocracy. +They gave occupation to two secretaries, and were a daily reminder to +her Majesty that, in her own country at any rate, she was the +acknowledged leader of society. + +Having looked at his watch the King said: "My dear, what are you going +to do to-day?" + +"Really," replied the Queen, "I don't quite know; I have not yet looked +at my diary." + +Her Majesty seldom did know anything of the day's program until she had +consulted her secretaries, who, with dovetailing ingenuity, arranged her +hours and booked to each day--often many months in advance--the +engagements which lay ahead. Therein she showed a calmer and more +philosophic temperament than her consort. The King always knew; every +day of his life with anxious forecast he consulted his diary while +shaving, and breakfasted with its troubling details fresh upon his +recollection. + +Having answered his inquiry the Queen relapsed into her correspondence, +while the King resumed his newspaper; and the moment may be regarded as +propitious for presenting the reader with a portrait of these two august +personages, since so good an opportunity may not occur again. The kind +of portrait we offer is, of course, of an up-to-date and biographical +character, and does not limit itself to those circumstances of time and +space in which the commencement of this history has landed us. + +So, first, we take the King,--not as we have just found him, seated at a +table with chair turned sideways and features sharply illuminated by the +reflected lights of the journal he holds in his hands--for thus we do +not see him to advantage, and it is to advantage that we would exhibit +in its externals a character of which, before we have done with it, we +intend to grow fond. Time and space must provide us with a broader view +of him than that. + +This King had been upon the throne for twenty-five years; and during +that period, like a rich wine in the wood, monarchy had mellowed within +him, permeating his system with its mild and slightly dry flavor; it had +become as it were a habit, and he carried it quite naturally, almost +unconsciously, though with just a suspicion of weight, much as a scholar +carries his learning or a workman his bag of tools. + +A pleasantly florid face, quaintly expressive of an importance about +which its owner was undecided, imposed above a fullish waistcoat a chin +which was now tending toward the slopes of middle age. The eyes were +mild and vaguely speculative, the lips full and loosely formed, and when +they smiled they began tentatively in a tremulous lift showing only the +two upper front teeth--the smile of a woman rather than of a man. This +smile--when it made, as it so often had to make, its appearance in +public--was curiously suggestive of interrogation. "Am I now meant to +smile?" it seemed to say. "Very good, then I will." This tentatively +advanced smile of a countenance so highly exalted for others to gaze on, +was peculiarly winning to those who were its recipients; it suggested a +gentle character, indicating through its shyness both the giving and the +receiving of a favor; and among those in personal attendance on him the +King was--perhaps on account of that smile--more liked than he knew. +Servants whom the vastness of his establishments did not convert into +total strangers found him a considerate master, full of a personal +interest in their snug lives, and with a carefully practised memory for +the numbers and names of their children; and the only complaint that +even his valets had against him was that he remained his own barber and +evinced a certain reluctance in casting his suits until they had begun +to show a suspicion of wear. In outward relations he was a kind, touchy, +companionable soul; inwardly he was one who suffered acutely from lack +of companionship and conversation, not because he had not plenty of +people to talk to, but because so many things came into his head that he +must not say, while the correct substitutes for them only occurred to +him later. And thus it came about that a good deal of his intercourse +with humanity was limited to a pleasant expression of face, wearing +generally, especially when it smiled, a wistful note of interrogation. + +To present this face to the public in the regulation doses which were +considered inducive to loyalty, he had sat thirty-nine times for his +portrait to popular rather than famous painters, and to commercially +successful photographers more times than any one could count. And +painters and photographers alike had agreed that he was a steady and a +patient sitter. They all liked him. He himself preferred the +photographers; they came more often but they took less time and did not +require the give-and-take of artificially made conversation. They were +also more amenable to criticism, and kept behind the scenes for +"touching-up" purposes wonderful anonymous artists who gave no trouble +whatever, requiring no sittings and yet producing results that for tact +and skill combined with accuracy could not be beaten. Occasionally, +after having sat for his portrait to one of the painters, the King was +advised to bestow on him a knighthood or an order. In his heart of +hearts he would have much preferred knighting a photographer; but for +some reason which was beyond him to discover this was not considered the +correct thing, and the knighthoods went accordingly to the people who +gave him the most trouble and the least satisfactory results. + +It had never been the King's lot to be handsome; but now the approaches +of age were giving to his countenance a dignity which in youth it had +lacked. This was part and parcel of a certain mental obtuseness or +obstinacy: when his Majesty did not understand, majesty became sedentary +in his face. Often when it was the duty, or the device, of his +ministerial advisers to confuse his mind with explanatory details about +things which lay far beyond it, they would presently become aware that +he did not in the least understand what they were saying, or that such +understanding as he possessed at the beginning had become darkened by +judicious counsel. This stage of the reasoning process was marked by a +gentle access of majesty to the royal countenance; and when it appeared +ministers were informed that, for the time being, their object was +attained. When, however, the King did understand, or thought that he +did, he was less majestic and more troublesome, and had to be +circumvented in other ways; and a good deal of this history will be +taken up with the circumventions practised by an astute Cabinet upon a +monarch who was brought by accident to imagine that he really did +understand the position of ignominy combined with responsibility in +which the Constitution had placed him. + + +II + +John of Jingalo had been in harness all his life: he had never known +freedom, never been left to find his own feet, never been taught to +think for himself except upon conventional lines; and these had kept him +from ever putting into practice the rudimental self-promptings which +sometimes troubled him. He had been elaborately instructed, but not +educated; his own individual character, that is to say, had not been +allowed to open out; but a sort of traditional character had been slowly +squeezed into him in order to fit him for that conventional acceptance +of a variety of ancient institutions (some moldering, some still +vigorous) which, by a certain official and ruling class of monetarily +interested persons, was considered to be the correct constitutional +attitude. Monarchy, that is to say, had been interpreted to him by those +who sucked the greatest amount of social prestige and material benefit +from its present conditions as a "going concern"; and in that imposed +interpretation deportment came first, initiative last, and originality +nowhere at all. + +In many respects, indeed, his training had been like that of a young +girl whose parents have determined, without leaving her any choice in +the matter, that matrimony is to be her single aim and the sphere of the +home her outward circumference. Like a young girl whose future is thus +controlled he had acquired a pleasant smattering of several social +accomplishments; he had learned to speak three languages with fluency, +to draw, to dance, to ride, to behave under all likely circumstances +with perfect correctness, and to walk down the center of a large room +with apparent ease. He had been trained, for review purposes and for the +final privilege of carrying a cocked hat as well as a crown upon his +coffin, in a profession which he would never be allowed to practise; +and, having been "brought out" with much show and parade at an early +age, had been introduced to a vast number of very important people, and +dragged through a long series of social functions, which, however +crowded, gave always a free floor for his feet to walk on and never +presented a single back to his view. But as a result of all these +crowds, with their bewildering blend of glittering toilet, deferential +movement, and flattering speech, he knew no more of the inner realities +of life than the young girl knows of it from a series of dances, +flirtations, and afternoon teas. This polite and decorous, yet dazzling +mask had been drawn between him and the actualities of existence, +presenting itself to view again and again, and concealing its essential +sameness in the pomp and circumstance with which it was attended. At +these functions thousands of brilliant and distinguished people had +bowed their well-stored brains within a few inches of his face, had +exchanged with their monarch a few words of studied politeness and +compliment, now and then had even laid themselves out to amuse him, but +never once had they imparted to his mind an arresting or a commanding +thought, never once endeavored to change any single judgment that had +ever been formed for him. Not once in all the years since he came to +man's estate--except occasionally with his wife and on one isolated +occasion with his father--had he ever found himself involved so deeply +in argument, or in any difference of opinion, as to be forced to feel +himself beaten. That single discussion with his father had been closed +peremptorily--parental and regal authority combining had cut it short; +and as for his wife--well, she was dear, amiable, and, within her +limits, sensible; but intellectually she was not his superior. Thus +there had come to him a good deal of social discipline, experience of a +kind, but of education in the higher intellectual sense scarcely any. He +had merely been taught carefully and elaborately to take up a certain +position, and in a vast number of minutely differing circumstances +(mainly of social formality) to fill it or seem to fill it "as one to +the manner born." + +In addition he had been trained, on strictly impartial and noncommittal +lines, to take an interest in politics; to have within certain narrow +and prescribed limits an open mind--one, that is to say, with its +orifice comfortably adapted to the stuffing process practised on kings +by the great ones of the official world; and when his mind would not +open in certain required directions, well, after all, it did not much +matter, since in the end it made no practical difference. + +Under these circumstances he would have been a mere social and official +automaton had not certain defects of his character saved him. Though +timid he was impulsive; he was also a little irritable, rather +suspicious, and indomitably fussy in response to the call of duty. +Temper, fuss, and curiosity saved him from boredom; he was +conscientiously industrious, and though there was much that he did not +understand he managed to be interested in nearly everything. + +In the fiftieth year of his age, this monarch, amiable, affable, and of +a thoroughly deserving domestic character, was destined to be thrust +into a seething whirlpool of political intrigue in which, for the first +time, his conscience was to be seriously troubled over the part he was +asked to play. And while that wakening of his conscience was to cause +him a vast amount of trouble, it was to have as enlarging and educative +an effect upon his character as her first love affair has upon a young +girl. From this moment, in fact, you are to see a shell-bound tortoise +blossom into a species of fretful porcupine, his shell splintering +itself into points and erecting them with blundering effectiveness +against his enemies. And you shall see by what unconscious and +subterranean ways history gets made and written. + + +III + +And now let us turn to the Queen. In her case less analysis is needed: +one had only to look at her, at the genial and comfortable expression of +her face, at the ample, but not too ample, lines of her person, to see +that in her present high situation she both gave and found satisfaction. +She did, with ease and even with appetite, that which the King, with so +much anxious expenditure of nervous energy, was always trying to do--her +duty. She had a position and she filled it. She was not clever, but her +imperturbable common-sense made up for what she lacked intellectually. +No one, except the newspapers, would call her beautiful; but she was +comely and enjoyed good health, and she had what one may describe as a +good surface--nothing that she wore was thrown away on her, and any +chair that she occupied, however large, she never failed to adorn. There +you have her picture: you may imagine her as plump, as blonde, as +good-tempered, and as well-preserved for her age as suits your +individual taste--no qualifying word of the chronicler of this history +shall obstruct the view; and you may be as fond of her as you like. + +The Queen was the head of Jingalese society, and of its charities as +well. Her influence was enormous: at a mere word from her organizations +sprang into being. Without any Acts of Parliament to control or guide +them--merely at the delicately expressed wish of her Majesty--thousands +of charming, wealthy, and influential women would waste spare hour upon +hour and expend small fortunes of pocket-money in keeping uncomfortable +things comfortably going in their accustomed grooves. It was calculated +that the Queen's patronage had the immediate effect of trebling the +subscription list of any charity, while the mere withdrawal of her name +spelt bankruptcy. Her Majesty was patron to forty-nine charities and +subscribed to all of them. For the five largest she appeared annually on +a crimson-covered platform, insuring thereby a large supply of silk +purses containing contributions, and a full report in the press of all +the speeches. It was her rule to open two bazaars regularly each summer, +to lay the foundation-stones of three churches, orphanages, or hospitals +(whichever happened to require the greatest amount of money for their +completion), to attend the prize-giving at the most ancient of the +national charity schools, and every winter, when distress and +unemployment were at their worst, to go down to the Humanitarian Army's +soup-kitchen, and there taste, from a tin mug with a common pewter +spoon, the soup which was made for the poor and destitute. This last +performance, which took so much less time and trouble than all the rest, +proved each year the most popular incident of her Majesty's useful and +variegated public life, for every one felt that it provided in the +nicest possible way an antidote to the advance of socialistic theories. +The papers dealt with it in leading articles; and the lucky casuals who +happened to drop in on the day when her Majesty paid the surprise visit +arranged for her by her secretaries would report that they had never +tasted such good soup in all their born days. + +It may truthfully be said that the Queen never spent an idle day, and +never came to the end of one without the consciousness of having done +good. All the more, therefore, is it remarkable that, as the outcome of +so much benevolence and charity, the Queen knew absolutely nothing of +the real needs and conditions of the people, and that she knew still +less how any alterations in the laws, manners, or customs of the country +could better or worsen the conditions of unemployment, sweated labor, or +public morality. Her whole idea of political economy was summed up in +the proposition that anything must be good for the country which was +good for trade; and it may certainly be said that for the majority of +trade interests she was as good as gold. Without caring too much for +dress (being herself wholly devoid of personal vanity) she ordered +dresses in abundance, and constantly varied the fashion, the color, and +the material, because she was given to understand that change and +variety stimulated trade. Her most revolutionary act had been to +readopt, one fine spring morning, the ample skirt of the crinoline +period in order to counteract the distress and shortage of work caused +in the textile trade by the introduction and persistence of the "hobble +skirt." As a consequence of this sudden disturbance of the evolutionary +law governing creation in the modiste's sense of the word, there was a +sharp reaction a year later, which--after the artificial stimulus of the +previous season--threw more women out of employment than ever; new +fancy-trades had to be learned in apprenticeships at starvation +wages--with the result that wages had to be eked out in other ways. But +of all this her Majesty heard nothing. It never occurred to anybody that +these ultimate consequences of her amiable incentive to industry could +possibly concern her; and the Queen, finding that people no longer knew +how to adapt themselves to the long, full skirts of their grandmothers, +accepted without demur the next wave of fashion that swept over Europe +from London _via_ Paris. + +The Queen never herself opened a paper. Extracts were read out to her +each day by one of her ladies; these being selected by another lady +appointed for the purpose as those most likely to interest the royal +mind. It was made known in the press that her Majesty never read the +divorce cases; neither did she read politics or the police news. No +controversial side of the national life ever entered her brain--until +somehow or another it was reached by the dim uproar of the Women +Chartists' movement. She expressed her disapproval, and the page was +turned. + +Her instinctive tastes stood always as a guide for what she should be +told; and experience limited her inquiry. In all her life her influence +had never been used for the release of an unjustly convicted prisoner, +the abatement of an inhuman sentence, or the abolition of any abuse +established by law. Queens who had done these things in the past were +medieval figures, and such interference was quite unsuitable for a royal +consort under modern conditions. Had Philippa of Hainault lived in these +more enlightened times she would have been forced to let the Burghers of +Calais go hang and restrict herself to making provision for their widows +and orphans; for to arrest any act of government had long since ceased +to be within the functions of a queen. + +Like her husband, this royal lady was surrounded by officialdom, or, +rather, by its complementary and feminine appendices--the wives and +daughters of the aristocracy, of politicians, of ecclesiastical and +military dignitaries: these to her represented the sphere, activity, and +capacity of her own sex. Other women--pioneers of education and of +reform, rescue-workers, organizers, writers, orators, had--the majority +of them--lived and died without once coming in contact with the official +leader of Jingalese womanhood; for they and their like were outside the +official ranks, and stood for things combative and controversial and +dangerously alive, and only a few of them had been brought to Court in +their venerable old age, to be looked at as curiosities when their +fighting days were over and their work done. + +On the governing boards of the hospitals to which the Queen gave her +patronage there was not a single woman--or a married one either; but +when her Majesty visited the wards she was very nice to the nurses. She +was, in fact, very nice to everybody, and everybody was very nice to +her. + + +IV + +A king and a queen take so long to describe that the reader will have +almost forgotten how we left them at the breakfast table. But the Queen +had her letters and the King his newspapers, and there, when we return +to them in the historic present, they still are. + +Yes, there they sit, an institutional expression of the nation's general +complacence with the state of civilization at which it has arrived, +interpreting in decorous form the voice of the articulate majority--the +inarticulate not being interpreted at all. There they sit, he with his +newspapers, she with her letters: the King a little anxious and +perturbed, the Queen not anxious or perturbed about anything. + +She was still enjoying her superfluous correspondence, he studying in a +vague distrustfulness the various organs of public opinion which lay +around him, doubtful of them all, yet wishing to find one he could rely +on. For now they were all very full of the approaching constitutional +crisis, and were adumbrating in respectful, yet slightly menacing terms, +what the King himself would do in the matter. Whereas what he actually +would do he had not himself the ghost of a notion,--did not yet know, in +fact, what legs he had to stand on, having no information upon that +point beyond what the Prime Minister had chosen to tell him. + +And being puzzled he wanted to talk, yet not directly of the matter +which perturbed his mind; but somehow by hearing his own voice he hoped +to arrive at the popular sentiment. It was a way he had; and the Queen, +who was often his audience, knew the preliminary symptoms by heart. So +when presently he began crackling his newspaper and drawing a series of +audible half breaths as though about to begin reading, his wife +recognized the sign that here was something she must listen to. She put +down her letters and attended. + +"I see," said his Majesty, culling his information from the opening +paragraph of a leading article, "I see that the Government is losing +popularity every day. That Act they passed last year for the +reinstitution of turnpikes to regulate the speed of motor-traffic is +proving unpopular." + +"Is it a failure, then?" inquired the Queen. + +"On the contrary, it is a success. But the system was expected to pay +for its upkeep by the amount of fines it brought in, whereas the result +has been to make the conduct of motorists so exemplary that the measure +has ceased to pay. Unable to escape detection, 'joy-riding' has become +practically non-existent, motor-cars are ceasing to be used for breaches +of the peace, and the trade is going down in consequence by leaps and +bounds. The fact is you cannot now-a-days put a stop to any grave abuse +without seriously damaging some trade-interest. If 'trade' is to decide +matters it would be much better not to legislate at all." + +"My dear! wouldn't that be revolutionary?" inquired the Queen. + +"Keeping things as they are is not revolutionary," replied his Majesty, +"though it's a hard enough thing to do now-a-days." + +"But," objected his wife, "they must pass something, or else how would +they earn their salaries?" + +"That's it!" said the King,--"payment of members; another of those +unnecessary reforms thrust on us by the example of England." + +"Ah, yes!" answered his wife, feeling about for an intelligent ground of +agreement, "England is so rich; she can afford it." + +"It isn't that at all," retorted his Majesty; "plenty of other countries +have had to afford it before now. But it was only when England did it +that we took up with the notion. We are always imitating England: the +attraction of contraries, I suppose, because we are surrounded by land +as they are by water. Why else did they start turning me into a +commercial traveler, sending me all over Europe and round the world to +visit colonies that no longer really belong to us? Only because they are +doing the same thing over in England." + +"They saw that you wanted change of air," said the Queen. + +"Change of fiddlesticks!" answered the King; "I consider it a most +dangerous precedent to let a sovereign be too long out of his own +country. It makes people imagine they can do just as well without him!" + +The Queen looked at her husband with shrewd and kindly furtiveness. She +had a funny little suspicion that the ministry did at times greatly +prefer his absence to his presence: and that "change of fiddlesticks" +was really their underlying motive. About this monarch she herself had +no illusions: he was a dear, but he fussed; and when once he began +fussing he required an enormous amount of explanation and persuasion. +Even she, therefore, was not at all averse to letting him go on these +State outings in which she need not always accompany him. They gave him +something fresh to think about, and to her a time of leisure when she +need not pretend to think about anything she did not understand. + +"Of course," went on the King, "it makes good copy for the newspapers. +The press is powerful, and governments are obliged now-a-days to throw +in a certain amount of spectacle to keep it in a good temper. We are +sent off to perform somewhere, and after us come the penny-a-liner and +the cinematograph." + +"Oh! my dear, much more than a penny-a-liner," corrected the Queen; "I +heard of one correspondent who makes £5,000 a year. And think how good +for trade! Besides, do not we get the benefit of it?" + +"Benefit!" exclaimed the King irritably, "where is the benefit to us of +journalists who describe State functions as though they were jewelers' +touts and dressmakers rolled into one? The vulgarity of people's present +notion of what makes monarchy impressive is appalling. Listen to this, +my dear! This is you and me at the Opening of Parliament yesterday." He +unfolded his paper and read-- + +"'The regal purple flowed proudly from the King's shoulders; above their +three ribbons of red, green, and gold, the Orders of his ancestors +burned confidingly on the royal breast. The Queen's diamonds were +supreme; upon the silken fabric of her corsage they flashed incredibly; +one watched them, fire-color infinitely varied, infinitely intensified, +like nothing else seen on earth. As she advanced, deeply bowing to right +and left, parabolas of light exhaled from her coronet like falling +stars. When King and Queen were seated, their State robes flowing in +purple waves and ripples of ermine to the very steps of the dais, the +picture was complete. Single gems of the first water glistened like +dewdrops in the Queen's ears, while upon her bosom as she breathed the +three great Turgeneff diamonds caught and defiantly threw back the +light. They became the center of all eyes.' + +"I call that disgusting!" said the King. "Why diamonds should burn +confidingly on my breast, and flash incredibly on yours, I'm sure I +don't know. But there we are: a couple of clothes'-pegs for journalists +to hang words on." + +The Queen had rather enjoyed the description, it enabled her to see +herself as she appeared to others. + +"I don't see the harm," she said; "we have to wear these things, so they +may as well be described." + +"I wish some day you wouldn't wear them!" said the King. "Then, instead +of talking of your trinkets and your clothes, they would begin to pay +attention to what royalty really stands for." + +The Queen was gathering up her letters from the table: she smiled +indulgently upon her spouse. + +"Jack," said she, "you are jealous!" + +"I wish, Alicia," said the King testily, "that you would not call me +'Jack'; at least, not after--not where any of the servants may come in +and overhear us. It would not sound seemly." + +"My dear John," said the Queen, "don't be so absurd. You know perfectly +well that it's just that which makes us most popular. People are always +telling little anecdotes of that kind about us; and then, think of all +the photographs! If people were to talk of you as 'King Jack,' it would +mean you were the most popular person in the country." + +"I wonder if they do?" murmured the King. "I wonder!" He felt remote +from his people, for he did not know. + +The Queen noticed his depression; something was troubling him, and being +a lady of infinite tact, she abruptly turned the conversation. "What are +you doing to-day, dear?" she inquired brightly. + +"I have a Council at eleven," moaned the King, "and I really must get +through a few of these papers first. It gives me a great advantage when +Brasshay begins talking--a great advantage if I know what the papers +have been saying about him. To-day it's the Finance Act. By the way, +Charlotte was asking me yesterday to raise her allowance. Is there any +reason for it?" + +"A little more for dress would now be advisable," said the Queen. "She +has lately begun to open Church bazaars: I thought they would do for her +to begin upon. And the other day she laid the foundation-stone of a +dogs' orphanage--very nicely, I'm told." + +"Of course," said the King, "she's old enough, and it is quite time I +asked for a definite grant from Parliament. But if one did that now they +would probably not raise it afterwards. Very much better to wait, I +think, till we have made a really brilliant match for her; then, for the +sake of its financial prestige, the nation will do the thing +handsomely." + +"She has got an idea she doesn't like foreigners," said the Queen +reflectively. + +"She will have to like some foreigner!" said the King. "As the only +daughter of a reigning monarch she must marry royalty, and we haven't +any one left among ourselves who is eligible. Charlotte must get to like +foreigners. Max has no objection to foreigners, I hope?" + +The Queen gave her husband a curious look. + +"From what I hear," she murmured, "I should say none: but it is not for +me to make any inquiries." + +"Dear me! is that so?" said the King. "Well, well! When did you hear +about it?" + +"Only yesterday; but it has been going on a long time." + +"I suppose," sighed his Majesty, "I suppose one couldn't expect it to be +otherwise. Well, I must speak to him, then; and we shall really have to +get him married to somebody. The religious difficulty, of course, +narrows our choice most unfortunately; and when we happen to be on bad +terms both with Germany and England, through trying to be friendly to +both, why, really there is hardly anybody left." + +"I hear," remarked the Queen, "that the Hereditary Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser is returning from his three years' exploration of +central South America this autumn. Wouldn't he be worth thinking about?" + +"You mean for Charlotte? But I expect he will be wanted at the Prussian +Court." + +The Queen shook her head. "Oh, no! He is out of favor there. They have +never forgiven him his description of the Kaiser's oratorio as 'Moses +Among the Crocodiles.' That is why I thought he might not be averse to +looking in our direction. He used to be a nice boy; he is handsome +according to his portraits, and Charlotte is not without her taste for +adventure." + +"That doesn't solve the problem about Max," said his Majesty +discontentedly. "And, by the way, where is Charlotte?" + +"She has gone to stay with Lady--oh, I have forgotten her name--the one +who had a fancy for history and took a diploma in it. They are opening +that new college for women, with a Greek play all about the Trojans, and +Charlotte particularly wanted to go." + +"H'm?" queried the King; "rather an advanced set for Charlotte to +consort with--just now, I mean,--don't you think? There might be some of +those Women Chartists among them." + +"Oh, no!" replied her Majesty; "they are all quite respectable,--ladies +every one of them. I took care to make inquiries about that." + +And then, quite contentedly, she made a final gathering of her +correspondence, and sailed off for a preliminary interview with her two +indispensable secretaries; while the King, selecting three out of the +pile of newspapers, carried them away with him to his study. There was a +sentence in one of them which he particularly wanted to read again. And +with this vacating of the breakfast-chamber we may as well close the +chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN + + + + +I + +The sentence which had attracted the King's attention, coming as it did +from the newspaper on whose opinions he most frequently relied, ran +thus-- + +"In this developing crisis the Nation looks with complete and loyal +assurance to him who alone stands high and independent above all +parties, confident that when the time for a final decision has arrived +he will so act, within the recognized limits of the Royal Prerogative, +as to add a fresh luster and a renewed significance to that supreme +symbol and safeguard of the popular will which, under Divine Providence, +still crowns our constitutional edifice." + +The King read it three times over. He read it both standing and sitting: +and read in whatever attitude it certainly sounded well. As a peroration +its rhythm and flow were admirable, as a means of keeping up the courage +and confidence of readers who placed their reliance mainly upon literary +style nothing could be better; but what, by all that was constitutional, +did it mean?--or rather, how did it mean that he, the high and +independent one, was to do it? Point by point its sentiments were +unexceptionable; but what it actually pointed to he did not know. "Add +luster?" Why, yes, certainly. But was not that what he was already doing +day by day on the continuous deposit system, even as the oyster within +its shell deposits luster upon the pearls which a sort of hereditary +disease has placed within its keeping? "Renewed significance?" But in +what respect had the significance of the royal office become obscured? +Was anything that he did insignificant? "Symbol and safeguard of the +popular will?" Yes: if his Coronation oath meant anything. But how was +he, symbol and safeguard and all the rest of it, to find out what the +popular will really was? No man in all the Kingdom was so much cut off +from living contact with the popular will as was he! + +The King was in his study, the room in which most of the routine work +of his daily life was accomplished--a large square chamber with three +windows to one side looking out across a well-timbered park toward a +distant group of towers. But for those towers, so civic in their +character, it might well have been taken for a country view; scarcely a +roof was visible. + +Upon a large desk in the center of the chamber lay a pile of official +letters and documents awaiting his perusal; and he knew that in the +adjoining room one of his private secretaries was even now attending his +call. But from none of his secretaries could he learn anything about the +popular will. + +He walked to a window and stood looking out into the soft sunlit air, +slightly misty in quality, which lay over the distances of his capital. +Away behind those trees, beneath those towers, sending toward him a +ceaseless reverberation of bells, wheels, street cries, and all the +countless noises of city life, went a vast and teeming population of men +and women, already far advanced on the round of their daily toil. He was +in their midst, but not one of them could he see; and not one of them +did he really know as man to man. Everything that he learned about their +lives came to him at second or at third hand; nor did actual contact +bring him any closer, for wherever he moved among them they knew who he +was and behaved accordingly. For twenty-five years he had not walked in +a single one of those streets the nearest of which lay within a stone's +throw of his palace. As a youth, before his father came to the throne, +he had sometimes gone about, with or without companions, just like an +ordinary person, taking his chance of being recognized: it had not +mattered then. But now it could not be done: people did not expect it of +him; his ministers would have regarded it as a dangerous and expensive +habit, requiring at least a trebling of the detective service, and even +then there would always have been apprehension and uncertainty. He was +King; and though, whatever might happen to him, his place would be +automatically filled, and government go on just as before, yet, as a +national symbol, his life was too valuable to be risked; and so on +ascending the throne he had been forced, as his father before him, to +resign his personal liberty and cease to go out in the happy, +unpremeditated fashion of earlier days. + +He had long since got over the curious home-sickness which this +separation had at first caused him, and as an opening to personal +enjoyment the impulse for freedom had long since died within him; but +his heart still vaguely hungered for the people who called him their +King; and looking out into the pale sunshine that was now thinly +buttering the surface of his prosperous capital, and listening to the +perpetual tick and hum of its busy life, he knew that for him it was and +must remain, except in an official sense, an unknown territory. And yet +out there, in that territory which he was unable to explore, the thing +that is called "the popular will" lived and moved and had its being! +Dimly he dreamed of what it might be--a thing of substance and form; but +there was none to interpret to him his dream--except upon official +lines. + +Before his eyes, a salient object in the heavens surpassing the stony +eminences which surrounded it, rose the tall spire of the twin Houses of +Parliament. Upon its top swung a gilded weathercock; while about a +portion of its base stood a maze of scaffolding, the façade of the +building having during the last few months been under repair. There +seemed, however, for the moment, to be no workmen upon it. Presently, as +he gazed vacantly and without intent, something that moved upon the +upper masonry engaged his attention. Slowly along its profile, out of +all those hidden millions below, one of his subjects, a single and +minute representative of the popular will, emerged cautiously into view. + +The King was gifted with good sight; and though the figure appeared but +as a tiny speck, it was unmistakably that of a man bearing a burden upon +his back and ascending steadily toward the highest point of all. In a +word it was a steeplejack. As the name passed through the King's mind it +evoked recollection; and he said to himself again, "I wonder whether +they call _me_ Jack,--I wonder." + +With a curious increase of interest and fellow-feeling he watched the +distant figure mounting to its airy perch. And as he did so a yet +further similitude and parable flashed through his mind. For the man's +presence at that dizzy height he knew that the Board of Public Works was +responsible: as a single item in the general expenditure the weathercock +of the Palace of Legislature had had voted to it a new coat of gilt, and +this steeplejack was now engaged in putting it on. He was there in the +words of a certain morning journal, "to add fresh luster to that supreme +symbol of the popular will which crowned the constitutional edifice." + +As the words with their caressing rhythm flowed across the King's brain +he discerned the full significance of the scene which was being enacted +before him. This weathercock--the highest point of the constitutional +edifice--requiring to be touched up afresh for the public eyes--was +truly symbolical of the crown in its relation to the popular will; +twisting this way and that responsive to and interpretative of outside +forces, it had no will of its own at all, and yet to do its work it must +blaze resplendently and be lifted high, and to be put in working trim +and kept with luster untarnished it required at certain intervals the +attentions of a steeplejack--one accustomed to being in high places, +accustomed to isolation and loneliness, accustomed to bearing a burden +upon his back before the eyes of all: one whose functions were rather +like his own. + +He saw that the steeplejack had now reached the point where his work was +waiting for him, work that required nerve and courage. He wondered +whether it were highly paid; he wondered also by what means the man +slung himself into position, and by what process the new gold had to be +applied so that it would stick. Perhaps he only polished up what was +already there, coated and covered from view by the grime of modern +industry. If so, how did he scrape off the dirt without also scraping +off the gold? Perhaps, on the other hand, all the old gold had to come +off before new gold could be put on. He wondered whether the man ever +forgot his perilous position, whether habit did not make him sometimes +careless, whether he ever felt giddy, and how far the exploit was really +attended by danger to one possessed of skill and a cool head; and as he +thought, putting himself in the man's place, his hands grew +sympathetically moist. + +Well, he was wasting time, he must really get to his own work now; that +secretary would be wondering what had become of him. He glanced away +over the distant roofs that here and there emerged above the trees, and +then for a last look back again. And as he did so all at once he started +and uttered an acute exclamation of distress. A dark speck had suddenly +detached itself from the ball upon which the vane stood, and could now +be seen glissading with horrible swiftness down the slope of the spire. +It fell into the scaffolding, zigzagged from point to point, and +disappeared. There could be no mistake about it, it was the man himself +who had fallen: that single and minute expression of the popular will +had passed for ever from view; and the smooth and equable hum of the +unseen millions below went steadily on. + + +II + +Fleeing from the sight still registered upon his brain the King rang for +his secretary. A figure of correctitude entered. + +"There has been an accident," said his Majesty. "Over there!" He +pointed. "A steeplejack has fallen." + +The secretary slid respectfully to the window and looked out. To that +polite official gaze of inquiry the scene of the tragedy returned a +blank and uncommunicative stare. + +"Poor wretch!" murmured the King. "I actually saw him go! Ring up, and +inquire at the Police Center; though, of course, the poor fellow must be +dead!" + +The secretary sped away on his errand, and the King, moving back to the +window, gazed fixedly at the spire, as though it could still in some way +inform him of the tragedy consummated below. Then he returned to his +desk and looked distractedly at his papers, but it was no use--back he +went to the window again. + +Presently the secretary returned and stood drooping for permission to +speak. Permission came. "The man is dead, your Majesty. He was killed +instantly." + +The King gave a sigh of relief. "Of course," he murmured, "from such a +height as that!" He stood for a while still cogitating on the sad event: +then he said, with that considerate thoughtfulness which habit had made +a second nature, "Be good enough to find out whether the poor fellow was +married. If so let a donation be sent to his widow,--whatever the case +seems to warrant--more if there should happen to be children." + +Over his tablets the secretary bowed the beauty of his person like a +recording angel. Then he paused that the heavenly measure might be taken +with accuracy. + +"Shall it be five pounds, sir?" he inquired. + +"Better make it ten," said the King; "I believe that pays for a funeral. +In sending it, you might explain that I had the misfortune to be an +eye-witness." + +The secretary cooed like a brooding dove. Of course everybody would +understand and appreciate. He made a memorandum of the ten pounds and +closed up his tablets. + +Meanwhile the King went on thinking aloud. "I wonder," he said, "whether +they take proper precautions in a trade like that? I would like to look +it up. Find me the 'ST' volume of the _Encyclopedia Appendica_." + +And when the volume was brought to him the King sat down and read all +about steeplejacks and climbing irons, and cranks, and pulleys, and all +the other various appliances requisite for the driving of that dreadful +trade; read also how the men were inclined to prime themselves for the +task in ever-increasing measure, and so one day having over-primed to be +found at the bottom instead of at the top, knowing nothing themselves of +how they got there. It was all very interesting and very apposite, and +rather pathetic; and when he had done he turned over the pages backward +till he came from steeplejacks to "Statesmen" and "Statecraft" and +"Statutes" and the affairs of State in general (it was from the +_Encyclopedia Appendica_--a presentation copy--that he got most of his +information upon practical things); and in these articles he became so +absorbed that he quite forgot how time flew, until his chief secretary +came formally to announce to him that the hour for appearing in Council +had arrived. + +This announcement, be it observed, was made by no ordinary working +secretary, but by the chief of them all, the Comptroller of his +Majesty's household, a retired general who had passed from the military +to the civil service with a record brilliantly made for him by other +men--adjutants and attachés and all those indefatigable right-hand +assistants of whom your true diplomatist forms his stepping-stones to +power. General Poast and the Prime Minister shared between them the +ordering and disposal of the King's public services to the Nation, while +over other departments impenetrable to the Premier the hand of the +Comptroller was still extended. Though personally the King rather +disliked him, he had become an absolutely indispensable adjunct to the +daily life--so smooth in its workings, yet so easily dislocated--of the +Royal Household; also, as a go-between for ministers whose intercourse +with the Crown was purely formal, he had proved himself a very efficient +implement when on occasion it became necessary to circumvent or reduce +to reason the King's characteristic obstinacy in small matters of +detail. He might, in fact, be regarded as the keeper not so much of the +King's conscience, as of his savoir faire, and of that tact for which +Royalty in all countries is conspicuous. Everything that related to the +remembering of names and faces, of dates, anniversaries and historical +associations, all those small considerate actions of royal charity which +robbed of their due privacy have now become the perquisite of the press; +all these things stood ranged under minutely tabulated heads within the +Comptroller-General's department. He was, literally, the King's +Remembrancer; and so, on this occasion also, he had come as intermediary +to remind his Majesty that the hour for the Council was at hand. + +But the Council was one of those functions in which it was held +necessary that the part played by the King (albeit no more than a silent +presidency at a Board where others spoke) should wear an appearance of +importance. And so the announcement made by the Comptroller was merely +preliminary to another and more flourishing announcement by an usher of +the Court. Two lackeys threw open a door--other than that through which +the General had just entered, and a bowing official, beautifully dressed +and waving a fairy-like wand, announced from the threshold, "Your +Majesty's Council, now in attendance, humbly begs audience of your +Majesty." + + +III + +Then followed a pause. The Comptroller-General with head deferentially +bent waited to catch the royal eye. The King graciously allowed his +royal eye to be caught; and the Comptroller-General, interpreting the +silent consent of that glance, uttered with due solemnity the +traditional form of words indicative of the royal pleasure. "His Majesty +hears," he lowed in the correct "palace accent": and the usher bowed and +retired. + +All this helped, of course, to make the act of presiding in Council seem +highly important and consequential to any monarch susceptible to +ceremonial flattery. Whether it had originally been so devised may be +questioned, for monarchs of old had needed no such ceremonial backing to +their very practical incursions into ministerial debate. What we have to +notice is that the ceremony had survived, while the other thing--the +practice of substantial interference--had become obsolete. + +The King passed from his private apartments to broad corridors and +portals where resplendent footmen stood in waiting, where everything +worked with silent and automatic precision to prepare the way for his +feet, signaling him on from point to point as though he were a sort of +special train for which the line had been expressly cleared and all +other traffic shunted. And yet when he came to the small anteroom which +opened directly into the Council Chamber he felt for all the world like +a timid bather about to unbutton the door of his bathing-machine and +step forth into a strange and hostile element. That moment of +trepidation was one he never could get over,--to face his Council of +Ministers was always a plunge; for here truly he felt out of his depth, +aware that politically he was no swimmer. And now for a couple of hours +he would have to endure while, thoroughly at home in their own element, +twenty stout aquatic athletes tumbled around him. + +The door was thrown open; and with an air of calm self-possession he +walked to the head of the table about which his ministers stood waiting. +"Be seated, gentlemen," he said, embracing in a single bow the +obeisances of all; and like slow waves they closed in on him, subsiding +in large curves and soft fawning ripples of hand-rubbing around the +empurpled board at which nominally he was to preside. + +When all were seated in order, he signed for the Prime Minister to open +the proceedings, and thereafter had scarcely to speak; for at a King's +Council only general reports were presented, no discussions took place, +no fresh proposals were mooted; and so he sat and heard how this +department or that was extending its beneficent operations, how +statistics were completing to their last decimal places the +prognostications of experts, and how along with these things imports and +exports were balancing, trade declining, education advancing, and +strikes growing every day more formidable and more popular. + +It was only this last point that really interested him; for here he +seemed to get a dim rumor of something that was part at least of that +popular will which it was his duty to symbolize and to safeguard. But +these official advisers of his were all for putting strikes down, and +yet while putting them down they seemed to wish to curry favor with the +strikers themselves. For on the one hand there was trade declining, if +the strikes were not put down, to support fresh taxation, on the other +the Labor Party, eighty strong, declining, if the strikes were put down, +to support the Government. And with the Finance Act coming on the +question was whether to accept an increasing deficit in the revenue or a +declining majority in the Legislature. This could be read vaguely +between the lines of the report presented by the Minister of the +Interior. But all this time not one word was said about the coming +constitutional crisis which was in everybody's mind. That had been +thoroughly discussed by ministers sitting in real Council elsewhere, a +Council at which the Head of the Constitution had not been present, and +about which he would hear no more than the Prime Minister chose to tell +him. + +And so, smoothly, equably, and uneventfully the Council reached its +conclusion; ministers one after another closed up their portfolios, and +sitting mute in their places respectfully waited the royal word of +dismissal. + +Then the King rose: and all around the board the fawning ripples of +hand-rubbing ceased, and the slow curving wave of the ministerial body +receded to a respectful distance; while his Majesty passed forth to the +adjoining chamber, there to give, as was customary, separate audience to +those ministers who had any special memoranda to submit requiring the +royal endorsement. + +On this occasion he found his Comptroller already awaiting him, +apologetic for what might seem intrusion on territory belonging more +properly to the Prime Minister. Under the correctness of his deportment +it was clear that urgency impelled. + +"I have come, sir," he said, "to submit to your Majesty, before the +matter goes further, a certain difficulty which has arisen in connection +with your Majesty's gracious donation to the widow of the unfortunate +workman who----" He paused. + +"You mean the steeplejack?" queried the King. + +The Comptroller-General bowed assent. "Your Majesty ordered inquiry to +be made." + +"I did. Has it been found whether he had a family?" + +"A large family, sir: a wife and seven children." + +"Ah," said the King, "then you would suggest that ten pounds is not +quite----? Well, make it twenty." + +"That, sir, is not the difficulty. The fact is we have discovered that +the man was what in the industrial world is known as a 'blackleg.' As +your Majesty may be aware there is at this moment a strike in the +building trade: and this man was working against the orders of his +Union. Under those circumstances a donation from your Majesty becomes +pointed." + +"Pointed at what?" + +"At the Trades Unions, sir." + +"But what," cried the King, astonished, "have a widow and children to do +with the Trades Unions?" + +"The man was working against orders, your Majesty." + +"But at somebody's orders, I suppose? Anyway, it was for the +Government." + +"Oh no, sir!" Correctitude protested against so dangerous an +implication. + +"But surely! Wasn't he there at the orders of the Board of Works?" + +"At the orders of the contractor, your Majesty." + +"Who was under contract with the Board to complete by a certain date." + +"That, sir, cannot be denied." + +"Well, really then," said the King, "from what department does this +objection to the donation emanate?" + +"From no department, your Majesty. The objection is on general grounds +of policy." + +The King's pride and modesty were becoming a little hurt; he was annoyed +that so small a matter of private charity should be thus canvassed and +brought within the range of politics. Subconsciously he had also another +and a more symbolic reason which helped him to show fight. + +"Really, my dear General," he said, "I think we are discussing this +matter very unnecessarily. The widow is still a widow, and the children, +who you tell me number seven, are orphans; and surely at his death a man +ceases to be either a blackleg or a trades unionist. He is not working +against orders now, at any rate. Make it twenty! make it twenty." (His +utterance grew hurried; a way he had when crossed and anxious not to +have to give way.) "I can't hear anything more about it now: I have +Brasshay waiting to see me." And as at that moment the Prime Minister +was announced, the Comptroller-General, for the present at any rate, +"made it twenty" and retired. But he did so with a wry and a determined +face. + +As for the King he was thoroughly put out; the steeplejack was by +association beginning to assume in his mind a very particular +importance; he had become a symbol not merely of the sovereign himself, +but of that act of statesmanship which he had been adjured to undertake +by his favorite newspaper. This man, his prototype, had failed to add in +completeness that luster which he had set out to add; had even died in +the attempt; and here, in seeking with all his sympathies aroused to +provide for the widow and children, the King was finding himself +thwarted, and thwarted, too, on purely political grounds. Well, it +should be a test: he would not be thwarted. The Cabinet couldn't resign +on this; so he would do as he liked! And under the table, on a soft deep +carpet of velvet-pile he stuck his heels into the ground and felt very +determined. + +And then he found that he must attend to something else, for the Prime +Minister was speaking, and now at last was speaking on a very important +matter. + + +IV + +"Your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, "the Bishops are blocking all +our bills; the business of the country is at a standstill." + +"Blocking?" queried the King; for he did know a little of contemporary +history at all events. + +"Amending," corrected the Minister. "Amending on lines which we cannot +possibly accept." + +"Some of them seemed to me quite excellent amendments," said the King. +"But, of course, I don't know." + +"They express, sir, no doubt, a point of view--quite an estimable point +of view, if it were not a question of politics: they reflect, that is to +say, the mind of the ecclesiastical side of the Spiritual and Judicial +Chamber. Your Majesty's House of Laity sees things differently: I am +bound, therefore, to submit to your Majesty certain important proposals +for the relief of the impasse at which we have now arrived. As no doubt, +sir, you are aware, we have the Judges, the Juridical half of the +Chamber, for the most part with us, since for the last few years their +appointment has been entirely in our hands. But the Bishops, with the +exception of one or two, are obdurate and immovable. We select the most +liberal Churchmen we can find: but it is no use; each new Bishop, +adopted by Dean and Chapter, becomes when once seated in the Upper +Chamber, merely a reflection of those who have gone before him: the +Juridical minority is swamped, the Spiritual element remains supreme, +and we have no chance of obtaining a majority." + +"It is only because you will try to do things too fast!" said the King; +but the Prime Minister continued-- + +"And now, sir, our one opportunity has come. The Bill for dividing the +dioceses and doubling the number of the Bishoprics has just passed into +law. I flatter myself that when the Prelates assented to that Bill they +did not realize how its powers might be directed. It is the proposal of +your Majesty's advisers to nominate to those Bishoprics only Free +Churchmen, men whose political views coincide with our own." + +"Free Churchmen!" cried the King, startled; "but they are outside the +Establishment altogether." + +"Merely on a point of Church discipline," answered the Prime Minister. +"They are ministers properly ordained. When they seceded over the +'Church Government Act' they carried their full Canonical Orders with +them: only as they had no Bishops they have become a diminishing body. +Their beliefs, or their disbeliefs (for on many points the churches are +merely maintaining an observance of definitions which their intellects +no longer really accept)--their professed beliefs, then, shall I +say?--in all matters of doctrine are not more heterogeneous than those +which distract the councils and the congregations of the Establishment. +It is only on matters of administration and Church discipline that they +fundamentally differ. We count upon the Free Church Bishops to give us a +majority both on the secularization of charities and the opening of the +theological chairs and divinity degrees of our Universities to all sects +and communities alike. After that we shall be in a position to deal +with State Endowment and with Education generally." + +"But will the Chapters, under such circumstances, accept the Crown's +nominees?" inquired the King. "And even if they do, may not the Bishops +refuse to consecrate them?" + +"The right in law of a Dean and Chapter to reject the Crown's nominee +and to substitute one of their own has already been decided against +them," said the Prime Minister. "As for the consecration, if the Bishops +refuse their services we have an understanding with the exiled +Archimandrite of Cappadocia to see the whole thing through for us." + +"Good Heavens!" cried the King, "a black man with two wives." + +"His orders," said the Prime Minister, "are perfectly valid, and are +recognized not only by us but by Rome. Only last year the Bishops were +making quite a stir about him; there was even a proposal that he should +assist at the next consecration so as to clear away all doubts in the +eyes of Romanists as to the validity of our own orders. It would, +therefore, be a measure of poetic justice if now----" + +"I don't think we ought to do it," interrupted the King. + +"If the Bishops give way in time, sir, it will be unnecessary." + +"Will you consent to my seeing the Archbishop about it?" inquired the +King, much perturbed. + +"Sir, I have already seen him." + +"Well, what did he say?" + +"He said a good many things, and said them very well. His general +impression seemed to be that we should not dare to do it. That is where +he is mistaken." + +"You have to consult me also," remarked the King. + +"Sir, that is what I am now doing." The Prime Minister bowed with the +utmost deference. + +"You put me in a great difficulty!" + +"I am sorry that your Majesty should make difficulty," retorted the +Premier dryly. + +"You seem to forget," pursued the King, "that I am sworn to maintain +both Church and Constitution as established by law." + +"Sir, we propose nothing unconstitutional." + +"Free Churchmen are not constitutional, they have no standing." + +"They have a right to their opinions like all the rest of your Majesty's +subjects." + +"Not to be made Bishops." + +"That merely legalizes their position." + +The King shook his head. "I don't like it," he said; "I don't like it! +And if you won't let me consult the Archbishop how am I to know what I +ought to do?" + +"If as advisers to the Crown we have had the misfortune to lose your +Majesty's confidence," said the Prime Minister suavely, "I hope your +Majesty will not hesitate to say so. But I am bound to inform you, sir, +that should your Majesty be unable to accept the advice now offered, it +will be the most painful duty of your Majesty's ministers to tender +their resignation." + +"I observe," retorted the King tartly, "that whenever you begin +reminding me of my 'Majesty' you have always something unpleasant to +spring on me! You are treating me now just as you have been treating the +Bishops; you will not listen to advice; no, you will not accept +amendments, you behave as though you were already a single Chamber +Government. You ought to accept amendments! I don't like Free Church +Bishops. If they want to become Bishops they can go to the Archimandrite +for themselves. I suppose you are making it worth his while?" he added +suspiciously. + +"Doubtless there will be an arrangement," answered the Premier smoothly. +"There again the Archbishop has already helped us. Less than a year ago +he made representations to us on the subject, recommending the +Archimandrite for a State pension." + +"And pray, will that appear in the estimates?" + +"There is no reason why it should not appear." + +"I have noticed," commented the King, "that if people do an unscrupulous +thing in the full light of day, it takes a certain appearance of +honesty." + +"A very statesmanlike observation, your Majesty," smiled the Prime +Minister. "In this matter I may say we are without scruple because our +case is unanswerable." + +"You shall have my answer," said the King, "when I have had more time to +think about it." + +With which oblique retort to the Prime Minister's assertion he rose, and +the interview terminated. + + +V + +By this time he was thoroughly tired: he had done a hard morning's work; +not only had he been harassed and annoyed, but he had been thinking a +great deal more than he usually thought, and his brain ached. But even +now his troubles were not ended; just as he turned to go the Minister of +the Interior craved audience; and at his first word the King's +irritation grew afresh, for here was dismissed controversy cropping up +again. + +While the King was receiving the Prime Minister his Comptroller-General +had not been idle: indeed he never was idle. He had gone straight to the +Minister of the Interior and had reported to him the failure of his +efforts, for it was this minister who had in the first place come to +him. The steeplejack had fallen, so to speak, right into the middle of +his department; and with the King's donation coming on the top the +catastrophe bulked large. For, be it known, on the order of the day for +the morrow's sitting of Parliament was a motion of the Labor Party, +directing censure on the Government for having brought pressure to bear +on contractors and caused work to be continued upon Government buildings +when Labor and Capital were at war. It was nothing to Labor that the +hire of the scaffolding used in the repairs was costing the country a +considerable sum of money while it stood uselessly waiting about the +walls of the Legislature; blacklegs had gone up on it and blacklegs had +been pulled down from it; and one particular blackleg had gone up on it +and had come down without any pulling whatever--an accident over which +Labor was savagely ready to exult and say, "Serve him right!" And how +would it be if they saw in their morning papers, on the very day when +the motion was down for debate, that the King had gone out of his way to +make a handsome donation to the widow? The Minister of the Interior +simply could not allow it; yet now word had come to him that his Majesty +persisted in his intention. So when the Prime Minister came out the +Minister of the Interior went in and put his case to the King, as I have +put it here to the reader--only far more persuasively, and ornately, and +at very much greater length. He also added to what has already been set +forth, as a point making the man a less worthy object of compassion, +that according to latest accounts he had gone to his work under the +influence of drink. + +"So do all steeplejacks," said the King, and quoted the _Encyclopedia_: +"It is only when they are drunk that they can do it. _I_ know." He spoke +as though he had tried it. + +Before the minister had done the King was really angry. "Mr. Secretary," +said he, "I don't care how many strikes there are, or how many Trades +Unions, or how many motions of censure from the gentlemen of the Labor +Party: they may motion to censure _me_ if they like! The man is dead, +and I was unfortunate enough to be a witness of his death. He died in an +attempt to do a laudable action." (Here the King was tempted to quote +the peroration from his favorite newspaper, but he checked himself: the +minister would not have understood.) "His wife," he went on, "is now a +widow, and his children are orphans; and if that twenty pounds may not +go to them, then I am not master of my own purse-strings, or"--he added +by way of finish--"of my own natural feelings and emotions as an +ordinary human being." + +And before that burst of eloquence the Minister of the Interior was +abashed into silence, and retired from the royal presence discomfited. + +The King's argument had heated him, like the royal furnace of +Nebuchadnezzar, seven times more than he was wont to be heated. He so +seldom argued with anybody, still less with his ministers: and here he +had been arguing with one or another of them for half the morning. He +almost felt as if something had happened to him; a touch of giddiness +seized him as he turned to retire to his private apartments; and the +thought struck him--if he was as much upset as this over a small +side-issue, what would he be like when he had done adding that luster to +the constitutional edifice which the nation in its crisis would +presently be demanding of him? The wear and tear were going to be +considerable. + +Circumstance had departed as he retraced his steps to the domestic wing. +The lackeys, having done their ceremonial duty, had disappeared: he was +free to go unobserved. As he ascended the marble staircase which led +from the great hall toward the private apartments he was still thinking +of the steeplejack, the man who somehow seemed now to be an emblem of +himself. This man, set to the superfluous task of regilding the +weathercock of the Legislature, doing it in defiance of master craftsmen +and fellow-workmen, lured to do it because the cost of the hiring of the +scaffolding had become an expensive charge on the Board of Works, and +then, after the custom of the Trade, primed, emboldened, and made drunk +to do it, drunk to a point which had brought him to destruction--yes, he +was like that man; his temptations, his perils, his essential +superfluity were all the same. As he went up the stair he tried to +imagine he was the man himself, going up and up, a solitary and uplifted +figure, fixing his thoughts on things above in order that he might +forget the gulf which yawned below. He took his hand from the +balustrade, and gazing upward at the gilt and crystal chandelier +suspended from the dome above, so entirely forgot his surroundings for +one moment that, missing a step, he lost balance backwards and fell with +amazing thoroughness down the full flight of steps till he reached the +bottom. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WILD OATS AND WIDOWS' WEEDS + + + + +I + +Bump! bump! bump! went his head. Through a confused vision of stars, +veined marble, stained glass, and flying stair-rails he saw his legs +trail helplessly after, close in above, fling violently across him feet +foremost, and dash out of view. In other words, having reached the +bottom of the grand staircase he had turned a complete and homely +somersault. + +For awhile he lay half stunned, unable to move. Something had +undoubtedly happened to his head, but he was still conscious. Cautiously +he turned himself over and looked round. No one was about; no one had +seen this ignominious downfall of Jingalo's topmost symbol on the too +highly polished floors of its own abode; and nobody must know. It was +not the right and dignified way for a royal accident to happen: falling +down-stairs suggested the same failing as that to which steeplejacks +were prone. + +He picked himself up, and aware now of a sharp pain in the middle of his +spine as well as at the back of his head, crawled slowly and in a +rather doubled-up attitude toward the royal apartments. + +As he moved cautiously along the private corridor, he met the Queen +coming from her room, dressed for going out. She detected at once his +painful and decrepit attitude. "What is the matter, dear?" she inquired. + +"Nothing, nothing," mumbled the King, "only a touch of sciatica." And as +he did not encourage her impulse to pause and make further inquiries, +she let him go past. + +He went into his room, and sat very carefully down, for he was still +uncertain whether some vertebral bit of him was not broken. Then he put +his hand to the back of his head and felt it. Yes, undoubtedly something +had happened; at contact with his finger it made a sound curiously like +the ticking of a clock, and under the scalp a portion of bone seemed to +move. And yet he was not threatened with unconsciousness; on the +contrary he felt very wide awake: shaken though he was, ideas positively +bubbled in his brain, his whole being effervesced. For a moment a fear +flickered across his mind that he was going mad. But if so it was a +wholly pleasurable sensation, for though his fancy went at a gallop, it +was orderly, logical, and consecutive, not like madness at all. He +dismissed the notion; but further reflection confirmed him in his +determination not to tell anybody; he did not want to explain how he had +walked upstairs fancying himself a steeplejack. It would have sounded +stupid. + +Then all at once he felt very sick and giddy, and going to the couch he +lay down on it, and there, finding relief in the horizontal position, he +fell fast asleep. + +When he awoke an hour later his head, except for an extreme local +tenderness, felt all right again; but when he tested it the faint +ticking sound was still there. His mind was now calm; his thoughts no +longer went at a gallop, but they seemed--what was the word?--freer, +more articulate, more at his beck and call; and in spirit he was far +less harassed and anxious. Altogether he felt that he possessed himself +more than he had ever done before: his mental views had become more +open. + +Then he remembered that he wanted to see his son Max, and talk to him +about certain matters; and so, after a few more tentative touches to the +back of his head to find if it was still ticking--which it was--he went +into his study, and sending for one of his secretaries, got a message +despatched. And only when he was well on in the routine of his +afternoon's labors did he recollect that he had not lunched. + +That break in the regularity of his habits seemed almost an adventure; +but as he did not now feel hungry he plodded on, for this was his day of +the week for signing accumulated arrears of documents, and several +hundreds awaited him. So for a couple of hours he worked as regularly +and monotonously as a bank-clerk, and while he was signing the less +important papers, and passing them to one of his secretaries to be +blotted and sorted, another read out to him those of which he wished to +learn the contents. + +This duty was generally performed by the Comptroller-General himself; +but to-day he was missing, and the King, left to make his own selection, +was rather startled to find what a number of really important documents +had been left over for this day, devoted to what may be described as +routine signatures. As a rule it was the Comptroller who, out of his +long experience, selected those documents which must be read and, only +after due consideration, signed. Now, by some accident, he had been +prevented from attending, and here was a crowd of important documents, +the terms of which the King had never heard. He began to wonder. At +least ten or a dozen were strange to him: he ordered them to be set +aside. And now very dimly, very gradually, he began to suspect his +position, and to perceive that without watchfulness he might very easily +become less a conscious instrument of Government than a mere mechanism. +What if he had become that already? + + +II + +And then it grew dusk. The King dismissed his secretaries, and without +turning on the light sat and thought alone. The effervescence had all +gone from his brain, melancholy ruled him; and as he sat ruminating upon +the past and his own present position his mind became obsessed by all +the historical characters who had preceded him in the exercise of those +royal functions now grown so exiguous in his hands, who had sat and +labored at Statecraft in that very room, some of them, perhaps, in the +very chair in which he was now seated. + +They became almost present to his consciousness. How would they have +behaved in the present situation? How would they have set to work to add +luster to that supreme symbol which still crowned the constitutional +edifice? + +He could imagine his own father opposing over a considerable period the +weight of his personal prestige to the importunacy of ministers, saying +with stately ease: "We will speak of that, gentlemen, some other day," +and so calmly turning from the subject in dispute--not solving it, but +at least imposing delay as the penalty which ministers must pay for a +difference of opinion. That policy of quiet procrastination no minister +of his time would have dared to withstand without first making for it a +certain time-allowance. So much at least would have been secured, not of +right, but through the weight of a stronger personality. + +And what about others before him? Slowly there dawned upon the King's +vision--clear as though he had seen her but yesterday, the regal +presence of a certain ancestress who more than any other had made the +monarchy what it now was--an almost miraculous survival from the past. +It was the old Queen Regent, the lady who for the last twenty years of +her consort's reign, when his wavering mind had failed him, had ruled +her ministers with a rod which was not of iron, but which, none the +less, they had feared, and sought by many devious ways to evade. Out of +some book of memoirs a vision of something that had taken place in that +very room rose up before him. Around her a ring of Bishops, crowding the +royal hearth-rug, each standing defenseless with deferential stoop, +tea-cup in hand; and she, seated before them with plump hands folded in +her lap upon a lace kerchief, or tapping now and again upon the arms of +her chair to give emphasis, was laying down her word of law, and putting +an end to revolt in the Church. + +"I won't have it!" she cried. "I won't have it! This nonsense has got to +be put down!" + +And what could a Bishop do with a tea-cup in his hand? There she had got +them, six or eight chosen Prelates, every one of them in a defenseless +position; how could they argue an affair of State so? What could they do +but assent to the incontrovertible statement that "nonsense" must and +certainly should be put down--though knowing all the time that the +particular "nonsense" in question, being a thing inbred in the minds of +men, could not be put down by any act of Parliament and would persist +even to the breaking-up of Church unity? And so a perfectly ineffective +Church Government Act had passed into law, causing its honest opponents +to secede, while its far more numerous dishonest opponents had remained; +and the Queen Regent, having for the time being asserted her authority +in the Church, had passed on the actual solution of the problem to later +times. + +Later times: the King's brain ceased to visualize, he came back to +himself and to the accumulated problems now pressing for solution. Yes; +for the monarchy, not only as she had made it, but as it had now become, +that great little lady was almost equally responsible. Her genius had +only arrested its decay by bottling it up in the clear preservative of +her own virtues. It now stood out more conspicuously than ever, a +survival from the past: it had not really moved on. Had it, under that +preserving process, become more brittle? With a more open mind he was +beginning to suspect that the ancient institution was crumbling in his +hands; that a creeping paralysis had seized hold of it. Why? What had he +done? Was simple honesty the last and fatal touch that had called these +symptoms of death to light? Had he been too human for an office with +which humanity was no longer compatible? It seemed a confounding charge +to one whose soul was filled with a social hunger which ever went +unsatisfied, whose official isolation from his people was a daily +obsession. His doubt was whether he had been human enough? As he +cogitated on the matter the suspicion grew in him that he had only been +human domestically; outside his domesticity he had resigned his humanity +and become an automaton, a thing in leading-strings. He had allowed +constitutional usage, aye, and constitutional encroachments also, to +crush him down. In constitutional usage he was as harnessed and +bedizened as the piebald ponies who drew his state-coach when he went +each year to open or shut the flood-gates of legislative eloquence. +Constitutional usage, determined for him by others, was the bearing-rein +that had bowed his neck to that decorative arch of mingled condescension +and pride with which he received deputations, addresses, ambassadors. +Constitutional usage had put a bit in his mouth and blinkers upon his +eyes, so that now, even in his own Council Chamber, he was not expected +to speak, was not expected to see unless his attention were specially +invited. More and more the critical and suspensory powers of the Crown +were coming to be regarded as out of place, a straining of the Royal +Prerogative. The growth of the ministerial system had gone on; and he, +shut off from growth in its midst, was being robbed of strength day by +day. And all this was being done, not in the eyes of his people, but +secretly, under smooth and respectful formalities, by a Cabinet +insidiously bent on acquiring as its own that of which it robbed him. In +this unwritten and unnoticed readjustment of the Constitution nothing +was being passed on to the people's representatives. They knew nothing +about it; keeping all that to itself, the Cabinet, like the grim wolf +with privy paw, "daily devoured apace, and nothing said." + +So far (barring the quotation from Milton, a purely literary adornment +on the author's part), so far he had got with drifting and despondent +thought, when again that small regal presence, of low statute but ample +form, became clearly defined, and he heard the soft staccato voice +saying sharply: "I won't have it! I won't have it!" + +The blood of his ancestors thrilled in his veins. There and then he +formed a resolution--neither would he! He moved to his desk and sat down +to write; and even as he did so material for the breaking of that +resolve presented itself,--the Comptroller-General, calm and +self-possessed, glided into the room. + +He had a communication to make: the story did not take long to tell. He +had been extending his inquiries--further and more particular inquiries +into the life and domestic relations of the unfortunate steeplejack; and +he had discovered, oh, horror! but just in time, that the woman who had +lived with him was not his wife. + +"But you told me they had seven children," said the King. + +"That is so, Sir," replied the Comptroller-General; "it has been a +relationship of long standing. Morally, of course, that only makes the +matter worse." + +The King did not know why morally the permanence of that arrangement +should make it worse. It was a statement which he accepted without +question; it came to him with authority from one whose guidance in such +matters he had ever been accustomed to follow and find correct. Before +the weight of the moral law, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost of +the dead steeplejack. The widow and the seven orphans passed out of +existence; they ceased any longer to be mouths and hearts of flesh, and +became instead abstractions to be set in a class apart--one not eligible +for rewards. To such as these no public declaration of the royal bounty +could be made. + +"Very well," said the King despondently, "strike off the memorandum! The +twenty pounds need not go." + +An hour later the Queen came in and found him sitting alone and +miserable in his chair. She spoke to him, but he did not answer. Then as +she drew nearer, to find out if anything were really the matter, his +misery found voice. + +"I can't move! I am unable to move!" he moaned. + +"What is it, dear?" she inquired, "sciatica?" + +His answer came from a source she could not fathom. + +"No one," he murmured in a tone of deep discouragement, "no one will +ever call _me_ 'Jack.'" + + +III + +Three hours later, after dinner, the King and his son, Prince Max, were +sitting together in the same room. The King, feeling considerably better +for a good meal, had given Max one of his best cigars, and having gone +so far to establish confidential relations, was now trying to summon up +courage to speak to the young man as a father should. + +But here, as elsewhere, he was met by the old difficulty--he and his son +were not intimates. They had drifted apart, not for any lack of filial +or paternal affection, but simply because in the round of their official +lives they so seldom met privately; and since the Prince had acquired an +establishment of his own the King knew little of what he did with his +daily life beyond the records of the Court Circular. + +Max was now twenty-five; he was taller and darker than his father, more +handsome and more self-possessed. In his appearance he combined the +polish of a military training with the quiet air of an amateur scholar; +his forehead was prematurely, but quite becomingly, bald, his mustache +well groomed, his figure slight but athletic. He had inherited his +father's full lips, but the glance of his eye was of a keener and +shrewder quality, and it might be suspected that the eye-glasses +which he occasionally put on were assumed more for effect than for +necessity. Above all, he possessed what the King conspicuously +lacked--self-assurance, and with it a sort of moral ease as though any +error he might fall into would be taken rather as an experience to +profit by than as an occasion for self-reproach. His face showed as he +talked that quality of humor which enables a man to laugh at his own +enthusiasms, and one could not always be sure whether he were serious or +merely indulging in dialectics. To any one out of touch with his +intellectual origins, he was a man difficult to know; and the King, +being in that matter altogether at sea, knew really very little about +him, and was in consequence a little afraid of him. + +That fact made a frontal attack difficult; nevertheless, having screwed +himself up to speak, he began abruptly. + +"Max," said his father, "have you ever thought about marrying?" + +Max smiled a little bitterly. "I started thinking about it," he said, +"when I was seventeen; and off and on I have thought about it ever +since." Then he added rather coldly, as though to warn off mere +curiosity, "Why do you ask, sir? Has any proposal been made?" + +"Well," said his father, "we might certainly arrange something. I feel, +indeed, that we ought to--at your age. I only wanted first to know how +you felt upon the matter. You see," he added, hesitating, "people are +beginning to talk; and it won't do." + +This oblique and cautious reference to his son's private life marked a +new stage in their relations: it was actually the first occasion, in all +their intercourse as father and son, upon which the sex-question had +ever been broached between them. It was no wonder, therefore, that so +far they had been rather strangers to each other. Now, however, having +decided to speak, the King also decided that he must go on and +interfere. It required some moral courage; for he had never failed to +recognize his son as the stronger character, and, especially in +intellectual matters, his superior. + +"I have been told that you have been keeping a mistress," he said, +avoiding the young man's eye. + +"That," answered Max, "would, I suppose, be the generally received +phrase for it." + +"Who is she?" queried the King, pushing hazardously on, now that the +danger-point had been reached. + +"Do you wish to meet her?" + +Parental dignity was offended. + +"That is a suggestion you ought not to make." + +"Then, my dear father, why inquire after her? She and I suit each other: +to you she is nothing." + +"How long has this been going on?" + +"We have lived together for five years." + +The King recalled a phrase that he had recently heard authoritatively +spoken--"a relationship of long standing. Morally, of course, that only +makes the matter worse." + +"H'm!" he said aloud. "You started early, I must say!" + +"You, sir, at that age were already a father," said Max correctively. + +The King made an interjectory movement, but the Prince went on. "I was +twenty, and I was still virginal. To speak frankly, I was amazed at +myself, perhaps even amused. Yes, even now I am inclined to think that, +among princes, my record must have been exceptional. This lady, to whom +I owe nearly the whole of my domestic experience, saved me from an +adventuress----" + +The King lifted his eyebrows. + +"One," went on the Prince, "who would have wrung from me in a single +year far more, from a merely monetary point of view, than the whole +experience has yet cost me." + +The King was slightly bewildered. "This person," he said tentatively, +"is not, then, of the adventuress class?" + +"Nor was that other: by class she was one of the highest of our +aristocracy. I believe that when she is received at Court it is correct +etiquette for you to kiss her upon the cheek. The lady who did actually +befriend me was her companion and secretary, an Austrian by birth. She +had divorced her husband and possessed only a small annuity on which she +was unable to live independently in the style to which she had become +accustomed. Yet for the first year of our liaison she would accept from +me no provision, and we saw each other but seldom. Strange as it may +seem she taught me the value and the charm of conjugal moderation and +fidelity. Just now she is receiving a visit from her son, on leave from +his military services abroad; and respecting the ordinary moral +conventions, which happen also to be hers, I do not go to see her while +the son's visit is being paid. Yet I apprehend that he cannot be in +ignorance of the facts." + +"She has a grown-up son?" queried the King, still a little puzzled; and +Max smiled. + +"A polite way," said he, "of inquiring as to her age. Yes: she is on the +verge of forty, and assures me that she will soon be showing it. You may +be interested also to hear that she is a Roman Catholic, has attacks of +devoutness which occasionally prescribe separation, and has twice +threatened, not in anger but with a most sincere reluctance, to break up +our peaceful establishment. I recognize that in the end her love for her +Church will probably prove stronger than her love for me--at all events +in practice. I have, indeed, some apprehension that her son's visit may +result in a turning of the balance, since he has now inherited his +father's property and can give his mother the position she has a right +to expect. If that should be so, you will find me very attentive to any +offer of marriage that any Court of western civilization (which now +includes Japan) may have to make. Have I said, sir, all that you wish to +know about my feelings in the matter?" + +"What I don't understand," said the King, "is your idea about the +morality of all this." + +"Really," replied the Prince, "I hardly know that I have any. It has +gone on so long; and anything that is regular and of long standing tends +to produce a moral feeling." + +This arrested the King's attention. "You think so?" he interrogated; but +Max waived any decisive pronouncement. + +"Perhaps," said he, "I do not quite know what morality means. I fancy +sometimes that its full meaning may be sprung upon me when I find myself +in love; or, if I am not destined to undergo that experience, on the day +when I learn that I am to become a father without having intended it. +Morality arises out of the proper or improper performance of social +obligations; and I have sometimes wondered whether society's most insane +treatment of illegitimacy would not have compelled me into a misalliance +with my 'mistress,' as you call her, had she ever----" + +"Max!" cried the King, "you are outrageous!" + +"Is that really how it strikes you?" inquired his son. "I feared, +rather, that it was an inexpugnable remnant of my religious training. If +the notion is anarchic I can feel more at home with it. But do not +forget that I am a doctor of divinity." + +"You!" exclaimed the King. + +"Had it escaped your recollection, sir? I confess that sometimes it +escapes mine. Yes: I became a D.D. before I was sent down from College." + +"You were not 'sent down'!" + +"Not ostensibly, sir; I should have been. I left to take up my +military--accomplishments, for I may not call them 'duties.' But you can +hardly forget that I am the only man who ever dared to screw up the +Master of Pentecost in his own rooms. While my associates were screwing +up the Dean, I was screwing up the Master; it was one of my earliest +attempts to be companionable with my fellow-men." + +The King sympathized, but was puzzled. "Do you mean--with the Master?" + +"No, sir, with my fellow-students, those of my own years, amongst whom I +had been placed. But I found that it was impossible. They, for the +lesser offense, were actually 'sent down'; I, having finished my thesis +and obtained my doctor's degree, was merely passed on at a slightly +accelerated pace to receive fresh honors. That gave me a lesson which I +have never forgotten; no honor that has come to me have I ever fully +earned; and no disgrace that I have earned has ever been visited upon me +for the public to know. There in a nutshell you have the moral training +of the heir to a modern throne. What chance, then, have I to know +anything about morality?" + +"My dear son," said the King, "don't say these dreadful things. Even if +they are true, don't say them. They do no good." + +But though he deprecated having to meet such thoughts clothed in the +flesh of speech, he was really very much interested to find that Max had +them; he was seeing his son in a new light. And meanwhile the Prince +went on-- + + +IV + +"I often think, sir, of those two medieval institutions which we have +now lost--I suppose irrevocably--the whipping boy and the court jester. +What a pity that they cannot be revived! The whipping boy, a device to +put princes on their honor to be neither negligent nor wanton in the +fulfilment of their duties; and the jester to break us of our too +self-conscious airs and exhibit to us our follies. See what we have done +instead! When our growing sense of priggish decorum and our dishonest +ceremoniousness of speech made the jester a figure no longer possible, +we substituted for him the poet-laureate!--not to persuade us of our +follies, but to chant our undeserved praises. And alas, how much more +ridiculous, at certain times, he has made us appear--nay, be! With what +lecherous sweetness or ponderous grief he has put us to bed with our +wives or our ancestors, with what maudlin sentiment he has crooned over +us in our cradles! And how poor a show we present when poetry thus tries +to make our ordinary human doings appear so different from those of +other men! England set us that bad example; and, as usual, we followed +her. Only think how far more resplendent might have been her history had +the Court of St. James's continued and developed the institution of the +jester and let the laureateship go. If Pope could only have had the +teasing of Queen Anne, and Swift the goading of the earlier Georges; if +Johnson could have bumbled gruff wisdom into the ears of number three; +and, following upon these, could Sheridan, and Hook, and Carlyle, and +Sidney Smith (I pick up names almost at random) have had a really +assured position and full plenary indulgence as commentators on the +Court and aristocracy of the Regency, and of the early Victorian period +which culminated in that middleman's millennium, the Great Exhibition, +with its Crystal Palace so shoddily furnished to celebrate the +expurgation of art from industry. If only that could have been allowed, +think how England might have been standing now--honest in her faults as +in her virtues, a beacon light to the whole world. But there! it is no +use wishing such saving grace to a rival nation, when we are so out of +grace ourselves." + +Prince Max paused for breath. "And then the whipping boy," he went on, +"think of him!" + +"Yes, Max. I am thinking of him a good deal!" said the King, in a tone +wherein sarcasm and indulgence were pleasantly blended. + +"You mean that I myself need the discipline?" smiled Max, "that my +political ideas are even worse than my morals? Well, here is what you +should do. Choose for me an exemplary young priest of the Established +Church, let him be gentle and comely to attract the hearts of women, +athletic and erudite to command the respect of men; and when I become a +cause of scandal or forget what is due to my position, let him be set to +stand in the old stocks at the doors of the Cathedral on a given day, +for a given number of hours; let it be announced in the Court Circular +that he is there to do penance for my sins, and let it be my privilege, +if penitent, to come in person after the first hour and release him +before the eyes of all. What more effective form of control could you +devise for me than this? How could I remain impenitent and unsubmissive +when for my faults an innocent man stood exposed in contumely to the +public gaze? Sir, you would have me exemplary in a week, or a fugitive +from that country which set so high a standard of honor for its princes. +As it is, our whipping boys go unlabeled with our names; and our +offenses are expiated by countless thousands who know not for whose sins +they suffer." + +"Max," said his father, "you sound as if you were quoting from some +book." + +"I am," answered the Prince; "it is one that I am writing myself, that +being the only form of free action that is left to me. At the threshold +of manhood I recognized what my fate was to be, and that I was not +really intended to do anything. That is why I talk. Activity is +necessary to me. To keep myself in physical vigor I run about and play; +to keep myself in mental vigor I read, I examine life, and I propound +theories. This book which I am now writing would probably excite no +comment if published anonymously, but will be regarded as revolutionary +when it is known to have been written by the heir to a crown." + +"Do you mean to publish it, then?" cried the King in awestruck tone. + +"Certainly," answered the Prince. "Has not the nation every right to +know the opinions of its possible future King? Never shall it be said +that Jingalo accepted me blindly under the dark cover of heredity." + +At this news the King looked really aghast. "And you propose, while I am +spending myself in trying to add luster----" he began, then checked +himself; "you propose to publish a work which may destroy the confidence +at present subsisting between the sovereign and the people?" + +"Would not false confidence be a worse alternative, sir?" inquired Max. + +"But you are doing it in my time," said the King plaintively; "it is my +reign you are disturbing, not your own. I don't think you have any +right." + +"My dear father," answered the Prince, "the more impossible I prove +myself to be, the more popular you will become." + +But the King was not to be consoled by that prospect; he was working not +for himself alone--not for himself, indeed, at all. + +"Max," he said earnestly, "believe me, monarchy, even at the present +day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the +public mind, and you unsettle the basis of government and the sacredness +of property; everything else goes with it. The hereditary principle has +in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; +nothing can adequately take its place." + +"Do not forget, sir," said his son, "that if we follow our heredity back +far enough, ours is an elected monarchy. And if once you admit election +you must admit also the right of the to-be-elected one to offer or +refuse his candidature. The nation cannot play fast and loose, as it has +done, with the principle of male primogeniture, and at the same time +impose upon us, its candidates for election, an unavoidable obligation +to accept the burden of heredity. No; let us have the matter quite +clear. If the people--as they have done by others in the past--claim the +right to reject me, should I prove myself an outrageous and impossible +character, I equally claim the right to reject them; and I must see them +capable of making a reasonable use of my services before I will consent +to be made use of." + +"Well," said the King, breathing in resignation, "I suppose I ought not +to mind too much. 'After me the Deluge,' is a wise enough saying when +one has no power to prevent it." + +"'After me the Deluge,'" said Max, "has come down to us with a muddled +application. If monarchy would only adopt it as its motto, monarchy +would be good for another thousand years. Louis XV said it; and Louis +XVI failed to give it effect. Had he but placed himself at the head of +the Deluge, in the very forefront of its rush and roar, waved his hat to +it and cried: 'After me!' like a captain to his company, and started off +at a gallop, it would have obeyed and followed him. 'After me the +Deluge!' should be the rallying cry of the monarchy for the renewal of +its youth, not the quavering note of its dotage. That is the motto I am +going to put on the title-page of my book." + +"Good gracious!" cried the King. + +Max was pleased to see what an impression he had made: he did not +usually get so good a listener. "And to think," said he, "that all this +talk came of your having asked me a question on a matter that is already +five years old. I am sorry to have taken up so much time explaining +myself." + +"On the contrary," said the King, "I am glad. Five years? Yes, I am very +glad to know that." He got up and moving to the table made a call on his +private telephone. "Would you mind waiting a few minutes," he went on, +"perhaps I shall need your countenance." + +A secretary answered the call; and presently the Comptroller-General +himself appeared to learn the royal pleasure. + +"I am sorry, my dear General," said the King, "to trouble you at so late +an hour. But about that matter of the widow--who is not a widow. I wish +fifty pounds to be sent to her--anonymously. Yes, fifty pounds. Will you +see that it is done to-night?" + +Turning to Max he said, as though referring to conversation already +passed, "You have effectually interested me in her case." + +Max saw that he was being used as a pawn in a game he did not +understand, and held his tongue; and the Comptroller-General, finding +himself dismissed, retired to do for once as he was told. + +And so, by the inglorious device of anonymity and lavishness combined +the King maintained his point, and sent his gift to the relief of one +who was, as a matter of fact, just as legally a widow as any other you +or I may like to name. + +John of Jingalo had not yet broken the official leading-strings, but on +this occasion he had circumvented them. Flushed with his triumph, he +bade his son an affectionate good-night. "Come and talk to me again," he +said. "I don't agree with anything you say, but you help me to think." + +It was a sign of progress. Hitherto he had relied, with a far greater +sense of security and comfort, on those who had enabled him not to +think. Consultation with Max, insidious as the drug-habit, and as +secretively employed, was henceforth to count for much in the +development of the Constitutional Crisis. Hereditary monarchy had +conceived the idea of turning its hereditary material to account. No +doubt the Cabinet would have objected, preferring to keep its victim in +complete mental isolation; but at present, the Cabinet did not know. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +POPULAR MONARCHY + + + + +I + +That talk with Max formed the preliminary to a month of the most +strenuous verbal and intellectual conflict that the King had ever known. +Outside all was calm: the Constitutional Crisis was in suspension; by +agreement on both sides hostilities had been deferred till trade should +have reaped its full profit out of the Silver Jubilee celebrations. The +papers spoke admiringly of this truce to party warfare as "instinctive +loyalty" on the part of the people, "expressive of their desire to do +honor to a beloved sovereign in a spirit undisturbed by the contending +voices of faction." + +There was no "instinctive loyalty," however, within the Cabinet! While +streets were decorating and illuminations preparing, ministers were +giving his Majesty a thoroughly bad time. + +In a way, of course, he brought it upon himself, for at the very next +Council meeting after his conversation with Max he did a thing which, so +far as his own reign was concerned, was absolutely without precedent: he +opened his mouth and spoke;--objected, contended, argued. And at the +sound of his voice uttering something more than mere formalities, +ministers sat up amazed, most of them very angry and scandalized at so +unexpected a reversion to the constitutional usages of a previous +generation. + +Not a word of all this leaked out. The whole thing was an admirable +example of that keeping-up of appearances on which bureaucratic +government so largely depends. And it was, if you come to think of it, a +very deftly arranged affair. There was the whole country bobbing with +loyalty, enthusiasm, and commercial opportunism; the Cabinet +unencumbered for a while by any parliamentary situation that could cause +anxiety, and correspondingly free to direct its energies elsewhere; and +there within the Council, and without a soul to advise him, was the +King, scuffling confusedly against the predatory devices of his +ministers. The poor man's knowledge of the Constitution was but scanty, +and his powers of argument were feeble, for from the day of his +accession the word "precedent" had governed him. Yet he had an idea, a +feeling, that he was now being forced into a wrong position; the +constitutional breath was being beaten out of his body, and he would +pass from his levees, from his receptions of foreign embassies and +addresses of loyalty and congratulation, to a conflict in Council which +reminded him of nothing so much as a "scrum" upon the football field. +Through one goal or another he was to be kicked--the exercise of the +Crown's prerogative to nominate Free Church Bishops, or the refusal to +exercise it. And whichever expedient he was driven to in the end, he +knew that on one side grandiloquent words would be written about his +fine instinct for the constitutional limitations or powers of monarchy, +and on the other, pained, but deeply respectful words of regret that he +had been so ill-advised by his ministers--or by others. Whichever side +loses, it is the football which wins the game. That, however, is merely +the spectator's point of view. The football only knows that it has been +kicked. Yet the King was well aware that in Parliament at any rate +appearances would be kept up; and that whatever corner of the field he +got kicked to, the blame for it would be laid, ostensibly, on others; +though, as a result, the monarchy to which it was his bounden duty to +"add luster" would be either strengthened or weakened: and what course +to take he really did not know. + +His mind, in consequence, was greatly troubled. Being of conservative +instincts he believed that, in the main, the Bishops were right and the +Prime Minister wrong. The Prime Minister had been harassing the country +with general elections; and the country had had about as many as it +could stand: yet without a fresh election no other ministry was +possible. And now, at a moment when the country was bent on profiting by +the revival in trade which the approaching celebrations had stimulated, +nothing would be so unpopular as a fresh ministerial crisis; and he +could have no doubt that, whatever the papers might pretend to say, the +odium of that crisis, if due to his own action, would fall eventually +upon himself. + +And the Prime Minister knew it! Yes, just at that juncture, resignation, +or the threat of it, had become an absolutely compelling card; and he +was playing it for all it was worth. Free Church Bishops were to be +promised for the ensuing year, or the Ministry would be bound to feel, +here and now, that his Majesty's confidence in it had been withdrawn. + +Resignation, aimed not against any opposing majority in Parliament, but +against the demur and opposition of the Crown itself--that fact in all +its political significance, with all its possible developments of danger +for the State and of humiliation for the monarchy, was daily pressing +its relentless weight against the King's scruples. The more unanswerable +it seemed the more angry he became, the more keenly did he feel that he +was being unfairly used. And then, one day, as he sat thinking at his +desk, all at once a new thought occurred to him, throwing a queer +radiance into his face, of joy mixed with cunning. And then, gradually, +it faded out and left a blank; the old expression of anxiety and +distrustfulness returned. He shook his head at himself, scared that such +a thought should ever have come into it. "No, no, it wouldn't do!" he +muttered. "Impossible." + +All the same he got up from his desk, and in deep cogitation began +walking about the room. The carpet with its rich variegated pattern, +like Max's conversation, helped him to think; until certain deliveries +of a royal courier from abroad came to divert his attention to more +particular and family affairs. + +Nevertheless his mind had again reverted to its vetoed notion when, an +hour later, on his way to the Queen's apartments he met the Princess +Charlotte tripping gaily along the corridor. She stopped to give him her +"return home" embrace. "How well you are looking, papa!" cried she, +admiring his flushed countenance. But the King, though he smiled, +remained preoccupied with the embryos of statecraft. + +"My dear," he said abruptly, "do you think that I am popular?" + +"Why, yes, papa, of course!" she said, opening sweet eyes at him. +"Doesn't everybody cheer you when you go anywhere?" + +"I think," said her father dubiously, lending his ears in fancy to the +sound, "I think that crowds get into the habit of cheering,--not because +they care for me, but just because there are a lot of them, and they +like to hear the sound of their own voices." + +"But sometimes you have quite small crowds," said his daughter, "and +still they cheer." + +"Yes, yes," he allowed, "so they do. Yes, even the nursemaids, I notice, +wave their handkerchiefs when I ride by them in the park. And I daresay +some of them do it because they are sorry for me." + +"Sorry for you, papa?" + +"My dear, wouldn't you be sorry to have to be King now-a-days? It's no +fun, I can assure you." + +"I wouldn't like to be King always," said Charlotte, with honesty; "but +you know, papa, with all the Silver Jubilee celebrations coming on you +are quite immensely popular." + +"Ah!" said the King. "Thank you, my dear, that is what I wanted to +know." + +He went on to the Queen's apartments, and Princess Charlotte stood +looking after him. "Poor dear!" she said to herself. She was sorry for +him too--very sorry just now; for she had a secret growing within her +somewhere between heart and head which, if he knew of it--and some day +he would have to know of it--would cause him a great deal of worry. + +This young woman with her growing secret was at that time twenty-three. + + +II + +The Princess Charlotte had a way of drawing in a breath as if to speak, +and then bottling it. This little performance was at times very telling +in its effect--it spoke volumes: it told of a long training in +self-repression which still did not come quite naturally: it told of +inward combustion, of a tightly cornered but still independent mind. +Ladies-in-waiting had seen the Princess run out of her mother's presence +to tabber her feet on the inlaid floor of the corridor, thence to return +smooth, sweet-tempered, and amiable; for between Charlotte and the Queen +there were temperamental differences which had to declare themselves or +find safety through emergency exits. + +The Princess had no such difficulties with her father, for +imperturbability was not one of his characteristics, and +imperturbability was the one quality in a parent which the Princess +simply could not stand; it made her feel powerless; and to feel +powerless toward one's intellectual inferiors is, to certain +temperaments, maddening. Charlotte had long since been brought to +recognize that her mother, in her own dear way, was quite hopeless: but +she was able with astonishing ease to get upon her father's nerves and +to trouble his conscience; for while the Queen remained impervious to +all influences outside the conventions of her training and her habits, +the King was as open to new scruples of conscience as a sieve is to the +wind--fresh ideas rattled in his head like green peas in a +cullender--when he shook his head it seemed to shake them about, and all +the larger ones came uppermost; and the Princess Charlotte had in recent +years acquired a habit of entangling her father, with the most engaging +simplicity, in moral problems for which constitutional monarchy could +find no answer. + +She was evidently interested in politics, and when of late the King, +wishing to check so dangerous a tendency, had sought to know the reason +why, she had answered with perfect frankness: "Max says" (for to her, +also, Max, the man born to inaction, had been talking), "Max says he is +not sure if he means to come to the throne. If he doesn't, it is just as +well I should know something of the business." + +The young lady had a most disrespectful way of talking about the +monarchy as "the business," and did not say it as if in joke. + +"Are you going to business to-day, papa?" was actually the phrase +uttered in all seriousness, which had met him one of the days when he +went down to open Parliament. But though she spoke thus gracelessly of +an important State function she attended it herself with grace, and +behaved well. + +The Princess Charlotte had learned many things alien to her nature; but +she had never learned that correctitude of deportment which is supposed +to accompany all those born in the regal purple from the cradle to the +grave. She substituted for it, however, something much more individual +and charming. Tall and abundantly alive, she moved in soft rushes +rather quicker than a walk; and her manner of swimming down a room, with +swift invisible run of feet, and just three long undulating bows on the +top of all--those three doing duty for so many--was a sight on the +decorum of which Court opinion was sharply divided. Yet every one +admitted that though she might lack convention or anything in the least +resembling "the grand manner"--she had a style of her own; many +also--even those who disapproved--admitted her charm. As she talked to +her chosen intimates, her two hands would go out in quick bird-like +gestures of momentary contact, while her brightly moving face gave a +constant invitation to the free entry of her thoughts. Barriers she had +none. A dangerous young person for getting her own way; for in the +process she often got not only her own but other people's as well. + +At the moment when she makes her introductory bow from the pages of this +history her main and consuming desire was to secure the ordering of her +own dresses; and to obtain that preliminary measure of independence for +the expression of her own character she was prepared, in the face of +maternal opposition, to go to considerable lengths. + +The King when he met her in the corridor was, as we have said, +preoccupied with affairs of State. But his preoccupation was partly put +on with intent for the concealment of other thoughts. The sight of his +daughter at that moment, embarrassed him--gave him, indeed, almost a +sense of guilt, for he held in his hand a letter from the Hereditary +Prince of Schnapps-Wasser accepting the circuitously worded proposal, +with all its delicate adumbrations of yet other proposals to follow, +that he should visit the Jingalese Court early in the ensuing +year--immediately, that is to say, upon his return from South America; +and though in his reply the veiled object of that visit was not +mentioned there was a touch here and there of compliment, of warmth, of +a wish that the date were not so far off, which indicated "a coming on +disposition." + +And so, under the bright eyes of his daughter, the King was conscious of +a sense of guilt, in that he was concealing from her something in which +her future was very greatly concerned. It seemed hardly fair thus to be +pushing matters on without letting her know: and yet--what else could he +do? So, covering his affectionate embarrassment in inquiries about +himself, he shuffled past; and when he had gone a little further, turned +to take another look at her, and found, startled, that she too was +looking at him. There, at opposite ends of the long corridor, father and +daughter stood interrogatively at gaze, each feeling a little guilty, +each wondering what, at the dénouement, the other would say. Then the +charming Charlotte blew him a kiss from her hand, and his Majesty did +likewise; and, off to the fulfilment of her destiny went the Princess; +and off to his fulfilment of her destiny went he; each quite sure in +their two different ways that they knew what was best for her. + + +III + +The King found the Queen at her knitting, very placid and contented and +well pleased with herself, for she had just been giving Charlotte a mild +talking to. Charlotte had come home with adjectives in her mouth of +which the Queen did not approve, and with enthusiasms that went +riotously beyond bounds. She had talked of some Professor's translation +of a Greek play as "glorious"; and of the play itself--a play all about +expatriated women who, their proper husbands having been killed in a +siege, were forced to accept at the hands of their enemies husbands of a +less proper kind--she had talked of that play as "the most immense, +immortal, and modern thing in all drama." + +"I told her," said the Queen, "that she was talking about what she +didn't understand; but she answered that she had seen it three times. +_I_ said, that to go and see the same play three times--especially a +play with murders in it--showed a morbid taste. She didn't seem to mind: +'Then I _am_ morbid,' was her reply. And when I said, 'That comes of +making friends with these intellectual women,' she only laughed at me. I +shan't let her go again, it is doing her harm; she has far too many +ideas, far too many: and where she picks them all up I'm sure I don't +know; she doesn't get them from me!" + +And then the conversation--though Charlotte remained its subject--took +another turn, for the King put into his wife's hand the letter he had +received from the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser, and immediately her +comments began. + +"He writes a nice hand," she said, "and expresses himself very well. +Speaks of writing a book on his travels; he must be clever. Well, at all +events, it's very evident that he means to come, and wants to. We must +ask him to send his photograph. I think, my dear, we have made a very +good choice, and Charlotte may consider herself very fortunate. But what +a pity he's not coming sooner. Well, Charlotte must wait, that's all!" + +And so in her own mind the matter was settled, and only the usual +details waited to be arranged. She handed the letter back to him. + +"Of course," she said, "before he comes Charlotte must have a bigger +allowance." She became meditative. "By the way, you had better leave it +in my hands; don't give it to Charlotte herself. She wheedles you, I +know; but she has ideas about dress which I am not going to encourage; +she makes herself far too noticeable as it is. Somebody has been talking +to her about 'national costume' and the folly of fashions; and she +actually said just now that she wanted to have some kind of dress that +she could wear three years running! I told her that fashions were made +to be followed, and that it was her duty to follow them. Oh, she was +quite sweet about it, and said she supposed I knew best, which of course +is true. But she had a sort of 'I'll ask papa' look in her eyes that +made me suspicious. She went out just before you came." + +"I met her," observed the King. + +"And she said nothing?" + +"Not a word about her dress allowance." + +"Ah, that's all right, then: she takes what I tell her sometimes." Then +with a quick glance the Queen asked abruptly: "Have you seen Max?" + +"I fancy I may be seeing him this evening," returned the King casually, +for he wished to conceal even from his wife the importance he had begun +to attach to his son's visits. + +"Something is happening," said the Queen pointedly; "at least, so I am +informed. That--that person I told you about--she isn't there now." + +"However do you come to know that?" inquired the King, surprised; but +his question was ignored. + +"She has gone abroad," went on his informant. "Had you said anything to +Max?" + +"I did speak to him." + +"Then it seems to have had its effect." + +The King very much doubted whether the effect was any of his doing; but +he held his peace. + +"Now we must find somebody for him," continued the dear lady, covering +the past in a tone of charitable allowance. + +"I think that Max will find somebody for himself." + +But this was not to her taste at all. "How can he," she objected, +"unless we send him abroad? I'm sure there's nobody here." + +But the King had come recently to know more about Max than his wife did. +"Max will find somebody for himself," he repeated; "and if he thinks it +worth while, he will go all round the world on a wild goose chase to +look for her." + + +IV + +Could the King only have known it, Max had already found his choice +nearer home. His domestic arrangements having been temporarily disturbed +by a certain lady's departure to visit her son on his estates, he had +gone off on a spurt of social curiosity to inspect the slums of his +father's capital, and on the third day of his investigation had spied, +under a nursing sister's habit, and above a gentle breast bearing an +ivory cross, the face of his dreams. Having taken scientific steps to +discover whether that particular garb entailed celibate vows, and +learning that it did not, he had industriously run its wearer to sainted +earth--had, that is to say, pursued her to a top-floor tenement and +there found her upon her knees with sanitary zeal scrubbing dirt from +the boards of poverty; and poverty upon its bed whimpering with rage and +feebly cursing her for thus coming to disturb its peace. Thus they had +met, and very promptly and practically had the wearer of the habit made +him pay the price for his intrusion by setting him there and then to +work of a kind he had never tackled before. + +Who she was, and all the sacred dance that she led him on holy feet, +before she gave him that reward which was his due, will be told in the +later pages of this history. For the present Max had hardly any idea how +pure and deep a Jordan he was about to be dipped in, or how thorough a +scrubbing he himself was to receive. His voice was still like the +rollings of Abana and Pharpar, when he came on this next evening to +discourse up-to-date wisdom in his father's ears; not a hair of his +well-groomed head showed the ruffling of perturbed thoughts within, nor +were his self-confidence and easy satisfaction in the moral and mental +liberties wherein he ranged at large in any way diminished or disturbed. + +When they had settled down to their talk, the King confidentially +broached the proposed visit of the Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wasser +and its intended significance. Max did not seem particularly impressed. +"What does Charlotte say about it?" he inquired casually. + +"Charlotte does not say anything. How should she? She does not yet +know." + +Max smiled. "It will be time, then, to talk about it when she does." + +"But there is really nobody else; and Charlotte must marry somebody." + +"Has she said so?" inquired Max. "My own impression is that she will +have to get through at least one good healthy love affair of her own +before she settles down to anything you or the Courts of Europe can +provide. After that--if you let her plunge deep enough--you won't have +any trouble; she will marry anything you offer. Of course, if you really +believed in monarchy as a principle, and not as a mere expedient--a +divine institution, and not as the last ditch in which the old +class-barriers have to be maintained--you would let her marry any one +she chose. It would do the monarchy no harm, and might do it good." + +The King shook his head. "It's no use talking like that," said he. "We +are not free, any of us. The more other ranks of society have become +mixed, commercially mixed--for you know it is money that has done +it--the more we must maintain ours. Royalty must not barter itself +away." + +"But you _do_ barter it," said Max, "for rank if not for gold. And the +one is really as base as the other. The great game for royalty to play +now-a-days is courageous domesticity." + +"There are limits," replied his father. "We must maintain our position." + +"That is just where you make the mistake," retorted Max. "You and my +dear mother are always ready to play the domestic game where it is not +important. You allow photographs of your private life to be on sale in +shop-windows; charming private details slip out in newspaper paragraphs; +one of you behaves with natural and decent civility to some ordinary +poor person, and news of it is immediately flashed to all the press. Two +years ago, for instance, when you were triumphantly touring the United +States you arrived by some accident at a place called New York; and +there, early one morning, having evaded the reporters, you stood looking +up at the sky-scrapers when you trod on an errand-boy's toe, or knocked +his basket out of his hand; and having done so you touched your hat and +apologized--you a King to an errand-boy! And immediately all America, +which yawps of equality and of one man being the equal of any other, +fell rapturously in love with you! You, I daresay, have forgotten the +incident?" + +"Quite," said the King. + +"But America remembers it. When you left, with all the locusts of the +press clinging to the wheels of your chariot, they dubbed you 'conqueror +of hearts'; and it was mainly because you had knocked over an errand-boy +and apologized to him. Now you do these things naturally; but they are +all really part of the business: your secretaries report them to the +press." + +"What?" exclaimed the King, startled. + +"Why, of course! The errand-boy didn't know you from Adam, and no one +but your private secretary was with you at the time; at least, so I +gathered: it was before breakfast and you had given the detectives the +slip. Well, then, merely by letting your human nature and your sense of +decency have free play you help to run the monarchic system--you almost +make a success of it. But you stop just where you ought to go on. You +are natural--you are yourself--where there is no opposition to your +being so. If you would go on being natural where there _is_ +opposition--where all sorts of high social and political reasons step in +and forbid--you would find yourself far more powerful than the +Constitution intended you to be, for you would have the people with you. +There is a mountain of sentiment ready to rush to your side if you only +had the faith to call it to you. Have you not noticed, whenever a royal +engagement is announced, how every paper in the land declares it to be a +real genuine love-match? And you know--well, you know. I myself can +remember Aunt Sophie crying her eyes out for love of the Bishop of +Bogaboo whom she fell in love with at a missionary meeting and wasn't +allowed to marry; and six weeks later her engagement to Prince +Wolf-im-Schafs-Kleider was announced as a sudden and romantic +love-match! Why, he had only been sent for to be looked at when the +Bogaboo affair became dangerous; and so Aunt Sophie was coerced into +that melancholy mold of a jelly which she has retained ever since. + +"Now that is where my grandfather showed himself out of touch with the +spirit of the age. Had he allowed Aunt Sophie to marry the Bishop and go +out during the cool months of the year to teach Bogaboo ladies the use +of the crinoline--it was just when crinolines were going out of fashion +here, and they could have got them cheap--he would have done a most +popular stroke for the monarchy." + +"But you forget, my dear boy," said the King, "the Bogaboos were at that +time a really dangerous tribe--they still practised cannibalism." + +"Yes, they still had their natural instincts unimpaired; the Christian +substitute of gin had not yet taken hold on them, and their national +institution still provided the one form of useful martyrdom that was +left to us. Had Aunt Sophie, or her husband, been eaten by savages there +would have been a boom in missions, and both the Church and the monarchy +would have benefited enormously. Royalty must take its risks. Kings no +longer ride into battle at the head of their armies: even the cadets of +royalty, when they get leave to go, are kept as much out of danger as +possible. But if royalty cannot lead in something more serious than the +trooping of colors and the laying of foundation-stones, then royalty is +no longer in the running. + +"Now what you ought to do is--find out at what point it would break with +all tradition for you to be really natural and think and act as an +ordinary gentleman of sense and honor, and then--go and do it! The +Government would roll its eyes in horror; the whole Court would be in +commotion; but with the people generally you would win hands down!" + +"Max, you are tempting me!" said the King. + +"Sir," said his son, "I cannot express to you how great is my wish to be +proud of your shoes if hereafter I have to step into them. Could you not +just once, for my sake, do something that no Government would +expect--just to disturb that general smugness of things which is to-day +using the monarchy as its decoy?" + +The King gazed upon the handsome youth with eyes of hunger and +affection. "What is it that you want me to do?" he inquired. + +Max held out his cigar at arm's length, looked at it reflectively, and +flicked off the ash. + +"Don't do that on the carpet!" said his father. + +Max smiled. "That is so like you, father," he said; "yes, that is you +all over. You don't like to give trouble even to the housemaid. Now when +you see things going wrong you ought to give trouble--serious trouble, I +mean. You ought, in vulgar phrase, to 'do a bust.' + +"When I was a small boy," he went on, "I used to read fairy stories and +look at pictures. And there was one that I have always remembered of a +swan with a crown round its neck floating along a stream with its beak +wide open, singing its last song. To me that picture has ever since +represented the institution of monarchy going to its death. The crown, +too large and heavy to remain in place, has slipped down from its head +and settled like a collar or yoke about its neck. Its head, in +consequence, is free, and it begins to sing its 'Nunc dimittis.' The +question to me is--what 'Nunc dimittis' are we going to sing? I do not +know whether you ever read English poetry; but some lines of Tennyson +run in my head; let me, if I can remember, repeat them now-- + + "'The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul + Of that waste place with joy + Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear + The warble was low, and full, and clear; + And floating about the under-sky, + Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole + Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear; + But anon her awful jubilant voice, + With a music strange and manifold, + Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold; + As when a mighty people rejoice + With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold!' + +"That, my dear father, is the song I wish to hear you singing--that I +want to take up, I in my turn after you. I want your voice now to be +awful and jubilant, and your carol to be 'free and bold' like the carol +of that dying bird; and the sound of it to be like the rejoicing of a +mighty people on a day of festival." + +The King shook his head. "My dear boy," he said, "I don't understand +poetry; I never did." + +"Well," said the son, "let me interpret it then into prose. Monarchy as +an institution is dying, and it can either die in foolish decrepitude, +or it can die mightily, merging itself in democracy for a final blow +against bureaucratic government. All that is written in my book. That is +why I am now able to express myself so well: these periods are largely a +matter of quotation. The right rôle for monarchy to-day is, believe me, +to be above all things democratic--not by truckling to the ideas of the +people in power--the 'ruling classes' as they still call themselves--but +by daring to be human and natural, and to refuse absolutely to be +dehumanized on the score of its high dignity and calling. + +"If, for instance, I came to you to-day and said I wanted to marry one +of my own nation--say even a commoner--in preference to the daughter of +some foreign princeling, let me do it! It breaks with a foolish +tradition--largely our own importation when, as foreigners, we were +seeking to keep up our prestige--it may annoy or even embarrass the +Government. Well! have they not annoyed and embarrassed you?" + +The King nodded sympathetically, but in words hastened to correct +himself. "One has often to make sacrifices in defense of an +institution," he said. "That is a duty we both owe." + +"Why," inquired the Prince, "should I make sacrifices to an institution +I do not really approve? Why should I pretend to love some foreign +princess if I have given my heart to one--I cannot say of my own +race--for I remember that we are an importation--but of the country of +my adoption? Do you really suppose that because it annoys the Prime +Minister and disturbs his political calculations, an alliance within +those artificially prohibited degrees imposed on royalty will lessen the +influence of the Crown by a straw's weight, or quicken its demise by an +hour? This country, like all civilized countries, is moving towards some +form of republican government. If we are sufficiently human, if we show +ourselves determined to call our souls our own--it is not merely +possible, it is probable, that when the change comes we shall be called +on by popular acclaim to provide the country with its first President. +If we did we could secure for that presidency a greater power and +prestige than any bureaucratic government would willingly concede. It +may be that the real counter-stroke to the present increase of Cabinet +control can most effectively be administered by a monarch who is not too +careful to preserve the outward forms of monarchy. When that is done, by +you, or by me, or by one who comes after us, I am confident that there +will be the sound of a people's rejoicing." + +"You have strange ideas," said the King, "for one who calls himself a +monarchist." + +"I am a republican," said the young man. + +The King stared at him as though at some strange animal. "You don't say +so!" he murmured half aghast. "Supposing the Prime Minister were to find +out." + +"He will soon," said the Prince. "I shall be sending him a copy of my +book on the day of publication." + +The King shook his head warningly. Then he smiled, a shy nervous smile. +"It would be very awkward," he said slowly, "very awkward indeed, if you +happened to come to the throne just now. I really don't know what +Brasshay would do. But it's too late for me to begin that sort of +thing--far too late now." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CHURCH AND STATE + + + + +I + +All this while other swan-songs were in preparation to be forced down +other throats (and thence presently to be rejected); forced with that +gentle air of persuasion which rears its lying front over all forms of +"peaceful picketing." Starvation and stuffing were the two methods to be +employed. + +While the Government was picketing the King with threats of withdrawal +from office, and the Labor Party the Government with threats of a +national strike, the Government was preparing to picket the Bishops by a +process of forcible feeding--a plethora of their own kind be thrust upon +them--of their own kind but of a very different persuasion. And now at +last the Bishops understood that the doubling of their dioceses was but +a device of Machiavellian subtlety for the halving of their +temporalities. + +The Bishops had just opened their holy mouths to protest when the +approach of the Jubilee festivities shut them up. The Church of Jingalo +was on a tight and established footing, and had to conform to the +commercial, conventional, and constitutional requirements of its day; +for you cannot, if you are by law established, play fast and loose with +those institutions on which a nation bases its prosperity. So even when +the Government proposed the creation of demi-mondain bishops, and the +setting up of what amounted to a second establishment in the upper +chamber of its spiritual spouse, the outward proprieties were still +observed, and the sanctities of national interests respected. It is true +that the Bishop of Olde, lifting from his bed a burden of ninety years, +climbed up into the central pulpit of his diocese to preach a sermon +which was ecstatically applauded by all Churchmen, and committed +thereafter to the keeping of a carefully selected few. It won for him +the affectionate nickname of "Never-say-die" and put his followers into +a hole from which they never afterwards emerged. And so the Bishops +entered into the loyal silence of the Jubilee truce with a flush of +conscious rectitude upon their faces; while behind closed doors the +Prime Minister and the Primate Archbishop of Ebury had met to talk +business, to drive conditional bargains, and to kill time till such +other time as seemed good to them. + +They met at the town-residence of the one Bishop of the Establishment +who had lent a favorable ear to the Prime Minister's proposals. +Boycotted by his brother Bishops this solitary pelican in piety was +still on terms of official acquaintance with his titular head. Placing +his well-stored nest at the disposal of the two combatants, he retired +for a discreet week-end into the wilderness; and the Prime Minister and +the Archbishop, after announcing in the press that they also had gone +elsewhere, came together by appointment for the indication of ultimatums +and the fixing of dates when ju-jitsu was to commence. + +When the Prime Minister arrived his Grace the Primate, attended by his +chaplain, was already in the house. An ecclesiastical butler carried +word to the chaplain, and the chaplain carried it to the oratory. + +The Archbishop finished his prayer; it served the double purpose of +strengthening him in his resolve to present a firm front that for the +time being could do no harm, and of keeping his opponent waiting. The +effect did not quite come off. Under that enforced attendance, the Prime +Minister had turned his back on the door, and wrapt in contemplation of +the book-shelves stood as though unaware that the Primate had made his +state entry. It was a pity that he should have missed it. + +The Archbishop came into the room bearing in his hands a large Bible, +subscribed for and presented to him by a general assembly of Church +clergy and laity when the constitutional crisis first began to loom +large. It was fitting, therefore, that it should now accompany him to +the field of battle. Corners of silver scrollwork, linked together by +bands and clasps of the same metal, adorned its surface, and over the +glowing red of its Venetian leather binding, lambs, lions, eagles, +doves, and pelicans stood lucently embossed, bearing upon their +well-drilled shoulders the sacred emblems and mottoes of the +ecclesiastical party. More important and more central than these showed +the proud heraldic bearings of the metropolitan see of Ebury, crowned +with a miter which its occupant never wore, and a Cardinal's hat for +which he was no longer qualified. + +All these collective sources of inspiration the Archbishop bore in +monstrant fashion with hands raised and crossed, and, moving to the +strategic position he had previously selected, set down upon the table +before him. While thus designing his way he exchanged formal salutation +with his antagonist. + +"And now, sir," said he, bowing himself to a seat, "now I am entirely at +your disposal." + +"And I at yours," said the Prime Minister. + +But the Archbishop corrected him. "I am here, I take it, rather to be +informed of the latest novelties in statecraft than to admit that any +fresh standpoint upon our side has become possible." Slowly and solemnly +he rested his hands upon the presentation volume as he spoke; across +that barrier, representative of the spiritual forces at his back, his +small diplomatic eyes twinkled with holy zeal. He was an impressive +figure to look at, and also to hear: over six feet in height, with dark +hair turned silver, of a ruddy complexion, portly without protuberance, +and with a voice of modulated thunder that could fill with ease, twice +in one day, even the largest of his cathedrals. As a concession to the +world he wore flat side-whiskers, as a concession to the priestly office +he shaved his lip. By this compromise he was able to wear a cope without +offense to the Evangelicals,--his whiskers saving him from the charge of +extreme views. Under his rule, largely perhaps because of those +whiskers, peace had settled upon the Church; and in consequence it now +presented an almost united front to its political opponents. + +All his life he had been accustomed to command. Even in the nursery, as +the eldest child and only son of his parents, he had ruled his five +sisters with that prescriptive mastery which sex and primogeniture +confer. At school he had pursued his career of disciplinarian first as +"dowl-master," then as captain of teams, then as prefect with powers of +the rod over senior boys his superiors in weight. Continuing at the +University to excel in games, he became at twenty-four a class-master in +Jingalo's most famous public school. Marrying at thirty a lady of title, +he acquired the social touch necessary for his completion, and five +years later was appointed Head. Left a disconsolate widower at the age +of forty-seven, he drew dignity from his domestic affliction, received a +belated call to the ministry, took orders, and became Master of +Pentecost, only on the distinct understanding that a bishopric of +peculiar importance as a stepping-stone to higher things should be his +at the next vacancy. The vacancy occurred without any undue delay; and +from that bishopric, after three years of successful practice, he passed +at the age of fifty-five to the crowning grace of his present position. +Thence he was able to look back over a long vista of things successfully +done and heads deferentially bowed to his sway--deans, canons, priests, +sisters--a pattern training for a humble servant of that Master whose +Cross, as by law established, he was now helping to bear. Even the Prime +Minister, facing him with all his parliamentary majority at his back, +knew him for a redoubtable opponent. This fight had long ago been +foreseen by the Church party, and it was for the fighting policy he now +embodied that Dr. Chantry had received nine years previously his "call" +from collegiate to sacerdotal office. A large jeweled cross gleamed upon +his breast, and a violet waistcoat that buttoned out of sight betokened +the impenetrable resolution of his priestly character. + +"And now, sir, I am at your disposal," said he; and sat immovable while +the Prime Minister spoke. + + +II + +The Prime Minister's argument ran upon material and mathematical lines; +he imported no passion into the discussion,--there was no need. He had +at his disposal all that was requisite--the parliamentary majority, the +popular mandate, and, so he believed, the necessary expedient under the +Constitution for bringing the Church to heel. Episcopalianism no longer +commanded a majority of the nation; Church endowments had therefore +become the preserves of a minority, and scholarship by remaining +denominational was getting to be denationalized. Having laid down his +premises he proceeded to set forth his demands. Henceforth the +Universities were to be released from Church control, all collegiate and +other educational appointments to be open and unsectarian, scholarships +and fellowships, however exclusive the intentions of their pious +founders, were to follow in the same course; degrees of divinity were to +be granted irrespective of creed, and chairs of theology open to all +comers. + +At this point the Archbishop, who had hitherto sat silent, put in a +word. + +"That will include Buddhists and Mohammedans. Is such your intention?" + +The Prime Minister corrected himself. "I should, of course, have said +'all who profess themselves Christians.'" + +The Archbishop accepted the concession with an ironical bow. + +"Unitarians and Roman Catholics?" + +"That would necessarily follow." + +"I am ceasing to be amazed," said his Grace coldly. "We, the custodians +of theological teaching, are to admit to our endowments the two extremes +of heresy and of schism." + +"If both are admitted," suggested the Prime Minister, "will they not +tend to correct each other? We study history by allowing all sides to be +stated, and we admit to its chair both schools, the scientists and the +rhetoricians. Why, then, should not theology be studied on the same +broad lines?" + +"Will the chair of theology become a more stable institution," inquired +the Archbishop, "by being turned into a see-saw?" + +The Prime Minister smiled on the illustration, but his answer was edged +with bitterness. + +"That is a way of securing some movement at all events," he remarked +caustically. + +"The Church," retorted his Grace, "denies the need of such movement. Her +firm foundations--we have scriptural warrant for saying--are upon rock. +She is neither a traveling menagerie, a swingboat, nor a +merry-go-round." + +"Yet I have heard," said the Prime Minister, "that she takes a ship to +be her symbol, and one, in particular, very specially designed to be a +traveling menagerie--containing all kinds both clean and unclean." + +"The unclean," said the Archbishop, "were by divine dispensation placed +in a decisive minority." + +"Yet they shared, I suppose, the provisions of the establishment?" + +"They did not, I imagine, sit down at the table with the patriarch and +his family." + +"Perhaps the dogs ate of the crumbs?" + +"It is not 'crumbs' that you are seeking," said the Archbishop with +asperity. "From our chairs of theology we dispense to the Church the +bread of wisdom from which she draws sustenance; and you ask us to let +that source of her intellectual life become infected with microbes,--at +a time when latitudinarian doctrines are sapping the unity of the Church +and weakening her discipline, to allow their establishment as a +principle in our centers of learning and in our seats of divinity! What +claim to denounce heresy and schism will be left to the Church if in her +very government heretics and schismatic teachers receive posts of +influence, emolument, and authority? To what extremes may not the minds +of our students be led, to what destruction of ecclesiastical +discipline?" + +"If you will admit free teaching in the Universities," explained the +Prime Minister, "we shall not seek to touch your theological seminaries, +or to invade your orders by an infusion of fresh blood." + +"Invade our orders?" cried the Primate. "That you cannot do; no Bishop's +hands would bestow them!" and he drew back his own with a declamatory +gesture. "You yourself are not a Churchman, and you do not perhaps know +what to us the Church means. We hold in sacred trust the power of the +Keys--if we surrender those we surrender everything." + +"They are in a good many hands already," remarked the Prime Minister +blandly. "Episcopal power is not limited to the Church of Jingalo." And +then for the first time, as a pawn in the political game, the +Archimandrite was mentioned. The Archbishop could not believe his ears. +"You would not dare," he said. + +"I am sorry," replied the other, "that you should be under any such +misapprehension. Let me remind you that only a year ago you yourself +recommended him for an honorary benefice--a church that had not a +parish." + +"Yes, honorary; not with administrative powers." + +"Yet I fancy it was devised in order that at a later date you might +employ him--merely by accident as it were--for confirming the validity +of your orders." + +"While your device," said the Archbishop, "is to use him as a means for +placing schismatics in a position of control and authority. Sir, I say +to you that you would not dare. The nation will not allow it." + +"Time will show," replied the other smoothly. + +"Ah!" cried the Archbishop passionately; "you trust to time; I to the +power of the Eternal. If such an attempt is made to violate the body of +our Mother Church then I pronounce sentence of excommunication upon all +who take part in it." + +"It would have no legal effect," said the Prime Minister. "You miss the +point in dispute. We have not to discuss matters of faith and doctrine, +but only of government. If you prefer--if you will give us your +co-operation and consent--we are ready at any time to offer you the +alternative of disestablishment. It is a solution which for the moment I +do not press; but undoubtedly it would leave the spiritualities of the +Church more free. Your real fear, I have gathered, is that it would +prepare the way for extremes of doctrine, which you yourself cannot +countenance. The Church Triumphant, I am told, would run the risk of a +larger recognition than is allowed to it under present forms; and the +limitations imposed by a State connection are your most hopeful means of +retarding doctrinal development. Is not that so?" + +"We have not to discuss matters of doctrine," countered the Archbishop +stiffly, "but only of government. Our concern is not with the Church's +teachings but with her powers for enforcing them upon her own members." + +"Including," commented the Prime Minister, "what you have called 'the +power of the Keys.' That power you seek to extend over temporalities to +which we claim access; and to retain it you have in the past used +political means; we are using them to deprive you of that power. I +recognize that had your Grace occupied to-day the position of advantage +which is now mine, you would have used it--and with justification--for +the strengthening of your order; from the popular verdict you would have +had authority to deliver sentence against me. Upon the same ground I now +take the only sure means that are open to me to strengthen my own order +and to safeguard its future liberty." + +"What is your order?" smoothly inquired his Grace. + +"My order is the representative system, which voices the popular will." + +"Mine," said the Archbishop in richly reverberating tones, "is divine +revelation, which voices the will of God." + +"You claim a closer acquaintance with that Authority than I," remarked +the Prime Minister. "Yet I, too, have faith in the efficacy of its +workings." + +"We base our faith differently," retorted his Grace. "I have my +principles; you, as you have just boasted, have your opportunity. I do +not think that opportunities are of the same eternal character as +principles. To-morrow your opportunity which now seems to give you +power, may disappear. My principles will remain." + +"I shall always respect them, in their proper place. As an adornment to +the Church I am sure they will continue to shine. In the State they have +become an excrescence and an impediment." + +"You are pushing your definition of impediments rather far when you plan +a new thoroughfare, giving strangers the entrée to church premises." + +"It is really your definition of 'premises,'" said the Prime Minister, +"over which we are chiefly at issue. What right has the Church to regard +as strangers any who are baptized Christians?" + +The Archbishop seized his advantage exultingly. "I will only remind +you," said he, "of the Church Government Act--a measure of no ancient +date--by which Parliament forced the Church to expel from benefice those +who would not accept her discipline in matters of outward observance. +You yourself voted for that measure." + +The Prime Minister had to acknowledge the stroke; but he made light of +it. "I think that measure has already become obsolete. It was not put +very thoroughly into practice even at the beginning." + +"Let Parliament, then, admit its error," said the Archbishop, "and +abolish the act and the principle which it enshrines before proceeding +with other acts diametrically opposed to it. While the law claims a hold +over the Church, the Church claims to hold by existing law." + +"I may possibly, then, satisfy your Grace," insinuated the Premier, "if +presently I propose the restoration of certain Free Church ministers by +episcopal consecration to the fold from which they were expelled." + +The Archbishop rose to his feet, and raising the presentation Bible high +over his head brought it down upon the table with a bang. Then +instantaneously conceiving his mistake, he laid his hands over it in the +act of blessing. + +"Never!" he said firmly and solemnly, with ever deepening inflection of +tone, "never! never!" + +"It is a measure that might be avoided," conceded the Prime Minister. +"The alternative is before you. We have made you our offer." + +"You have offered," said the Archbishop, "an alternative which I am not +able to discuss. Roman Catholicism and Unitarianism in alternate doses +is the price you ask us to pay. The Church of Jingalo will accept +neither the Triple Crown nor an untriune Divinity as its guide." He drew +himself to his full height. "That, sir, is her answer." + +"So you really think," inquired the Prime Minister, "that yours and the +Church's voice are one?" + +"The blood of her martyrs," said the Archbishop, "has stained the very +steps of that throne from which under divine Providence I am +commissioned to speak with authority. I call on them to witness that +never in her hour of need shall the Church surrender her divine mission +to preach only pure doctrine and to defend the faith committed to the +saints." + +"I thought," said the Prime Minister, "that, officially at least, you +did not invoke the dead." + +"Sir, we have no need. Their record is our inheritance. It is they who +invoke us from an imperishable past." + +"Our discussion, then, seems to be at an end. We have gone back into the +middle ages." + +The Prime Minister, having got very much the answer he expected, here +rose and began buttoning his coat. "Well, Archbishop," said he, as he +thus trimmed himself to give a neat finish to the discussion, "before we +part I will put the question quite frankly: Is it to be peace or war?" + +"I am a servant of the Church Militant," answered his Grace. + +And then they compared notes and settled dates as to when war was to be +declared. Jingalo was about to exhibit to the world the continuity of +her institutions, and with her mind thus carried back to ancient times +modern controversy was an anachronism. + +It was on those historic grounds that they arranged their armistice; but +Recording Angels are more truthful than Archbishops or Prime Ministers; +and the Recording Angel, having listened to their conversation, was led +to set down upon his tables this notable memorandum--that on no account +were popular pageantry or trade interests to be disturbed during so +golden an opportunity as the Silver Jubilee. While that was going on +defense of Church and State must be relegated to obscurity. + + +III + +All this had taken place before the truce actually began (see, in fact, +Chapter II). How much, or rather how little the King had heard of it we +already know. How little the truce brought benefit to him we shall learn +more fully in later chapters. Still for the moment he was not without +comfort, for he had got Max to talk to. Every evening that they spent +together much talk went on; and the King sat infected and edified while +Maxian oratory flowed. + +"How is it," inquired his father, "that you have been able to think of +these things? I see them when you tell me; but how did they ever come to +enter your head?" + +"For some years," answered Max, "I had the advantage of being your +youngest son. Until I was twenty, two lives stood between me and the +succession, and while Stephen and Rupert were drilling I managed to get +educated." + +"Poor Rupert!" murmured his father, "he would have made a much better +King than either of us." + +"I don't think so," said Max. "He would merely have kept the monarchy to +its old lines--that means sticking in a rut. If the monarchy is to mean +anything it will have to move, not merely with the times but ahead of +them." + +"How can it move ahead of them?" + +"How otherwise can it lead? That is what the heads of the privileged +classes never seem to understand. Look at the Bishops! See what a +spectacle they have made of themselves, all through not leading." + +"Ah, yes," sighed the King; "I thought you'd be against the Bishops." + +"Against them?" cried Max, "of course I'm against them! The Bishops are +a set of prehistoric remains: and even if they were all up to date, a +combined house of Bishops and Judges with full legislative powers is +antediluvian (I'm speaking of the Deluge now in the sense in which Louis +XV spoke of it)--it's an eighteenth-century arrangement. + +"Yes, I'm against the Bishops, but I'm much more against the Cabinet. +The Cabinet is seeking to control not only the Upper but the Lower +Chamber as well, it is fighting the Bishops merely to delude the people; +and there are the Laity so stupid, or so lazy, or so corrupt that they +won't see it. Every one knows that the Government sells honors for party +purposes, and then covers it up by pretending that contributions to the +party funds are 'public services.' Everything now is to be had for a +price, a Chancellery at so much, a Knighthood at so much more; an Order +of the this, that, or the other, in exact proportion to its prestige or +its rarity. Last year they had a debate on it in the House, a debate +where, between them, the corruptors and the corrupted were in a +majority! And they solemnly took a vote on it, and declared that there +was no corruption, though everybody knew it to be a fact. The Opposition +lay low because they mean to do exactly the same when their time comes. +Oh, and it's not only the House of Laity: I daresay a bishopric has got +its price if we only knew!" + +The King would have rejected such a suggestion as fantastic only a month +ago; but now with the Archimandrite in his mind he began to be +suspicious. What price, monetary or political, might not the Free +Churchmen be paying for their bishoprics, what secret bargain of which +it was no one's duty to inform him? He lashed at his own impotence, for +the ignominy of his position increased with his growing consciousness. +Here was the Prime Minister respectful but compulsive, able to threaten, +to browbeat, to dictate terms; but he himself had no counter means to +extract from that minister on what terms he was consenting to do these +things or what price he was paying to get them done. How +constitutionally was he to obtain knowledge of anything? And still, +piling up the accusation, the voice of Max went on. + +"I presume," said he, "that quite lately a list of Jubilee honors has +been submitted to you for approval. What does your approval mean? Is a +single one of them your own selection? Do you know what the majority of +them are for?" + +The King shook his head. "Mostly they are political," said he. "The +Government has the right; I have no call to interfere. Isn't it perhaps +better that I should not interfere?" + +"It may be arguable, sir, that the uncomfortably high position to which +we are born cuts us off from the more strenuously fermenting issues of +the political game, and from the malignities and hypocrisies of that +party system of which, as a nation, we pretend to be so proud, and are +secretly so much ashamed. It may be well that some single authority +should stand removed from and above party, if in the hands of that +authority there is also left power of sentence and dismissal, power also +to withhold unmerited reward. But that power you are no longer expected +to exercise,--it lies like a china nest-egg never to be hatched, but +only to promote the laying of other eggs. + +"Yet while your prerogatives have been thus diminished, the claim that +you shall act with judicial impartiality has increased, and has become a +fetter. To oppose any course of ministerial action to-day is by +implication to ally yourself with the other side. You are in the +position of a judge whose directions the jury has authority to ignore, +and from whose hands all power of imposing a penalty has practically +been withdrawn. And these changes have been thrust upon the monarchy by +the will, not of the people, but of that class or section which in the +evolution of our political system happened at the time to be the ruling +one. At one period it was the Church, at another the army, at another +the landlord or the capitalist; it was never that latent force lying in +the future, that peace-loving, industrial democracy which to-day we are +still striving to hold back from its aim. These ruling powers of the +past have now concentrated on the Cabinet as their last line of defense; +and so at the present day it is the Cabinet which has the largest +control not only of patronage (much of it corruptly applied), but of +certain penalizing devices by which monetary pressure can be brought +upon those who thwart its will. By its practical usurpation of the +Crown's right to decree a general election, and by its control of the +party funds, from which parliamentary candidates are subsidized and +assisted to the poll, it is able to hold over the heads of its +supporters a financial threat to which very few can remain indifferent. +And this is how our so-called popular chamber is manipulated and run. +The power of the purse (I speak now of the moneys voted for public +service) lies almost entirely in the hands of those who themselves have +the largest monetary interest for keeping away from their constituencies +and maintaining their leaders in power; and as a consequence the +Ministry's evasion of all regulations and safeguards, its increasing +seizure of parliamentary time, its postponement of finance to a date in +each session when the legislature's energies are exhausted, have become +more and more corrupt in character. Why, the very minister whose duty it +is to see that members are constant in their voting and their attendance +is the one with whom lies, if not the distribution of patronage, at +least its recommendation. He is the go-between, and they know it. How +likely, then, are the rank and file to throw their Government out of +office when the immediate result will be not only to transfer these +bribes to the hands of their political opponents but to inflict upon +themselves the cost of a contested election which privately they cannot +afford, and to face which they are accordingly obliged to go, cap in +hand, to the very men they have voted from power, but who still have +absolute control of the party organization and its funds?" + +Here Max stopped to take breath. + + +IV + +"But can you suggest any other way?" questioned the King. "Surely we +must have party?" + +"I have no reason to suggest it," answered his son, "it stands written +in history. Under our more ancient Constitution the House of Laity came +pledged from its electorate to criticise, and to control (by the giving +or withholding of supply) the acts of a separate and administratively +independent body. Now Government is carried on by an administrative +body, which, though nominally dependent, has at its back a majority of +the elected pledged _not_ to criticise. And the difference between the +two systems is as the difference between darkness and light. That body +is now forcing the monarchy also into the same non-critical attitude, or +at least is securing that the criticism shall be impotent of result. And +I have the right, sir, to ask what are you doing to-day to preserve for +me the powers which you inherited?" + +"To tell you the truth, my son," answered the King, "it is only lately +that I have begun trying to find out what those powers are. It seems a +strange confession to make after twenty-five years; but it is true. When +I came to the throne, at a moment of great political changes, I was +entirely uninstructed and quite naturally I made mistakes, letting +things go when I was told to. From that false position successive +ministries have never allowed me to escape; they have kept me (I have +only just found it out) as uninstructed as they possibly could. They +burden me with routine work, they busy my hands while starving my brain. +One of their little ways--done on the score of relieving me of +unnecessary trouble--has been to submit in large batches at intervals +important documents requiring my assent, smuggling them in under cover +of others. And when I find it out, they plead unavoidable delay and +urgency, as though it were quite an exception. But I tell you it has +been going on, oh, dear me, yes, for a long time now; and the General +has known of it as well as any of them! The other day I made one of my +secretaries go through the entries, and I find that in the last year I +signed sixty Acts of Parliament and about fifteen hundred other State +documents, besides mere commissions, titles, diplomas, and all that sort +of thing, and I tell you that I haven't a ghost of a notion of what more +than a dozen were about! They don't give me time to digest anything; and +you are quite right, it's a system!" + +"Well," said his son, "at least they don't treat you much worse than +they do the people's representatives. It has become their regular plan +now to bring in six bills all rolled into one, in a form far too big and +complicated ever to be properly discussed. They insert a lot of +unnecessary contentiousness at the beginning, and all the really +administrative part--the machinery which provides them with political +handles throughout the country, and which they call the non-contentious +part--at the end; and then--on the score of it being non-contentious, +and because by the time they get to it the mind of the legislature is +exhausted--then they shut it down with the closure. One result is that +we have laws on the statute-book which don't even make grammar. Only +last session the Minister of Education got a bill sent up to the +Spiritual Chamber with three split infinitives in it." + +"What is a split infinitive?" inquired his Majesty. + +"Merely a grammatical error for which in your day school-boys used to be +whipped. You were not. It's important, because when lawyers get on to +the interpretation of the law, loose syntax gives them their +opportunity; they make fortunes out of the grammatical errors of +Parliament. And, of course, it was a lawyer who drew up this bill." + +"Do you mean that some one paid him to put in the split infinitives?" +inquired the King anxiously. + +"That was quite unnecessary; the thing paid for itself; good drafting +is never to the legal interest. But what I wanted to say was this: here, +in a House of educated men dealing with education, nobody troubled to +correct the grammar of the thing. That to my mind stands out as a moral +portent of the first magnitude. The Bishops quite rightly sent it back +again, but for the wrong reason. Their reason was pure blind +obscurantism; if they had returned it because of its split infinitives +and its slovenly drafting, and requested that it should be put into +decent Jingalese so that they might pretend to understand it they would +have had all the enlightened educationalists in the country with them. +As it was they were against them. It is curious how the Spiritual +Chamber always seeks its popularity among the fools instead of the wise. +It treats democracy like a dog with a bad name, and yet it is to the +dog's tail that it pins its faith: and so it wags with the tail." + +The King was not happy at hearing the Bishops so abused; and now a word +had fallen from his son's lips which enabled him to change the subject +to a point which more immediately concerned him. + +"Max," said he, "answer me truly, I don't want flattery. Do you think +that _I_ am popular?" + +The young man viewed his father leniently, indulgently even; the worn, +fussy, over-anxious face appealed to his sense of pity. "Oh, yes, I +believe so," he said. "They think you are trying to do your best and all +that sort of thing. You don't enthuse them as my grandfather used to do; +but, then, he had the grand manner, and the grand way of speaking as if +he were an oracle. You have put all that aside--except when you make +speeches which have been written for you by your ministers. Well, decent +people respect you for it; but it has its drawbacks; the crowd prefers +the other thing occasionally;--it likes still to pretend, at moments of +ceremony, that it believes in divine right and the hereditary principle, +and so forth; and where it likes to pretend, the press and the +Government are always ready to play into its hands. Yes; it's a +mixture; you must attend sometimes to the unrealities,--then, with your +real moments, you get your effect." + +"Your grandfather," said the King, "never talked to me about anything. +He didn't like the idea of being succeeded, hated to think of a time +when affairs would have to go on without him. I fancy that he rather +despised my mental capacity, or else thought that by just looking at him +I should learn. So he never talked to me--not on these subjects I mean; +and I am still not sure whether I ought to talk to you. I don't really +know where State secrets begin and where they end, or whether I have the +right to say anything of what goes on in Council to a single living +soul. I wanted to consult the Archbishop the other day--merely to hear +his statement of the case from his own side--but I was not allowed. I am +the most solitary man in my kingdom; and am kept so, in order that I may +remain powerless." + +"As Charlotte would say," observed Max, "we haven't taught each other +the business. And yet, isn't it strange? Here are we, a long-established +firm ('limited, entire,' I suppose we should describe ourselves), +existing upon the hereditary principle, and yet not allowed to extract +any of its living values. As detached forces we succeed each other upon +the throne, each in turn reduced in power and initiative by our official +training and our inexperience. When shall we learn to organize our labor +and combine like the rest of the world?" + +"I think we are combining now," said the King. + +"Yes," said Max, "I really believe we are--'John Jingalo and Son'--how +nice and commercial that sounds!" + +"I only hope the Prime Minister won't hear of it." + +"I hope he will," said Max. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +OF THINGS NOT EXPECTED + + + + +I + +"Charlotte!" cried the King, aghast, "what on earth is the meaning of +this?" + +"What is it, papa?" inquired the Princess innocently. + +His Majesty shook at her the paper he had just been reading. "You have +promised a hundred pounds donation to the Anti-vivisection Society! Here +it is in large headlines: 'The Princess Royal supports the +Anti-vivisectionists!'" + +"Well, so I do." + +"But you mustn't," said her mother. + +Princess Charlotte made a face--rather a pretty one. + +"I can't help having my opinions, mamma." + +"Then you mustn't express them--not publicly." + +"If I am not to express them," argued the Princess, "why do you send me +into public at all? Isn't laying foundation-stones and opening bazaars a +public expression of opinion? Don't I go because you approve of them?" + +"That is a very different matter," said her mother. "Good objects like +those no one can possibly object to." + +"But I think anti-vivisection a good object." + +"I don't care what you think," said her father, "you are perfectly free +to think as you like. What I want to know is--who do you suppose is +going to pay that hundred pounds?" + +"You are, papa." She smiled on him sweetly. + +"Indeed, your father will do nothing of the sort!" interposed the Queen, +while the King was still opening his mouth in wonder at the suggestion. + +"If he will only make me an allowance, he needn't," said Charlotte; and +while her parents were giving weight to that pronouncement she went on. + +"I am going to promise a hundred pounds to every deserving charity you +send me to; and if you leave off sending me, I shall write and offer it. +It will be in all the papers--it will become the recognized +thing--people will begin to look for it,--me and my hundred pounds. And +as soon as it is the recognized thing, you know quite well, papa, that +you will have to pay." + +"Why do you disapprove of vivisection?" inquired her father, finding +this frontal attack unmanageable. + +"Just a fellow-feeling, I suppose, through being myself a victim. Oh, I +don't say there's any torture involved, but now and again mamma gives me +an anesthetic, and when I wake up I find something has been done that I +don't like--something vital taken off me." + +"Nonsense!" said the Queen, "I never do anything of the kind." + +But this statement corresponded so startlingly to his Majesty's own +experience that he began to pay closer attention. + +"When have I done it?" demanded the Queen. + +"The last time was when you sent me to spend three weeks with Aunt +Sophie in order to develop a taste for foreign missions. It didn't +succeed. And when I came back you had changed my suite of rooms without +asking me; and I was done out of my balcony!" + +"I found her," the Queen explained, "going down by the balcony in the +early morning, while the gardeners were still about, to gather flowers." + +"I didn't talk to the gardeners." + +"You went out when I told you not to." + +"You see!" appealed Charlotte, "she does vivisect me. Last time Aunt +Sophie was the anesthetic: sometimes it's even worse. You don't hear of +these things, papa, because I don't often complain; but there they are. +And mamma is so pleased with herself about it--that's what tries me!" + +"Charlotte," said her father, "that's not pretty--that's not +respectful." + +"No, but it's true." + +The Queen attempted a diversion. "Why do you want an allowance? I give +you pocket-money, and you get all the dresses you need." + +"I get a great many more," admitted Charlotte; "but I don't get one that +I really like." + +"That shows your want of taste." + +"Of course, I haven't your taste, mamma, you can't expect it; and what's +too good for me doesn't suit me." + +But this obliquity of speech missed its point, for of her own taste the +Queen had no doubt whatever. + +"But, my dear child," interposed the King, "do try to be reasonable! +Whatever allowance we made you, you couldn't go on giving a hundred +pounds to every charity. You'd have all the benevolent societies in the +kingdom flocking about you; life wouldn't be worth living." + +"Oh, I know that, papa," said the Princess, "I'm not charitable in the +least. I'm only doing it to bring pressure on you; I haven't any other +reason whatever." + +At this brazen avowal the Queen gasped; but his Majesty became more +sympathetic. + +"I wanted," she went on, "to do it as nicely and respectably as +possible, and I thought to give you away in charity was better than +gambling or anything of that sort. Not that I haven't been tempted; for +you know, papa, I could quite easily lose you a hundred pounds at every +tea-party I go to. But now, if I'm asked to a bridge-table, all I can +say is, 'Papa won't make me an allowance, so I can't play for money.'" + +"Surely you don't say that!" cried the Queen in horror. + +"No," answered the Princess slyly, "but I can say it. And, of course, I +shall have to say it to the charities and the anti-vivisectionists if +papa doesn't pay up. There'll be headlines about that, too," she added +reflectively. "You see, I am in the business now that I've begun helping +at sales." + +The King got up from his seat, and began to pace the room. For the first +time he had discovered in his daughter's character a resemblance to Max, +and much as he was beginning to love certain mental values which his son +possessed, it rather frightened him to see them cropping up in his +daughter. + +"Charlotte," he said, in a tone of affectionate appeal, "when have I +ever denied you anything that was right and reasonable?" + +"Never, dearest papa, never!" said his daughter. "And I'm sure you are +not going to begin now. It's too late," she added mischievously. + +Yes. It was too late. The King knew it. He had known it from the moment +the discussion started. Even the Queen was beginning to know it. +Charlotte, sweet, smiling, and determined, held them in the hollow of +her hand. Newspaper headlines, if properly manipulated, will defeat in +its own domestic circle any monarchy that is now existing. + +So the long and short of it was that the King promised Charlotte her +allowance; and the Queen sat by and heard, and did not object. And as +the Princess passed out to follow her own avocations, whatever they +might be, she gave each of her parents the nicest kiss imaginable, +thanking them quite humbly for that which they had been powerless to +withhold. + +The King looked enviously on that bright presence as it flitted away, +calm, wilful, and self-possessed; and much he wished that he could +conduct his own affairs with the same gay insouciance, and emerge with +as much success. Max might be able to manage it, but not he. + +The Queen's voice broke in on his deliberations. + +"Jack," said she, "we must get her married." + +It was her Majesty's remedy for that new portent, the revolting +daughter. And there and then she started to discuss ways, means, and +dates for bringing the wished-for affair to a head. The dear lady was +already exuberantly hopeful. A carefully selected portrait of the +Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wasser now stood on the central table of +her boudoir, and only two days ago she had spied Charlotte looking at +it. A fine, adventurous figure, it stood out prominently from all the +uniformed splendors surrounding it. "Who is this person in fancy +costume?" Charlotte had asked, and the Queen, alive in certain +fundamental instincts, had cleverly informed her that it represented one +who had been driven by his musical taste to a three years' wandering in +the wilderness, and who, though still sadly under a cloud, was now +obliged to return to his princely duties. Charlotte did not know, as she +looked with amused pity on that sunburnt visage of adventurous youth, +that she was gazing on the remedy for her own ailments, nor did she or +any one else guess to what surprising results the attempted application +of that remedy would lead. + +It was quite sufficient for the Queen's gentle lines of diplomacy that +Charlotte now knew who he was, that he was presently returning to +Europe, and would, on his way or soon after, present himself at the +Court of Jingalo. In another quarter her Majesty was less contented, she +had not yet found any one good enough for Max; and as the quest added +greatly to her daily correspondence, she felt it as a burden and an +anxiety, for she did not want to hear of another case of morals. + + +II + +To the King, on the other hand, Max had become a very real and positive +relief. The "Max habit" had grown and flourished exceedingly; and as +this history deals largely with the mental developments of King John of +Jingalo we must follow him to his hours of training and set down their +record wherever we can find room for them. + +His Majesty told Max of the Charlotte affair that same evening. + +Max chuckled. "So Charlotte is not to disapprove of vivisection?" he +commented. "How very characteristic that is of the way we have to avoid +giving countenance to any movement or change of opinion till it is +backed by a majority." + +"Is it not our duty to avoid all matters of controversy?" + +"If it is we do not act on it. There is much controversy to-day on the +subject of vivisection; but that did not prevent you quite recently from +bestowing a high mark of favor on its foremost exponent. What you dare +not do is bestow a similar mark on one who is opposed to it. Your favors +go only to those who represent a majority; minorities are carefully shut +away from your ken. You are taught to believe that they are unimportant. +Whereas the exact opposite is the truth; for it is always the minorities +who have made history and brought about reform." + +"Are you still quoting your book at me?" inquired the King. + +"I am always quoting it," said Max, "or, rather, I am composing it. Yes; +this is the beginning of a chapter which I am about to put together with +your help and assistance." + +"Make it a mild one!" entreated his father. + +"I assure you, sir, that throughout I am understating the case. We have +already discussed the question of a monarch's relation to the political +and religious controversies of his day. Is he any more truly in contact +with the national life on its intellectual side? The only occasion on +which I meet at your Court any representatives of literature, or art, is +when popular authors and dramatists have come among a miscellaneous +gathering of pork butchers, politicians, stock-brokers, bankers, and +other prosperous tradesmen to receive at your hands the now somewhat +tarnished honor of knighthood. They come in a strange garb hired for the +occasion, and they go again. How much have we ever troubled ourselves +about the value and quality of their work, or as to why they were +selected? Are they the men, think you, who will be reckoned a hundred +years hence the artistic and literary giants of their day? I doubt if +anybody thinks so except themselves. Is it not rather because by winning +contemporary popularity they represent the trade values of their +profession, something that can be made to pay, and which, when it does +pay, invites public recognition and encouragement? We give small +pensions to the specially deserving, I know, to save them from the +extremes of poverty and ourselves from disgrace; but to those pensions +do we ever add a title? No; titles are the reward of prosperity." + +"But, my dear Max," said the King, "how do you expect me to judge of +such things? I should only make mistakes." + +"You have for your advisers," answered his son, "some twenty men drawn +from all departments of life; ought you not to be able to rely on them? +When you came to the throne one of our greatest literary men lay +bed-ridden, dying quietly of old age. He had received a State pension, +for he was poor; he was a giant whose work was done; and he had never in +all his life been to Court. Did it occur to you to go and pay this old +man reverence? Did it occur to any of your advisers to suggest that you +should? Yet in the past kings have done these things, and history has +remembered to praise them for doing it. No, sir, we are out of touch +with all the really great things that are going on around us in +literature and art; for whenever anything new is really great it +inevitably divides opinion; and wherever opinion is sharply or at all +evenly divided we are out of place. You are under exactly the same +orders as those which Charlotte received from my mother--you must not go +down into the garden while the gardeners are actually at work; only when +they have finished you may come and gather the results. You are run by +the State merely to give prestige to the established order, and you must +not support things that are not already popular." + +"You are mistaken, Max," said his father, in despondent protest. +"Nothing whatever prevents me; only I haven't anything to take hold of." + +"Yet I have been credibly informed," replied Max, "that when you go to +see a so-called problem play of the more intellectual kind, it is +arranged for you to go in Lent, for the simple reason that during that +period of fasting it is against etiquette for the papers to make any +announcement of the fact." + +"You don't say so!" exclaimed the King. + +"You were not aware of it, then? Yet it is all arranged for you by the +Comptroller-General. Tell him that you wish to go and see _The Gaudy +Girl_ presently, on its five hundredth performance, and he will raise no +difficulty whatever. Tell him that you intend to be present at a +performance of _Law and Order_, a piece that has managed to hold on +through thirty performances in spite of the many interests opposed to +it, and difficulties will immediately occur to him. Your going would +revive the fortunes of that play; and as it makes a very direct attack +upon our present judicial system, you can have nothing to do with it. +Yet I hear that as a result of its production modifications in our +criminal procedure have already been discussed." + +"Max," said the King, "you are quite unfair! Our last State performance +was of a play that attacked the very things you are always talking +about, money-lending, gambling, commercial greed, and the rest of it; +and it was the Comptroller-General himself who selected it." + +"There!" exulted Max, "now you have given me an example, and I will tell +you what happened. You had as your guest the king of a country +possessing a real school of drama which is affecting the whole of the +European stage. What did we do in his honor and for the honor of our +dramatic literature? We chose a play of sixty years ago--our worst +period--a piece of clever bombastic fustian mildewed with age; and we +chose it merely because it contained the greatest possible number of +small 'effective' parts in which 'star' actors could strut across the +stage, make their bow before an extremely distinguished audience, and +speak their lines in the ears of royalty as the accepted representatives +of modern drama. And how they did speak them! How they clung to their +entries and exits, how they gassed, and gagged, and threw in fresh +'business' to extend the all too brief time of their appearing; and what +an abysmally boring performance the whole thing was! Over a score of +these leading actors and actresses had appeared in a similar gala +performance on the occasion of your coronation, twenty-five years ago. +Most of them are now living on their past reputations, but they have +become established; and so that woeful exhibition of utterly used-up +material was royalty's public recognition of drama in this country! +There, then, you have our connection with art! What good do you suppose +we do by countenancing performances like that? We are merely employed to +flatter the popular choice and to fatten out the drama in its most +commercial connection. All that was done to suit the managers. It gave a +pleasant little fillip to the star-system on which most of our theaters +are now run; every theater contributed its quota and secured its +proportion of reward." + +"I was under the impression that they all gave their services." + +"Just as you gave yours. You were all busily engaged in making each +other popular, and in maintaining your prestige; and you were all very +well paid for your trouble." + +"But what else do you expect me to do?" exclaimed the unhappy monarch +irritably. "All this destructive criticism of yours is so easy; but what +does it lead to? Nothing!" + +"Revolution," declared Max, "peaceful, bloodless revolution! Whenever +any matter is submitted to you over which you have control and a +deciding voice, do the unexpected, and you will nearly always be right! +That is the biggest revolution in this unwritten Constitution of ours +that I can suggest. Do it, and then watch the results." + +"But, for instance, do what?" + +"Well, go for a beginning to the very plays your Comptroller refrains +from recommending or tries to dissuade you from. Oh, you won't come upon +anything shocking; quite the reverse. That play, _The Gaudy Girl_, which +I spoke of just now, is about to be revived in a new form--with +additions. No doubt it will draw enormously; and as a fortune has been +spent on it you would do a popular thing by attending the first +performance. It is a risky and indecent piece, but no one will object, +on that score, to its receiving the royal patronage." + +"How possibly can it be indecent," protested the King, "when it has +already run for five hundred nights at one of our leading theaters?" + +Max smiled. "Father," he said, "in all your life have you ever once been +in a crowd--formed part of it, I mean? Well, then, how can you tell? I +have. There is plenty of indecency in a Jingalese crowd--especially +indecent suggestion; and it is crowds the theaters have to cater for." + +"Still, they have the Censor to reckon with." + +"The Censor!" exclaimed Max. "Have you ever asked the Lord Functionary, +who controls him, to show you the text of the plays he passes?--or gone +further in order to compare them with those he does not pass? Till you +have, you know nothing about the Censor's protective powers. He merely +protects the existing order of things, like yourself; whatever is paying +and popular it becomes his duty to countenance. Well, all that is +strictly within your own department, for the supervision of the morals +of the stage is still a royal prerogative outside parliamentary control. +And I tell you this--that if you were to begin exercising your +prerogative conscientiously you would get into more intimate touch with +the popular will than would suit the calculations of your ministers. As +for the Lord Functionary, he would probably resign. He might be glad of +the excuse. Just now there is a considerable row on, and he finds +himself in hot water. When you see him you had better ask him about it; +and as he is technically the keeper of your conscience you really have a +concern in the matter. What has he been doing? Oh, merely drawing the +usual invidious distinction between adultery treated seriously and +adultery treated as a joke. Under this latter and more popular form it +is now occupying with success half the theaters in Jingalo. And if you +want to see the deeps open, and understand what they contain,--well, +there you have your cue: follow it! Only do that, and you will light +such a candle--Ah! now I am quoting from English history; and as I am +only concerned with that of Jingalo--I perceive that my present chapter +has come to an end. May I take another cigar?" + + +III + +All this time the King had sat cautiously imbibing the stimulus of his +son's words. They sent a curious glow through his system; for they +touched on the very point which was now daily engaging his +thoughts--how, in connection with his own ministerial problem, to do the +thing which Brasshay did not expect without thereby involving the +prestige of the monarchy in ruin. He looked at his son, so full of +self-confidence, so easy and unconcerned in the opinions of others, and +very greatly he envied him. + +"Max," he said slowly, "you are a very dangerous character." + +And Max was flattered, as your man of words and not of deeds always is +flattered when the attributes which belong by rights to his betters are +ascribed to him. + +Nevertheless, in this instance the epithet was well earned, for these +secret potations of Max were having their effect upon the King's brain; +they reproduced in facsimile the cerebral excitement which had followed +upon his fall, and touching the same spot kindled in him a curious +mental ardor, which sent him to his Council a different person +altogether, one whom his ministers were finding it difficult to +recognize and still more difficult to reconcile to their plans. Only +when the effects had died down towards the end of each day did the King +become himself again. Obstreperous till noon, he would then quiet down +by degrees till, at six o'clock, his spirits had reached a strange nadir +of depression. Had Brasshay only caught him then, in that period of +reaction, he would have found him unformidable as of old; but Brasshay +did not know. And then, night after night, came Max with his tangle of +words and whipped him into fresh revolt. + +He still carried the memory of that last conversation--that chapter +which Max had composed into the echoing cavities of his brain--when he +next encountered the Lord Functionary. + +Certain questions of court etiquette and procedure having been disposed +of: "By the way," said his Majesty, "I was told yesterday that you are +being criticised--in the play department, I mean." + +The Lord Functionary had been spending sleepless nights in a scrambling +attempt to acquire a literary education; but his own royal master was +the last person to whom he would give himself away; so he only smiled +with that air of deference and self-complacence which all court +officials know how to combine. "I have heard rumors of it, sir," he +replied, in a tone of easy detachment. + +"Who are making the complaints?" + +"Certain members of Parliament, I believe. They have constituents to +satisfy; and under a democracy, of course, autocrats can never do +right." + +"Are you the autocrat?" inquired the King. + +"At your Majesty's disposal," returned the Lord Functionary with a bow. + +"Then you are not responsible to Parliament?" + +The Lord Functionary smiled, with a touch of disdain. "I should not be +holding office if I were," said he. + +"Then you are not under the Prime Minister, either?" + +"No more than your Majesty," said the magnificent one blandly. "In the +order of precedence I am, indeed, several degrees above him. It is, of +course, a Government appointment; but while I hold it my discretionary +powers are unlimited." + +This seemed a very great person, and the King looked on him with envy. + +"To whom, then, are you actually responsible?" he inquired. + +"To you, sir." + +"To me alone?" + +"My official title would make it indecent for me to consult any one but +your Majesty." + +"Ah, yes, you keep my conscience for me, don't you?" said the King. Max +was right, then; here was something still left for him to do. He +addressed himself to the previous question. + +"What exactly is the trouble?" + +"A self-advertising minority, sir, has been persistently submitting +plays which it was quite out of the question to pass. Being annoyed, +they are now attacking the plays which _have_ passed." + +"I should like," said the King, "to see some of these plays; to be in +touch, if I may so put it, with my own conscience. Would you be good +enough to send me three of those you have not passed, and three of the +others which are now being attacked. I would like also," he added, "to +see _The Gaudy Girl_ in its new version." + +The Lord Functionary raised his pale eyebrows. + +"May I be allowed to know why, sir?" he inquired. + +"Just curiosity," said the King. "I thought of going to see it, and I +wanted first to be sure that there was nothing--nothing, you know----" + +The Lord Functionary's face became wreathed in smiles. + +"Why, certainly, sir. I will see that a copy is sent to your Majesty at +once. It is, of course, work of a very light and frivolous kind--but it +is popular and it does no harm." Then, as by an after-thought, the +official countenance grew grave. "Was her Majesty also intending to be +present?" he inquired. + +The King, discerning that a negative was invited, gave the required +assurance. "As a matter of fact," said he, "it was the Prince who asked +me to go--suggested it, that is to say." And immediately official +confidence was restored, for to the Lord Functionary Max as a reformer +was still unknown, while his taste for frivolous diversion was more +easily assumed. And so in due course a copy of the play reached the +King's hands. + +Perhaps it was through mere inadvertence that the other six did not +accompany it. The King noted the omission; but when once he started to +read the single play which had reached him he forgot all about the +others, for he found that his hands were full. At one stroke of the +scythe he had reaped a plentiful harvest. + +Here was a play on the very eve of production, reeking with the +sniggering improprieties which the keeper of the King's conscience had +permitted to become the popular vogue. Suggestions and innuendoes to +which the ordinary theater-going public had now grown accustomed, struck +his inexperienced Majesty as bold and glaring novelties. The mere +cheapness of the wit he passed uncritically by, but the indecencies +were so bare and bald that even he, with all his innocence and +inexperience, could not fail to understand them. The explanation, of +course, was easy; this new version of an old and accepted play had +received the official sanction through oversight. Providence had sent +him to the rescue in the nick of time; and delighted to have found +something which his hand really could do, he took up the blue pencil and +set to work. + +Snatches of dialogue, half lines of lyric--especially when it came to +the last verse--here, there, and everywhere he scored them through with +a ruthless hand; and with a renewed sense of usefulness, and a +conscience well at ease, he returned the much deleted copy to the Lord +Functionary. + +Before long that official visited him, presenting a grave countenance. +He was by no means enthusiastic over the royal handiwork; the production +was about to take place; the play had already practically been +licensed--silence up to so late a moment having virtually given consent; +and--most difficult point of all--these things which the King was now +ruling out had almost all of them been in the previously accepted +version. + +"Then I suppose," said his Majesty, "that nobody really reads the +plays?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, they are always read," corrected the Lord Functionary, +"but our readers have necessarily to go upon certain lines. They are +guided by precedent and custom, which it would be highly inadvisable to +disturb." + +So he pleaded that the _status quo ante_ might prevail; and yet, man to +man, he could not defend what the King showed him. + +"Could you," inquired his Majesty indignantly, "read such things aloud +to your own family? Could you comfortably, if I called upon you to do +so, read them aloud to me?" + +"The drama," explained the Lord Functionary, "is so different from +anything else; it has not to observe the same conventions. In light +comedy, especially, these things really do not count. People never +trouble to think about them--they mean nothing." + +"In that case," said the King, "no one will mind your cutting them out." + +The Lord Functionary seemed not so sure,--his assurance went, in fact, +in quite an opposite direction. He pleaded hard for the trade interests +which he stood to represent. The play was in an advanced state of +rehearsal; many thousands had been spent upon it; and, seeing that it +was but a revival, no doubt about the new version passing had existed +anywhere. + +But to all his entreaties the King remained adamant. + +"In this matter," said he, "you have to consult my conscience." + +The point could not be further argued. + +"It is very unfortunate," said the Lord Functionary in acid tones. + +"I must insist," said his Majesty, "that you see to these omissions +being made." And the Lord Functionary bowed his pained body over the +hand which the King graciously extended. + +"Your Majesty must be obeyed," said he. + +It was a phrase that the King very seldom heard; it gave him a taste of +power. + +"Max," said he to his son, upon their next meeting, "I have been doing +as you advised. And I do believe you are right." + +"What did I advise?" inquired Max, assuming forgetfulness. + +"That I should 'do a bust' was, I think, your expression; something +unexpected." + +"And how have you done it?" + +"I have censored _The Gaudy Girl_." + +Max whistled. + + +IV + +The sibilations of that whistle were prophetic of atmospheric +disturbance to come. In a week the storm broke. + +The King happened to be away, paying a visit of complimentary inspection +to frontier fortresses and heard nothing about it. But on his return Max +came to him charged with tidings. + +He stood over his father and looked at him with a note of satirical +approval in his eye, which did not inspire the King with any confidence. + +"Sir, do you know what you have done?" + +His Majesty denied the impeachment. "I haven't done anything. Not yet." + +"You have revolutionized the drama! Even now, at this very moment, the +great heart of Jingalo is throbbing from plushed stalls to gallery +stair-rail. Because of you _The Gaudy Girl_ is playing its third night +to an accompaniment of hilarious riot and uproar such as have not been +known in our dramatic world since the public was forced to give up its +right to free sittings." + +The King was startled; some alarm crept into his voice. "Do you mean +that I have done harm?" + +"Not in the least; no, quite the reverse. But you have certainly doubled +the play's fortune. The run is going to be tremendous." + +His Majesty felt flattered; had he not reason? For this surely must mean +that he had rightly interpreted the public taste, and that what the +popular will really wanted was a pure and carefully expurgated drama. + +But Max speedily undeceived him. + +"What happened," said he, "is this. The Lord Functionary obeyed your +orders, and less than a week ago word went to the management, happily +engaged with its finishing touches to the play. Your share in the +business, of course, was not mentioned; your cuttings had become the +official act of the department. What that meant, you can perhaps hardly +conceive. Here was popular musical comedy censored as it had never been +censored before. Time was too short for negotiation; besides the whole +thing was too drastic for half measures to be of any avail. Dullness, +decorum, and disaster stared the management in the face. Suddenly +perceiving that its strength lay in submission, it accepted the +situation like a man, and in all Jingalo to-day, no hand is raised for +the censorship. You have given it the _coup de grâce_--it will have to +go; for you have enlisted the managers--the trade interest against it." + +"I?" exclaimed the King. + +"Its moral position, as I told you," went on his son, "had recently been +shaken by the attacks of the intellectuals--a camp, however, so much in +the minority that hitherto its hostility has not been seriously +regarded. But now Jingalese drama, as a great commercial enterprise, an +interest wherein hundreds of thousands of pounds are yearly invested, +has been touched on the raw, and Jingalese drama has risen and shaken +itself in wrath. The press, which depends on it for advertisement, has, +of course, rushed to its assistance, and condemnation of the censorship +now figures in stupendous headlines on all the posters. Leading +articles, interviews, and indignation meetings are the order of the day; +I wonder you can have missed them." + +"I have been busy with other things," explained the King. + +"Well, if you are not too busy to-night, I invite you to come and see +your handiwork." + +"I can hardly do that," said the King, "under the circumstances--if, as +you say, there is disturbance going on." + +"It is disturbance of a very unanimous kind," said the Prince; "the +public is enjoying itself thoroughly. Did I not the other day advise you +to reach out a fearless hand to democracy? Well, you have done so; and +the dear, good beast has given you its paw." + +"I don't think I can go." + +"Then you will never understand. But, indeed, sir, I think that you +should. I have taken a box under a private name and we can go +unobserved; the play has already begun; and if you will keep to the back +no one will know that you are there. Besides it is Lent, a season when +the incognito of your visits becomes a recognized rule. Do you think you +are justified in missing so vivid an interpretation of the popular +will?" + +The King's hesitation ended. "I suppose I must go on doing the +unexpected," said he, "now that I have once begun." + +"You could not make a better rule," said Max. + +And so, quite unexpectedly, and to the extreme bewilderment of a +detective force taken suddenly by surprise, the King found himself in +the theater where performance number three of _The Gaudy Girl_ was going +on. + +The house was packed, tumultuous, and excited. As he entered the +sheltering gloom of the box his Majesty recognized the words of the +play, remembered, too, that a censored passage lay close ahead. It came. + +A sumptuously bosomed figure stepped into the limelight and sang. In the +second verse she threw out a rhyme that seemed to clamor for its +pair--threw it out as the angler throws out his fly for the fish that is +sure to rise. The King held his breath as the blue-penciled passage drew +near. The voice quavered and broke; singer and orchestra stopped dead. +The house roared. "Go on!" cried encouraging voices from gallery and +pit. "Go on! Go on!" And the singer thus emboldened, and accompanied by +one small piping flute, a ridiculous starveling of sound after all the +blare that had preceded it, sang with a modest and deprecating air a +line which fell very flat indeed--a mere nothing tagged from a nursery +rhyme--obviously an importation. Stalls, pit, and gallery rocked and +shouted with laughter. "Try again!" roared the crowd; and with small, +frightened mimminy-pimminy tones the singer tried again. This time a +snippet from the national anthem served her turn--but it was no good, +the audience would have none of it; in a crescendo of uproarious demand +it invited her to try again. Patient as a cat waiting for its chin to be +stroked the conductor sat with extended baton. Down to the footlights +she minced, delicately as Agag to the downfall of his hopes, thrust out +an impudent face, and waggled it. "I can't! You know I can't!" she +remonstrated in a shrill cockney wail. And straight on the anticipated +word the house roared its applause. Off pranced the singer to her encore +on cavorting toes, down flourished the conductor's baton in a crash of +chords, and away to its fortunes sailed the play, more than ever a +confirmed triumph in the popular favor. + +"You see," whispered Max in the parental ear, "you see now what you have +done." + +"It's a perfect scandal!" exclaimed the King, much put out, for he +could not but feel that he was being mocked. + +"Not at all," said Max. "All the scandal has been eliminated." + +"It ought to be put a stop to!" + +"A law doesn't exist." + +"This holding authority up to ridicule!" + +"When authority has made itself absurd, could you wish it a better fate? +To my mind, you have done a noble work." + +"But this," said the King, "this is not what I intended at all." + +Max smiled indulgently. + +"So much the better," said he. "The unexpected is just as good for you, +sir, as for others." + +Then the King drew back again into his corner, to prepare himself for +fresh shocks as the play went on. + +The managerial device was simple, effective, and very easy to +understand; and from start to finish it was played with little +variation, though with ever-increasing success. Here and there, where +for a long period no blue-penciled passage occurred, imaginary +censorings had been inserted merely to whip curiosity, with the result +that the atmosphere of innuendo and suggestion was greatly increased. +Indeed, the whole piece reeked of it, new situations had been evolved +which the play had not previously contained; and a stimulated audience +sat metaphorically with its eye to an eye-hole from which the key had +been accommodatingly withdrawn. + +And then came the sensation of the evening. + +Whether in the course of the performance the King had become so +interested as to forget his caution, or whether between the acts too +much light had penetrated the box at the back of which he had been +sitting, it is now impossible to say. Just before the fall of the +curtain he and the Prince got up and left, and traversing the still +empty corridors unrecognized, returned to their carriage and the care of +the anxiously waiting detectives. But somehow, as the play ended, a +whisper got round from the stage and, like an electric flash, through +the whole theater the fact of the royal visit became known. + +Instantly, with cheer upon cheer, the audience broke into loyal and +excited plaudits. The orchestra struck up the national anthem. Hands +down popular opinion had won; for in this matter of "the new censorship" +as it was called--in this attack upon the interests and liberties, not +of a foolish minority, but of a sacred and freedom-loving public, +Jingalo and its monarch had joined forces, and bureaucracy was +dethroned. + +The next day it was on all the posters; newspapers celebrated the event +in flaring headlines--"THE KING CONDEMNS THE CENSOR!" And before +the week was over, the Lord Functionary had resigned his high office on +grounds of health. + +The King was much puzzled over the whole affair; and his advisers did +their best to keep him mystified. Both the Prime Minister and the late +Lord Functionary himself earnestly assured him that his conscientious +interference had had nothing whatever to do with the latter's +retirement; for at this juncture it would never have done for the +monarch to suppose that he held so much power over the official lives of +his ministers. Quite by accident he had come in contact with that great +unknown quantity "the popular will," and, without in the least realizing +what he was about, had first touched it on the raw, and then tickled it; +and the "dear good beast," as Max phrased it, recognizing only the +second part of his performance, had turned rapturously round and given +him its paw. + +The King had his scruples; he did not like thus to win popularity by +accident, and yet, the more he looked into it, the more he saw this for +a fact, that by committing a popular _faux pas_ he had secured far more +consideration from his ministers than by doing the correct thing. + +John of Jingalo did not yet understand that his correctness of conduct +was one of the chief factors relied on by a bureaucratic government for +reducing him to political insignificance. He had yet to learn that a +submissive and well-behaved monarchy was essential to its very +existence. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE OLD ORDER + + + + +I + +All this, the reader will remember, had taken place in Lent. The King +had done something which according to the accepted canons was quite +incorrect; he had been to a frivolous but popular play during the +penitential season and it had got into the papers. But instead of being +blamed for it he had gained enormously in popularity. + +Now had his Majesty been merely aiming for this, as politicians aim for +it (deserting principles for party, or party when its principles become +a hindrance), he might have followed the lead given him by the people of +Jingalo, and, recognizing that the Church Calendar had lost its hold +upon the popular imagination, might thenceforward have secularized his +conduct, and paved the way in Court circles for that separation of +Church and State which his ministers were itching to bring about but did +not yet dare. + +But John of Jingalo had all the defects which belong to a conscientious +character. He had not gone to the play for amusement, it had not amused +him, he did not at all agree with the public's attitude towards it, and +yet he was reaping the benefit; he was standing in a glow of popular +approbation under false pretenses; and the more he thought about it the +less he liked it--it gave him a bad conscience. + +Yet, in spite of that, he could not but recognize that he had touched +power; under a misapprehension the people had responded to him as never +before; he had done what they regarded as a sporting thing in sending +unpopular officialdom to the right-about; it was even possible that +among theatrical circles when the exploit was talked of he was now known +as "good old King Jack." All the same he did not feel that he had been +good, and he wanted to make amends. + +The highly colored conversations of Max, the talk about whipping-boys +and Court jesters, and all those ancient divinities which had once +hedged a King but were now mere barbed wire entanglements, had turned +his attention toward certain medieval institutions the practice of which +had lapsed, or had become reduced to a mere shadow of their former +selves. And with a conscience ill at ease over the damage he had wrought +to a season which he still regarded with a certain conventional +reverence, his thoughts lighted upon Maundy Thursday, then less than a +fortnight off. + +He remembered having once watched from a private gallery in the royal +chapel the impoverished ceremony which now did shabby duty for the old +symbol of kingly humility and service. He had seen the vicarious +sacrifice of silver pennies doled out by his almoners to a duplicated +dozen of old men and women who had lost their better days in +circumstances of the utmost respectability; and shocked at the poverty +of the display he had been glad to learn that a more Christian gift of +tea, clothes, snuff, and tobacco was added outside the Church door when +the ceremony was over. But even so its ritual had not attracted him: it +had lost its human values, and seemed to have been kept in life merely +for archeological association. + +Now on looking into the matter once more (the _Encyclopedia Appendica_ +gave him the required information) he was astonished to find that the +old foot-washing ceremony of Holy Thursday was originally the chief +function at which every year the Knights of the Holy Thorn were bound, +if not unavoidably prevented, to appear and do service. Nay, when he +turned to it, he found that it still stood so expressed in the Charter +of the Order, and that each new Knight, upon admission thereto, swore +solemnly to keep and observe the same--so help him God--faithfully unto +his life's end. + +If he had had any doubt before, the terms of that oath, which he himself +had taken--probably without understanding it since it had been read to +him in Latin--were sufficient to decide him. Without loss of time he +sent word by his Comptroller-General to the Prime Minister that he +intended in the following week to revive the full ceremony and to recall +the Knights of the Thorn to the duties they had so long neglected. The +ceremony, as of old, was to take place in public at noon outside the +doors of the metropolitan cathedral. + +"The King is going off his head," said the Comptroller-General by way of +preface to the announcement with which he was charged; and the Prime +Minister was ready to agree with him when he heard it. + +"Preposterous!" he exclaimed. + +"He has got chapter and verse for it," lamented the Comptroller-General. + +"Can't you persuade him that it's a forgery?" + +"It's in the oath," replied the other; "you yourself have taken it." + +"Oh, yes, the form; but the ceremony--the accompanying service, I +mean--was cut out of the Church Prayers at the time of the Reformation. +It has become illegal." + +"Inside a church, yes; not outside. At least that is his contention. Oh, +I have already done my best! He got quite excited when I ventured to +discuss the matter,--asked me if I understood the nature of an oath, and +whether I had ever taken one." + +"Is he much set on it?" + +"I have had to write to the Archbishop." + +"What do you think he'll say about it?" + +"Ordinarily he would oppose it as savoring of Rome; under present +circumstances my impression is that he will welcome it as giving the +Church an added importance. You don't like it?" + +"Of course, I don't." + +"Then you had better see the King yourself. You have only a week left; +and he has already begun looking at the weather-glass and wondering if +it's going to be fine." + +"That's just like him!" said the Prime Minister. + +"Yes, and he's getting more like himself every day. My part is not a +sinecure, I can assure you." + +Accordingly the Prime Minister went over to the Palace and saw the King. +Informed as to what line of argument had already been tried and failed, +he approached the matter from a new standpoint: he spoke in the name of +Protestantism. This ceremony had only survived in Catholic countries; in +Jingalo the Reformation had killed it, and it had gone with graven +images, the invocation of saints, and the worship of relics to the limbo +of forgotten foolishnesses. + +"The Charter of the Holy Thorn has not gone," said the King. + +"Nor has your Majesty's title to the Crown of Jerusalem; but who ever +thinks of enforcing it?" + +"I am willing to resign it any day," replied his Majesty. "I can also, +if you think it advisable, abolish the Charter of the Holy Thorn and the +Knighthood with it. But I don't think the Knights would quite like +that." + +"If it comes to a question of liking," said the Prime Minister, "I do +not think they will quite like washing beggars' feet in public." + +"Oh, I do the washing and the drying," said the King. "They only carry +the basins and put on the boots. I have looked up the whole ceremony; +it's very impressive. You have only to read it and you will become +converted: it is so symbolical." + +The Prime Minister objected that though in its origin the ceremony might +have had symbolic meaning and beauty, its performance now-a-days would +be looked upon as a mere form and superstition, contrary to the spirit +of the age. + +This reminded the King of a certain "maxim." + +"'The spirit of the age,'" he quoted, "'is the industrious collection of +bric-à-brac--good, bad, and indifferent': this one happens to be good, +and has been neglected. And talk about forms and ceremonies!--what can +be more formal, superstitious, and idiotic than the procession of Court +functionaries and King's Musketeers (with the Dean of the Chapels Royal +carrying a candle) which, on every ninth of November--the anniversary of +the Bed-Chamber Plot--comes to look under my bed to see whether +assassins are not lurking there? On one occasion I was laid up with +influenza, but I had to submit to that form and superstition because it +had become traditional. And all the papers gloated over the fact, and +called it 'a link in the chain of monarchy,' though as a matter of fact +the conspiracy in question had been got up against that branch of the +succession which we afterwards succeeded in dethroning. All the personal +inconvenience I had to endure on that occasion was as nothing in +comparison to the satisfaction which the public got out of it. No, Mr. +Prime Minister, if you are going to do away with things because they are +forms and superstitions, then I institute the Order of the New Broom, +and I make you the first Knight of it; and the rest of your life will +have to be spent in sweeping." ("And oh!" thought the King, feeling +himself in form, "I only wish Max could hear me now!") + +Failing in his personal appeal the Prime Minister turned on the +Departments, and the King fought them one by one: the Board of Works +which wanted to have the roads up; the Clerk of the Weather who said +that a depression unsuitable for open-air gatherings was crossing +Europe; the Chief of the Police who said that so large an open space was +bad for a crowd; the Minister of Public Worship who wished everything to +be done--if done at all--indoors and unobtrusively, by preference in one +of the Royal Chapels: the effect, he said, would be more reverent. And +when all these in turn had failed, the Prime Minister asked for a +Council on the subject, and was told it was none of the Council's +business. + +"I am Grand Master in my own Order," said the King, "and you, as one of +its Knights, in any matter pertaining to the Order owe me your +unquestioning obedience." + +That was unanswerable; he did. And so the King got his way. + + +II + +The revival proved a tremendous success, although it did not reproduce +the medieval conditions in their entirety. + +The twelve old women were left out; it was not considered decent for the +King to wash their feet in public and the Queen absolutely refused to do +so. Instead they were invited to take tea at the Palace, and afterwards +were all presented with foot-warmers. + +In other directions also invidious distinctions were attempted, and a +certain amount of controversy was raised. The Bishops made a scrambling +and desultory fight for it that, as the steps of the Cathedral were to +be used, all the washen beggars should be actual communicants of the +Established Church; but the demand died down when it was found that such +a breed did not exist; and a rush of undesirables to the altar in order +to qualify could hardly be welcomed as a tolerable solution. + +There was a tussle, too, among the Knights of the Thorn as to how many +towel-bearers there should be (the towels remaining perquisites +afterwards); but the King and his Master of Ceremonies--the delighted +Max helping them--were able to settle matters to the general +satisfaction, and, by allowing a towel to each foot and twelve cakes of +soap, provided a sufficient number of souvenirs to go round. + +And so the day came, the weather was fine, and the attendant crowd +rapturous. The King and his Knights, in nodding plumes and robes of +thorn-stamped velvet, made the show of their lives; organ music rolled +from within, bands played without, and massed choirs sang like angels +from the parapets and galleries above the west doors of the Cathedral. + +And when their ordeal by water was over, then the twelve beggars--all of +guaranteed good character although not actual communicants--received +with delight each a new pair of shoes and stockings, which they were +able to sell at fabulous prices, immediately the ceremony was over, to +collectors of curiosities, chiefly Americans. And that same night twelve +very happy beggars, all more or less drunk, made their appearance on the +largest music-hall stage in the metropolis, where the whole scene was +elaborately re-enacted in facsimile, followed by a cinematograph record +of the actual event. + +The King was a little disappointed at these modern developments, they +seemed to take away from the penitential character of the performance, +and rather to weaken than restore in the public conscience the due +observance of Lent. + +Max, however, assured his father that he had made the greatest hit of +his life; his personal popularity had been greatly enhanced. What +pleased him better was that in feeling for the public pulse, by the +light of his own conscience, he had proved that he was right and the +Prime Minister wrong. + +Yet, though ostensibly in the wrong, the Prime Minister had really been +right. He had reckoned that the move might prove a popular one--for the +monarchy; and though a dull average of popularity for that ancient +institution suited his book for the present, he did not wish, in view of +certain eventualities, to see it greatly increased, and still less did +he wish the King to discover that by acting in opposition to his +ministers he might gain in popular esteem. + +As one of the Knights of the Thorn he himself had been obliged to +attend the ceremony; and by some it was noticed that, as he stood +holding a golden ewer in his two hands, he looked very cross. But +all the other Knights of the Thorn--those who had towels and soap as +perquisites--enjoyed themselves thoroughly and were already looking +forward to a repetition of the performance next year. Even in their +case, then, the King had proved to be right,--forms and ceremonies +accompanied by fine clothes were still popular things; the Order of the +New Broom would not be yet. + + +III + +And then, with blare of trumpet and clash of drum, with troopings and +marchings, with garlanded streets and miles upon miles of cheering +people, came the great Jubilee festivities. Silver was the note of the +decorations--silver in the midst of green spring. The Queen herself wore +silver gowns and bonnets of heliotrope, and the King a uniform wherein +silver braid formed the becoming substitute for gold. Corporations came +carrying silver caskets; army pensioners and school-children, fêted at +the public expense, received white metal mementoes which, while new at +any rate, looked as real as any coin of the realm. For a whole week the +piebald ponies really worked for their living, grumbling loudly between +whiles in their stalls; for a whole week "loyalty" was the note on which +the press harped its seraphic praises of monarchy and nation; and for a +whole week people actually did drop politics, reduce their hours of +labor, and run about enjoying themselves. + +The poet laureate published an ode for the occasion; he remarked on the +passing of time, said that the King had acquired wisdom and +understanding, but that the Queen did not look a day older; said that +the trees were green on that day twenty-five years ago when the King +ascended the throne, and that they were green still; said that cows ate +grass then, and were eating it now without any decrease of appetite; +said, in fact, that nothing sweet, reasonable, or beautiful had really +changed at all, and that the monarchy, taking its constitutional day by +day, was the national expression of that unchangeableness. + +The day after the appearance of his poem he received that titular +recognition for lack of which a poet laureate must feel that he has +lived in vain. And then, all this unchangeableness of things having been +thus ratified and sealed with the official seal, the King, his +ministers, and the whole political world advanced to the edge of changes +such as the country had not seen the like of for the last hundred years. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PACE-MAKING IN POLITICS + + + + +I + +Inside the Council, meanwhile, curious and uncomfortable things had been +happening. The King's talkativeness had steadily increased; no one could +reduce him to reason. + +"He reminds me," said one of his ministers irritably, "of the +school-boy's story of the tea-kettle which discovered locomotion. Off +boiled the lid: 'Why!' cries the observant inventor, 'put that upon +wheels and it would go!' So he put it upon wheels and it went. He is +exactly like that tea-kettle on wheels, miraculously set going without +any inside reason to guide him! In my opinion before long there will +have to be a regency." He tapped his skull meaningly, but in the wrong +place: he should have tapped the back of it. + +"What? Prince Max!" ejaculated his auditor; "I should hardly call that a +remedy!" + +"Nothing can be worse," declared the other, "than things as they are!" + +In that he made a mistake; they were going to be much worse. The King's +new mental activities were only just getting into their stride; and from +a very unexpected quarter he was about to receive aid. + +At the Council board, where the King had now found voice, one alone sat +humorously interested and amused--the Minister of Fine Arts. He was not +an artist himself--had he been he would never have been allowed to +occupy that position; he was a Professor of History, Teller by name, +and more than any of his fellow-ministers he studied life. Nothing +interested him so much as the human machine; and to see this rather +humdrum monarch suddenly developing into a tea-kettle on wheels, as his +colleague had so happily phrased it, filled him with profound interest +and an underlying sympathy. + +Dimly the King had become aware that somewhere in that body of adroit +shufflers who were supposed to minister to his constitutional needs the +confused cry of his conscience had evoked an echo. He saw under a high +bald forehead kindly eyes watching him; and it was a kindly voice +charged with considerateness which one day, over a matter in which time +pressed, begged for a further interview. + +International exhibitions had become the vogue; and in putting on its +peace paint for the Jubilee, Jingalo had determined to maintain its +prestige among the nations by holding a conversazione of the Arts. In +matters of that sort his Majesty had no particular taste; but in an art +exhibition it was his duty to be interested. If need be he would open +it, and would say of art and of its relations to the national life +anything that the commissioners required of him. He would also lend any +pictures from the royal collection which did not leave too obvious a gap +upon the walls. All this was a mere matter of course; but the occasion +being important--one of the great events indeed of the Jubilee +festivities--it was expected of him that he should give a rather special +consideration to the final plans. + +Though wearied by the circumlocutions of his Council which had lasted +throughout the morning, he named an hour, and at six o'clock received +his minister in private audience. + +The Professor began to explain matters in the usual official tone, but +before long perceived that the attention paid to him was merely formal. +The King sat depressed, listless, and cold. This renewal of the official +routine found him mentally fagged out; it was evident that his thoughts +were elsewhere. + +Making the matter as short as he could in decency, the Professor folded +his memoranda and returned them to his pocket. + +Recalled to himself by the ensuing silence the King spoke-- + +"I really don't know enough about it to say anything," he murmured. "No +doubt you have arranged everything for the best." But still he remained +seated as though the interview were not ended, and the minister had +perforce to remain seated also. + +"I fear that to-day we have wearied your Majesty," he said at last to +fill up the pause. "The Council is sometimes very trying." + +The King lifted forlorn eyes in a sort of gratitude upon this, the least +troublesome of all his ministers. "You, at least," he answered, "have +not to reproach yourself, for I noticed that you did not speak." + +"I was listening," answered the Professor; "I was much struck by your +Majesty's line of argument." + +"You agreed?" + +"I cannot separate myself from my colleagues," returned the minister +cautiously; "but I recognized the strength of your Majesty's case. On +its own premises, if well put, it becomes unanswerable." + +"I hardly thought that I had put it well." The King's voice showed +despondency. + +"To be perfectly frank, sir," said the Professor, tempering the amiable +twinkle of his gaze with a deferential movement of the head, "you did +not. The historical argument requires a knowledge of history." + +"You remind me of another of my deficiencies, Professor." + +"It is shared, your Majesty, by nearly the whole of the Cabinet. Very +few of us, sir, knew anything more of it than you; and those of us who +did were intent on concealing our knowledge." + +"Very considerate, I am sure." + +"Not at all, sir: our knowledge would have given strength to your +argument." + +The King sat up a little at this confirmation of his suspicions. "Do you +mean, then, that my ministers make it a part of their duty to conceal +from me the truth?" + +"Some truths, sir," submitted the Professor, "may have undue weight +given to them, which it then becomes a councilor's duty to correct. +After all, history is only history; if at times we cannot break from it +we shall never get anywhere." + +"Yet all to-day," protested the King, "history, precedent, and the +Constitution are the words that have been drummed into my ears, for all +the world as though I, and not you, were the preacher of subversive +doctrine." + +"Your Majesty will remember that in this country we have had three +successful revolutions against the Constitution. In one the monarchy was +successful, in two the people." + +"Is that said as a warning?" + +"By no means, sir; merely to show that precedents lie on both sides like +dry bones in the wilderness. But it requires the power of a prophet to +call those dry bones to life. At present I see no prophet in Israel." + +"Yet every member of the Government prophesies." + +"I noticed, sir, that you did not. Never once did you pretend to know +what the future would bring forth: you only pointed to the past, +deducing therefrom your duty, as you conceived it, to the Constitution. +Conditionally that commanded my respect." + +"Surely," said the King, "I am bound, whatever the conditions, to hold +sacred a trust which has been committed to me by inheritance." + +The Professor bowed. "With your Majesty," he assented, "the hereditary +principle must naturally be strong: it is implanted in your blood. I +have no such impulse in mine. My father was born in a workhouse." + +"That is very remarkable," said the King. "To have attained to your +present position, your life must have been full of interest and +adventure." + +"Full of interest--yes. Adventure--no. Very plodding, very uneventful, +almost monotonous apart from mental happenings. Now and then an unsought +stroke of fortune. That is all." + +"How did you ever get into the Cabinet?" inquired the King, in a tone +that betrayed a sort of puzzled respect. + +"Merely to fill a gap in a ministry whose days were numbered. Then an +unexpected turn of the wheel kept us in power, and I remained. It was an +inglorious arrival, but I found I could be of use: a sort of connecting +line between incompatibles. I am not unpopular with my colleagues, and +left alone in my department, I go my own way." + +"And what is your way?" inquired the King, still searching for guidance. + +"I do nearly everything as my permanent officials tell me, recognizing +that while ministers come and go permanent officials remain and acquire +experience from both sides. On the other hand, I use my own discretion +in the hastening or suspension of the superannuation clause; I promote +by results and not by seniority. My department, in consequence, is the +most efficient in the whole Civil Service, and I have less work to do +than any other minister. Thus I am left with more leisure and energy to +devote to the consideration of policy, and affairs in general." + +"And do you approve," inquired the King, "of the present policy?" + +The minister paused. "I think the pace is about right," he said +reflectively. + +"The pace?" + +"Yes; government to-day, sir, is largely a matter of pace, the actual +measures do not so much matter. Modern democracy is making for something +of which we are all really--the governing classes I mean--profoundly +apprehensive: and the problem now is to let it come about without actual +catastrophe. When I used the word 'pace,' I had a certain graphic +illustration in my mind--an incident I once heard from the manager of a +railway--the recountal of which will show your Majesty what I mean. + +"A passenger train, before arriving at the head of a long, evenly +graded declivity, had taken on three or four good trucks heavily laden. +Owing to some carelessness in the coupling these wagons became detached +on the very crest of the descent, and falling to the rear came almost to +a halt. Not quite: sluggishly at first they began to move, and gathering +impetus from sheer weight followed in the track of the proceeding train. +Halfway down the declivity, the engine-driver discovered his loss and +the danger that threatened him. Looking back, he saw in the distance the +wagons weighted by the labor of men's hands drawing nearer with a speed +that grew ever more formidable. His one chance, therefore, of avoiding a +catastrophe was to put on pace in the hope of arriving at more level +conditions before the impact took place. Yet he must still limit himself +to a speed which enabled the train to keep to the rails on a certain +sharp curve which lay ahead. That was the problem which the +engine-driver set himself to solve: up to a certain point the more pace +he could allow the greater his chance of safety, beyond that point a new +danger arising out of pace lay ahead of him." + +The minister paused. + +"What happened?" inquired the King. + +"He negotiated the curve with success, and had got so far ahead that +when the wagons finally overtook him their impetus had been diminished +by the more level conditions of the road, and the impact was but slight. +Only the guard's van was smashed, and the guard himself rather badly +disabled." + +"And what happened afterwards to the guard and the engine-driver?" +inquired his Majesty, much interested. + +"The guard was pensioned for life: the engine-driver was promoted." + +"And whose fault was it--the guard's?" + +"Well, not exactly," replied the Professor; "the careless coupling was +done by others, but the guard had the right, which he had not chosen to +exercise, to refuse to accompany any train in which his van was not put +last--so as to embrace the whole combination. At least, he had the +technical right." + +"I suppose he did not wish to give trouble," said the King meditatively. + + +"Very likely; for, of course, had he exercised his right the whole train +would have been delayed by the extra shunting." + +"And he in consequence a less acceptable servant to his employers." + +"No one could have blamed him." + +"Not for excess of caution?" queried the King. "Did you not yourself +say that on those lines government would become impossible? You have +to run your railway system, it seems, with a certain risk of +accidents--otherwise you would never be up to time." + +"That is so," said the Professor. "In every political crisis it is pace +more than principle that I find one has to consider. If it is solved in +such and such a way, our pace will be so and so, and the question--will +it take us safely over the curve? If it is solved in another way so that +the pace slackens, those wagons in the rear may be down upon us." + +"And the guard, whose control, while the train makes its running, is but +nominal, is then the first to suffer!" He saw himself in the man's +place. "Poor glow-worm!" he cried, "he may change the green light in his +tail to red--or was it red to begin with? but it is no use! Those +proletarian forces descending upon him from the rear are quite blind in +their purpose: it is merely dead weight and impetus that send them +along." And then he pulled up abruptly, astonished to find that he was +talking in Max's manner. Was it so catching? + +"Not wholly blind, sir," said the Professor; "believe me, they mean +well--mainly to themselves, no doubt: that is only human nature. Every +body in the community, whether energized or sluggish, has some weight +attached to it; and the more that bodies can agree to combine the +greater is their weight politically. One has to recognize that consensus +of opinion carries with it a certain moral as well as physical force. +Out of that springs the evolution of our governing system." + +"Only I," said the King, "in the nature of things have always to stand +alone." + +"Sir, you have all history!" said the Professor. + +"Which, as you have reminded me, I do not know." + +"May I inquire, sir, whether you have a real wish to know?" + +"Why, naturally!" exclaimed the King. Whereupon the Professor, as though +laying aside something of his officialdom, took up an easier attitude +and addressed himself to the point. + +"It would, I think, sir, be quite compatible with my duty to my +colleagues were I to send your Majesty a few volumes of constitutional +history with certain appropriate passages marked. It would interest me +very greatly to hear the argument developed on the lines you have +already laid down. The history I would venture to send is a thoroughly +reliable and standard authority, written by an eminent jurist to whose +words we later historians still bow. As I said, sir, _pace_ is to-day +the thing which really matters; beyond a given pace we, certainly, are +not able to go. Luckily for our present plans there is no source from +which any forcing of the pace seems probable. I do not think this or any +other ministry dare attempt it. Speaking for ourselves any increase of +the present pace would, I conceive, become a grave embarrassment. If, +therefore, your Majesty has been apprehensive of our adopting any +increase of speed, I think you may be reassured. After the +constitutional readjustment our pace is scarcely likely to grow +dangerous." + +The Professor had managed to indicate that these were--if so it might be +allowed--his last words. The King rose. + +"I shall be much obliged, Professor," said he, "if you will lend me the +books you have mentioned. When may I look for them?" + +"Sir," said the Professor, in smooth matter-of-fact tones, "it so +happens that I have them with me in my carriage. I will have them +conveyed to your Majesty immediately." + +And therewith he bowed over the King's hand and departed. + + +II + +Left to himself the King stood considering for a while. He was pleased, +but puzzled. What had this man, wise and kindly, been telling him? What +advice were his words intended to convey? He was quite sure now that +this minister had come and talked to him for a purpose: and what he had +mainly talked about was "pace." It was "pace" that mattered. That was +all very well, but with pace he himself had nothing to do--except in a +negative sort of way. He, occupying the position of guard with brakes to +his hand but no steam-power, could only cause delay; he had no means, +and no object that he could see, for accelerating matters. Besides, had +not the Professor said that in his estimation the pace was about right? +All his efforts to secure delay would--he was already aware of it--fail +of their effect; ministerial resignation threatening, he would have to +give in. The alternative, the mad alternative that had for a moment +occurred to him--no, it would not do! The results might be too +tremendous, might lead even to revolution and a republic, and so he gave +the problem up. And then a pile of six large volumes "with Professor +Teller's humble duty" was brought in and set down before him; and John +of Jingalo sat down to read the marked passages. + +It was a reading that for its completion extended over many days. + +What first attracted his attention, however, was a chronological series +of plates, showing the map of Europe in all its political changes from +the tenth to the twentieth century. This was, in fact, a key to the +whole work, for as the author rightly pointed out in his opening +paragraph the history of Europe was inextricably bound up in the history +of Jingalo, and the one could not be properly studied without some +understanding of the other. + +These maps of Europe he turned from century to century; and there, as he +marked their many variations, there always to be recognized was Jingalo +occupying its proud historical position--so often challenged, yet still +on the whole unchanged. It had found room to live and breathe, not by +its own strength, but by a careful adjustment of the political balance +between others, and a neutralization artfully and sometimes +treacherously contrived of greater forces than its own. It had for +neighbors two great military states and several smaller ones; and had at +some time or another been at war with nearly all of them. +Often--generally in fact--it had come out of those wars more vanquished +than victorious (though Jingalese school-books carefully concealed the +fact): it had lost, for proof, more territory than any other power in +the world except England, and yet, like England, cherished the curious +conviction that it had won all the really important battles and dictated +each peace upon its own terms. Having been wholesomely driven out of +France in the fifteenth century, it had captured and carried away with +it as trophy the order of the White Feather, with its proud motto, "J'y +suis, j'y reste." In the eighteenth century it had adopted by compulsion +from Germany an alteration in its law of regal inheritance, and had +marked its adhesion to the new formula by the institution of the order +of the Dachshund, with the obsequious motto, "Das ist mir ganz Wurst," +popularly mistranslated by the wags of the day into, "That is the worst +for me." Beaten by the infidel in the Crusades it had joined thenceforth +to its regalia the holy crown of Jerusalem; and having thrown over the +Papacy at the time of the Reformation, had added to its armorial +bearings the Keys of St. Peter, and to its royal claims and titles the +Kingship of Rome. A frequent and murderous deposition of its kings had +but accentuated its devotion to the monarchic system: while its solemn +confirmation of each fresh breach of continuity had stood to reaffirm +its general belief in the hereditary principle, and in divine providence +as controlled by Act of Parliament. The only other country in the world +which had acted with such scrupulous inconsistency, unrepentant and +unashamed, was England. It was no wonder, therefore, that in their +history the two countries had much in common; and it must have been +through sheer inadvertence, in view of their rival claims to be the +constitutional pace-makers of Europe, that while they had often stood +badly in the way of each other's interests they had never yet fallen to +blows. + +International politics, however, were not for the moment the King's +chief concern, and he turned back from the pages of Europe to study in +detail the constitutional history of his own country and the powers it +still reserved for its kings. + +While he pursued these studies, many things new and strange presented +themselves to his gaze. There were, he discovered, powers of the Crown +still extant, though lapsing through gradual desuetude, of which he had +never dreamt, and as to the existence of which no one had made it his +duty to inform him. Some of them had been in regular practice less than +forty years ago; they were becoming obsolete merely because the advisers +of the Crown wished it. Just as the House of the Laity was now falling +more and more under the control of a Cabinet whose powers waxed as the +other's waned, so the King himself was in the hands of those whose +interests were to conceal from him the powers he possessed. + +He came on a page where the right of royal initiative in Council had +been thoughtfully underlined by the Professor; and he discovered with +astonishment that a whole series of constitutional questions lay +altogether outside the competence of ministers to deal with until they +had been first formally submitted to the King himself. Under this +heading he found that no financial proposal touching on Crown lands, or +on grants to the royal family, could become a matter of ministerial +discussion without his consent first given; no proposal to alter the +royal line of succession or the oath taken by the King at his +coronation; no change of definition in the articles or creed of the +Established Church; no alienation of Church lands; no fresh institution +of any rank, title, order, or degree, nor the abolition thereof; no +alteration in the laws governing the right of the voteless to petition +the King against the acts of his ministers; no subsidy or treaty of war, +and no surrender, barter, or exchange to a foreign power of any part +whatsoever of the King's dominions; no appointment to a foreign embassy; +no elevation of a commoner to rank or title; no issue of royal patents; +no free pardons for criminals, and no change in the composition of +either of the two Houses of Parliament. All these things must be +formally submitted to the will of the Crown before being entered as +items of the ministerial policy. + +"My word!" cried the King, perceiving for the first time how +unconstitutionally that word had been set at naught. He could hardly +believe his senses. Here under his nose, all these weeks lèse majesté +had been rampantly disporting itself; and he knew nothing of it! +Possibly the Prime Minister knew nothing of it either; had not the +Professor said that many of his colleagues were as ignorant of +constitutional history as the sovereign himself? But some knew--some +must know! And the King, who but a few hours before had believed himself +the most helpless of emblems, a mere ornamental topknot to the +constitutional edifice, now found himself armed with weapons of +far-reaching precision that would enable him to carry war into the +enemy's country. Metaphorically he clapped his wings and crowed. Yes, it +was as though that weathercock, to which hitherto he had likened +himself, that toy of chance, swung this way and that upon a pivot with +no will of its own, had suddenly taken to itself life and wing and +power, and quitting its stake had descended into the arena with beak and +claw stiffened for the fray. That board of tormenting ministers was now +in his power--for a time at any rate. + +In his excitement he got upon his feet and trotted about the room, and +pausing now and again he gazed ahead with a gloating eye on a whole +series of ministerial councils to come. For this monarch, you must +remember, had been departmentalized all his life, and to that extent +dehumanized; and it was only in a departmental way that he recognized +his opportunity. The power to strike which he now visualized came +through no intellectual enlargement, no opening up of moral vistas, but +only through the discovery that he had on his side a mass of red tape +the existence of which he had not previously suspected. In similar +trammels to those which had so long hampered and restricted his own +movements it was now possible for him to entangle the goings of his +ministers. A hundred and one things had been done which were not merely +out of order but--oh, blessed word!--unconstitutional; and in +consequence the poor dear man's mind was in a welter of delight. At last +he had a weapon to his hand whose reach and mechanism he could +manipulate. "Oh, dear me, yes!" he said to himself, and said it several +times. + +When a character of childlike simplicity has got hold of a loaded gun, +it has a natural instinct to let it off. The actual direction, and what +the target is to be, are not so important as the delightful sense of +hearing the gun go off,--of proving by actual demonstration that it +really was a loaded and dangerous thing, capable of causing +consternation. John of Jingalo was simple, and when he got up from his +first solid reading of the Professor's volumes he felt that he was well +primed; and his instinct was to let himself go, to spread himself, to +attack his enemy with extended front so that they would not know where +to have him. Half-a-dozen small tags of red tape gave him a far greater +sense of resource and opportunity for aggression than any one good piece +of measurable length capable of being well wound and knotted. His +powers, such as they were, were largely imitative; and now for some +weeks the wordy Max had been coaching him. The Professor had supplied +him with the material, Max with the method for applying it; the +Professor had given him his head, Max had given him his tongue. Looking +forward to the exercise of his new-found powers he meant, in a word, to +be voluble; and when in later chapters he becomes yet more surprising, +let the reader remember that fortuitous crack at the back of his skull +through which the windows of his head were open and his brain-pan a +place of draughts wherein any winds of doctrine might blow. A word of +opposition, a mere gust of excitement, were now quite enough to set him +going, and once started he was very difficult to stop. + +For much the same reason, having once started to prance up and down the +carpet--that carpet so variegated and Maxian in its pattern--he found it +very difficult to sit down again; and would not have done so had not the +measured striking of the clock upon the chimney-piece reminded him that +he was expecting a visit from Max. Then a curious change came over his +deportment; he stood considering, glancing from the telltale volumes +upon the table to the door through which he was presently expecting his +son to enter. Then with a secretive look and a shake of the head, "Oh, +dear me, no," he murmured very softly; and taking up the books he put +them away in a drawer and locked it, and, when presently Max came in, +said nothing of his new discovery, but sat docile and listened, while +the other drew out the shining length of his vocabulary, making words +sound like deeds. + +Not for nothing was John of Jingalo the son of his father, not for +nothing a descendant of kings who so far as they consciously achieved +power had always held it possessively and exclusively, withholding the +key from their heirs. Post obits were not popular in that royal House of +Ganz-Wurst which for two hundred years had ruled over Jingalo. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE NEW ENDYMION + + + + +I + +Readers who have hearts will remember that while these things were +taking place in the political world, something of more intimate and +personal concern had happened to Prince Max. That young man, whose head +was so crowded with ideals for others, had discovered--or glimpsed, it +would be more correct to say--an ideal of his own, in the shaping of +which he had nothing whatever to do. Goddess-like she had descended upon +him from skies in which previously he had held no faith at all; and even +yet it was a tussle for his conscience to accept anything coming from +that quarter as really divine. He was agnostic; he did not like the +Church, and he rather despised that attitude of mind which accepted +miracle as a directing power in human affairs, and looked to an unseen +world for the inspirations of life. It was as though some modern +Endymion gazing up at the round and prosaic surface of the moon, and +refusing to admit that there entered into its composition anything even +of so low a vitality as green cheese--it was as though such an one had +seen the affirmed negation suddenly take to itself life and form, and +disclose from afar a whole heaven of thoughts, beauties, and aspirations +which he had not believed existent. And then, having seen that gracious +form so well defined that it must for ever remain imprinted upon his +consciousness, he had watched it steal from him into obscurity, wilfully +concealing its whereabouts, though ever since the silver haze of that +hidden presence had permeated his world. + +Concealment and flight are, we know, the very arrows of love when +directed with subtle intent against the hunter's heart in man; and they +are scarcely less powerful to kindle his ardor when undirected and +without purpose, or, as in this case, of a purpose wholly negative and +without lure. + +His lady had disappeared, because in very truth parting was her intent; +and in haunting for a while the dark and crooked ways which her feet had +blessed, he had but the poor satisfaction of knowing that he was +depriving of her ministrations lives inconceivably more miserable than +his own. That consciousness when it came touched him in a point of +honor, and forced him to relinquish the quest; but there remained with +him thenceforth a maddening sense that if, accepting his withdrawal, she +had resumed her avocations, he now knew daily where she was, and had +only to break with his scruples in order to find her. + +They had met less than half-a-dozen times; and he, driven by his mental +pugnacity to test so unreasonable an apparition, had spared neither +himself nor her. The sincerity of her faith had angered him, though +anything else, had he detected it, would have destroyed his dream; and +when he had scoffed she had not troubled to rebuke him, had only glanced +at him amused, not with pity or condescension or kind Christian charity, +but with a very friendly understanding and often with what seemed +agreement. He was astonished to find that a rippling sense of humor +could go hand in hand with a blind gift of faith, and to hear sayings as +bold as his own uttered as though they were the merest common-sense. +"Why yes, of course," she admitted, in answer to one of his tirades, "if +you want envy, hatred, and uncharitableness in a concentrated form you +will find them in the Church; that stands to reason." And when he +inquired why, she answered, quite simply, "Because a bad Christian is +Satan's best material." + +Nor had she any illusions about that particular branch of the Church +militant for which she labored; she regarded it rather as a half-baked +body of territorials than a regular army equipped for the field. Still +it served a purpose, gave useful occupation to many, and stood for the +time being against unreasoning panic or callous desertion of duty; nor +would she surrender its few poor healing virtues for any of the nostrums +he sought to set in their place. "It does more than you with all your +talking," she said quietly, and, as they passed by, took him into a +mission church where he might see--a small corrugated iron hut, set down +in the midst of slums. Under the scent of incense the smell of +disinfectants was strong; near a stove sat a lay reader, and about her a +dozen poor weary women plying needle and thread. Two or three of them +held children at the breast; in a pen near by lay half-a-dozen others +asleep. Over the stove was a large boiler supplying hot water to poor +parishioners; away by a small side altar knelt a single figure in +prayer. Brightly colored "stations of the Cross," and something upon the +altar that looked like a large tea-cozy, before which burned a light, +told how here the law was systematically broken, and that the "nonsense" +inveighed against by the old Queen Regent had not yet been put down. + +"That is the bit of Christianity I work for," she said as she led him +out again, "a sort of mother-hen whose cluckings, scratchings, and +incubations are run in a parish of five thousand half-starved people on +less than £300 a year. Have you anything better to show?" + +"I want revolution," he said. + +"Choose your own time," she answered mildly. "Here every day we are +facing a far worse thing." + +"Making it endurable," he objected. "These people are patient because of +you and your like." + +"Impatience would only make it harder for them," she returned. "You +can't argue with them; they haven't the brains." + +"Not in working order, I admit." + +"Meanwhile they have to live." + +"And when you help them to that end--are they at all grateful?" + +"A few; yes, that is one of the hardest things we have to bear,--we who +are living stolen lives; for whether we will it or not our vitality +comes from them; daily we drain it from their blood, and nothing we can +do will stop it." + +"Are you in need of money?" + +"Always; but five million pounds given us to-morrow would not go to the +root of this." + +"What would?" + +"Nothing but true worship." + +"You worship an alibi," said Max. + +"What nearer divinity has brought you here?" she inquired. And he, too +conscious of the personal motive, forbore to explain. + +At their fifth meeting she told him quite frankly that he was +interfering with her work, that she could not have him accompanying her, +waiting for her, picking her up as if by chance. + +"If you want to do work you must find it for yourself; you will if you +are sincere," she said in answer to his request that she would +commission him. + +"But may I not be your follower?" he pleaded, choosing the word for its +double sense. + +"Lay sisters don't have followers," she replied. "They don't go with the +costume." + +"Then why wear it? Will you turn away a disciple for a mere matter of +dress?" + +"My dress," she said, "is of more use and protection to me than anything +you can do or than money can buy. You have politicians who say that +society is built upon force. My dress is the work of women; thousands of +lives have made it what it is, and it will take me safely into slums +where no policeman dare go alone. When your politicians can come here in +coats of a similar make, then they will have begun to solve the problems +which they are so fond of talking about. Now, will you please to walk on +the other side of the road?" + +He took her hand, saying earnestly, "When are we to meet again?" + +She shook her head at him, smiling. "Truthfully I haven't time for you," +she said, "and I can't make promises." + +And then, just for once--for it seemed his last chance--Max fell into +sentiment. + +"One I want you to make," he insisted. + +"What is that?" + +"That you will pray for me!" + +"Now you are asking for luxuries," she smiled; "you don't believe in +prayer. But I will." Then, nodding confidently, she added, "And it will +do you good." + +And then, as he still lingered, with quiet business-like demeanor she +crossed the street and disappeared. + +It was true that in thus seeking her intercession Max had asked for a +luxury. He did not believe in prayer any more than he had ever done; but +he did very much like the idea of being prayed for by the woman he +loved. Once, for a brief moment, he had seen her kneel before an altar +empty to him of meaning; and as he then watched the serene joy and +beauty of her face had realized with a jealous envy how in an instant +all thought of him had passed from her mind. So in asking her to pray +for him he had merely sought to penetrate by subtlety the unbelievable +world of her dreams. And then, even as he reveled in the vision, the odd +thought occurred in what terms would he obtain introduction? Once, when +for the repayment of a borrowed cab fare she had asked his name and +address, he had told her who he was, and she had not believed him; had, +indeed, herself tantalized him in return with an address as little +probable as his own. If, therefore, she prayed for him in words how +would they run, or, if in thought, what character would it assume? "That +man," "that nice man," "that talkative man," "that person who called +himself Prince Max," "the tall stranger," "the man whom I sent away," +"the man who emptied my bucket," "the man who brought in the bed," "the +man who waited for me at corners," "the man who wanted to be my +follower." All these variant products of a brief acquaintance, though he +dwelt on them as luxuries, failed to give him satisfaction, they formed +a fretful and at times a tormenting accompaniment to his unapportioned +days. At his hours of rising and setting the thought would insistently +recur to him: "Now, perhaps even now, she is praying for me." And +straightway he would return to the task of trying to realize the nature +of her prayer and with what label she pigeoned him in the columbarium of +her soul. + +Whether or no it could be said that this was "doing him good," he had +certainly begun to apprehend the power of prayer; that dove-like spirit +with overshadowing wing had found means to ruffle very considerably the +even current of his existence. Even had he wished to he could not get +her out of his thoughts. Fantastic and prosaic statements of his +identity kept leaping into his mind. "The man with his trousers turned +up" was one of them. Yes, he had done that in order to make their +immaculate cut less noticeable; he had dressed as badly as he knew how, +and yet--she might possibly be praying for him as "that well-dressed +person." It was a ghastly thought, and he had brought all this purgatory +upon himself merely by asking for a "luxury," for something in which he +did not really believe. And then, at the thought of her deep sincerity, +his mind revolted from all these bywords and subterfuges. "Oh!" he cried +to himself, "she knows, she knows, she must know!" + +And, of course, as a matter of fact she did. She knew that she had a +lover, a young man who had nicknamed himself,--clever and handsome, +evidently with time and money to spare, probably of some social +position, and with an undeniable likeness to a Prince whom she only knew +by his photographs. And for this young man, who on five or six separate +occasions had so hindered her with his attentions, she had a deep and +impulsive liking which, as it ran counter to her plan of life, she did +not choose to encourage. + +But if Max could only have known he would have been comforted: she +prayed for him every day, morning and night, and taking him at his word, +though not in the least believing it, it was as "my Prince Max" that she +begged heaven to look after him. And when in her orisons that nymph +remembered him she smiled a little more than was her usual wont--for +truly he had amused her. In spite of dignified air and polished speeches +and a belief in himself that never failed, she had discerned the +stripling character of his soul; and greatly would Max have been +surprised, and perhaps also a little shocked, could he have learned that +he ranked in her mental affections as "rather a dear boy"; for it is +woman's way to claim the privilege of a motherly regard without any +seniority in age, and with a good deal of feeling that mere "mothering" +will not satisfy. + + +II + +Another lady, as to whose movements and plans Prince Max could not yet +be indifferent, had meanwhile returned home, and he had been to see her. + +The Countess Hilda von Schweniger had sent word that she had serious +things to say to him; it was only thus that he received notice of her +return. She had a tender weakness for talking seriously at intervals, +for the periodic workings of her conscience were ever open to view. But +whatever special seriousness of purpose was now perturbing her, this +matter-of-fact return to the roof they shared seemed to give it +contradiction,--did not at least suggest that any immediate breach in +their present relations was to be looked for from her. + +And so Max went to the interview wondering how he was going to behave +over this new fact which had so largely entered his life; whether he was +going to "behave well"--whether indeed it were possible at the same time +to behave well and be honest and above-board. He was, in fact, up +against the usual difficulty of the man who, having run domesticity on a +temporary basis, has discovered grounds for wishing to exchange it for a +more permanent one. And as he put his latch-key into the garden door of +the quiet tree-shadowed house which for five years he had regarded as +his second home, he uttered to himself a kind of a prayer that his +relations with a good woman would not now have to be less honest than +formerly. + +It was evident that she had been on the lookout for him; a French-window +in a creeper-covered veranda opened as he advanced, and gracious +domesticity stood smiling in the green-lighted shade. + +She laid her hands on his shoulders as she kissed him. "Well, mon +Prince," she said, "are you glad to see me again?" + +He took in all the pleasant and familiar appeal of her face before +answering. "Yes, I am," he said, "very." + +"That's true--really true?" + +And at that challenge he gave a funny little duck of the head, known to +her of old, and kissed her again. + +She turned quietly and walked away into the room. + +"I came back just to hear you say that," she murmured in a moved tone, +and stood waiting with her face away from him. + +The heart of Max was wonderfully relieved: gladdened also, for as he +looked at her he realized that she remained dear to him. With her old +simple directness she had let him know what was in her mind, and by her +clean brevity of speech had already, in this their first moment +together, saved him from the trap into which he might have fallen. Not +that the ordinary male temptation to let her resolution stand as cover +to his own did not for a moment occur to him. Nay, he could even suggest +good reasons; for was not this the kindest reward now left within his +power--to let her think that the wish was not shared--to show even a +little resentment and reproach? Max, the satirical critic of human +nature, could see clearly the attractiveness of such a course,--knew +himself a sufficiently good actor to play the game at least well enough +to satisfy his artistic taste. But he did not yield to the temptation; +had he done so he would have formed a more moral emblem for the +edification of my readers than I am now able to provide; and they must +face instead the uncomfortable fact that out of this long and immoral +liaison between a prince and his mistress certain moral values held +good, and that being in need of a sincere friend and confidante he found +it in the woman from whom he was about to separate. + +He crossed to her side, and taking her hand kissed it with more +frequency and fervor than he had kissed her face, and heard then her +breath struggling against tears. She reached up her other hand and began +stroking his head; and it is life's truth that these two still found +attraction and comfort the one in the other. + +"Then you are going back again?" whispered Max. + +She nodded, saying "yes" afterwards on a catch of breath. + +"When?" + +She looked at him wistfully. "I didn't want to go--yet." + +"Why should you?" + +"It wouldn't worry you?" + +"Not at all. Very much the reverse." + +"I should want to see you, though." + +Max smiled. "You mean, then, shouldn't _I_ worry _you_----" + +"I suppose I did mean that," she said, viewing him speculatively. + +Then Max was tempted to show off. "Who gave me my first lesson in not +worrying?" he asked. + +"Oh, yes," she admitted, "but then, you see, I was yours. It has to be +different now." + +"I want it to be different too," he said; and as by that statement he +wished to convey important inner meanings, he spoke solemnly. + +She looked at him radiant, half incredulous--the pious wish shining in +her eyes. "Oh, Max!" she cried amazed, "has it come to you too, then? +Has Our Lady----" + +But Max shook his head. "Your Lady is not my lady," he gently confessed. + +"Oh!" her voice went down into the deeps of despondency. "Oh! is that +what you mean?" + +A solemn nod from Max informed her that it was. + +"You always told me that it would happen some day." + +"I hoped I should have gone." + +"And I," said Max, "am glad that you have not. Selfish of me, isn't +it?" Then he kissed her hand again. + +She began a homely mopping of her face. + +"Then it doesn't matter how I look now?" she commented, and paused. "How +am I looking?" + +"Well, and as dear as ever," he replied. + +"That isn't what I wanted to know. You know it isn't." + +"You are looking," he said, "just two evening moons older than when I +saw you last." + +"What have evening moons got to do with it?" + +"They are your most becoming time." + +She took the compliment with a sigh and a smile; then with an air of +resignation sat down. + +"Who is she?" she asked abruptly. + +"I haven't a ghost of a notion. We haven't been properly introduced, she +hasn't encouraged me, I haven't said a word, and I'm not to go near her +any more." + +This for a start. The Countess Hilda became deeply interested, and very +much alarmed. "Then it isn't a princess?" she cried in consternation, +"she isn't royalty?" + +"Oh, no," said Max, "far from it. She is what you call a sister of +mercy, and 'sister'--horrible word--is the only thing I am allowed to +call her; she is a sealed casket without a handle." + +"Oh, Max," cried his Countess, "don't do it, don't do it; it's +wickedness! _I_ didn't matter; but this--oh, Max, you don't know what a +grief and disappointment you'll be to me if you----" + +"Dearly beloved friend," interrupted Max, "do give me credit for a +morality not very greatly inferior to your own. After all I am your +pupil." + +"But you can't _marry_ her?" cried the Countess. + +"Saving your presence, I mean to," asseverated Max. + +"You! Where will the Crown go?" + +"Charlotte will have three inches taken out of its rim and will fit it +far better than I should--that is if anybody is so foolish as to object +to my marrying where I please." + +"Then in Heaven's name," cried the Countess, "why in all these years +haven't you married me?" + +Max smiled; they were back into easy relations once more. This was the +lady with whom he had never spent a dull day. + +"I did not wish to give you the pain of refusing me," said he. "Had I +asked you you would have said that I was far too young to know my mind, +and that you yourself were too old." + +"Yes, I should," she admitted, "but you should have left me to say it." +Then she returned to her original bewilderment. "But, my dear boy, if +she is a sister of mercy she has taken vows." + +"Oh, no, we don't do that in Jingalo. No Jingalese Church-woman may +throw away her whole life on so problematical a benefit as a religious +vow of celibacy. She may lease herself to Heaven for a given number of +years, but freeholds are not allowed." + +"And you call that a Church!" cried the Countess. + +"Well," said the Prince, "I think that in this case she has got hold of +a scientific point worth keeping. Seven years ago I was not, science +tells me, the man that I am now; and seven years hence I shall be yet +another. What right has my past man to bind this present 'me' in which +he has no particle of a share?" And Max, having taken wing on a fresh +notion, was off into flight when the Countess brought him to earth. + +"And how long is your next lease going to be?" she inquired dryly, "if +seven years is all you can answer for?" + +"My next man will renew," said Max confidently. + +"Sisters of mercy don't accept tenants on those terms," she retorted. +And then, seeing that he looked at her with a benevolent eye, added, +"Oh, yes, I know that I did, but that isn't the sort of mercy you are +looking for now. You'll find, Max, that you need a religion in order to +become a freeholder. Mark my word! There! I couldn't have put it better +than that! And now as I've come to the end of _my_ lease I had better +retire and see to dilapidations and repairs." + +She left him smiling; but he knew, in spite of her brave face and +jesting words, that there was still trouble of spirit to be gone +through; and the repairs took some time. + + +III + +In the days that followed, Max, now launched on his new quest, had as +good and sympathetic a listener as lover could wish. And while the +Countess thus paid penance and endured some purgatory for a five years' +breach with her own conscience, she found compensations, as all sensibly +good women will when they come on logical results of their own making. +In our conventional readiness to reverence the mother and disown the +mistress as social institutions, we are apt to ignore, as though the +mere suggestion were an impiety, the fact that in their instincts and +affections they have often much in common. It is one of Nature's kindest +and wisest economies; yet perhaps the woman treasures it secretly, +because it is a quality of her sex scarcely to be understood by men. The +chaste mistress sleeps in many a mother's breast, ready to welcome in +her grown son that touch of the lover which nestles before it takes +flight; and in the unchaste mistress, homely of heart, there is often +more of the mother than her paramour has wit to discern. + +The Countess Hilda, cut off from home ties and kindred in the very prime +of her maternal powers, had cast her eye on Max with a possessive but +with no predatory aim; and in her own illicit fashion, contrary to some +qualms of conscience and the strict dictates of her creed, had mothered +him through the dangerous years with as little damage to his moral fiber +as seemed reasonably possible. And now, not without some pangs of +maternal jealousy, but with none of the baser kind, she listened while +he sat at her feet and talked of the woman he loved. But the real price +to be paid, as she clearly saw, lay still in the future and in all those +possibilities of beautiful domestic possession wherein she could have no +part. Left to herself she sometimes wept in woeful abandonment at the +thought that she and his children must for ever remain strangers; and +then she dried her eyes and sat eager and attentive to learn what manner +of woman their mother would be, if Max had his present will. + +"I met her," said Max, "or rather found her again, washing the floor of +a single-room tenement on a 'four-pair back' to the accompaniment of +screams from its enraged occupant. And when, as a means of introduction, +I tendered assistance, she sent me down to the basement to refill her +bucket,--offered me a child's head to wash, and then as an alternative +bade me bring in a mattress from a second-hand dealer who had neglected +to send it. I went. Required to give proofs of my honesty by a shopman +who rightly regarded all strangers with suspicion, I deposited the +value, which I forgot afterwards to reclaim, and set off with my load. +Before I reached the first corner I made the humiliating discovery that +I did not know how to carry it. I was bearing it embraced like an infant +in arms, but owing to its size my arms would not go round. Twice it +unrolled itself and lay like a drunken thing in the gutter; small +children stood round and laughed at me. From one of them came these +words of wisdom: 'Lor', 'e's only a gentleman, he don't know nothing!' +On my second attempt, not seeing well where I was going, I stumbled into +an apple-stall; and immediately I, heir to a throne and engaged in a +charitable action, found myself regarded as a criminal lunatic by people +quite obviously my superiors in all honest ways of earning a living. A +small boy took pity on me and offered to carry it on his back--any +distance for a penny. That taught me; I gave him the penny and put it +upon my own, and having disentangled myself from the crowd in which for +foolishness I had become conspicuous, found with relief that thenceforth +no one took any notice of me. The old scriptural act of a man carrying +his bed struck nobody there as absurd; the streets of our sweated +quarters are far more genuine and human than those in which we parade +the clothes they make for us. Ah, yes; that statement, at which you show +some incredulity, is directly pertinent to my story; for it was an +endeavor to trace my clothes to their origin--over the many impediments +and difficulties placed in my way--that had led me into those slums. I +won't go into that just now, though it had an important connection with +our future acquaintance. + +"By the time I returned with the bed to the four-pair back attic I had +received a better lesson in human values than in any previous half-hour +of my existence. I was then given other commissions, and these without +any word of apology; as I had volunteered so I was to be used without +scruple or mercy, just as a millionaire's motor-car is used at election +times, till scratched, battered, broken down, it creeps from the fray. +'We are all sweated workers here,' she said to me afterwards, and then I +saw her uses of me explained; anything which came to that mill came to +be ground, and the chaff to be cast out. I submitted to her test, and in +that first day saw her only by glimpses; but in accompanying her back to +the Home from which she emanated I told her why I had come--said that I +wished to have a clear conscience and wear clothes upon my back in which +there was no element of sweating. She told me it was quite impossible, +impossible, that is to say, unless I controlled every stage of +manufacture from the raw material to the finished article; and even +then, I was warned, the paper cover, the cardboard box, and the string +with which it was tied, would all be sweated products. And when I asked +what I could do to help matters, she bade me go with empty pockets and +see as much of the life as possible for myself, and make others like +myself see it also. That is what she had been doing to me--rubbing my +nose into it before I should get tired and run away. Even while +accepting it she showed a fine indifference to my money. 'Don't let that +salve your conscience,' said she, 'we can make it useful, but it won't +change matters.' And had I given her a million pounds I do not think she +would have thanked me any more." + +All that Prince Max narrated of his charitable adventure would take too +long to tell here. One thing the Countess noted, as a point well scored, +he had begun to learn humility; his offers of service had been rejected +as of little use, his company as a hindrance, his new lady had left him +to feel small, and he had not resented it, had indeed owned that her +judgment on him was just. He had also put himself to her test of +sincerity and failed. "I tried to go on with it," he confessed, "but it +was no good. What my father says is quite true--we can't really get at +the lives of these people, we are too cut off. We make use of them, they +of us; but we are still hiding from each other round corners, or walking +on opposite sides of the street. She, having become one of them, meant +me to see that." + +"But she doesn't know who you are." + +"She knows what kind I am; it's all the same." + +"You didn't cross after her?" + +"How could I? It wouldn't have been manners." + +"She presumed on your having them, then?" + +"She has a generous nature." + +"And then, for whole weeks, you did much more than cross after her; you +hunted for her, lay in wait for her, doing nothing all the time. My dear +grown-up man, wasn't that rather childish?" + +"What else could I have done?" + +"Made her miss you." + +"Well, as we haven't seen each other since, it comes to the same thing." + +"But she knows you've been there; she would have thought much more of +you if you hadn't been." + +"Why?" + +"It would have made her more repentant. Now she only thinks that you've +tired of it." + +"Ah, well, she promised to pray for me," said Max. + +"Oh, I pray for you, my dear," sighed the Countess; "not that I suppose +that does any good!" + +And therein may be discerned a difference between the two women who most +concerned themselves for the good of Max's soul; for the other had been +quite confident that her prayers would do good. And it is curious how +often those who have faith prove to be in the right. + + +IV + +Max had given up the quest, but he had not given up hope. Though love +had humbled him, he yet believed in his star, and reminded himself that +the world was small. + +In the late spring the Jubilee celebrations took up some of his time; +maneuvers followed. He went and played at soldiering for the public +satisfaction; then returned to his more private and serious avocations, +put the finishing touches to his book, and began to receive proofs from +the foreign printing-house to which through the Countess's hands he had +entrusted it. She herself with kind, charitable intent stayed on; more +than ever now he needed some one to talk to and--he did not worry her. +Others were trying to worry him. The Queen, after voluminous +correspondence, had found and offered him choice of two German +princesses whose photographs said flattering things of them; and, when +he declined both propositions, had looked at him very sadly indeed--had +almost broached the unmentionable subject. "Oh, Max, what are we to do +with you?" she sighed; for she was still keeping herself badly informed +of his goings-on. "That woman is back again," she informed her husband; +"I really think we ought to consult the Archbishop." + +The King saw no hope in that. "You must leave Max to take his own time," +he said. He did not just then want to worry about Max, since he was +preparing to plunge on his own account. "Alone I did it," was to be his +boast, and he knew that if once he resumed fathering Max, Max would be +fathering him, and his small spurt of initiative would be over. + +But all that must be kept for another chapter. This one belongs to Max +and his love affairs, past, present, and future; and it is still Max and +his fortunes that we are following as we step back into the limelight of +publicity. + +At the first Court following on the Jubilee celebrations the Bishops +appeared in force. It was their final demonstration of loyalty to the +throne before the political battle joined, for they were now preparing +to reject, just as a last fling, the whole of the Government's program, +and then to see what the country thought of it. + +As a bilious man sticks out his tongue toward the glass in order to know +whether he looks as he feels, so the Bishops were sticking out their +tongues toward the country in the hopes of looking as brave as they were +pretending to be. And they came to Court that they might advertise their +attitude. + +They came in silken court-cassocks, preceded by their croziers and +followed by their women-folk, a nice expression of that ecclesiastical +and domestic blend on which the Church of Jingalo prided itself. These +Church ladies were moral emblems in another respect as well: they had +the privilege of appearing at Court functions more highly dressed--that +is to say, less denuded--than others of a more aristocratic connection. +The sacred and unfleshly calling of a bishop threw a protecting mantle +over the modest shoulders of his wife and daughters; and these did not +go unclad. In accordance with Pauline teaching they were covered in the +assembly, expressing in their own persons that "moderation in all +things" which was the accepted motto and policy of the Church. + +The Archbishop of Ebury was there also; his crozier was different in +shape from the rest, and as an addition to his silken cassock he wore a +train. He was accompanied by his daughter. Daring in her assertion of +the vocation which had withdrawn her from the gaieties of life she wore +the gray robe of a little lay-sister of Poverty. + +"His Grace the Archbishop of Ebury, Prince Palatine of the Southern +Sees, Archdeacon of Rome, Vicar of Jerusalem, and Primate of all the +Churches," so, upon entry to the Presence, his full and canonical titles +were proclaimed by an usher of the Court. + +After so high a flourish more impressive in its way was the simple +announcement that followed: "Sister Jenifer Chantry." + +Dignity led, quiet unassuming modesty came after; indifferent to her +surroundings, obedient to the call of duty, she advanced in her father's +wake toward the royal circle. They bowed their way round; and there, +suddenly before him, Prince Max beheld the face of his dreams. + +The eyes of the beloved met his; and he, struggling desperately to +conceal his excitement and emotion from those who stood looking on, saw +himself recognized without shock or quiver of disturbance. No +heightening of color belied that look of quiet assurance and peace; with +disciplined ease, perfect in self-possession, she courtesied and passed +him by. And suddenly it seemed to him that all the air was filled with a +strange humming sound, soft yet penetrating, like the populous murmur of +a summer's day. Above the rustle of robes, the patter of feet, the +subdued murmur of voices, and the regulated tones wherein Court ushers +were announcing fresh names, that high vibratory note went on; elated +and thrilled he listened to it and wondered, not knowing its cause--the +quickened murmur of his own blood at the touch of Love's index finger +upon his heart. + +Now at last he knew who she was; now he could find her again on +unforbidden ground, follow her where she had no excuse to hide, +and press against all obstacles for an earthly fulfilment of +that unpractically directed thing called prayer. For now it +should not be only her prayer for him, but his for her; her very +name--Chantry--expressed the need he had of her. She was the shrine +within which his soul kneeled down to pray--not to any God, but to life +itself. Here was the matrix from which all his desultory and scattered +forces had been waiting to receive form and direction; to his own small +fragment of that general outpouring which we call life, purpose and +destiny had come. He with his adventurous theories, she with her patient +and unflinching practice, how gloriously together they could tumble old +monarchy to the dust and build it anew. For the first time in his life +he felt almost fiercely desirous to step into his father's shoes. +Strange that such sudden ambitions should be sprung on him by contact +with a heart which apparently held none. + +All this while he was returning the bows of bishops and their wives. +They flowed by in solid file forty or fifty strong; for this was a +demonstration with political import behind it, this was going to be in +all the press to be understanded of the people; the Bishops about to +fight for their own order were passing before the steps of the throne to +indicate in dumb show that allegiance to Crown and Constitution which +animated their hearts. + +And then, gorgeous in cloth of gold and high funnel-shaped hat, +introduced by the Minister of Public Worship but unaccompanied by his +two black wives, came the Archimandrite of Cappadocia--a counter +demonstration; and after him, forty Free Churches divines, all in black +gowns, silkened for the occasion, but unenlivened by the moral emblems +of their domesticity; a queer somber tail they seemed to that great +eastern bird of Paradise under whose wing they would presently acquire +the right to wear feathers as fine as his own. + +Most of them had never been at Court before, and in consequence were not +so well drilled as the Bishops. Some of them bowed too often, and too +hurriedly, and before they need, beginning with the Lord Functionary +whom they mistook for royalty; and they walked out sideways instead of +backwards, reactionary methods of progress not being in their blood. +Still, taking them for all in all, they were a very learned-looking +body, and their presence in such uncongenial surroundings showed that +they meant business. + +And deficiency in their demeanor was quite covered by the deportment of +the Archimandrite. In the new robe presented to him for the occasion by +the Prime Minister (for the moth had got into his own) he looked superb, +and behaved with a majesty beside which Jingalo's home-bred royalty sank +into insignificance. Max frankly recognized his superior, and bowed low. +"This is a descent of the spirit, Archimandrite," he said, as they +touched palms; and as he did so a queer breath of eastern spices blew +over him, for the man of God was chewing them. + +And so, in this great overt act of respectful homage to the throne from +both sides, the truce came to an end and the signal for fight was given. +More important to Prince Max was the fact that it had revealed to him a +certain lady's identity. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +KING AND COUNCIL + + + + +I + +During the weeks of the Jubilee recess the King had spent his spare +moments in taking notes, and priming himself on fresh points of +constitutional usage. + +The Comptroller-General was greatly puzzled to see writing going on day +after day in which neither he nor any of the secretaries were invited to +take part. He was more puzzled still when, by means available to him, +he obtained access to what the King had actually written. + +After a single reading he felt it his duty to report to the Prime +Minister. + +"He seems to be writing a history of the Constitution," said the +General. "Where he gets his facts from I don't know, but they don't seem +to have come from you; quite the other side I should say." + +On this note-taking, so voluminous that it resembled the writing of a +history, the King was getting into his stride, and was discovering how +very much better all these years he could have made his own speeches, +had he only been allowed to. He had within him the gift of expression, +though not the power of condensing it; he had industry, a good case, and +now at last behind his back an unimpeachable authority. And so, at its +next meeting he came down into Council stuffed full of facts and +phrases, and quite determined that before things went any further his +Ministry should hear them. + +The constitutional crisis had reached a head as soon as Parliament again +met. The defiant action of the Bishops had thrown the Government's +program so much into arrears that a drastic quickening of the pace had +become necessary; and if, in spite of scare and warning, the Bishops +meant to go on doing as they had hitherto done it was evident that their +constitutional powers must be limited. The Archimandrite and the Free +Churchmen between them might supply the Government with a bare working +majority; but that alone would not be sufficient to make legislation +fruitful between then and the next general election. Unless the +Government, after striking the blow, could come before the country +bearing its sheaves with it, there was a very serious chance that its +patriotic intention of continuing in power would be frustrated; and even +a Government busily engaged in marking time to suit its own bureaucratic +interests must appear to have covered the ground mapped out for it. + +For this reason Cabinet ministers had been meeting and deciding on a +good many things behind the King's back; and the "Spiritual Limitations +Bill"--all the world has since heard of it--was the device they had +adopted as most suitable to their needs. They proposed to bring it +forward in a late winter session. + +On the day before Council a draft of the proposed bill reached the hands +of the King; and his Majesty on reading it and after referring once +again to certain passages in Professor Teller's books of history, smiled +gleefully and rubbed his hands; for though he had the heart of a +vegetarian he was beginning to scent blood and rather to enjoy the smell +of it. + + +II + +The Council was already standing about the board when the King entered. +Having bowed them to their seats he formally called on the Prime +Minister to read the presented draft. This was done, and through the +whole of it without a word of interruption his Majesty sat quiet and as +good as gold. + +Polite exposition was about to follow; but as the Prime Minister essayed +an enlargement of his text his flight was stayed. + +"Gentlemen," said the King, "I am dissatisfied with my position." + +All turned amazed; the Professor with less amazement than the rest, for +he observed, as confirmation of his suspicions, that the King's hand +rested upon a bulky pile of manuscript. + +"In this bill," said his Majesty, "you are proposing to remodel a +Constitution that has lasted in an unwritten form for five hundred +years. I see in your proposed emendations that the Crown is frequently +mentioned, but its powers are nowhere defined--unless that constantly +recurring phrase 'on the advice of his ministers' is a definition which +you wish to see indefinitely extended. Otherwise there is no open +indication that the Crown's powers are affected. But the question of +constitutional rights as between the Bishops and the Laity to-day may +to-morrow be a question involving the Crown also; and if you now mean to +impose limits on one branch of the legislature, you must extend your +definitions to cover the whole ground. I require, gentlemen, if this +matter is to be carried any further, that my own powers and prerogatives +shall be as accurately defined and set as much on a working basis as +those of your two Chambers." + +"'Working basis' is distinctly good," murmured Professor Teller, and +looked admiringly at the King, whom the Prime Minister hastened to +reassure. + +"Your Majesty's powers," said he, "are in no way touched. At no single +point of our proposals is any limitation suggested." + +"Oh, I daresay not, I daresay not!" replied the King, "but though it +isn't there in the text it is between the lines; yes, written with +invisible ink which will be plain enough to read presently. What I am +thinking about is the future. You may be perfectly right as to the +wisdom of change; but we must have chapter and verse for it. We can't +treat these matters any longer as an affair of honor. It used to be: now +it isn't. Honor to-day is not a help but an impediment; I've found that +out. To me it has lately become a question--a very grave +question--whether I can in honor accept the advice of my ministers; and +I do not intend to leave so disquieting a problem for my son to solve +after me. There, now you have it!" + +The King panted a little as he spoke, like a dog that has begun to feel +the pace of a motor-car too much for him. + +"I'm sorry that your Majesty has found any reason to complain," said the +Prime Minister in a tone of grieved considerateness. + +"I am not complaining," answered the King, "I'm only saying. And what I +say is, let us have chapter and verse for it from beginning to end. +Define the powers of the Crown as they exist to-day--but as they won't +exist to-morrow unless you do--and your proposals shall have my most +sympathetic consideration; but not otherwise." + +"Surely the question your Majesty raises," interrupted the Prime +Minister, "is an entirely separate one." + +"No doubt you would treat it so," replied the King. "Oh, yes--break your +sticks one at a time as the wise man did in the fable!" + +A breath of protest blew round the Council board. What would he be +accusing them of next? + +"I daresay you don't mean it," he went on; "but it will be said, at some +future day, that you did. And either you do mean it, or you don't; so if +you don't what can be your objection to having it put down in black and +white? I'm sure I have none. I have got everything written out here +ready and waiting." And the King fingered his manuscript feverishly. + +"One very obvious objection," interposed the Prime Minister in alarm, +"is that there is no demand for it in the country. No political +situation has arisen--the matter is not in controversy." + +"You must pardon me," said the King, "we are in controversy now. Though +the country knows nothing about it, my position is affected; the demand +is mine." + +"It is quite impossible, your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, with a +brevity that was almost brusque. "It would entirely confuse the issue in +the public mind." + +"Direct it, I think you mean." + +"In a most dangerous and inadvisable way." + +"Dangerous to whom?" the King inquired shrewdly. + +"The functions of the Crown must not be involved in party politics." + +"Though party politics are involving the functions of the Crown? Oh, +yes, Mr. Prime Minister, it is no use for you to shake your head. I +contend that, without a word said, this bill does directly undermine my +powers of initiative and independence. You deprive the Bishops of their +right to vote on money bills; very well, that will include all royal +grants, whether special or annual,--maintenance, annuities, and all that +sort of thing. At present these are fixed by law and cannot be disturbed +without the agreement of both Houses. That is my safeguard. But in +future you leave the Bishops out, and you have me in the hollow of your +hand. Oh, gentlemen, you need not protest your good intentions: I am +merely putting the case as it will stand supposing a--well, a +socialistic Government, bent on getting rid of the monarchy altogether, +were to succeed you. Where should I be then? That is what I want you to +consider. Oh, you don't need two sticks to beat a dog with! If you mean +that, let us have it all said and done with,--put it in your bill; and +if the country approves of it, well, if it approves of it, I shall be +very much surprised." + +The Prime Minister rose. + +"Does your Majesty suggest," he began, "that any such idea----" + +But the King cut him short. "Oh, I don't know what your ideas were; this +isn't an idea, it's a bill." + +The Prime Minister sat down again; all the Council were looking at him +with mildly interrogating eyes, wondering what they should do next. The +King had often been voluble before, but this time he was reasonably +articulate; and as his pile of manuscript indicated he had come armed +with definite proposals. + +"I am asking for safeguards," said the King. "How do I know, how do any +of us know, at what pace things may not be moving a few years hence? It +is the pace that kills, you know; yes, very important thing--pace." His +eye caught a friendly glance; it twinkled at him humorously; he appealed +to it for support. "Yes, Professor, have you anything to say?" + +The Professor rose and bowed. "I am only a listener, your Majesty," he +said, and sat down again. + +"Pace," said the King again, having for a moment lost the thread of his +discourse. Then, having clung to that anchor to recover breath, once +more he plunged on. + +"If any royal prerogatives still exist," said he, "if I am to be still +free to act upon them, then I want to be told what they are, and to have +the country told also; yes, before any more of them become obsolete! At +present it seems to me that anything of that kind is obsolete when it +becomes inconvenient to the party in power." + +Once more a respectfully modulated wave of protest went round the board. + + +"Oh, yes, gentlemen, I have become quite aware from what has recently +taken place that an unexercised authority, if not set down in black and +white, comes presently to be questioned as though it did not exist. If +the title-deeds are missing, then you are no longer on your own +premises. Well, for the future, I want to be upon mine. And here you +come to me with this bill, and not a single one of you has seen fit to +advise me as to how my own position is affected by it; no, I have had to +go to other sources, and find out for myself." + +At these words the Prime Minister saw an opening, and also a possible +explanation of the manuscripts which lay under the King's hand. He put +on a bold front and spoke without waiting for the royal pause. + +"Have I, then, to understand," he inquired, "that your Majesty's +advisers have lost the benefit of your Majesty's confidence?" + +"By no means," replied the King. "If I am not confiding in you now, I +don't know what confidence is. I am putting all my difficulties before +you, and asking for your advice. But I don't want to have it in a +hole-in-corner way, a bit at a time, first one and then another. We are +in Council, and it is from my whole Council that I want to know how +these difficulties are to be met. When I am alone I can get anybody to +advise me, go to whomsoever I like; there is no difficulty about that." + +The Prime Minister bristled; he seemed now to be on the track. "I must +ask further, then," said he, "whether upon this question of a new +written Constitution your Majesty has thought fit to consult +others--those, that is to say, who are politically opposing us?" + +Under an air of the deepest respect a charge of unconstitutional usage +was clearly conveyed. + +"Oh, you mean the Bishops?" said the King. "No; since all this trouble +began I have been deprived of the consolations of the Church; not a +single one of them has dared to come near me, except in an official +capacity. Though, as I say, I have the right to consult any one." + +The Prime Minister raised his eyebrows, in order, while formally +agreeing, to make denial visible. + +"Of course if your Majesty informs us of it," he said, "we shall know +where we are." + +"That is what I am saying," persisted the King. "If we all consult about +it, then you know where you are, and I know where I am. There are the +twenty of you, and here am I, and this is the first time that we have +exchanged a word on the subject. Isn't it unreasonable to expect me to +come to you with my mind made up on a thing I knew nothing about till +yesterday? Why, it was only then I discovered that for you to discuss +such a bill among yourselves, without having first sought my +permission--a bill affecting the Constitution and the powers of the +Crown--was in itself unconstitutional." + +What on earth did he mean? Ministers looked at each other aghast. + +"There!" cried the King, "you are all just as surprised as I was. That +is why I say we must get it put into writing. You didn't know that you +were interfering with royal prerogative. No more did I: we had forgotten +to look up history. Now I've done it, and I daresay that as an historian +Professor Teller will be able to inform you whether I am right?" And +here with a flourish the King named his authority. + +"Your Majesty has stated the constitutional usage with accuracy," +acknowledged the Professor. "Whether usage is decisive remains a +question." + +"There!" said the King triumphantly. "That is what happens if things are +not actually set down in law. Now you see my point." + +The Prime Minister's brow grew dark. + +"I think, your Majesty," said he, "that this is hardly a question we can +discuss in Council." + +"In a way you are right," acknowledged the King; "it should not have +been discussed here, as I said just now, without my permission. But as +it has been brought forward we either do discuss it and all that I have +to propose in the matter, or I rule it out of order; and we will pass +on, if you please, to the next business." + +The King had finished; he leaned back in his chair; and the Prime +Minister, collecting authority from the eyes of his colleagues, stood up +and spoke. + +"I think your Majesty hardly recognizes," said he, "that we cannot +legislate on a matter as to which there is no public demand. In regard +to the status of the Crown no political situation has arisen such as +would justify your Majesty's advisers in adopting a course which might +seem to indicate a lack of confidence. Under representative government +no ministry can propose legislation which has only theory to recommend +it. If your Majesty will allow me to make my representations in private, +I think I shall be able to show that the course we propose is the only +practical one. I would, therefore, most respectfully urge that for the +present the points your Majesty raises may be set aside." + +It was as direct a challenge of the royal will as one minister could +well make in the presence of others; never before had a difference of +opinion stood out so plainly for immediate decision under the eyes of a +whole Cabinet. + +The King heard and understood: it was a crucial moment in the exercise +of his partially recovered authority; twenty pair of eyes were looking +at him, curiously intent, one pair benevolently anxious. The Prime +Minister was fingering his brief, ready to go on with the interrupted +disquisition; he even looked surreptitiously at his watch to indicate +that time pressed. + +That little touch of covert insolence was sufficient; by a sort of +instinct the incalculable values of heredity, training, and position +asserted themselves. The King's lips parted in the shy nervous smile +which charmed every one. "Mr. Prime Minister," he said, "I am perfectly +willing to meet you at any future time you may like to name." He took up +the agenda paper as he spoke and turned to the Minister of the Interior. +"The Home Secretary," said his Majesty, "will now read his report." + +Before they knew where they were the Council had passed on to its +accustomed routine. + + +III + +Nobody looked at the Prime Minister's face just then; for the moment he +had been beaten, though the person who appeared least aware of it was +the King. + +But, of course, it was for the moment only. And when at a later hour of +the day, with mind made resolute, the Prime Minister sought his promised +interview, the monarch was no longer at an advantage. Dialectically he +could not meet and match his opponent, and he had no longer that subtle +advantage which presidency at a board of ministers confers. Speaking as +man to man the head of the Government did not feel bound to observe that +tradition of half-servile approach which in the hearing of others +fetters the mouths of ministers. + +The Jubilee celebrations were now over, the Parliamentary vacation +approached; and what before had been mere talk and threat could now be +put into instant action. And so when he had given the King his run, and +listened to the royal obstinacy in all its varying phrases of +repetition, contradiction, reproach, till it reached its final stage of +blank immobility, he formally tendered the Ministry's resignation. + +The King sat and thought for a while, for now it was clear that one way +or the other he must make up his mind. All those strings of red tape, +which he had meant to tie with such dilatory cunning hung loose in his +grasp; to a Cabinet really set on resignation he could not apply them. +Just as his hands had seemed full of power they became empty again. He +knew that at the present moment no other ministry was possible, and that +a general election was more likely to accentuate than to solve his +difficulties; and so in sober chagrin he sat and thought, and the Prime +Minister (as he noticed) was so sure of his power that he did not even +trouble to watch the process of the royal hesitation resolving itself. + +When after an appreciable time the King spoke he seemed to have arrived +nowhere. + +"This is the fifth time," he said, "that you have offered me +resignation: and you know that I am still unable to accept it." + +The Prime Minister bowed his head; he knew it very well, there was no +need for words. + +"And you know that I am still entirely unconvinced." + +"For that," said the minister, "I must take blame; since it shows that +my advocacy in so strong a case has been very imperfect." + +"Oh, not at all," said the King. "I think you have shown even more than +your accustomed ability." + +"That is a compliment which--if it may be permitted--I can certainly +return to your Majesty." + +"I have felt very strongly upon this matter," said the King. + +"We all do, sir--one way or the other. With great questions that is +inevitable." + +"You admit it is a great question?" + +"I should never have so troubled your Majesty were it a small one." + +The King's thoughts shifted. + +"What a pity it is," said he, "that I and my ministers have never been +friends." + +"Have not loyal service and humble duty some claim to be so regarded?" +inquired the Prime Minister. But the King let this official veneer of +the facts pass unregarded. + +"It would have helped things," he went on. "As it is, when I differ from +my ministers I am all alone. It is in moments of difficulty like this +that the head of the State realizes his weakness." + +"There again, sir, you do yourself an injustice." + +"Ah, that is easily said. But what does my power amount to when all is +done? Perhaps at the cost of constant friction with my ministers I have +been able to delay things for a while--given the country more time to +make up its mind; but then, unfortunately, it was thinking of other +things, and I myself provided the counter attraction. What I was trying +to do in one way I was rendering of no effect in another; all that I +intended politically has been swamped in ceremony." + +"Your Majesty was never more popular than to-day," observed the Prime +Minister. "That in itself is a power." + +The King paused to consider; then he said, "If I am prepared eventually +to give way, what time of grace can you allow me?" + +"We must have our bill ready for the winter session, sir." + +"Will you allow me till then?" + +"If I may know what is in your Majesty's mind." + +"What is in my mind is that the country should know what it is about. +This bill has not yet been seen; by the public nothing is known of it. +Well, that is what I ask: put it before the country, let the terms of it +be clearly stated, and if, when we come to the winter session, you are +still determined that it must form part of your program, then,"--the +King drew himself up and took a breath--"then I will no longer stand in +your way." + +The Prime Minister bowed low to conceal his proud sense of triumph. + +"I have your Majesty's word for that?" + +"To-day is the 27th," said the King, "you can claim the fulfilment of +that promise in four months' time." + +"And till then?" + +"Till then," said the King slowly, "this question is not again to come +before Council. I hold to my point that its introduction without my +express consent was unconstitutional, and to maintain the Constitution I +am bound by oath." + +The Prime Minister yielded the point readily, seeing in it the effort of +dull obstinacy to score a nominal triumph. "There is, however, the +accompanying condition," said he, "necessary for the success of our +scheme; and to that I must once more refer. In order to pass our bill we +shall need the consecration of at least fifty new Bishops, nominated by +the Government; to that, also, your Majesty has hitherto been opposed." + +"Oh, you mean the Free Churchmen?" queried the King. "Ah, yes, and the +Archimandrite." + +"In that matter," replied the Prime Minister, "I have some reason to +believe that the Bishops will eventually give way." + +The King felt himself a little more alone. "Yes," he said, "I daresay +they will; I shouldn't wonder at all." + +"Then over that, too, I may look for your Majesty's consent?" + +The King repeated his former word. "I shall not stand in your way," he +said; and again the Prime Minister bowed low. + +"I have to thank your Majesty for relieving me of a great difficulty." + +"Oh, no, why should you? You have not persuaded me in the least; you +have merely forced me to a certain course, in which I still cannot +pretend that I agree." + +"I shall always recognize that your Majesty has acted on the highest +motives, both in opposing and in ceasing to oppose." + +"I shall ask you to remember that," said the King. + +"There shall never be any misunderstanding on my part," replied the +minister; and applying a palm to the hand graciously extended as though +its mere touch had power to heal, he took his leave, and the fateful +audience was over. + +For a long time after, the King stood looking at the door out of which +he had gone. + +"I think there has been a misunderstanding, though," he said to himself, +with a slow, faint smile, "and I don't think it is mine----" He paused. +"Perhaps, though, I had better write down exactly what I said." And +going to his desk he made there and then a careful memorandum of his +words. + +He read them over, and once again he smiled. He was still quite +contented with what he had done. "And I wonder," he said to himself, +"what Max would say if he knew?" + +There was a great surprise waiting for Max, and well might the King +wonder what that interesting young man would make of it. Yes, it was +just as well that Max should not know anything about it beforehand; Max +might run away. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A ROYAL COMMISSION + + + + +I + +While the King and the Prime Minister had thus been giving each other +shocks of a somewhat unpleasant character, Prince Max had received a far +pleasanter one. Only a week after the holding of the King's court the +lady of his dreams had written asking for an interview. + +The letter was not dated from the Archbishop's palace, but from the Home +of the Little Lay-Sisters; and it was thither that he repaired, in order +to forestall her humble yet amazing offer to wait upon him. + +In the bare, conventual parlor, with high walls that echoed resoundingly +and boards that smelt of soap, they met once more face to face and +alone. She courtesied low, addressed him formally as "sir," and thanked +him with due deference for coming; otherwise there was no change in her +demeanor. The flat-frilled cap showed within its border a delicate +ripple of hair, and above the fair breastplate of linen the face shone +with tender warmth like a white rose resting upon snow; and as her lips +moved in speech he re-encountered with a fervor of delight that curious +quality of look which had ever haunted his dreams--a communicativeness +not limited to words. Though it remained still her whole face spoke to +him; lips and eyes made music together--a harmony of two senses in +alliance, as into morning mist comes the yet unrisen light and the +hidden singing of birds. + +And yet all the while she was but saying quite ordinary things, making +brief the embarrassment of this their first meeting since their relative +positions had become explained. + +"I have taken you at your word, sir," she began. "When we last met you +asked if you could not be useful. Now you can." + +"Your remembrance makes me grateful," said the Prince. + +"Perhaps I ought not to be so confident," she went on, "since the idea +is only my own. It came from something I heard my father saying; and as +he strongly disapproves of women taking part in politics it was no use +saying anything to him." + +"Oh, politics?" That explanation rather surprised him. + +"Sometimes--just now and then," explained Sister Jenifer, "politics do +touch social needs: and to their detriment." + +"My acquaintance with politics," answered the Prince, "is +very--Chimerical," he added after a pause, pleased to have found the +term. + +"Yes," she smiled, "I have heard you. You are full of happy ideas, many +of them somewhat contradictory; but you have not yet fallen into any +groove. To you freedom means rebellion; you represent no vested +interest." + +"Is that my certificate of character?" + +"I had not finished," she said. "I was keeping the best to the last. You +have a great position and an open mind." + +"An important combination, you think?" + +"An unusual one." + +"And so you have an unusual proposition to make to me?" + +"Yes, I suppose you will think so. There is a brand I want plucked from +the burning--a Royal Commission saved from becoming merely official and +useless." + +"What is its subject?" + +"All this!"--she made an inclusive gesture--"slums, the conditions of +sweated labor, the daily material which we have to work on." + +"About which you have taught me that I know really nothing." + +"You said you were anxious to learn. At least half of that Commission +will be anxious not to learn--or not to let others." + +"Then you ought to be on it." + +"No woman is on it." + +"You wish them to be?" + +She threw out her hands. "What would be the use? Their voices would have +no weight." + +"Whose would?" + +"Yours," she said; and, eyeing him full, stopped dead. + +"You wish me to go upon that Commission?" cried Prince Max. + +"Yes." + +"In spite of all my ignorance?" + +"The sittings do not begin till late autumn; between now and then you +could get more actual knowledge--brought home and made visible to you, I +mean--than most of those who will form its majority." + +"Then you think I could be of use?" + +She looked at him, silent for a moment. "I think you have a mind capable +of taking fire, when it learns the facts." + +"Facts only deaden some people," said he. + +"Yes; that is what crushes us here. We have such mountains of facts to +deal with." + +"And you want fire to come down from those mountains and consume me?" + +She nodded prophetically. + +"I know you wouldn't run away." + +"I am trying to feel the call," said Max a little skeptically. And in +truth he was of divided mind, not because he had any doubt of his +ability, but because the temptation to insincerity was so strong. This +would give him the very opportunity he sought--through a vale of misery +he beheld the way to his own Promised Land; but was it fair that he +should take advantage of it without a heart of pity and conviction? This +Prince of ours rather prided himself on his conscientious scruples. + +"Will you tell me from the beginning," he said at last, "what put this +thought into your mind? I seem to be getting it only by fragments." + +"Three days ago," she answered, "I heard my father talking with others +of the projected Commission. They were dissatisfied at the Church not +being sufficiently represented--so insufficiently, indeed, that they +took it as an intentional slight, part of the Government's policy for +depriving the Bishops of all standing. It was held that further +representation was imperative." + +"What?" exclaimed Max; "am I to represent the Bishops, then?" + +She shook her head, laughing. "Oh, no!" she answered. "They found some +one very much better for themselves. That is the really immediate +danger. They are afraid that the Commission as it stands will issue +findings of a one-sided and party character, and that any minority +report, unless it obtained the chairman's signature, would have no +weight. Their main hope, therefore, is to secure a chairman of high +standing on whose help they can rely, and it is thought that the +Government could not oppose the nomination of a member of the Royal +Family. It would appeal to popular sentiment; and subject to his +Majesty's assent, his Royal Highness the Duke of Nostrum has expressed +his willingness to serve." + +Max had no great opinion of the collaterals of his grandfather--this one +least of all. "Oh, ye Heavens!" he exclaimed. "For what use these bones +of my ancestors? Why, with him to direct its deliberations, the +Commission will run on into the next century, and its report be only +applicable to the last!" Then, as he took stock of the situation, "And +are you expecting me to head the minority report instead of him?" he +inquired. + +"It is not their report I am concerned about," she answered, "and for +party I care little; it is the majority I fear. On paper the Commission +looks as if it meant business; Church and property have been squeezed +into one small corner, but the trade-interest is very strong; it is +there in concealed ways which outsiders cannot recognize, for even over +our public and medical departments--and still more in the press--it has +now got control. I can give you instance after instance of men known as +philanthropists whose riches come from sweated labor, and whose +munificent charities form not one tithe of their inhuman profits drained +from the lives of the very poorest. Some of them, great advertisers, are +to sit on this Commission, and all the press, irrespective of party, +will praise their appointment; while to defend their interests others +will be attacked. The Government may be quite ready as a temporary +expedient to make scapegoats of the property-owners, but it is not so +ready to antagonize trade. I believe, sir, that on this Commission the +real source of evil will never be traced; we shall hear of the grinding +middleman and the rack-renter, but nothing dangerous to these magnates, +or to the trade-system itself--unless----" She paused, and left silence +to carry her message. + +"Unless," supplemented Max, "some one thoroughly indiscreet occupies the +chair?" + +"Somebody," she replied, "whose minority report of one would attract all +the attention it deserved." + +"Oh, you think----?" His mind sparkled at the prospect: to be in a +minority of one had a peculiar fascination for him. + +"Yes, I think it may come to that," she said, "if you will honestly open +your eyes." + +"Then you cannot promise me the support of the Church?" + +She shook her head as though that were the last thing possible. + +"I am to be all alone?" His tone invited commiseration, while his brain +soared with the dreams of a hashish-eater. + +"I think about three may be with you, not more," she said, letting him +down to earth again. + +"Why are you so confident about me?" + +Her gentle gray eyes met his with friendly understanding. + +"When I found out who you were," she said, "I saw"--then she +hesitated--"I saw that you had the rare gift of doing naturally what one +would never expect." + +"In what way?" + +"To begin with, in coming here at all. And then you did things which, I +imagine, no prince ever did before, and did them quite easily--'for +fun,' I suppose you would say. Well, if you could do all that for fun, +what might you not do when you became serious? A man who doesn't mind +being laughed at--whatever his position--is very rare." + +"Ah!" cried Max, "but now you are giving me more credit than I deserve. +You set me to do ridiculous things for you--ridiculous, I mean, in one +dressed as I was for fashion and not for use--I was aware of it; but +nobody was aware of me. When I come here into these poor streets, I am +so unexpected that nobody recognizes me. If they thought that they did, +they would not believe their eyes. In that alone there is a sense of +enlargement and liberty which those who have not to live in our position +can hardly realize. It was like holiday; I felt as though I had been let +loose." + +"And so became more yourself?" + +"I cannot say; but I was happy while I was here. Why did you send me +away?" + +"For the same reason that I now ask you to come back. I wanted you to be +of use--independently." + +"Yet here I am dependent upon you again." + +"No; you have this in your own hands: it is your position." + +"That secures the chairmanship? But am I at all likely to be accepted?" + +"From what I hear, nobody suspects you of taking any great interest in +the life of the poor. They have therefore no reason to be afraid of +you." + +"I see," said Max. "As a figure-head chairman I might even be valuable." + +"Very, I have no doubt." + +"Part of the game?" + +"Royalty and Trade are supposed to be natural allies," remarked Sister +Jenifer. + +Max was startled at her discernment. "Oh, but that is true!" he cried. +"How wonderful, then, that you should be able to trust me at all." + +This set her smiling. "I had the advantage to begin with of not knowing +who you were." + +"And that gave you a start." + +"No, finding you out gave me the start." + +"You certainly have not lost time." + +"That I cannot say, till I have your answer." There was no temporizing +here. + +Max thought for a while, then drew breath and spoke. "I want you quite +to understand," he said, "that if I take up this work it will be very +largely for a personal reason. I daresay I shall, as you say, 'take +fire' when I know more about it; but at present I am not so moved. +Commissions do not attract me; and what I undertake I shall do solely on +faith--faith in you. Are you content that it should be so?" + +"For a beginning, yes." + +"Very well; something else follows. I shall need you for my guide." + +"I am always here at certain hours," she said. "But there are others who +know far more than I." + +He let that point go unregarded. + +"Then I may come to you for help?" + +"Always, if really you need it." + +"My needs shall be as real as I can make them," said Max. "How am I to +begin?" + +She named one or two books. "If you follow up what you read there," she +said, "you will find most of it practically demonstrated in this +district alone. For instance, we have a strike on just now among our +tailors and shirt-makers; the men have made the women come out with +them; they did not want to--women can exist under conditions where men +cannot. Go and mix with them, be among them for hours, attend their +street-corner meetings; you will hardly hear two ideas of any practical +value, but you will get many. It isn't theory that is wanted,--it is +that the life which thousands are living should be known and realized. +When the eye has seen, the heart follows. All we really want is +brotherhood; but how are we to bring it about?" + +"From that I am furthest away of all," said Prince Max. + +"No, no," she cried; "that is the great mistake! If kings are not the +very symbol of our community then they have no value left. May I tell +you two of the most kingly things I ever heard done in the present day? +The one was by the old King of Montenegro, the smallest of the Balkan +States. He found that his chief gentry were becoming lazy, too proud to +put their hands to labor--making idleness a class distinction. He sat +down in the courtyard of his palace and began to make shoes, and went on +making them daily while he held his Court and administered justice; and +so the new folly died." + +"And the other?" inquired the Prince. + +"It may seem far-fetched in the present connection," said she, "yet as +an expression of the real kingly instinct it has all that I mean. Some +years ago the heir to the English throne--the one who died young--went +out to India. One day he was holding a durbar of Indian chiefs, and they +with their retinues stood drawn up in parade ready to offer homage as he +passed along their ranks. Opposite was a great crowd of natives watching +the spectacle, and at a certain point in that crowd stood, as a mere +onlooker, one whom Britain had defeated and driven into exile, the old +Ameer of Afghanistan. Just before he rode down the Prince heard of it, +and had the man pointed out to him; and when he came there he wheeled +his horse about and gave the full royal salute. And through all that +great multitude went a thrill because the kingly thing had been done, +and all had seen it." + +Tears glistened in her eyes as she spoke. "He was rather a dull young +man," she went on, "so one has been told, but that was better than +brains, for that was the touch of human kindness done in the grand +manner which royalty makes possible, and ought to make natural--done +with a pride which has its place beside the humility of St. Francis." + +"Well, well," said Max, "put me in touch then, and I will see what I can +do. But I haven't the grand manner, you know." + + +II + +The King was considering the request of his revered uncle, the Duke of +Nostrum, to preside over the Commission on slums, when Max came, asking +also to be made useful. + +"What, you too?" cried his Majesty; "isn't one of us enough?" + +"Quite," said Max. "I want to be that one." + +"What are your qualifications?" + +"Willingness," said Max, "a brain capable of taking fire at facts, a +great position, and an open and rebellious mind. I am quoting from +authority; I was given my certificate yesterday." + +To his Majesty this was merely the voice of Max at his flightiest. +"Well," he said, "your Uncle Nostrum happens to have come first." + +"Do you always grant first applications?" + +"He has had much more experience." + +"Of slums?" inquired Max. + +"Of commissions, and all that sort of thing. He has sat on them." + +"So he has--the elephant! And they have died the death." + +"He works," said the King, "and you don't! You only talk." + +"I only talk!" cried the injured Max; his voice went up to Heaven +appealing against parental injustice. "Has he ever in his life been down +into the slums and spent whole days there, as I have? Has he carried +buckets for washing-sisters of charity, as I have; and borne upon his +back the beds of the dying, as I have?" + +"You?" cried the King with incredulity. + +"I do not publish these things upon the housetops," said Max, "but in +the secrecy of your chamber and in strict confidence I tell you that +they are true. And while I, for many anxious weeks, have been toiling to +qualify for this post, he, this Nostrum, this patent-drug from our royal +medicine-chest, this soporific sedative----" + +"Max, Max!" reproved his father. + +"He rushes in where an angel has feared to tread, and filches from me +my reward!" + +"My dear boy, are you serious?" cried the King. + +"I was never more serious in my life, father," replied his son. "But in +order to arrest your attention I have to be theatrical. Now if you will +really believe what I am going to say I will drop play-acting. I have, +as I tell you, been down into our slum districts, I have been among the +slum workers, means have been offered me for studying these problems at +first hand, and I am prepared,--from this week on when Parliament rises, +and the metropolis empties itself of pleasure, and you have gone sadly +to your annual cure at Bad-as-Bad,--I am prepared to devote the whole of +my time and energy to qualifying for this post; and with Heaven helping +me, I will make it the most astonishing and effective Royal Commission +that ever sat down believing itself on cushions to find that it was on a +hornets' nest." + +"You are becoming theatrical again," said the King. + +"No, no," said Max, "but my brain is taking fire; an angel warned me of +it in a dream, and behold it has come true. I have been seeing things." + +"Your Uncle Nostrum won't be pleased," remarked the King. + +"He never is," said Max. "Discontent is his prevailing virtue. Give +himself something to be discontented about, then he can go down to his +house justified." + +"The Prime Minister has already recommended him," went on the King, "at +least, said he would not oppose; but I don't know what he'll say to +this." + +"Nor do I," said Max, "and I don't care; neither do you." + +The King opened his eyes as though he had been surprised in some +secret--how did Max know that? And then his mind traveled a few months +further on; yes, it was quite true, he did not now care in the least. +What he had made up his mind to do had released him from all ministerial +terrors; and as he contemplated the relief in his own case his thoughts +turned to that bright youth over whose head so unlooked-for a fate was +now impending; how dramatic it would be! And here was Max, all +unbeknownst, harnessing himself to the wheels of State, pledged, unable +to run away. It was just one more turn in the toils which a +simple-minded man of gentle and retiring character was able to wind +around the scheming lives of others. By at last daring to be himself he +had become a power. + +"Very well. I will see that it is arranged," he said. "Yes, it is +perhaps time you had some experience in presiding over--over boards and +all that sort of thing. I shan't last for ever; I don't feel like it." +And he shook his head sadly, for he liked to be sorry for himself; +nothing helped him more to bear up under the troubles of life. + +"My dear father," said Max, with some fondness of tone, "you know that +the prospect of going for your cure always depresses you; but as you +insist on doing it you must pay the penalty. And when you are taking +those waters which so upset your digestion, and deprive you of the flesh +which nature meant you to wear, then think of me--not talking any +longer, but really up and doing--preparing myself at last to follow in +your footsteps. Now in this land of Jingalo, in the very heart of its +social and commercial system, I am going to make history." + +"Oh, you think so?" said the King to himself. "Young man, before you +have much more than begun, you may have to come out of it! You can't do +that sort of thing when you are in my shoes." + +And then he bade Max a benevolent good-bye and went off to his cure; and +Max, assured of his seat upon the forthcoming Commission, went off to +his. + + +III + +"How am I to dress for this business?" Max had inquired; it was one of +the first practical problems to be solved, and an important one. + +"If you don't mind," said Sister Jenifer, "you had better dress like a +Socialist. Wear a very soft hat, a very low collar, and a very red or +green tie, done loose in the French fashion, and nobody will wonder at +your looking clean, or at your asking questions. Young Socialists come +here to study the social problem and to show themselves off, and in a +vague sort of way the people have begun to understand them; and though +they look upon them as cranks, they don't any longer think they are +inspectors or charity agents--the two things you must avoid." + +"Dress," said Max, "has a very subtle effect upon the character. At a +fancy-dress ball, last season, I wore a Cardinal's robe--there is a +portrait of one in the British National Gallery rather like me--and it +took me a month to get rid of the effects. If I turn into a Socialist, +therefore, it will be upon your advice." + +"As far as politics go it matters very little what you turn into," said +Sister Jenifer. + +"What a statement!" exclaimed Max. + +"It is perfectly true," she said. "At present what we are fighting is +ignorance and indifference; in comparison to that the mere theory of +government doesn't matter, for nothing is going to succeed while one +half of society neither knows nor cares how the other half lives. Your +politicians are welcome to any theories they can find tenable, if only +they will face facts." + +"What are your own politics?" + +"I haven't any; I haven't room for them. My only aim is just to get that +one half of the community to come and look with understanding at the +other half; and then service, I know, would follow. It won't until they +do." + +"Well, you are making me look," said Max. + +"Yet I have not been able to make my father." + +"Has he never been here?" + +"He has opened churches." + +"Well, you believe in prayer." + +"That depends on how you define it." + +"I wanted to ask you that. You are only a lay-sister; but some of you +have taken vows--for a period, at all events." + +"That is all the Church allows; but it makes little difference since +they can always renew." + +"Those who have taken vows--do they give themselves entirely up to +prayer?" + +"No, but they entirely depend upon it." + +"Depend--how?" + +"They could not do their work without it. You asked me for definition: I +can only give you example. Some of our sisters quite literally cannot +face what they have to do except after prayer; otherwise their flesh +would revolt." + +"Is it such horrible work?" + +"They will not tell you so; but I know that it must be. You see I am +rather an outsider. My father only allowed me to come here on certain +conditions; and with the inner side of our work here I have nothing to +do; I understand nothing about it." + +Her face flushed slightly under his gaze, the faint, troubled flush of +maidenhood which apprehends an evil of which it may not know the +conditions; and he saw by swift intuition that this sincere spirit was +ashamed of its own ignorance. His mind darted a guess that he had before +him, in fact, an inexperience of life underlying intimate acquaintance +with grief and poverty which he would not have believed to be possible. +And oh, sexually, how it redoubled her beauty and charm! Yes, he could +not deny that so unnatural a combination attracted him, and yet it +enraged him also. A few moments ago he had heard from this woman's lips +a declaration that no help could come till half and half made up one +whole in knowledge and understanding; and yet there she stood--if his +guess was right--hesitant and bashful on the borders of that great +central problem about which parental authority had decreed she was to +know nothing; an example set before him of that idealistic waste of +womanhood which is for ever going on, and which for bad practical +reasons society is always encouraging. For depend upon it the practical +social result is what we men are really afraid of--not lest our women +should lose either modesty or charm, but lest with knowledge they should +apply themselves too ruthlessly to practical ends, and set upon their +charm a price which hitherto we have avoided having to pay. And as he so +moralized upon the relations of sex, a sentimental desire grew in him to +kneel down there and then at her feet and tell her how good a young man +from his point of view he had always been--and how bad a one from hers. + +For the time being he resisted that temptation; other things that he was +not yet sure of must come first; for before we can allow the beloved to +think ill of us at all she must first think far better of us than we +deserve. Then for the letting-down process there is a safe margin left, +and confession becomes a luxury with no danger involved; since to see +himself retrospectively pardoned by a heart virginally pure has surely +restored to many a weary and disillusioned sensualist a better opinion +of himself than he could ever have hoped to refurbish by his own +efforts. That, oh ye men about town, is a good woman's mission in life; +that is what she is for--when the watch has run down she winds it up +again and sets it domestically ticking. And that she may continue to do +so, let us keep her from all knowledge independently acquired. When we +ourselves bring her the evidence, having first packed her fond jury of a +heart, then we can also dictate verdict and sentence, and the world will +run on in the grooves to which we have accustomed it. + +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. + + +IV + +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-- + + 'And black is white, + And wrong is right, + If it be Thy sweet Will.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE + + + + +I + +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. + + +II + +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." + + +IV + +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?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A PROMISSORY NOTE + + + + +I + +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!" + + +II + +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." + + +IV + +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." + +"Is she so very beautiful, then?" + +"You have seen her, sir, and you have not remembered her. I did not mean +that sort of beauty." + +"Ah, then, you are really in love." + +"Ludicrously," confessed Max. + +"My dear boy, I am very sorry for you." + +"Oh, you need not be, sir; I am quite sure of myself at last; and by +refusing to marry anybody else I have only to wait and you will have to +yield to my request." + +"You may have to wait a long time," began the King, and then he stopped; +for looking into the future he saw Max in a new light, that same fierce +light which had beaten upon himself for the last twenty-five years, +preventing him from doing so many things he had wished to do. It would +prevent Max too. + +"But I want your consent now, father," said the young man; and there was +something of real affection in his voice. + +"Why can't you wait till I am dead?" + +"That would be selfish of me. Do you not want to see me happy first?" + +But to that the King only shook his head. + +"It won't do, Max, it won't do. The Archbishop wouldn't like it either," +he went on, trying to get back to the political aspect again. "It would +be terribly damaging to him. With a connection like that, leadership of +his party would become impossible." + +"Have we to consider the political ambitions of an archbishop?" + +"You would have to get his consent." + +"I don't think so. All she bargained for was yours. I told her I would +get it; and she did not believe me." + +"You make me wish that I were altogether out of the way." + +"Quite unnecessary, I'm sure." + +"Ah, but if you were in my position then you'd see--then you'd +understand. You couldn't do it; you simply couldn't do it." + +The King was now saying what he really believed, and at the sound of his +own voice telling him he realized that all he had to do was to temporize +and time would bring its own solution. If Max were King he could no more +do this thing than he could fly. Why, then, should he trouble himself? + +To cover his change of ground he continued the argument, and on every +point allowed Max to beat him (he could not probably have prevented it, +but that was the way he put it to himself), and finally, when he felt +that he could in decency throw up the sponge, he let Max have his +way--or the way to it, which was the same thing. + +"Well," he said, "I can't give you my consent all at once. I must have +time to turn round and think about it; you must have time too. But +if----" here he paused and did a short sum of mental arithmetic. "Yes," +he went on, "if in two months from now you find me still upon the +throne--and I'm sure I don't know that you will with the way things are +going and all the worry I've had--but if you do, and are still of the +same mind about it, then you may come to me and I will give you my +consent." + +A quiet, rapturous smile passed over the face of Max. "May I have that +in writing, sir?" he said. + +The King was rather taken aback, and a little affronted. "Do you doubt +my word?" he demanded. + +"Not in the least, but it is your consent I have to get. You might have +a stroke, or lose your memory; you might even die, and there should I be +left stranded. My love is so great that I can let it run no risks. And +therefore, sir, if you will be so good, a promissory note to take effect +in two months' time." + +"You won't tell your mother?" said the King, halting, pen in hand. + +Max shook his head sagely. "Nobody shall know," said he. "No filter +could contain such news as this." He took the precious document from the +King's hand, folded it, and put it away. + +"By the way, sir," he said, "in a week or two I shall be sending you my +book." + +"I am afraid it is going to shock people," said his father. + +"Not nearly so much as this." Max touched his breast pocket and smiled. +"I will confess now, sir, that I really had hardly a hope: if I said so +just now, I lied. And if a son may ever tell his father that he is proud +of him, let that pleasure to-day be mine." + +They parted on the best of terms. "I wonder," thought the King to +himself, "whether he will be quite so pleased and proud two months +hence." + +His countenance saddened, and he sighed. "Poor boy," he said. He was +very fond of Max. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HEADS OR TAILS + + + + +I + +It is no use pretending that all history is equally interesting, even +though the facts which it contains are necessary for an understanding of +what follows. And I am well aware that much of this history so far has +been very dull. We have been exploring interiors, moldy institutions, +cast-iron conventions, and one poor human mind,--with a tap on the back +of its head as an incentive--wriggling to find a way out. But from this +point on you see him wriggling no more; the slow wave of his resolve has +crept to its crest and now breaks into foam. + +A month has now passed by; and four weeks hence the enamored Max will be +coming for his answer--Max asking for the impossible thing. Like the man +who set fire to the tail of his night-shirt in order to stop the +hiccoughs, so now John of Jingalo had at his heels that terror of his +own planting driving him on. Perhaps nothing else would have given him +the courage. + +The day for the last Council meeting had arrived, the last before the +closing of that long session of Parliament which, beginning in February, +had run on at intervals into November. Then only a brief month, and the +winter session with the new Government program would open. + +It was to this Council that the Cabinet's latest scheme for squeezing +the Bishops out of the Constitution was to be presented; and for that to +be possible, since he was so great a stickler for constitutional +propriety, the King's consent had been necessary. A few days before, +therefore, the Prime Minister had once more formally submitted the +question; and the King had given his leave. "Produce what you like, Mr. +Premier; I will no longer stand in your way." + +The brief autumn session was closing with a clangor of agitation which +had not been heard in Jingalo for half a century at least. Everybody +outside the machinery of party was profoundly dissatisfied with the +parliamentary system and with all its doings and undoings; and this +general dissatisfaction was being quaintly expressed by a refusal to let +Parliament rise. The Women Chartists were battering at its closed doors; +and from peep-holes and other points of vantage within, smiling and +indifferent legislators saw those bruised bodies, those strangely +obsessed minds, those indomitable spirits carried off to magisterial +lack of judgment and to prison. + +With a good deal more concern they saw strikes breaking out in their own +constituencies, and riot becoming the normal accompaniment of the +industrial demand for better conditions. Three strike leaders were in +prison under sentence of death for having killed by purposeful accident +a few over-zealous policemen; and from great working centers over a +hundred miles away thousands of men were marching to demand remittance +of the death penalty. + +The Government was, in consequence, in a great hurry to get the session +closed. It was an undignified scramble of the red-tape worms of various +departments to be well out of the way before those slow, heavily shod +feet of labor arrived upon the scene. At every town they came to they +stopped, made inflammatory speeches, gathered funds and adherents, and +then, a swelled body of discontent, marched stolidly on toward the +capital; and this not from one point alone but from half-a-dozen at +once. If there was not to be conflict between the police and these +converging forces, appeasement of some sort must be devised, or official +vacuum must be there to meet them. + +And behind all this was the ministerial fear that, if they were not +quick about it, it would be impossible to close Parliament with due +ceremony. The Lord High Functionary had put it bluntly to the Prime +Minister. "If those men get here we can't have out the piebald ponies +and the state coach; they wouldn't stand it." + +And as the piebald ponies and the state coach were necessary for the +prestige of the Government and for proof that the King and his ministers +were working amicably together, therefore the red-tape worms were all +wriggling their level best under pressure from above, and in the small +hours every morning millions of public money were being voted into the +hands of the Government by an obedient majority of sleepy legislators, +bound by party loyalty neither to criticise nor to control. + +It was in the midst of affairs thus disarranged that on a morning three +days before the rising of Parliament the Royal Council met, and awaited +with official calm the advent of its titular head. + +Since his outbreak of a few months ago the King had once more become +amenable to that deferential guidance which was his due; and now word +had gone round that all further opposition was to be withdrawn, and the +Ministry to have its way. + +And so the _pièce de résistance_ is at last in full brew and we see the +twenty cooks of the national broth waiting without any trepidation of +spirit for the royal flavoring to arrive. And they talk among themselves +in carefully modulated tones; for it is not etiquette, when the doors +are thrown open to the royal presence, that the King should hear +conversation going on. + +The Prime Minister enters a little later than the rest, carrying his +brief, and moves to his place near the head of the board through a +circle of congratulatory looks and smiles. For all know that in this +long bout with titular kingship, obstinate for the preservation of its +rights, the representative of Cabinet control has won, and that a new +and very comfortable stage in the subservience of monarchy to +ministerial ends has been attained. + +And how quietly this important little bit of constitutional revolution +has been carried through!--without any passing of laws or petition of +rights, merely by internal pressure judiciously applied. And Jingalo, +that well-represented State governed by the popular will, knows nothing +of what has been done; like a body in absolute health it is unconscious +of the working of those vital functions so necessary for its +constitutional development. Oh, admirable popular will! in searching for +your whereabouts and to come into touch with you, old monarchy has had +yet another tumble--and at the right and preconcerted time will reach +the ground without any outward revolution at all. + +If these or suchlike thoughts were in the mind of the Cabinet, just then +they were diverted by the sound of opening doors; and there entered, not +the King himself, but a Court functionary in full dress attended by two +others, and bearing before him on a crimson cushion a sealed document. + +A few eyebrows went up; what revival of old forms was this? The +functionary advanced and with a low bow presented the document not to +the Prime Minister, but to the Lord President of the Council. "By his +Majesty's gracious command," said he, "a message from his Majesty the +King to his faithful people." + +Then, with another bow, the Court functionary withdrew. + +The Lord President looked at the seal in some embarrassment, for he did +not quite know how to break it; it was very large, some three inches +across, and was composed of a wax of specially resistant quality. + +"Cut it!" said the Prime Minister, and to that end he presented his +pocket-knife. + +The document was opened; and the Lord President and Prime Minister, +glancing together at its contents, suddenly went white. + +"Gentlemen," said the Lord President (his voice and hands trembled as he +spoke), "his Majesty the King abdicates!" + + +II + +Around that ministerial board it would have been amusing to an impartial +onlooker to see how many mouths of grave and reverend Councilors did +actually open and drop chins of dismay. A gust of horror and +astonishment blew round the assembly; it was a word unknown in the +Jingalese Constitution; no place had been there provided for it,--it had +never been done. Strictly speaking--legally speaking, that is to say--it +could not be done. Kings had been deposed, exiled, their heads cut +off--all without their own consent--but never without the consent of +Parliament, or of some portion of it at all events. Yet nothing whatever +could prevent it; for clearly on this point the King could insist; but, +if he did, the Constitution would be in the melting-pot, and the +consequences could not be foreseen. What right had this pelican in piety +to go pecking his own breast and shedding the blood of his ancestors? +Viewed in any constitutional light it was a revolutionary and bloody +deed. + +The Prime Minister was not slow to see its bearing on the whole +political situation and on the fortunes of his ministry. + +"Gentlemen," said he, "if this abdication is allowed to take effect, our +plans are defeated and the Government must go." + +"You mean we shall have to resign?" + +"We cannot even do that; we are forestalled. Though not yet publicly +announced this is an absolute abdication here and now." And then that +all might hear, the Lord President proceeded to read out the terms. + +"WE, John, by the Grace of God, King of Jingalo, Suzerain of Rome, +Leader of the Forlorn Hope, and Crowned Head of Jerusalem, do hereby +solemnly declare, avow, render, and deliver by this as Our own act, +freely undertaken and accomplished for the good, welfare, comfort, and +succor of the Realm of Jingalo and of its People, that now and from this +day henceforward. WE do utterly renounce, relinquish, and abjure all +claim to rank, titles, honors, emoluments, and privileges holden by US +in virtue of OUR inheritance and succession as true and rightful +Sovereign Lord of the said Realm of Jingalo. And for the satisfying of +OUR Royal Conscience and the better safety and security of those things +aforetime committed to OUR trust and keeping, under the Constitution of +the said Realm of Jingalo; to the preservation whereof WE are bound by +oath, therefore WE do now pronounce, publish, and set forth, that it +may be known to all, this OUR ABDICATION, made in the 25th year of OUR +reign and given under OUR hand and signet----" + +Then came date and signature; and following these the old form of mixed +German and Latin, without which no State document was complete--"Der Rex +das vult." + +When the reading ended there was a short pause. Here at all events, in +their very ears, history was being incredibly made. + +"Remarkably well drawn," observed Professor Teller, admiringly: "copied, +you may be interested to learn, from the actual instrument wrung by +Parliament out of King Oliver the Second under threat of torture four +hundred years ago. As legal and regular a form, therefore, as it would +be possible to devise." + +"You mean we shall have to recognize it?" + +"If we recognize anything at all." + +"Gentlemen," said the Prime Minister, "it must not be recognized; it +would mean for us not merely defeat but disaster. As against the Bishops +we have a certain amount of popular opinion to back us; but if once it +appears that dislike for our policy has driven the King into abdication, +then our ruin will be immediate and irremediable. We have to recognize +that during the past year his popularity has greatly increased, while +our own, to say the most, is stationary." + +"Yes, and he knows it!" said the Minister of the Interior, bitterly. + +"I call it a treacherous and a cowardly act!" exclaimed the Secretary +for War. + +"He is trying to bully us!" said the Commissioner-General. + +"I should say that he is succeeding," remarked Professor Teller in a dry +tone. "Had we not better recognize, gentlemen, that his Majesty has made +a very shrewd hit? Can we not--compromise?" + +"Impossible!" asseverated the Prime Minister. "It is too late." + +Professor Teller leaned back in his chair and let the discussion flow +on. His attitude was noticeable; he was the only minister who was taking +it sitting down. + +"When does this abdication take effect?" asked one. "I mean, how long +can it be kept from the press?" + +"Who knows? If his Majesty has done one mad thing he may have done +another." + +"I must see him at once," said the Premier, "this cannot be allowed to +go on." + +"You will have to take a very firm tone." + +"I would suggest that we all send in our portfolios." + +"We have tried that once; he would not accept them now, and we have no +power to make him." + +"No; that is the damnable thing! That is what makes his position so +strong." + +"Do you think he knows?" + +"Of course; why else has he done it? It's really clever; that's what I +can't get over, he has done a clever thing!" + +"Who can have put it into his head?" + +"It is the most unjustifiable stretch of the royal prerogative that ever +I heard of." + +"There's no prerogative about it; it's sheer revolution and rebellion." + +"An attack on the Constitution, I call it." + +Thus they talked. + +"Strange!" murmured Professor Teller, irritating them with his +philosophic tone and his detached air,--"strange that when it threatens +itself with extinction monarchy becomes powerful." + +"It is no question of extinction," said the Prime Minister tetchily; "we +should still have his successor to deal with; and Prince Max, I can tell +you, gentlemen, is a very dark horse. You all know what happened three +months ago; and now, within the last week, we have learned that he is +publishing a book--a revolutionary book with his own name to it. You may +take it from me that if he comes to the throne our present scheme for +the evolution of the Cabinet system will be over. Anything may happen! +Read his book and you will understand." + +"Has any one yet seen it?" + +"A privately procured copy has been shown me; it was by the merest +chance we heard of it. I could only read it very hurriedly in the small +hours; it had to go back where it came from." + +"Is it a serious matter?" + +"Perfectly appalling." + +"And are you going to allow it to be published?" + +"How can we prevent? It is being printed abroad." + +And then spoke the Prefect of the Police, holding technical place upon +the Council as Minister of Secret Service. + +"Over the present edition, gentlemen, you may make your minds quite +easy. I have received intelligence that last night the establishment at +which it was being printed was burned to the ground." + +The Premier cast a keen and confidential glance at his colleague. + +"How much does that involve?" he asked. + +"Only the insurance company, I should suppose." + +"I meant of the book?" + +"Oh! everything except the manuscript. There will be no publication this +year at any rate." + +"I make you my compliments," said the Prime Minister, "on the +particularity and speed with which your department has become informed. +That at all events gives us time." + +"And meanwhile?" + +"I must see the King immediately. It is no use our remaining here to +discuss a situation that is not yet explained. The first thing to find +out is whether this has gone any further; but I do not think his Majesty +really means it as anything more than a threat." + +"Had you no hint that it was coming?" inquired the Commissioner-General. + +The Prime Minister was on his way to the door. "No," he said; "not a +word." And then he paused, as the particular meaning of a certain +carefully chosen and repeated phrase flashed on him for the first time. +"He said to me yesterday--repeating what he said four months ago when we +tendered our resignations--'I will no longer stand in your way.' And now +I suppose we have it." + +"Good Heavens!" cried the Minister of the Interior, "does he call this +not standing in our way?" + +The Prime Minister cast an expressive glance at his chagrined and +embarrassed following--a glance of self-confidence and determination, +one which still said "Depend upon me!" + +But only from one of his colleagues was there any look of answering +confidence, or speech confirming it. + +"When you are disengaged, Chief, may I have a few moments?" + +It was the Prefect who spoke, a man of few words. + +Eye to eye they looked at each other for a brief spell. + +The Prime Minister nodded. "Come to me in two hours' time," he said. "We +shall know then where we are." And so saying he left the room. + + +III + +In the next two days a good many things happened; but carried through in +so underground and secret a fashion that it is only afterwards we shall +hear of them. And so we come to the last day of all; for on the morrow +Parliament closes and when that is done the King's abdication is to +become an acknowledged and an accomplished fact. + +It was evening. His Majesty had just given a final audience to the Prime +Minister; the interview had been a painful one, and still the ground of +contention remained the same. But the demeanor of the head of the +Government had altered; he had tried bullying and it had failed; now in +profound agitation he had implored the King for the last time to +withdraw his abdication, and his Majesty had refused. + +"I will close Parliament for you," he said, "since you wish it; it will +be a fitting act for the conclusion of my reign. But my conscience +forbids any furthering on my part of your present line of policy; and as +I cannot prevent that obstacle from existing, in accordance with my +promise I remove it altogether from the scene." + +"But your Majesty's abdication is the greatest obstacle of all, it is a +profound upheaval of the whole constitutional system; and its acceptance +will involve a far, far greater expenditure of time than we are able to +contemplate or to provide for. I am bound, therefore, to appeal from the +letter of your Majesty's promise (which no doubt you have observed) to +the spirit in which as I conceive it was made." + +"When I made it, Mr. Prime Minister, I had no spirit left. Nothing +remained to me but the letter of my authority, and even that was dead. I +told you that I would no longer stand in your way, and I will keep my +word." + +"By throwing us into revolution!" + +"By throwing you upon your own resources. You have been working very +assiduously for single chamber government, you may now secure it in your +own way." + +"Your Majesty takes a course entirely without precedent." + +"What?--Abdication?" + +"Against the wish or consent of Parliament." + +"Ah, yes," said the King, "that is precisely the difference. Abdications +have, like ministerial resignations, been forced upon us--I mean on +kings in the past--at very unseasonable times and in most inconsiderate +ways; and we kings have had to put up with it. Mr. Prime Minister, it is +your turn now; and I only hope that you may find as clean a way out of +your difficulty as I had to find when four months ago you threatened me +with a resignation which you knew I could not accept." + +The Prime Minister's face became drawn with passion; but there was no +more to be said after that. "Is that your Majesty's final word?" he +inquired. + +"I hope so," said the King, rising and making a formal offer of his +hand. + +And so the interview ended. + +Left alone the King felt badly in need of comfort, for now in the hour +of triumph depression had begun to enter his soul. He did not like +hurting people even when he was not fond of them; and on the Prime +Minister's face as he went out he had seen something like tragedy. "Is +he going to cut his throat?" he wondered; but, no, it was not the look +of a beaten man--rather that of a gambler prepared to make his last +throw. + +The King had already made his own--he had nothing more to do; and now he +wanted companionship, some one to humor him with more understanding and +sympathy than his own wife could supply. And it so happened that just +then his only two possible comforters were away. Max had gone to the +Riviera to recruit before the regular sittings of the Commission began, +and Charlotte three days ago had taken that leave of absence which had +been promised her; for in less than a month's time the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser would be paying his promised visit. + +As he could not have the society he craved he chose solitude, and +wandered out into the deepening dusk of the November garden; and there, +gazing up through its now thinned foliage at the quiet and misty heavens +above him, thought of steeplejacks and the death of kings, and how at +the root of every great downfall in history there had probably been some +poor human heart like his own, conscious of failure, longing for the +kindred touch which pride of place makes so impossible. And yet he knew +that he had brought himself to a better end than, with all the defects +of his qualities, he could ordinarily have hoped to secure; perhaps this +dramatic taking of himself off (which he felt in a way to be so out of +character) would help Max to make something out of the situation +startling and unexpected. But Max would have to give up the idea of +marrying the Archbishop's daughter. + +The quiet, dusky paths had led him to a point where high walls carefully +shrouded in creepers shut off the royal stables from view. Through +circular barred grilles he could hear the noise of horses champing in +their stalls; and the comfortable sound drew him round to the entrance. +Opening a wicket, he stood in a dimly lighted court, but the buildings +surrounding it contained plenty of light, and in the harness rooms a +brisk sound of furbishing went on. + +Turning to the left he passed into the largest stable of all, a spacious +and well-aired chamber of corridor-like proportions divided up into +stalls. To right and left of him stood the famous piebald ponies, +lazily munching fodder and settling down to their last sleep before the +unusual exertions which would be required of them on the morrow. + +But these pampered minions did not know as he did what the morrow had in +store: how, for the sake of effect, they would be harnessed to a huge +obsolete coach weighing a couple of tons, each clad in an elaborate +costume of crimson and gold weighing by itself considerably more than a +full-grown rider. To the King this presumed ignorance of theirs was a +matter for envy; he knew his own part in the affair well enough; the +thought of it oppressed him. + +He walked down the double line--twelve in all--pausing now and then to +take a closer look and judge of their condition, but keeping always at a +respectful distance, for he was aware that almost without exception they +were an ill-tempered crew. Contemplating the astonishing rotundity of +their well-filled bodies, the spacious ease of their accommodation, the +outward dignity of circumstances, and the absolute lack of freedom which +conditioned their whole existence, he was struck with the resemblance +between himself and them; and recalling how, with a similar sense of +kinship, St. Francis had preached to the lower forms of life he too +became imbued with the spirit of homily and prophecy, though it did not +actually find its way into words. + +"You and I, little brothers"--so might we loosely interpret the +meditations of his heart--"you and I are much of a muchness, and can +sing our 'Te Deum' or our 'Nunc Dimittis' in almost the same words. We +are both of a carefully selected breed and of a diminished usefulness. +But because of our high position we are fed and housed not merely in +comfort but in luxury; and wherever we go crowds stand to gape at us and +applaud when we nod our heads at them. We live always in the purlieus of +palaces, and never have we known what it is to throw up our heels in a +green pasture, nor in our old age are we turned out comfortably to +grass--only to Nebuchadnezzar by accident came that thing, and he did +not appreciate it as he should have done. Never shall we go into battle +to prove that we are worth our salt, and to say 'Ha, Ha' to the fighting +and the captains; nor is it allowed to us to devour the ground with our +speed: whenever we attempt such a thing it is cut from under us. Little +brothers, it is before all things necessary that we should behave; for +being once harnessed to the royal coach, if any one of us struck work or +threw out our heels we should upset many apple-carts and the machinery +of the State would be dislocated. Let us thank God, therefore, that long +habit and training have made us docile, and that our backs are strong +enough to bear the load that is put upon them, and that if one of us +goes another immediately fills his place so that he is not missed." + +In a vague, unformulated way this was the homily which arose from his +meditations; and if he thought at all specially of himself and present +circumstances, it was merely as an insignificant exception which proved +the general rule. + +As he strolled back again he stopped at the door and spoke to the man in +charge. + +"They all seem very fit, Jacobs," said he. "They do you credit, I must +say." + +"Fit they are, your Majesty!" said the man, beaming with satisfied +pride; "and so they ought to be, considering the trouble we've took with +'em. We've been polishing them like old pewter for days. Ah! they know +what's coming; and you can see 'em just longing for it." + +"Oh, they like it, do they?" + +"Believe me, your Majesty, they couldn't live without it. It's in the +blood--been in 'em from father to son. Why, if we didn't take 'em out to +help us open and shut Parliament and things of that sort, they'd think +we was mad." + +This was a new point of view; the King listened to it with respectful +interest, and then a fresh thought occurred to him. + +"Jacobs," he said, "did one of them ever refuse to go?--on a public +occasion, I mean." + +"Well, yes, your Majesty, it did once happen; before my time, though. +One of 'em--ah, it was at a funeral, too--he stuck his heels into the +ground and couldn't be got to start, not for love or money." + +"Which did they offer him?" + +"Ask pardon, your Majesty?--Oh, just my manner of speaking, that was. +Wouldn't go except on his own terms." + +"And what were they?" + +"Well, your Majesty, he was a clever one, you see, he was; they aren't +generally. But he, he'd got a taste for his own set of harness--knew it +by the smell, I suppose, and when they come to put it on him a bit of it +broke, and he wouldn't wear anything else. That's how it all come +about." + +"They tried, I suppose?" + +"Oh, they got it on him; and they got him out, before all the crowd, +with the guns going and the handkerchiefs a-waving--Ah, no; but that was +a funeral though--there weren't no handkerchiefs that day. Well, there +he was; and when he felt they was all looking at him, and the +perishables kept waiting behind----" + +"The perishables?" + +"The corpse, sir;--then he wouldn't move." + +"Very embarrassing, I must say." + +"You see, your Majesty, they couldn't beat him in public--not as he +deserved; 'twouldn't have been respectful to what was there. They had to +do that afterwards. But, believe me, he stopped the whole show for +twenty minutes and more; and they never used _him_ again." + +"What became of him?" + +"Oh, he was just kept, in case; but he weren't never used--he was +reckoned too risky after that. Oh, and he felt it too; I haven't a doubt +but he did. They don't like only to be one of the extras, they don't." + +"What does that mean?" + +"Why, you see, sir, there's always four extras here, in case of +accident; and believe me, your Majesty, when the four extras to-morrow +find 'emselves left out they'll squeal for hours, and it won't be safe +to go near 'em, not for days. Blood's a wonderful thing, sir, wonderful! +And they know, just as well as you or me." + +"And what becomes of them when they grow old?" + +"Well, sir, they make saddle-cloths of 'em for the band of the +forty-ninth Hussars. Your Majesty may have reckonized 'em; most people +think it's giraffe skin, but it's really our old ponies." + +"So they come in useful even at the last?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, they ends well, one can't deny that; and they have to be +in pretty good condition too. So they aren't none of 'em what you might +call really old." + +"Very interesting," said the King. "What a great deal there is in the +world that one doesn't know till one comes to inquire." + +"About horses? Your Majesty's right there!" said the man; and his tone +spoke volumes of the things which would never be written, but which +those who had the care of horses knew. + +As the King moved away from that brief colloquy, one phrase in +particular stuck in his mind. "He was reckoned too risky after that." +Was that, he wondered, what the Prime Minister was thinking about him +now; had he, indeed, proved himself too risky for future use? If so +there would be no yielding at the eleventh hour; and perhaps it was as +well that to-morrow would see him harnessed to the royal coach for the +last time. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A DEED WITHOUT A NAME + + + + +I + +The King and Queen sat in their state coach responding with low bows to +the plaudits of the crowd. Their velvets and ermines lay heavy upon +them, for although it was now November, the day was close and warm, and +there seemed to be thunder in the air. + +The King, in this his Jubilee year, had resumed wearing his crown on +great State occasions, for he found that the people liked it. He had +worn it at the Foot-washing; and every one then admitted that it gave +the true symbolic touch to the whole ceremony. And now for the last +time he was wearing it again. + +Artistically he was right; a cocked hat, of nineteenth-century pattern, +does not accord well with robes in the style of the sixteenth. In some +countries that mistake is made by royalty out of compliment to the army; +but if on these State occasions sartorial compliments are to be paid +irrespective of the general effect, then surely your monarch should wear +a wig as representative of the law, lawn-sleeves in honor of the Church, +and divide the rest of his person impartially between the army, the +navy, and the doctors. Thus all the great professions would receive +their due recognition, and we should presently find so symbolical a +combination just as harmonious and dignified, and as pregnant with +meaning, as we do the heraldic quarterings by which the mixed blood of +ancestry is so proudly displayed. We can get accustomed to anything if +there is a good reason for it; but when we cease to be reasonable, +beauty should be our only guide. In this case reason as well as beauty +had induced King John of Jingalo to reject the cocked hat and to resume +the crown. + +The royal coach had already borne its occupants along two miles of the +route; and continued exercise was making them warm. + +"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, "it's very stuffy in here; I feel as +if I were in a furnace. Why did you ask to have the windows closed, my +dear?" + +"It makes one feel so much safer," said the Queen, keeping her +stereotyped smile, and sweeping a bow as she spoke. + +"Safer from what?" Here his Majesty responded to a fresh burst of +cheers. + +"Accidents," replied his consort; "one never knows." + +"Glass, my dear, does not protect one from the accidents of Kings. Glass +can't stop bullets, you know." + +"I didn't mean that sort of accident; and I wish you wouldn't talk +about them just now." + +"You always take out an umbrella when you don't want it to rain; and if +one talks about accidents then they don't happen. At least that has +always been my experience. What sort of accident do you mean?" + +"Dust, and microbes, and infection, and all that sort of thing. There +must be a lot of it about in so large a crowd; I wonder how many people +with measles." + +"What an idea!" exclaimed the King: "people with measles don't come out +to see shows." + +"Oh, yes, they do,--nursemaids especially. They all catch it from each +other in the public parks; at least so I've been told. And whenever I +see a perambulator now, I think of it." + +"There are no perambulators here to-day," said the King, "so you needn't +think about measles. Smallpox if you like; though it strikes me that all +I have yet seen are remarkably healthy specimens--considering how many +of them there are." And he bowed to the healthy specimens as he spoke. + +"Very enthusiastic," murmured the Queen appreciatively. + +"Yes; I wonder if presently they will be as enthusiastic about Max." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Oh, nothing. I was only thinking ahead, in quite a general sort of way. +We seem lately to have become quite popular." + +"I think we have always been." + +"Yes, you have, my dear; about myself I was not so sure. Well, it's very +gratifying to come upon it just now." + +His Majesty felt a little guilty, for he had not yet told the Queen of +what lay ahead; it was so much better that she should not know +beforehand what she would never be able to understand. + +Then for a while they relapsed into silence, each attending to what +Charlotte would have described as their "business"--a carefully +regulated succession of bows accompanied by a smile which never quite +left off. + +Presently the King spoke again. "By the way, where has Charlotte gone +to?" + +"Well, I hardly know," said the Queen. "She wrote to me from her first +address--that college place; but said she was going on elsewhere, and I +thought you settled that we were to leave her alone." + +"I think she ought to have waited till to-morrow. As Max is away, she at +least should have been here." + +"So I told her; but she said she had a very particular engagement which +she must keep; and I could see that, relying upon your promise, she +meant to have her own way, so I said nothing." + +"I hope they are going to like each other," said the King, his thoughts +carrying on to the meeting which was now near. + +"She and the Prince? Oh, yes, I think there's no doubt about it. +Strange, wasn't it, that her running away actually pleased him?" + +"I suppose it was so very unusual. We don't as a rule get people to run +away from us. It's generally all the other way. Look at this crowd! I +wonder how the police manage to keep them back." + +Smiling and bowing, the Queen replied: "They are so well behaved; and +see, how patient. Many, I daresay, have been here for hours. Doesn't +that show loyalty?" + +"It isn't all loyalty, my dear; they like the whole spectacle, the +troops, the coach, the piebald ponies. Last night I went to look at +them; four of them have been left out." + +"What a strange thing to do." + +"But some have to be." + +"No; going to see them, I mean." + +"Well, I don't know; they play a very important part in the proceedings, +and in a way they are heroes, for wherever they go with us they share +our danger. I heard quite a lot of interesting things about them." + +At this moment they were approaching a part of the route which separated +them for a while from the popular plaudits. In the forefront was a deep +archway, and beyond it was a brief stretch of road shut in by hoardings +and dominated by high masts of scaffolding, behind which new Government +buildings were in process of erection. Across each front to left and +right a few strings of bunting fluttered to give festive relief; for +here there were no stands filled with spectators, no pavements lined +with shouting crowds; and behind the palisades work had been knocked off +for the day. The cry of the populace lulled down to a mere murmur, and +the trampling of the hoofs echoed strangely as they passed under the +vaulted arch and along the walled-in track with its huge baulks of +timber on both sides supporting the growth of stone walls. + +Ahead stood a wide gateway opening by a sharp turn into Regency Row, +whose broad thoroughfare of cream-tinted façades, now bright with flags, +formed an ideal rallying-ground for the sightseeing multitude. + +"Now there," said the King, pointing ahead to a high triangular building +facing the gates through which they were about to emerge, "there is the +place that I always think a bomb might be thrown from with much +certainty and effect, plump into the middle of us, just as we are +turning the corner." + +"I do wish you would leave off talking about such things," said the +Queen reproachfully, "or wait till we are safe home again. How can I +keep on smiling, if you go putting bombs into my head?" + +"I was only saying, my dear----" + +Suddenly, from behind, an amazing detonation seemed to strike at the +smalls of their backs, throwing them half out of their seats. The glass +slide upon the Queen's side of the coach ran down with a crash, and one +of the large gilt baubles from its roof toppled and fell into the road. +At the same instant a great blast and swirl of smoke blew by, shutting +for a moment the outer world from view. Then loud cries, hullabalooings, +shoutings--a scramble and clatter of hoofs as though three or four +horses had gone down and were up again--a capering flash of pink silk +calves--as the six footmen exploded upon from the rear sought safety in +front where the eight piebald ponies were all standing on end with men +hanging on to their noses. And then further disorder of a less violent +kind, runnings to and fro, and from the crowd waiting ahead a vast and +tumultuous cry rather jovial in its sound. + +The King had risen from his seat, and trying to look out and see what +was going on behind had put his head through the glass, his crown acting +as a safe and effective battering ram. + +"I do believe there has been an attempt," he said, drawing his head in +again. "That certainly sounded like a bomb; not that I have had much +experience of such things." + +Then he did what he should have done at first, and let down the glass. + +"I am going to faint," sighed the Queen, sinking back in her seat. + +"Nonsense!" said the King sharply. "Pull yourself together, Alicia! You +are not hurt." + +"I think I am," she said. But the sharp tone acted as a tonic, and she +settled herself comfortably in her corner and began quietly to cry. + +There was still plenty of confusion going on. The piebald ponies had +been brought to a standstill, and some of them were now showing temper. +A voluble and excited crowd was trying to break through the police lines +and grasp the whole situation at a run. Troops were coming to the +rescue; horsemen from the rear dashed by. Then a staff officer galloped +up to the coach window, and reining a jiggetty steed saluted with +agitated air and a rather white face. + +"The danger is over, your Majesty," he gasped, a little out of breath, +"only a few horses are down; no one is killed." + +The King nodded acceptance of the news; and as he did so noticed a tiny +fleck of blood upon the officer's cheek--no more than if he had cut +himself in shaving. It seemed to give the correct measure of the +catastrophe, and to assure him more than words could have done that the +damage was really small. + +Except for that one moment when he had impulsively put his head through +glass, the King had kept his wits and remained calm; and now his royal +instinct told him the right thing to be done. + +"If you want to manage that crowd," he said, "we had much better drive +on. Until we do they may think that anything has happened. Tell them to +start, and not to drive fast." + +The officer went forward bearing the royal order. + +"Alicia," said the King, "there really is nothing to cry about; the most +important thing is to show the people that we are not hurt. Pull +yourself together, my dear. There! now we are starting again. And if you +think you can manage it, stand right up at your window and I will stand +at mine; then nobody can have any doubt at all." + +He removed some shattered glass from her lap as he spoke, and gave an +encouraging squeeze to her hand; and as the coach moved forward they +stood up and confidently presented themselves to the public gaze. + +Sure enough that sight had a magical effect equal to the controlling +force of a thousand police. The crowd recovered its wits and allowed +itself to be shoved back into place. Out through the gates sallied the +piebald ponies; and from end to end all Regency Row broke into a roar. +Ahead went the troops and the police, pressing back the once more +amenable crowd; men and women were weeping, moist handkerchiefs were +ecstatically waved, quite new and reputable hats were thrown up into +air, and allowed to fall unreclaimed and unregarded. And truly it was a +sight well calculated to stir the blood, for there, emerging unhurt from +dust and smoke, from rumor and sound of terror, came the monarch and his +Queen standing upon their feet and bowing undaunted to a furore of +cries. + +Through all that vast multitude word of the outrage had sped, like a +black raven flapping its wings, charged ominously with tidings of death; +and as confusion had spread wide nothing more could be heard, till once +more a resumption of the processional movement was seen. Then came +white-faced footmen quaking at the knees; after them eight piebald +ponies rather badly behaved and requiring a good deal of holding in; and +then Royalty, itself smiling and quite unharmed. And straightway the +ordinary loyalty of a sightseeing Jingalese crowd was merged in a +passionate and tumultuous cry of jubilant humanity; and the royal +procession became a triumphal progress. + + +II + +The Queen was still crying a little when they reached their +destination; but she was very happy all the same, for she felt that +between them they had risen to the occasion and had passed exceedingly +well through an ordeal that falls only to few. + +And now at the House of Legislature itself a strangely informal +reception awaited them. Word of what had happened had gone in to the two +Chambers, and human nature proving too strong, rules and regulations of +ceremony had been dispensed with, and out had streamed judges, prelates, +and laity in full force, to attend upon their own front door-step the +belated arrival of their mercifully preserved Sovereign and his Queen. + +And when they did arrive, the whole House of Laity there assembled broke +into cheers; and not to be behindhand in demonstrations of loyalty, the +Judges and the Bishops cheered too--a thing that none of them had done +individually for years; and in their official and corporate capacity, +judicial and ecclesiastical, never in their lives before. + +Then as spokesmen for their respective parties, for Ministerialists and +for Opposition, came the Prime Minister and the Archbishop, giving voice +to the thankfulness that was felt by all. + +The Archbishop performed his part the better of the two; for between him +and his sovereign there were no strained relations; he was also on +closer terms of reference to the Powers above; and so, while giving +earthly circumstances their due, he rendered grateful thanks to a +Beneficence which had guided and directed all. The Prime Minister did +not. + +The King, in recalling afterwards the happy impromptus of that scene +when Prelates and Laity were vying with each other in the expression of +their relief, remembered how once or twice the Prime Minister had halted +and gone back to the repetition of a former phrase, like one who having +learned a lesson had momentarily lost the hang of it. + +The circumstance did not greatly impress him at the time, he was ready +to make allowances, for between him and his minister the situation was +somewhat embarrassing. They had parted with unreconciled views, and by +no stretch of terms could their relationship any longer be regarded as +friendly. All the same, on such an occasion it was incumbent upon the +Prime Minister to say the correct thing, and he had said it: he had +described the outrage as "a dastardly attempt," and the immunity of his +sovereign as "a happy and almost miraculous escape" for which none had +more reason to be thankful than himself and his colleagues; he had also +said that the passionate attachment of the people of Jingalo to the +person of their ruler had now been made abundantly evident, and he +trusted might ever so continue. + +Later in the day, when the short ceremony of Parliament's closing was +over (for it was impossible under the circumstances to return to stiff +formality, no one being in the mood for it), later in the day, he again +presented himself, and besought a private audience. And then--while once +more repeating what he had said previously, almost in the same +words,--he showed that he had something very serious of which to deliver +himself. + +He began with a great parade of leaving the matter to the King's +decision only; his duty was merely to state the case as it would strike +the world. + +"We are in your Majesty's hands," he said, "and I have no wish to revive +a discussion in which your Majesty has by right the last word. I have +only to ask whether the circumstances of the last few hours have in any +way affected your Majesty's decision." + +As usual this formal insistence upon his "majesty" aroused the King's +distrust; with his ministers in privacy he always disliked it. But all +he said was: "Why should it?" + +The Prime Minister pursed his lips and elaborately paused, as though +finding it difficult to express himself. Then he said-- + +"After an attempted assassination so nearly successful, abdication would +have a different effect to what your Majesty presumably intended." + +"How?" inquired the King. But though he asked he already knew; and +mentally his jaw dropped, as a new apparition of failure rose up and +confronted him. + +"It might seem to reflect upon your Majesty's personal courage: about +which, I need hardly say, I myself have no doubt whatever." + +"I see," said the King. His voice sounded the depression which had again +begun to overwhelm him. + +"I have no wish to press your Majesty," the Premier went on; "but at the +present moment we are still under orders that to-morrow the definite and +irrevocable announcement is to be made public." + +Again he paused; and the King did not answer him. + +"I wish to ask, therefore, whether it is your Majesty's wish that the +announcement of the abdication shall be postponed?" + +"Yes," said the King, and his words came slow, "I suppose that it must +be--as you say--postponed." + +"Does your Majesty wish to suggest any later date?" + +The King thought for a while before answering. + +"Is there any reason that I should?" But though he thus spoke to +temporize over the position in which he now found himself, he knew that +his opportunity was gone never to recur. + +"Merely for our own guidance," explained the Prime Minister. "There is +to be a special Cabinet meeting to-night." + +"What are you going to discuss?" + +"Should your Majesty remain, it will be our duty to present an address +of loyal congratulation immediately on the reassembling of Parliament; +and that, under the new circumstances, must take place almost at once. +In any event some address will, of course, have to be moved; but if what +has happened to-day is followed by an abdication, then regrets and deep +gratitude for all the gracious benefits of the past would have to be +added, and the whole form of it most carefully weighed and considered. I +may say, therefore, that we are even now awaiting your Majesty's +instructions." + +"And you can do nothing till I decide?" + +"Nothing practical, sir." + +Their eyes met with a lurking watchfulness; and it was not difficult for +each to read something of the other's thought. The King knew that behind +all that aspect of deference and humility lay a sense of triumph, +almost malignant in its intensity. He knew that circumstances had beaten +him; and that the bomb of some wretched assassin had made his abdication +impossible. The Prime Minister had said that he had no wish to press +him; but what a pretense and hypocrisy that was, when that very night +the Cabinet would have to meet and register its decision in one of two +alternative forms totally distinct. Yes; the Ministry had him now in a +cleft stick; and no pressure was to be put upon him only because there +was no possibility for his decision to be delayed. + +Defeat, following upon the terrific events of the day, filled his brain +with weariness. At the moment when he had hoped to be free of his +persecutors he had come once again to a blank wall. Further progress was +barred, further thinking had become useless, events must take their +course; once more he felt himself the sport of fate--a mere chip +floating with the stream. + +"Very well, Mr. Prime Minister," he said with resignation, "the +Abdication is withdrawn." + +He sighed deeply; and then (when left alone to his cogitations), for +such weak comfort as the mere saving of his face could lend, this +thought occurred to him,--"What a good thing that I told nobody about +it." Even Max did not know. + +And so in the year of his Jubilee, and the plenitude of his popularity, +John of Jingalo continued to reign; and was, in consequence, the most +saddened and humiliated monarch who ever bowed his head under a crown +and resigned his freedom to a mixed sense of duty and a fear of what +people might say. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +CONCEALMENT AND DISCOVERY + + + + +I + +There was plenty of hue and cry to discover the perpetrator of the +outrage, but nothing came of it. From somewhere in that labyrinth of +unfinished building and scaffolding fenced in by high hoardings a bomb +had been thrown of insufficient power to do much damage to anybody. The +Prefect of Police, riding in close attendance on the royal carriage, had +himself vaulted the barrier, on the side whence it had seemed to come, +and reported that he had found no trace of any one. Pieces of the shell +had been collected upon the spot, they had not flown very far, nor were +they much broken; and experts of the detective department had been busy +putting together the bits. + +The whole performance turned out on investigation to have been so feeble +and amateurish that suspicion rapidly descended from the more +experienced practitioners of anarchy, imported from other countries, to +home-products of later growth--strikers made desperate and savage by the +recent sentences upon their leaders, or, as some would have it, the +Women Chartists, hoping by an attack upon royalty to bring a neglectful +ministry to its senses. As there were no real clues except those which +industriously led nowhere and which the police seemed delightedly to +follow, everybody was free to lay the charge against any agitating +section of the community which they happened to regard with special +disfavor; and for that reason the Women Chartists did, in fact, get most +of the blame. + +But in the process they also reaped a certain advantage; the mere +suspicion, though malice directed it, was good for them. Had it been +possible to convict them, their cause would have gone down for another +generation; but there was really nothing to catch hold of, and the power +of any organization to commit such an outrage without being detected--to +break the glass of the King's coach and make the eight piebald ponies +rise up on end in horror--was a power which raised them greatly in the +eyes of all law-abiding people; it suggested an unknown potency for +mischief far more ominous than had discovery and conviction followed. +And so, while squibs and crackers were being thrown at them and sham +bombs hurled into their meetings to show how greatly the law-abiding +people of Jingalo disapproved of them for incurring such +suspicion--politically, the unjustly suspected ones moved a little +nearer to their goal. + +As for the King and Queen, they were simply inundated with telegrams and +letters of congratulation. In many instances the loyalty shown was +extraordinarily touching: one instance will suffice. Every schoolboy in +every public school in Jingalo contributed a penny from his pocket money +to a congratulatory telegram sent in the name of the school; and when, +as sometimes happened, the school numbered over six hundred boys the +telegram had necessarily to be lengthy, and proved a severe tax upon the +literary ability of its senders. + +Amid all this influx--this passionate outpouring of loyalty to a King +who had stood only a few days before within an ace of abdication, there +were of course messages of a more intimate and personal kind. Every +crowned head in Europe had written with that fellow-feeling which on +such occasions royalty is bound to express. "I know what it is like +myself," wrote one who had had six attempts made on him; "but I have +never had it done to me from behind. How very devastating to the nerves +that must be!" The Prince of Schnapps-Wasser wired that he could find no +language to express himself, but hoped in a few weeks' time to come and +show all that he felt. Max after a brief wire had flown back to town; +and his obvious perturbation and demonstrative affection had made it a +happy meeting. + +But, while all these messages flowed, there was one inexplicable +silence. Charlotte neither wrote nor telegraphed; nor did she return +home. That portent dawned upon their Majesties as they breakfasted late +the next morning with correspondence and telegrams piled up beside them. + +"What can have become of Charlotte?" cried the Queen. "She must _know_!" + +"If she knew, she would be here," said the King, confident in his +daughter's affection. + +They stared at each other in a surmise which turned gradually to dismay. +This unfilial silence upon their escape from the bomb of the assassin +told them with staggering certainty that Charlotte was missing. + +"She has run away!" cried the Queen. + +"But she must be somewhere," objected the King; "and wherever she is she +would surely have heard the news." + +"She may be quite out in the country," suggested the Queen, picking up +hope. + +"Still she has friends who must know where she has gone." + +"It's incredible!" cried her Majesty; "heartless, I call it." + +"No, no, she simply doesn't know!" said the King; of that he was quite +certain. "We are sure to hear from her in the course of the day," he +continued reassuringly, "meanwhile we shall have to make inquiries." + +But the day went on, and no sign from Charlotte; nor did inquiries bring +definite news up to date. She had arrived with her expectant hostess on +the day appointed; but after staying only one night had gone elsewhere, +and from that point in place and time no trace of her was to be found. + +Before the day was over the King and Queen had become terribly anxious, +and by the end of the week they were almost at their wits' end. + +And here we get yet another instance of the drawbacks and dangers which +attend upon royalty. Had Charlotte belonged to any ordinary rank of +life, it could have been announced that she was missing; her description +could have been issued to the press, and search for her made reasonably +effective. But, as things were, this could not be done, Charlotte was +impulsive and did indiscreet things; and until one knew exactly what it +portended, to publish her disappearance to all the world would have been +too rash and sudden a proceeding. Once that was done there could be no +hushing up of the matter; all Jingalo, nay, all Europe, would have to +hear of it, including, of course, the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser; and so, +at all costs of private strain and anxiety, it was necessary to conceal +as long as possible that the Princess was not where she ought to be, and +was perhaps where she ought not to be. + +Now please, do not let my readers at this point think that it was +Charlotte who had thrown the bomb. Even for the sake of literary effect, +I would not for one moment deceive them. It was not Charlotte; Charlotte +had nothing to do with it, and did not even know of it. And yet--I will +give them for a while this small problem to grapple with--Charlotte was +quite well, was in possession of all her senses, was thoroughly enjoying +herself, and was not outside the land of her inheritance. Most +emphatically she had not run away. + +And there for the moment we will leave the matter, and attend to things +more important. + + +II + +The King had caught sight in the newspaper of something which annoyed +him very much; annoyed him all the more because it seemed to betoken +that the moment his abdication was withdrawn the old ministerial +encroachments on the royal prerogative had begun again. + +"We are officially informed," so ran the paragraph, "that the Minister +of the Interior has advised his Majesty to grant a reprieve to the three +strike leaders now lying under sentence of death for their part in the +recent riots and police murders. It is understood that the sentences +will be commuted to penal servitude for life." + +And this was the first the King had heard of it! + +He sent at once for the Home Minister; and within an hour that great +official stood before him. + +"Mr. Secretary," said the King sharply, as he laid the offending +paragraph before him, "since when, may I ask, has the Crown's +prerogative of mercy become the perquisite of the Home Office?" + +"I do not think, sir," submitted the Secretary with all outward +humility, "that any such change has come about. In this case the +circumstances were special and very urgent." + +"Why, then, was I not consulted?" + +"There was hardly time, your Majesty." + +"I was here." + +"I apprehended that the recent event--so very upsetting to your +Majesty----" + +"Come, come," interjected the King, "if I was able to read my speech +immediately after it--as I did--I was quite able to attend to other +business as well; and you ought to have known it." + +The King did not thus usually speak to one of his ministers; but, having +just had to face so heavy a defeat of his plans for honorable +retirement, he was the more bent on asserting himself. + +"Your Majesty will pardon me, it had to be issued to the press without a +moment's delay. We had received information which made the matter of +great urgency." + +"I will hear your explanation," said the King coldly; and the Secretary +went on. + +"You are doubtless aware, sir, that about these sentences there has been +a very considerable agitation among the workers; and the utter failure +of the strike has not improved matters." + +"I am aware of that," said the King. + +"It had always been my intention, as soon as the march of strikers had +been dispersed in an orderly manner, to recommend the exercise of the +royal clemency. It was in fact merely a matter of hours, when +circumstances forestalled us. The session closed before any of the +strike marchers could arrive upon the scene; and then came the event +which diverted popular attention. It was for that reason, I presume, +that only yesterday certain of the men's leaders made very inflammatory +speeches--of a kind which it would be extremely difficult for the +authorities to overlook or make any appearance of yielding to. One +speech in particular, calling upon the hangman to refuse to perform his +duty and threatening his life if he did so, was of a peculiarly +seditious character; for I need hardly point out that if that +functionary is not protected in the fulfilment of his official duties +the downfall of law and order has begun. It was absolutely necessary, +therefore, to forestall any reports of that speech in the metropolitan +press. For a few hours we were able to keep back the news; your +Majesty's clemency was announced in the late issues of all the evening +papers, and the 'Don't Hang' speech was not reported till this morning; +and thus, coming after the event, has fallen comparatively flat. I think +that now your Majesty will understand the position." + +The Secretary had finished. + +"And that is your explanation?" queried the King. + +The minister bowed. + +"I have to say that it does not satisfy me." + +The minister lifted sad eyebrows, but did not speak. + +"You tell me that for many days this recommendation of mercy has been +your fixed intention. Why, then, did you not consult me? Why did you +assume that, at a moment's notice, I should be able to fall in with your +suggestion; why, even, that I should think the dispersal of certain +riotous assemblies a convenient signal for the exercise of the royal +prerogative?" + +"I have merely followed, sir, the ordinary course of procedure observed +in my department." + +"Until, being unexpectedly pressed for time, you departed from it. After +all the telephone was between us; I was here. I might not have agreed: +but at least I should have been consulted!" + +The minister pursed his lips; to this sort of hectoring he had really +nothing to say. It did not comport with his official dignity. + +The King rose. "Mr. Secretary, as I have already said, your explanation +does not satisfy me. I shall communicate my sentiments to the Prime +Minister." + +His Majesty did not extend his hand; but by a motion of the head showed +that the interview was over; and there was nothing left for the Minister +of the Interior to do but retire from the room. + +And the next day he retired from office; for though the Prime Minister +urged many things in his defense, and more particularly the +misapprehension which his present retirement might cause, the King +remained obdurate; he was bent upon making an example. In the great +political game he had miscalculated and lamentably failed, but red-tape +was still his cherished possession; and you can do a good deal with +red-tape when you have an unquestioned authority to fall back upon. +Professor Teller's volumes of Constitutional History still lay upon a +retired shelf in the royal library (indeed it was from one of them that +he had extracted with slight changes his formal pronouncement of +abdication); and if he could not get anything else out of his ministers +he was determined to secure official correctness. Though they slighted +his opinion, they should recognize his authority; punctiliousness at +least they should render him as his one remaining due. + +And so when the Prime Minister urged how small and accidental was the +omission, his Majesty remarked that it was one of many; and when he +argued how any delay might have proved dangerous, the point at which +delay had begun was again icily indicated. More pressingly still did he +invite the King to consider in what light, if unexplained, this +resignation would be popularly regarded; would it not be taken as an +admission of blame by the head of the Home Department for the occurrence +of the late outrage? + +"Very likely," assented the King; "after all it took place on +Government premises." Whereat the Prime Minister, looking somewhat +startled and distressed, inquired whether any such imputation of blame +had been his Majesty's ulterior motive for his present action. + +"I have no motives left," said the King wearily; "I am merely doing my +duty." + +In which aspect he was proving himself a very difficult person to deal +with. "I am not arguing, I am only telling you," was an attitude which +put him in a much stronger position with his intellectual superiors than +any attempt at converting them to his views. From this day on he stood +forth to his ministers as a rigid constitutional reminder; and with six +volumes of the minutiæ of constitutional usage at his fingers' ends the +amount of time he was able to waste and the amount of trouble he was +able to give were simply amazing. + +The Prime Minister had been quite right; the resignation of the Home +Secretary caused just that flutter of unfavorable suspicion which he had +expected. For some reason or another he was extremely distressed by it, +and begged from his Majesty the grant of a full State pension to the +retired minister. But the King would not hear of it. "It is not my +duty," he said, "to grant full pensions to those who fail in their +official obligations. Where I am more personally concerned I have not +pressed you; I have not asked for the resignation of the Prefect of +Police, though I think I might have some reason to show for it. He +prevented nothing, and he has discovered nothing. Do you expect me to +open Parliament for you again next week, with the same ceremony, along +the same route, and at the same risk?" + +He was assured that every precaution would be taken. + +"I hope so," he said in the tone of one who very much doubted whether +the ministerial word was now worth anything. + +Under this harassing and unhandsome treatment the Prime Minister was +beginning to show age; and the coming session gave no promise that his +cares in other respects would be less heavy than before; the Women +Chartists were threatening a bigger outbreak in the near future, and +Labor was now claiming to be freely supported from the rates either when +out of work or when on strike. And when the Address to the Throne was +being moved Labor and the Women Chartists would be in renewed agitation, +asking for things which would make party politics quite impossible, and +which it was therefore quite impossible for party politics to grant. If +the Government had not still got that thoroughly unpopular House of +Bishops to sit upon and coerce, things would be looking very black +indeed. + + +III + +And meanwhile where was the Princess Charlotte? Seven horrible days had +gone by; and the inner circle of the detective force had been running +about in padded slippers, so to speak, giving an accurate description of +a lady whose name nobody knew, and who had been last seen in the +vicinity of a college for women. Very privately and confidentially the +titled lady who was the head of that institution had been interviewed; +but her information was limited. + +"She came to me only for one day," said the Principal, "though I thought +she was intending to stay a week. I hardly know when I missed her; she +had laid it down so very emphatically that she was to be left free and +treated without ceremony, that really I did not trouble to look after +her. Whenever she was here her Highness always mixed quite freely with +the students; I know that with some of them she had made friends. They +are far more likely to know what her plans were than I am." + +Further inquiry in the direction thus indicated had to be carried on +elsewhere, since the students had now separated for the vacation; and +wherever inquiry was made the same stealthy secrecy had to be adopted; +nobody must be allowed to suppose that the Princess Royal of Jingalo was +missing. And so--on a sort of all-fours not at all conducive to +speed--the quest went on. + +On the fifth day, however, some relief had arrived to reduce the +parental anxiety to bearable proportions. A letter, dropped from +nowhere, bearing the metropolitan postmark, came to the King's hands. It +gave only the barest, yet very essential information. + +"Dearest papa," it ran, "I am quite well, and enjoying myself. I shall +be back in a fortnight." + +News of the arrival of this letter was immediately conveyed to the +Constabulary Chief; and after three days of deep cogitation the absence +of all reference to the outrage and to the risk run by those near and +dear to her seemed to strike him as peculiar, and supplied him with what +hitherto the police had lacked--a clue. And after two more days of +strenuously directed search it bore fruit. + +Late one afternoon the King was sitting at work in his study when his +Comptroller-General entered hastily and in evident excitement; for +though the King was then busily engaged in writing he presumed to +interrupt, not waiting for the royal interrogating glance to give him +his permission. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, in a tone of very urgent apology. + +"Well, well?" said the King rather testily, for he did not like his +writing-hour to be thus disturbed, "what is it?" + +"The Prime Minister wishes to see you, sir, on a matter of extreme +urgency." + +The King had so long been pestered by ministers on matters which they +considered urgent and which he did not, that he had little patience for +such pleas, coming at the wrong time. + +"What about?" he inquired curtly. + +The Comptroller-General, who was supposed not to know, replied +discreetly but in a tone of veiled meaning, "Something in the Home +Department I believe, sir. Just now, while there is no chief secretary, +the Prime Minister himself is seeing to matters." + +"Dear, dear!" sighed his Majesty, "I do wish he would manage to get his +urgent business done at the proper time!" + +"I think, sir," said the General, "that this matter is one of sufficient +importance to justify a suspension of the ordinary rules." He paused, as +though about to say more, but thought better of it; after all the matter +did not lie within his department. + +"Very well," said the King, "let him come in, then!" And in due course +the Premier entered. + +It was evident at a glance that he was the bearer of important, nay, +even alarming, intelligence; his eye was startled and anxious, his +manner full of discomposure, and without waste of a moment he opened +abruptly upon the business which had brought him. + +"I have come to inform your Majesty," said he, "that we have at last +discovered the Princess Charlotte's whereabouts." + +"Oh?" said the King, excluding from his tone any indication of gratitude +over the too long delayed discovery. "And pray, where is she?" + +"I regret to say, sir, that her Royal Highness is at this moment in +Stonewall Jail." + +"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, startled out of his coldness. +"Whatever took her there?" + +"She was taken, sir, in a 'Molly Hold-all'[1] along with several others. +And she has been there for the last ten days." + +[Footnote 1: Jingalese equivalent for "Black Maria."] + +"Yes, yes; but what I want to know is what has she been doing? In this +country one doesn't get put into prison for nothing, I should hope." + +"The charge, sir, was for assaulting the police. No doubt there has been +a very regrettable mistake; there was, unquestionably, in the +magistrate's court, some conflict of evidence." + +"Assaulting the police!" exclaimed the King petulantly. + +"But what else are the police there for?--when there's trouble, I mean. +And how many of them did she assault, pray?" + +"I believe only one, sir," replied the Prime Minister; "at least only +one of them gave any evidence against her, and there were five witnesses +to say that she did not assault him. The magistrate who convicted, +however, accepted the constable's evidence; he is, I believe, rather +hard of hearing; and I am told that he thought the witnesses in her +favor were all giving evidence against her. If that is so, it +sufficiently accounts for the conviction. On the other hand there can be +no doubt that the Princess did intend to get arrested." + +"When did all this take place?" + +"In the course of the last Chartist disturbances, three days before the +rising of Parliament. Some sixty or seventy women then caused themselves +to be arrested, and it seems that the Princess was one of them." + +"She must be mad!" exclaimed the King in bewilderment. "Whatever could +have induced her?" + +"Was your Majesty aware that she had any leanings towards politics?" + +"She has ideas," said the King, "like other young people; but she is +generally very busy changing them; and, beyond a notion that a woman +ought always to have her own way, and never be asked to do what she +doesn't want to do, she----" And then it began to dawn upon him--though +only darkly--what Charlotte was really after: she was demonstrating +madly, extravagantly, her claim to personal freedom. And to prove how +much she meant it she had gone to these wild lengths. Well might her +father, in his essentially middle-aged mind, wonder what the younger +generation was coming to. + +"Poor dear silly child!" he exclaimed in fond irritation. "Why ever +could she not have waited?" + +That was a question the Prime Minister could not answer. + +"Well, well," he went on, endeavoring to be philosophical over the +business, "she has had her lesson now; and after all there is no real +harm done." + +"Your Majesty must pardon me; it has become a very serious matter," said +the Prime Minister gravely. + +"Why? Who knows anything about it? Who need know? She wasn't sentenced +in her own name, I suppose?" + +"Certainly not, sir; had she been recognized the thing could never have +happened. She must to some extent have altered her dress and her +appearance: as to that I have no particulars. The name she actually went +in under was Ann Juggins." + +"Preposterous!" exclaimed the King. "And supposing that were to come +out!" + +"That is the trouble, sir. Without the full and immediate exercise of +your authority, I fear it may. As a matter of fact, that is why she +still remains where we found her." + +"Oh! Stuff and nonsense!" cried the King. "You don't come for my +authority in cases of this kind. Let her out, let her out! and say +nothing more about it!" + +"The Prefect, sir, has already been to see her, and she refuses to be +let out; that is to say, declares that if she is not allowed to serve +her full sentence she will make the whole of the affair public." + +"Public?" + +"Name and all. There was her ultimatum; she made a special point of it. +Her Highness seems somehow to be aware that the name is an impossible +one, a weapon against which no Government department could stand. The +word 'Juggins,'--only think, sir, what it means! Here we have a +ridiculous, a most lamentable blunder committed by the police, +sufficient of itself to cause us the gravest embarrassment; and then to +have on the top of it all this name with its ridiculous association +rising up to confound us. We should go down as 'the Juggins Cabinet'; +the word would be cried after us by every errand-boy in the street--the +Government would become impossible." + +The King did his best to conceal his delight at the predicament in which +Charlotte's escapade had, by the confession of its Chief, placed the +Cabinet. This tyrannical Government, in spite of its large majority, its +strong party organization, and its bureaucratic powers, was unable to +stand up against ridicule; a mere breath, and all its false pretensions +to dignity would be exposed, and its dry bones, speciously clad in +strong armor, would rattle down into the dust. + +And if he chose to use this knowledge suddenly gained, what a power it +would give him! Yes; he had only to send for Charlotte and bid her cry +'Juggins,' and that which, with so many months of anxious toil and with +threat of abdication, he had failed to bring about, would immediately +accomplish itself in other ways. But unfortunately the King was a man of +scrupulous conscience, and was bound by his ideas of what became a +monarch and a gentleman. He may have been quite mistaken in regarding as +unclean the weapon with which Heaven had supplied him; but as he did so +regard it, one must reluctantly admit that he was right to throw it +aside. + +"Well," he said, when the Prime Minister had finished, "she must be made +not to tell, that's all!" + +"I fear, sir, she is very determined." + +"Determined to do what?" + +"To serve out her sentence." + +The King sat and thought for a while. He knew his Charlotte better than +the police did; and, besides that, during the past week he had quite +made up his mind that the Prefect of Police was in some matters a +blunderer. "I wonder how he tried to get her out," he meditated aloud. +"Did she send me any message?" + +"Nothing direct, sir, that I know of; but I take it that her ultimatum +was also directed against any possible action on the part of your +Majesty. She was quite determined to do her full time; said indeed that +you had promised her a fortnight. What that may mean, I do not know." + +"Oh, really!" cried the King, "the folly of the official mind is past +all believing,--especially when it concentrates itself in the police +force! Let somebody go to that poor child and tell her that her father +and mother have had a bomb thrown at them, and are trying to recover +themselves in the grief caused by her absence! And then unchain her (you +keep them in chains, I suppose?), open the door of her prison, and see +how she'll run! And tell the Prefect," he added, "that I cannot present +him with my compliments." + +The King was quite right. In case Charlotte should refuse to believe the +official word, she was shown a newspaper with lurid illustrations; and +within an hour's time she was back at the palace, weeping, holding her +father and mother alternately in her arms, and scolding them for all the +world as though they had been guilty of outrageous behavior, and not +she. + +And, after all, it was a very good way of getting over the preliminaries +of a rather awkward meeting. + + +IV + +But when the first transports of joy at that reunion were over, they had +to settle down to naughty facts and talk with serious disapproval to +Charlotte of her past doings. And as they did so, though she still wept +a little, the Princess observed with secret satisfaction that she had at +any rate cured her mother of one thing--of knitting, namely, while a +daughter's fate was being dangled in the parental balance. + +From that day on when Charlotte showed that she was really in earnest +the Queen put down her knitting; and those who have lived under certain +domestic conditions where tyranny is always, as though by divine right, +benevolent, wise, self-confident, and self-satisfied to the verge of +conceit, will recognize that this in itself was no inconsiderable +triumph. + +Charlotte was quite straightforward as to why she had done the thing; +she had done it partly out of generous enthusiasm for a cause which she +did not very well understand, but to which certain friends of hers had +attached themselves with a blind and dogged obstinacy (two of those +friends she had left in prison behind her); but more because she wished +to supply an object lesson of what she was really like to the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser. + +She insisted that he was to be told all about it. And the Queen was in +despair. + +"Tell him that you have been in jail like a common criminal for +assaulting the police? I couldn't, it would break my heart! I should die +of the shame of it." + +"Very well," said Charlotte, "I will tell him myself, then; you can't +prevent me doing that! No, I'm not going to be headstrong, or foolish, +or obstinate, or any of the things you said I was: now I've made the +exhibition of myself that I intended making, I'll be a lamb. If I like +him enough, and if he likes me enough, I'll marry him. But I shall have +to like him a great deal more than I do at present; and he will have to +want me very much more than it's possible for him to do until he has +seen me----" + +"Oh, don't be so conceited, my dear!" said the Queen, her good-humor and +confidence beginning to be restored as she watched the fair flushed +face, and those queer attractive little gestures which made her +daughter's charm so irresistible. + +"Before anything will induce me to say 'yes,'" concluded Charlotte. + +And then, as though that finished the matter, and as though her own +naughty doings were of no further interest, she cried: "And now tell me +about the bomb!" And the Queen, who still liked to dwell upon that +episode of sights, sounds, and sensations, strangely mingled and +triumphantly concluded by a popular ovation such as she had never met +with in her life before, started off at once on a detailed narrative, +corrected now and then by the King's more sober commentary, and aided by +the eager questions of her daughter, who sat in close and fond contact +with both of them, mopping her eyes alternately with her mother's +handkerchief and her own. + +"Oh! why wasn't I there?" she cried incautiously, when word came of the +great popular reception crowning all. + +"Ah! why weren't you?" inquired the King waggishly. And when he had made +that little joke at her, Charlotte knew that all her naughty goings off +and goings on were comfortably forgiven and done with. + +"But you know, papa," she said later, when for the first time they were +alone together, "I have found out quite a lot of things that _you_ know +nothing about: quite dreadful things! And they are going on behind your +back, and women are being put into prison for it." + +All this was said very excitedly, and with great earnestness and +conviction. + +"My dear," said the King, "it's no use your talking about those Women +Chartists to me." + +"But I'm one of them," said Charlotte. + +"Nonsense; you are not." + +"I am. I signed on. I couldn't have gone to prison for them if I +hadn't." + +"Do any of them know who you are?" cried the King, aghast. It was a +disturbing thought, for what a power it would be in their hands, and he +had always heard how unscrupulous they were. + +"Only one or two," declared Charlotte, "and they won't tell unless I +tell them to. They are wonderful people, papa!" + +The King sighed; for the very name of them had become a weariness to +him. The whole agitation, with its dim confused scufflings against law +and order, and its demonstrations idiotically recurring at the most +inopportune moments, had profoundly vexed him. Years ago he had received +the bland assurance of his ministers that the whole thing would soon die +down and cease; but it was still going on, and was now taking to itself +worse forms than ever. + +"What is it that they want?" he exclaimed, not quite meaning it as a +question; rather as expressing the opinion that the subject was a +hopeless one. + +"They want a great many things," said his daughter; "they've got what +they call 'grievances'; I know very little about them; they may be right +or wrong--that isn't the point. The only thing that concerns you, papa, +is that they want to come and see you; and they are not allowed to." + +"Come and see me?" + +"Yes; bring you a petition." + +"What about?" + +"To have their grievances looked into." + +"_I_ can't look into their grievances." + +"No; but you can say that they shall be." + +The King shook his head. Charlotte did not know what she was talking +about. + +"Yes, papa, that is the position. Of course you haven't the right to +make laws or levy taxes, but you can send word to Parliament to say +something has got to be considered and decided. And about this, +Parliament won't consider and won't decide. And that is why they are +trying to get to you with a petition; so that you shall say that it is +to be looked into." + +"But I can't say that sort of thing, my dear." + +"Yes, you can, papa! It's an old right; the right of unrepresented +people to come direct to their sovereign and tell him that his ministers +are refusing to do things for them. And your ministers are trying to +keep you from knowing about it, to keep you from knowing even that you +have such a power; and by not knowing it they are making you break your +Coronation oath. Oh, papa, isn't that dreadful to think of?" + +"My dear, if that were true----" + +"But it is true, papa! These women are trying to bring you their +petition, and they are prevented. The ministers say that you have +nothing to do with it; so they go to the ministers--they take their +petition to the ministers, and ask them to bring it to you, so that you +may give them an answer. Have any of them brought you the petition, +papa?" + +The King shook his head. + +"You see, they do nothing! And so the women go again, and again, and +again, taking their petition with them; and because they are trying to +get to you--to say that their grievances shall be looked into, and +something done about them--because of that they are being beaten and +bruised in the streets; and when they won't turn back then they are +arrested and sent to prison." + +By this time Charlotte was weeping. + +"They may be quite wrong," she cried, "foolish and impossible in their +demands; they may have no grievances worth troubling about--though if +so, why are they troubling as they do?--but they have the right, under +the old law, for those grievances to be inquired into and considered and +decided about. And Parliament won't do it; it is too busy about other +things, grievances that aren't a bit more real, and about which people +haven't been petitioning at all. But you, papa (if that petition came to +you), would have the right to make them attend to it. And they know it; +and that's why they won't let you hear anything about it." + +The King's conscience was beginning to be troubled. He had no confidence +either in the good sense or the uprightness of his ministers to fall +back upon; and he saw that his daughter, though she knew so little about +the merits of the case, was very much in earnest. She had caught his +hand and was holding it; she kissed it, and he could feel the dropping +of warm tears. + +"Very well, my dear," he said, "very well; I promise that this shall be +looked into." + +"Oh, papa!" she cried joyfully. "It was partly for that--just a little, +not all, of course--that I went to prison." + +"Then you ought not to have been so foolish. Why could you not have come +to me?" + +"I don't think you would have attended; not so much as you do now." + +And the King had to admit how, perhaps, that was true. + +"Well, my dear," he said again, "I promise that it shall be seen to. No, +I shan't forget." + +And then she kissed him and thanked him, and went away comforted. And +when he was alone he got down the index volume of Professor Teller's +_Constitutional History_, and after some search under the heading of +"Petitions" found indeed that Charlotte was right, and that the power to +send messages to Parliament for the remedying of abuses was still his +own. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE INCREDIBLE THING HAPPENS + + + + +I + +Since the break-up of his plans the King had been finding consolation in +his son's book, an advance copy of which had reached him while Max was +still abroad. Consolation is, perhaps, hardly the right word; it had +distracted him in more ways than one; partly, and in a good sense, from +his own personal depression over things gone wrong, but more with a +scared apprehension of the terrible hubbub that would arise when its +contents became known. The title, _Government and the Governed_, was +sober enough, and the post-diluvian motto once threatened by Max had +been omitted; but the contents were of a highly revolutionary character, +and the bland "take-or-leave me" attitude of the author toward the +public he would some day be called upon to rule was on a par with that +statement of her prison doings which Charlotte was preparing for the +delectation of Hans Fritz Otto, Prince of Schnapps-Wasser. In neither +case did it seem likely that such a confession would draw parties +together. + +And so before the King had even finished reading he felt it his duty to +write imploring his son not to publish. + +Before an answer could reach him important events supervened. The +reverberations of the bomb brought Max flying back to the bosom of his +family; and then the Charlotte episode had followed, over which Max had +not been at all sympathetic, for in spite of his emancipated views about +things in general, he had still the particular notion that revolution +belonged only to men, and that women, incapable of conducting it +efficiently, had far better leave it alone. + +And so it was that only when things had begun to resettle themselves was +any fresh reference made to the book's forthcoming publication. + +As soon as the subject was broached Max presented a face of polite +astonishment. + +"I thought you knew, sir," he said. + +"Knew what?" + +"The most important event in recent history; I even thought you might +have instigated it." + +"I don't know what you are talking about." + +"Then I must break the news. My book has been burned to the ground." He +spoke as though it had been an edifice. "I am told, for my consolation, +that it burned extremely well--'fiercely,' the papers said--and gave the +firemen a lot of trouble. Your letter and the news reached me almost +simultaneously; I knew, therefore, that you would be glad." + +"No, no, don't say 'glad,'" protested the King; "in a way I am sorry, +even. I only wanted it to be anonymous. One can do things anonymously. +How did it come about?" + +"It was the work of an incendiary." + +"How do you know that?" + +"There was absolute proof,--something which refused to burn,--a box of +matches made in Jingalo, or some other fire-resistant of a similar kind. +The perpetrator got off. Yes--the House of Ganz-Wurst certainly seems at +the present moment particularly to attract the attentions of these +obscurantists in politics. Who knows whether the hand which threw the +bomb at you had not already been dipped in the petrol which had given so +flaming an account of my claims to authorship?" + +"What are you going to do about it?" + +"Reprint, I suppose, as soon as I can afford it, or do you still wish me +not to? You hold almost the only copy that is left." + +The King shook his head. "As I told you, Max, I think publication would +be very unwise; you would be sure to regret it afterwards. Remember +that some day you will come to the throne; and what you think you can do +now you can't do then. All at once it becomes impossible." + +And then the King gave a queer consternated gasp, for he himself +remembered something--something he had conditionally promised, believing +that the conditions would never be fulfilled; and now fate had brought +them about; and if Max so willed it a thing would presently be taking +place much more disturbing to the institution of royalty than the +publication of a mere book. + +To the King's last remark Max merely replied: "At present, sir, it is +you who are upon the throne and not I--a circumstance over which I have +very particular reasons for being glad. And now, sir, something has just +occurred to me: do not think that I am going to anticipate the date you +fixed, that is not till next week, but when all is settled, as it so +soon will be if I remain of sane mind, then I will present all the +preserved copies of my book to the lady whom you so disapprove of, and +she shall do with them exactly as she wishes--order a new edition, or +put them on the fire to help her make soup for the poor. That is a +little device of mine, sir, for bringing her into your good graces; for +if I know anything of her mind she will maintain that to publish such a +book without a full intention of putting its principles into practice is +a mere parade of insincerity and foolishness. And so--from your point of +view--she will be saving the monarchy from a danger which no one else +can avert; for I am not prepared to surrender my power to do mischief +into any hands but hers. A copy of the book, you may be interested to +hear, has already gone to her; and her silence about it warns me that +the epoch it so strenuously makes for is not the one that she desires." + +"You are still talking like a book, Max," said the King sarcastically, +wishing to divert discussion for the time being from that which he was +referring to. + +"Ah, yes," said Max; "as a bird who mourns his mate. Why, for a while, +should I not indulge my grief? I shall never write another; all I had it +in me to say was said there. In future--though you may hear in my voice +an echo of that lost romance--I am going to be a man not of words but of +deeds." + +The King smiled. + +"You look incredulous, sir; but I have already startled that Commission +you put me on, and compelled it to include in the scope of its inquiry +things which it did not want to inquire into at all. Believe me, sir; if +we get before us all the evidence that I intend we shall find ourselves +forced into making a very unpopular report--far more unpopular than my +book would have been, and far more subversive of the established order +of things than at present you can have any idea. Even your coats, +sir--exorbitant though their price now is--are going to cost you more as +a result of this Commission, unless we can so arrange that in future a +little less shall be paid for the 'cut' and a little more for the needle +and thread that join the cuttings together. I am going to have it said +in this report of ours--for I have discovered it to be a fact--that the +very clothes which are your daily wear (and mine) are put together by +men and women paid at something less than twopence-half-penny an hour. +And I am going to get it put in that scandalously personal way (your +clothes and mine--the clothes we go to open Parliament in, and set the +fashions in, and when we have worn them some half-dozen times hand on to +charity), I am going to have it thus put that all may be conscious and +ashamed when they see us so exhibiting ourselves, and no longer think a +well-cut coat under modern commercial conditions a fit adjunct for +royalty. That, sir, will do a great deal more harm to 'trade' than my +book would have done. The public conscience does not like to have these +things brought home to royalty itself; we and the 'social evil' are in +no way to be connected with each other, lest it should be seen that we +help to make its ways easy. Only the other day I was credibly informed +that a man who headed with twenty thousand pounds the list of a charity +bearing my mother's name, has been allowed by the police to get out of +this country scot free--though guilty of infamous conduct,--merely +because the contribution of that tainted donation to a royal fund would +not have 'looked well.'" + +"Oh, stop talking to me, Max!" cried the King, made irritable by his +increased sense of helplessness. "Go and do what you like, say what you +like, report what you like; you've got the Commission to play with; run +it for all it is worth; but for Heaven's sake let me have peace for a +while! Why should you trouble me? You know that I can do nothing." + +"You have done a great deal," said Max, whose admiration for his father +had grown very considerably during the past year. + +"I have missed doing a great deal; but of that you know nothing, and I'm +not going to tell you." And then he could stand it no more. "Do you +imagine I should have made you that idiotic promise," he cried, "if I +had supposed for a moment that I should still be here when you came to +claim it?" And so saying he got up and, diplomatic in retreat, hurried +out of the room. + +Max, left to his own surmisings, opened wide and wondering eyes. "Did he +throw that bomb at himself?" he murmured in astonishment. "It looks very +much as if he did." + + +II + +Parliament opened again without any difficulty in the middle of +December; and the enormous popularity of the King and Queen was greatly +enhanced by the circumstance of their reappearance within so short a +time for an occasion so closely similar. Only another bomb could have +increased the favorable impression made upon the populace by their +affable return to the charge--if a slow walking-pace may be so +described--within three weeks of the attempted outrage. + +As the Prime Minister had promised the police spared no pains to insure +their safety, and behind the hoardings of the new Government offices +detectives were packed like herrings in a barrel, with special eye-holes +bored through so that they might note the actual passing of the royal +carriage, and have it well under observation at the point of danger +which was, presumably, that at which the last explosion had occurred. +Then the whole police force held its breath, and the coach got past +without any difficulty; and immediately the waiting multitude in Regency +Row became violently demonstrative as though some great acrobatic feat +had been achieved. And the piebald ponies came stepping like +rope-dancers each held by a groom; and everything--except the fresh bomb +for which so many stage preparations had been made--went off with all +the success imaginable. + +The King did not read his own speech: he had a sore throat for the +occasion, and only with his ears did he swallow the bitter pill of that +foreshadowed scheme which he had so long and vainly resisted; for now he +was bound by his own promise, and could no longer "stand in the way." + +And so, by the mouth of the Lord High Commissioner, the Bishops heard +under its smooth-sounding title the plan for their approaching doom read +out from the steps of the Throne, and as soon as the King and the Queen +had retired, budding members on the ministerial side in both Houses +rose up to congratulate the Cabinet and the country on those wise and +statesmanlike proposals, and hardened veterans upon the other, the +Archbishop included, rose up to condemn them. And after that, for three +or four days a general wrangling--all leading to nothing--went on. + +But while Parliament talked vacuously within, outside came rumblings of +storm; the discontent of certain sections of the community with +conditions unsettled or unattended to was gathering to a head. And on +the third day after the session had opened, Charlotte said to her father +with rather a tragic look, "Papa, do you know what is going to happen +to-night?" And then she told him. + +It was those Women Chartists again. + +The King had been true to his word, he had made inquiries; in a way he +had even "looked into the matter," and had received from the right and +official quarter bland assurances that there was nothing in it--merely a +general obstreperousness and a wish to cause trouble to the police. But +his conscience, which so often ran away with him, was still troubled; +and so when the evening came he sent once again for the newly appointed +Home Minister; and in reply to rather anxious questions was given +confidently to understand that the police arrangements were quite +adequate for the occasion, that everything would be done as quietly and +as leniently as possible; and that no edge of the disturbance would in +any case be allowed to overflow in the direction of the royal palace. As +he listened to the cocksure tone of this new minister, and the almost +patronizing air with which he exposed his official fitness for the post +so recently conferred on him, the King ceased to ask questions--let the +man talk himself out,--and then, when silence seemed to give consent, +got rid of him. + +It was now time that he should go to dress for dinner, but the motive +force was absent. He stood for a while considering, then went to the +window, and opening it let in the distant hum of the city traffic. + +All sounded as usual, pleasant, busy, peaceable. Yet if what his +daughter told him was true, within half-an-hour those quietly-sounding +streets would be thronged with thousands upon thousands waiting for the +arrival of the women to claim their old historical right of petition; +and serried lines of police--thousands of them also--would be standing +to bar their way, whatever direction they might go in quest of the +governing authority. And in the hands of these women would be petitions +personally addressed to himself; yet never had any minister put to him +the question whether he would be willing to receive them and hear what +they had to say; such an idea seemed not to have entered their heads--or +was it the fear lest such a reception might give the cause too great an +importance in the public eye? Here, once again, then, proof met him of +the conspiracy of modern government constantly going on to bring about +disconnection between the Crown and the real life-needs and aspirations +of the people. Suffocating traditions closed him round making a cypher +of him--to himself a scorn and a derision, and a monster unto many--just +as much, by this denial of petition, a breaker of his Crown oath as +those who in the past had paid penalty for it with their lives! + +There outside, in the nipping wintry air, he could hear the sounds of a +liberty he no longer shared: the trotting of cab-horses, the cry of +newsboys, the whiffle and hoot of motor-cars. Up through the bare trees +of the park swam a soft radiance of light from the lamps below, and +emergent like a full moon on a misty sky the face of the great +Parliament clock dawned luminous to his gaze. + +So long he stood, and listened, and waited, that before he closed the +window again the clock had told the three-quarters to eight. Then he +hesitated no more; passing out of his study and down to a lower corridor +he came presently to the cloak lobby, and selecting a rough full-length +overcoat, a motor cap, and from a drawer a pair of clouded snow-glasses, +arrayed himself in these, and with flaps drawn down and coat collar +turned high, passed out by a small side-entrance which led on to the +terrace. + +Chill air and a bosom of darkness received him; through the thick +barrier of trees skirting the walled precincts scarcely a light winked; +only the large domed conservatory behind him threw a pale radiance +before his feet as he crossed the terrace and moved off by a winding +path in the direction of a small postern concealed in shrubbery. + +As he quitted the grass, the sound of his own footfalls upon firm gravel +made him guiltily afraid; and it was not without some moral effort that +he, a king in his own domain, kept himself from stepping back +secretively to the turfed edge. Suppressing the inclination, he +proceeded at a smart pace, and coming presently to the door with a +slip-latch on its inner side he opened it and passed through. + +At the sound of opening a policeman stationed outside turned and stood +passively regarding him; his muffled appearance seemed sufficiently in +keeping with the uses to which this particular exit was put by others to +awaken neither suspicion nor surprise. With a half-waggish air of +respect the man touched his helmet. "Good-evening, sir," said he, as +though there subsisted between the habitués of that door and himself a +sort of understanding. + +To make a quicker escape from the man's scrutiny and the glare of the +lamp commanding the entrance, the King crossed the road, and took up his +course along the more dimly lighted footway on the further side. At this +hour the park row in which he found himself was almost deserted; now and +again single pedestrians went by, and as he received from none of these +more than a cursory and inattentive glance, his sense of incognito +increased, and he stepped out more confidently to the task that lay +ahead. + +Presently he was passing along the palace front and under the +eyes of sentries standing motionless at their posts; and again +he had satisfaction in perceiving that as he went by there was no +inclination on the part of any one of them to present arms. He +glanced up at the palace façade, with its windows softly lighted +through blinds. He could pick out his own sitting-room, and the +Queen's, where probably she was now reading the note he had sent to +inform her that urgent business called him away. There were the +lights of the smaller dining-hall, within which a table richly adorned +with gold and silver plate stood even now waiting its twenty accustomed +guests--the minister-in-attendance and the higher permanent officials of +the Court. No one else from outside was coming to-night except Prince +Max. That was fortunate, Max would take his place. + +As soon as he was outside the borders of the park the King quitted the +main thoroughfare for narrow and dimly lit alleys, avoiding the streets +of wide pavements and shops which had scarcely yet begun to close; and +before long found that he had lost his way. + +The fact was sufficiently absurd; here within a stone's throw of his own +palace, and stretching almost to the doors of the House of Legislature +whereto he went in so much state every year, lay an unknown territory +which he had never thought to explore. The intricacy of back streets was +quite unknown to him, and he seemed at almost every corner to be +stepping into yards and cul-de-sacs, from which he had perforce to turn +back again. In a short time all sense of the points of the compass was +gone. + +A small ragged urchin asked him the time, and that casual touch of +communalism made him feel more at home. He took out his watch--it was +already five minutes past eight: over those high narrow streets, with +their thin strip of sky, the big clock of Parliament had boomed the hour +and he had not heard it. Away scurried the urchin as though already late +for something, excitedly calling on others to follow; and the King, with +the presumption that these running feet would be sure to lead him in the +direction where he wished to go, followed them round two corners. After +that all trace of them was gone. + +A sound of shrill singing now struck his ear. He was in a narrow +asphalted way surrounded by workmen's tenements. Right in the middle, +occupying the place of the non-existent traffic, ten or a dozen children +were dancing a sort of figure, and singing the while. As he drew near he +caught snatches of the words. + +Of an elder child, who stood looking on, he stopped and asked the way. +She told him, gesticulating as to which corners he was to pass, pointing +all the time to the promised goal. Incautiously he dropped a coin into +her hand; and, as kings do not carry coppers, immediately there was a +cry. The singers stopped and surrounded him, stretching up clamorous +palms; a whole dozen were now feverishly anxious to show him every step +of the way. + +"It's the 'Chartises' as you want to see, arn't it, mister?" inquired +one. "I'll show you where they go; I know all of 'em." + +The King pressed hurriedly on, hoping to get rid of them; but his +flustered air appealed to the tormenting instincts of youth, and told +them that here they had got some one capable of being worried into +surrender. Still clamoring and thrusting up hands for backsheesh they +kept pace with him. A few of them started singing again, and the rest +joined in: perhaps singing was what the gentleman liked best--and so a +better way for gaining their end. The shrill voices fell into chorus; +and to a queer lilting tune the words rang clear. + + "Come to me + Quietlee, + Do not do me an injuree! + Gently, Johnnie of Jingalo." + +"What's that?" cried the King, stopping short in his amazement; "what's +that you say?" A new bewilderment seized on him. It was +impossible--quite impossible that the children should know who he really +was, yet there were the words with their implied accusation, as though +personally directed at him, and at him alone. + +The small street singers, taking the inquiry for an encore, sang it +again; and this time the words had a curious flirtatious meaning which +made them even worse. What was he being charged with? + +"Where did you get that from?" he inquired, hot of face. + +"One of the Chartises taught it us," said a child more ready of speech +than the rest. "They all sings it now. It's one of their songs, that +is!" So with reduplicating speech she conveyed intelligence to his mind. + +Never before had any word of poetry struck him a blow like this. He had +said that he did not understand poetry, but here was meaning only too +clear; in this song--so gentle, pleading, and pathetic in character, he, +John of Jingalo, stood publicly accused of all the injuries that were +being done to women in that necessary defense of law and order against +which, petition in hand, they were so obstinately setting themselves. +What was all his popularity worth, if by the mouths of little children +his name was to be thus cried in the streets? It was scandalous, +indecent; and yet--was it altogether without justification? + +To be rid of his small tormentors and free for his own meditations, he +took the most practical means that suggested itself. + +"There, there!" he cried. "Run away, run away, all of you!" and throwing +a random coin into their midst moved hastily away. Behind him as he went +he heard battle royal being waged; liberal though the donation, and +sufficient to distribute sustenance to all, each was now claiming it as +her own perquisite. + +And so at his back the shrill sounds of wrath and contention went on +till they became merged in a louder roar, the origin of which was +presently made apparent. + +He turned a corner and saw before him a huge crowd, and Regency Row +packed with seething humanity from end to end. + + +III + +For the first time in his life the King formed part of a crowd, and knew +what it was like to feel his body and limbs packed in by the bodies and +limbs of others and to have the breath squeezed out of him. In this +crowd the proportion of men to women was as ten to one; from the +physical point of view, therefore, the chances for these conflicting +women were nil. All the same they were there in large numbers, and not +for the first time; many of them were already sufficiently well known to +the police. + +A curiously corporate movement possessed this crowd; when it shifted at +all it shifted in large sections--three or four hundred at once; a whole +street-width of men driving forward at a lunge, before which the +strongest barrier of police momentarily gave way. And wherever this kind +of movement went on a few women formed the center of it. + +Small bundles of humanity, they shot by in the grip of that huge force, +mischievous and uncontrolled; tossed, tousled, and squeezed, shedding as +they went small fragments of their outer raiment, lost momentarily to +view in the surging mass of men, cornered, crushed back, held down as +within a vise--emerging again like popped corks followed by a foaming +rush of shouting youths, jeering or cheering them on; and still through +all that pressure obstinately retaining their human form, and enduring +with a strange silence what was being done to them by this great roaring +mob which had come out "for fun." + +Some went their way wide-eyed, with terror in their looks, yet still set +to their end; some with rigid faces and eyes shut fast, as though +scarcely conscious--their souls elsewhere, submitting passively to the +buffetings of fate; and a few--strangest sight of all--smiling to +themselves, almost with a look of peace, as though in the very violence +by which they were assailed they discerned a triumph for their cause. + +And with all the screwing, pushing, and wrenching, the driving forward +and the hurling back, scarcely one woman's arm was raised, except now +and again to protect her breast from the lewd or wanton assaults of the +crowd. Some held, tight clasped in their hands, crumpled bits of +paper--the petition, presumably, over which all this trouble +arose--stained, torn, almost illegible now, useless, yet still a symbol +of the fight that was being waged. Now and then above the turmoil, in +the dimness that lay between the lighted streets and the crowning +darkness of night, went sudden flashes like sheet-lightning in storm; +and at the stroke horses plunged, and youths screamed, facetiously +imitating the voice of women. It was the work of photographers, +securing, from some point of vantage overhead, flashlight records for +the delectation of the music halls. Again and again, with pistol-like +report, the monstrous dose was administered, the night took it at a +gulp, and the rabble responded with noise and shoutings. + +The genial voice of a mounted policeman working his way through the +crowd sounded humanly above the din. + +"I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" There was a touch of +humor in the cry; for it was like the voice of a showman advertising his +wares to a pack of holiday-makers anxious to buy; and wherever he went +pleasantness reigned, and an element of good temper and considerateness +mingled itself with the crowd. + +"Oh! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" Away he went on his +disciplined errand of mercy, a man of kindliness, good counsel, and +understanding, carrying out his orders in as human a way as was +possible. + +"Now then! Now then! Now then! I'm coming. Oh, I'm coming!" + +The roaring multitude swallowed him; his cry grew faint, merged in the +general din. + +By the gradual compression and movement of the multitude toward some +fancied center the King had been borne a good many hundred yards from +his original point. Presently he found himself in a large open space, +with its low-railed inclosure guarded by police. Here the crowd was +denser than ever and its sway harder to withstand. A woman's form was +driven sharply against him. To avoid elbowing her off he offered the +shelter of his arm; and she, finding herself up against something not +immediately repellent, stayed to breathe. He saw the sweat pour from her +skin, and as she panted in his arms she had the rank scent of a creature +when it is hunted. Yet in her face there was no fear at all, only the +white strain of physical exhaustion nearing its last point. + +"Are you hurt?" he asked. + +She shook her head. + +"The police; are they treating you properly?" + +"I have nothing to complain of," she said. + +"Won't you go home? You must see it is no use." + +She turned away as though she had not heard him, and threw herself once +more against the barrier she was unable to overcome. Into the shock of +it she went, with "nothing to complain of," forgetful of self, forgetful +of all but her blind unreasoning determination to gain her end. Her +passive yet battling form was borne away from him in the huge eddies of +the crowd. + +"Hot work!" said a voice at his side; a little man, with keen, appetized +face, ferreting this way and that, was hurriedly taking notes as though +his life depended on it. The King looked at him in surprise, and +wondered what it meant. + +"Got any news?" inquired the man, still scribbling at his notebook. + +"What kind of news?" + +"I'm not particular; anything suits me. I'm the Press." + +"The Press?" + +"Yes, reporter." And, as one proud of his great connection, he named the +King's favorite journal. + +Never it is to be hoped to his dying day did that poor penny-a-liner +know what a piece of news he allowed in that moment to slip by--news +which to him would have meant almost a fortune; and here he was actually +rubbing shoulders with it; and making no profit. + +"How many arrested?" he inquired. + +"I don't know." + +"Any of the leaders yet?" + +"I have not heard." + +Unprofitable company; the man moved away. They were separated by a +fresh movement of the crowd. + +A royal mail-van drove through the square, the police with difficulty +making way for it. And the crowd, mistaking it for something else, +rushed off to gaze and cheer excitedly at the prisoners within. The +postman who sat mounting guard over the netted window at the rear smiled +wittily at the popular error which made him for a few brief moments so +conspicuous a figure. No doubt the incident gave the newspaper-man some +copy, and the van, having contributed its share to the general +amusement, rolled on its way. + +Again the crowd made a rush; on the other side of the square a woman had +managed to get arrested, and a strong body of constables was escorting +her across to the police-station. Captors and captive walked quickly, +anxious to get the thing through. The woman had a scared yet triumphant +look in her eyes: she had succeeded in making the police do what they +did not want to do; and now for a fortnight, or a month, or for two +months--according to what these men might swear to, or the magistrate +think--she and a few score of others would find in a criminal cell that +temporary goal at which they had aimed; and the press would quiet the +public conscience by saying that they had done it "for notoriety." + +Always friendliest when it saw a woman actually under arrest, the crowd +broke into applause--dividing its cheers impartially between prisoner +and police. For this was what it had come out to see: this was why it +had paid tram-fares from distant slums, sacrificing its evening at the +"pub" and its pot of beer. These men of hard toiling lives and dull +imagination were there to see women of a class and education superior to +their own break the law and get "copped" for it, just like one of +themselves. + +"Quite right too! teach them to be'ave as they ought to," was the +comment passed here and there--though as a matter of fact it had already +been abundantly proved that it taught them nothing of the kind. But +that, after all, is "Government" as understood by the man in the street; +he is still the intellectual equal of the rustic, or of the child, who, +smiting the reptile upon the head, "learns him to be a toad"; and it is +down to his imagination that modern government has to play. And so, to +ambiguous cheers uttered by rival factions, the triumphal procession of +prisoner and escort passed on its way. + +"Three cheers for the Women's Charter!" cried a voice somewhere in the +crowd; and there went up in response a genial roar, half of derision, +half of sympathy. + +"Give 'em hell!" cried a wild little man, his face contorted with rage +and the lust which finds satisfaction in a blow. He went fiercely on, +butting his shoulder against every woman he met. Nobody arrested him; +nobody cried "shame." "Give 'em hell!" he cried. + +"They're getting it!" laughed a pale youth with an underhung jaw. + +Wherever the eye turned hell could be seen having its will, and deriving +a curious satisfaction from its momentary power to do foul things under +the public eye. + +"Oh, save me! save me! save me!" whimpered a woman's voice. Down in the +gulf below, buried under the shoulders of men, a small elderly figure +was clinging to the King's arm. + +"Oh, can't you do anything for me?" wailed the poor little Chartist, +with nerve utterly gone. + +"Why don't you go home?" inquired the King kindly. + +"I want to go home!" she said. "Take me!" + +"The first thing, then, is to get out of this crowd. Keep hold of my +arm." + +"No!" A perverse tag of conscience held her back. "I don't want to! I've +got a petition; it has to go to the King. Oh, if he only knew!" + +"Give it to me! I will see that he gets it." + +"You? You'd only throw it away when my back was turned." + +"No; I promise you I would not. Give it me! It shall really go to him." + +"You are not making fun of me?" + +"Indeed I am not. Here, where is it? Give it to me, quick!" + +She put the precious crumpled document into his hand. Poor nameless +soul, unconscious of what she had achieved--"I hope I've done right," +she said. + +A fresh movement of the crowd drove them against the railings. The +elderly little woman cried out like a frightened child. + +"Oh, oh! They are killing me!" + +The King lifted her up and put her over into free space on the other +side. + +"Here! none of that!" cried a big voice beside him. A rough hand seized +hold of him and wrenched him back; he turned round and found himself in +a policeman's charge. Then another came and took hold of him on the +other side. + +Incredibly the thing had happened: he was arrested. Triumphantly, +through a roaring, eddying crowd, the strong arm of the law bore him +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE KING'S NIGHT OUT + + + + +I + +The King sat in a large square chamber with barred windows, awaiting his +turn to be attended to. + +The crowd of prisoners seated on benches round the walls had become +attenuated; only about a score of them now remained. Women had been +dealt with first, the residuum were men; the general charge against +these was pocket-picking. + +He had been sitting there for hours. It was now one o'clock. + +"Now then, you!" said the voice of the sergeant in charge. His turn had +come. + +In an adjoining room he found his two accusers awaiting him. He was led +up to a table where sat an official in uniform making entry of the +names. A charge-sheet, nearly full, was spread on the table before him. + +The policeman who had made the arrest gave in the charge. + +"Name?" said the sergeant-clerk sharply, suspending the motion of his +pen. + +The King, still wearing his cap, took off his snow-glasses and turned +down the collar of his coat. + +It was no use. The officer looked at him without recognition. + +"Name?" he said again; and the policeman upon his right, giving the King +a rough jog, said, "Tell the sergeant your name!" And so, it appeared, +the useless formality must go on. + +The King gave the two essentials--first-christian and surname--out of a +long string of appendices for which half the sovereigns of Europe had +stood as godfathers. + +But the three words "John Ganz-Wurst" meant nothing to the official ear. +Over the patronymic he paused in doubt when only halfway through. "Spell +it!" he said, and, at the King's dictation, altered his V into a W. + +"Foreigner?" he grunted; Jingalese names he could spell properly. + +"Of foreign extraction," said the King, "my great-grandfather came over +to this country and was naturalized." + +"Oh, we don't want to hear about your great-grandfather!" said the +sergeant, cutting him short. + +At this moment one of the higher inspectors came into the room. + +"Address--occupation?" went on his interlocutor, busy with his form. + +The King named the dwelling from which he emanated. + +"Come, come!" said the official voice, "no nonsense here! What address?" + +The inspector was now looking at the prisoner. He touched the sergeant +upon the shoulder, and made a gesture for the two constables to stand +back. + +"Will you please to come this way, sir?" he said, in a tone of very +marked respect. + +The King followed him to an inner room. + +The inspector closed the door. "I beg your Majesty's pardon," he said. +"This is a most regrettable occurrence. Fortunately, none of those men +know." + +The King smiled. "I tried not to give myself away before I was obliged +to," he said. + +"Your Majesty must think we are all quite mad." + +"Not at all. So far as I know, every man I have encountered has merely +done his duty. Your methods of arrest are a little--arbitrary, shall I +say?" + +"That is unavoidable, sir, when we have large crowds to deal with." + +"I can understand that. A woman was being crushed; I helped her to get +over the railings. I suppose that was wrong?" + +The inspector smiled apologetically. "Men have been fined for it, before +now, sir," said he. + +"Very well, I will pay my fine," smiled the King. "And then, if you +don't mind, I will go home." + +His Majesty's kindly humor won the inspector's gratitude. "I'm sure it's +very good of your Majesty to treat the matter so lightly." + +"It was entirely my own fault," said the King. "How was I to be +recognized?" + +"You took us off guard, sir. We were not informed that your Majesty +would be going anywhere to-night." + +"Is that the rule?" + +"It is always our business to inquire." + +"I should not have told any one." + +"It would still, sir, have been our business to find out." + +"You surprise me!" said the King. It had never dawned upon him that he +was so watched. "And so to-night, for the first time, I gave you the +slip?" + +"I take the blame, sir," said the inspector; his voice was grave. + +"Why should you? No harm has been done. The only question now is how am +I to get back?" + +"I can get you a cab, sir, at once. Or would your Majesty rather I sent +word to the palace?" + +"No, certainly not. If I have not been missed, nobody need know." + +"Your Majesty was missed by us four hours ago. That is what brought me +here." + +"You come from the palace?" + +"Yes, sir. As head of the special department, I have to be there every +night." + +"I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble." + +"Oh, not at all, sir." + +And then, a cab having been summoned, he led the way out. + +No one was by; the street had not a soul in it, and the King knew that +once more foresight and care were watching over him. + +"I have paid the cabman, sir," said the inspector, as he closed the +door. "And, sir, would you kindly say where he is to go?" + +There was a hint of discretion in the man's tone. + +"Ah, yes," said the King, "to be sure--yes. Tell him to stop at the park +gates." + +The inspector, saluting, gave the required direction, and the cab drove +off. Arriving a few minutes later at his destination, the King got out, +and passed in through the gates. + +The palace was now shrouded in gloom; only in the guard-room, within the +high-railed quadrangle, a light still burned. Dimly through the night a +sentry could be seen pacing up and down. + +By a subconscious instinct the King was returning along the same route +that he had come. Only as he approached the postern in the wall did it +occur to him that it would almost certainly be locked; and yet for no +other door had he a key. Attended constantly by servants, and leading a +scrupulously regular life, requiring neither secret passages nor late +hours, he had never possessed a latch-key of his own. + +How, then, was he to get in now without attracting attention? + +Having come so far, however, he went forward on chance and tested the +door. The attendant policeman was no longer there, the road-lamp had +been turned low, giving only a glimmer. + +He tried the handle, but found that it would not respond. A figure +glided forward and inserted a key. "Allow me, sir," came the inspector's +voice. + +"You?" exclaimed the King, surprised. + +"It was my duty to see your Majesty safe home." + +"Very kind of you, I'm sure." He passed in, and the inspector followed. + +"Pardon me for asking, sir. Was this the way your Majesty came out?" + +"Yes." + +"Ah, that accounts for it! We never thought of your Majesty coming this +way, and the man put here was only on beat, not on point duty." + +"He was here when I came out," said the King. + +"He did not report, sir." + +"Are they all bound to?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, of course we have to know." + +The King smiled. "I suppose he did not recognize me. Remember, I was not +quite myself." + +"All the same, sir, he should have known. It's what he is trained for." + +The King's surprise grew. "I never guessed that I had to be guarded like +this." + +"Of course, sir, we try to keep it out of sight as much as possible. It +isn't pleasant always to feel yourself watched." + +"I make you my compliments," said the King; "I had not the remotest +idea. Whereabouts are we now?" + +The walls of the palace loomed black above them; the night was dark. + +"Small stair entrance on the north side, sir. If your Majesty is without +a key----" + +"I have no key at all." + +"Then kindly allow me, sir." And again to the inspector's pass-key a +door opened. + +The King entered, and the inspector still accompanied him. "There may be +others locked inside," he said, by way of explanation. + +They passed through a short corridor and ascended stairs; a small +electric pocket-lamp of the inspector's showing them the way. Three +doors he unfastened in turn. Having opened the last he switched on the +light, then respectfully drew back, presuming to come no further. "This +is where your Majesty's private apartments begin," said he; an +indication that his task as conductor was over. + +"Ah, yes," replied the King, "now at last I know where I am. Till this +moment I felt myself a stranger. I have to thank you, Mr. Inspector, for +the kind way in which you have done me the honors of my own house; and," +he added, "of the police-station." + +"I am very sorry, sir, that any such thing should have happened. I can +promise it won't occur again." + +"No," said the King, smiling, "I suppose not. But pray do not be sorry! +I have seldom spent a more interesting time; or--thanks to you and +others--had more things given me to think about." + +The inspector did not reply; he stood looking down, pensive and +resigned--tired, perhaps, now that the anxieties of the last few hours +were over. + +"Good-night," said the King. + +"Good-night, sir," replied the inspector. He withdrew and the King heard +him locking the door after him. + + +II + +The King went into his study, turned on a light, and sat down. He had, +as he had told his guide, many things to think about. It was no use +going to bed, for he knew that he could not sleep. + +These last few hours had been the most wonderful, and the most +crowded--yes, quite literally the most crowded--that he had ever +experienced. At last he had really taken part in the life of his people, +and had come into direct contact with things very diverse and +contradictory, representing the popular will. He had talked with street +urchins, and visionaries, had rubbed shoulders with men of brutal habit +and vile character,--with knaves, cowards, fools; he had been shut up +with drunkards and pickpockets, policemen's thumbs had left bruises upon +his arms, and all his mind was one great bruise from the bureaucratic +police system which had him fast within its grip. + +Now at last he knew that he knew nothing; for only now did he realize +it. To what was going on outside his ears had been stopped with official +lies; morally, intellectually, and physically he was a prisoner, just as +much as when, to the cry of "Old Goggles," from a jeering crowd, he had +marched captive to the police-station. He knew now that even his private +life was watched and spied on--always, of course, with the most +benevolent intentions. This was the price he paid for modern kingship; +and what was it all worth? + +Out of his pocket he drew a small sheet of crumpled paper. In order to +get this to him, a poor, timid woman had gone out into a raging crowd, +had borne its brutality for hours, and then, a piteous bundle of broken +nerves, had by sheer accident accomplished that which hundreds of +others, braver, abler, more confident, and more deserving, had tried to +do and failed. Morally this small slip of paper had upon it the blood, +and the tears, the sweat, the agony, and the despair of all the rest; +and only by accident had he ever come to know of it! + +Here, almost within a stone's throw of his palace, he had seen something +taking place which to-morrow the papers would deride, and of which the +official world would deny him all cognizance. Whether these women had +truly a grievance, any just and reasonable cause for complaint, he did +not know. But he knew now that, with the most desperate earnestness and +conviction, that was their belief, and that in getting their petition to +his hands they saw the beginning of a remedy. + +He spread out the paper before him, and for the first time read the +words-- + +"Humbly showeth that by your Majesty's Ministers law and justice are +delayed, and prayeth that your Gracious Majesty will so order and govern +that your faithful subjects' grievances may forthwith be sought and +inquired into, and remedy granted thereto by Act of Parliament. And your +petitioners will ever pray." + +That was all. What the grievances might be was not stated. He knew that +to hear argument for or against a given case was outside the functions +of the Crown; but he knew equally well that to order inquiry to be made +lay still within his right, though every minister in the Cabinet except +one would seek to deny it to him. And so he sat looking at the crumpled +sheet which meant so much to so many thousands of lives; and slowly the +night went by. + +Long before the first chitter of awakening birds, and before the first +hint of light had crept into the east, he heard outside the slow stir of +the city's life breaking back from short uneasy slumber. With stiffened +limbs he got up from his chair, for the room had grown cold and his body +ached with all the strain and exertion it had so recently undergone. +Slowly he moved off towards his own sleeping apartment, in case the +Queen, when she awoke, should send to inquire after him. And on his way, +as a short cut, he crossed the minstrel gallery, which divided one from +the other the two state drawing-rooms,--a broad half-story colonnade, +with central opening and corners draped into shade. + +Halfway across this elevation he paused to look down into the vast +chamber below. At some point among its chandeliers burned a small +pinhole of light that revealed in a strange dimness various forms of +furniture, showing monstrous and uncouth in their night attire. +Night-gowns rather than pajamas seemed the general wear; only a few legs +were to be seen. In this, its sleeping aspect, the place was certainly +more harmonious and more chaste than by day; mirrors and pictures loomed +from the white walls with a mystery that would disappear when the +lusters contained their light; and the King lingered to take in the +pleasant strangeness of it all, and to wonder what was this new quality +which so attracted him. + +As he did so his ear caught from without a faint reverberation of +muffled sound; even and regular in its beat, it drew near. + +At the far end a door was thrown open; a flush of light entered the +chamber, and there came following it a troop of men wearing felt +slippers and long linen aprons, and bearing upon their shoulders brooms, +feather-heads, wash-leathers, brushes, dusters, steps, vacuum-cleaners, +and other mysterious instruments of an uninterpretable form. + +With the regularity and precision of a drilled army, and with no word +spoken, they moved forward to the attack. Curtains were drawn, cords +pulled, blinds raised, steps mounted. Lusters jingled to the touch of +feathers, cornices shed down their minute particles of dust to the +Charybdian maw of traveling gramophone. Over the carpet metallic +cow-catchers wheezed and groaned with a loud trundling of wheels, and +departed processionally to the chamber beyond. Then by a triple process, +simultaneously conducted, the furniture-sheets were lifted, drawn off, +and folded; a large wicker-table on wheels received and bore them away. +A cloud of light skirmishers followed after; and over every cushion and +seat and polished surface plied their manicurist skill. Then a +storming-party escaladed the gallery from below and the King, to avoid +the embarrassment of an encounter with a body of servitors who had not +the pleasure of his acquaintance, was at last obliged to retire. + +But what a wonderful machine had been here revealed to his +gaze--manipulated without a word, marshaled by signs, and composed +entirely of strangers! And to think that all this insect-like marvel of +industry, so expeditious, and done on so huge a scale, had been going on +daily under his own roof, and he had known nothing of it! So this was +how his palace was cleaned for him, and why it never showed a sign of +wear or the marks of muddy boots? Yet never before had any thought on +the matter occurred to him. And what if some fine day those insects, +fired by revolutionary zeal, had taken it to heart to rise up in their +dozens by those escalading ladders to the first story and rush the +private apartments, and murder him in his morning bath or in his bed! +What a surprising and unexplained apparition it would have been! But +now, and for the future, he would know that daily about this time a +large ant-like colony was running about under him, very strong of arm, +very active of leg; and what protection, he wondered, from peril of +sudden inroad was that search under his bed on the ninth day of every +November? Did that really meet and counter modern methods of conspiracy +and assassination, or the growing dangers of labor unrest? He very much +doubted it. + +And so, with his head very full of the wonder, the order, and the +underlying disturbance of it all, he passed on to his own inner chamber, +and had now something to tell the Queen as to how their immediate +domestic affairs were conducted which should entirely put aside all +awkward questions as to what he had been doing the evening before and +where he had spent the night. + +But, as a matter of fact, sleek officialdom had sheltered the Queen from +all anxiety, and she had not a notion that the King had been anywhere +except to some consultation with ministers, and thence late to bed. + +In order that his valet might find him there he got into it, and when, a +couple of hours later, he greeted her Majesty he found that sanguine +mind looking eagerly ahead and concerning itself very little over things +which were past. + +"Remember, my dear," she said, looking up from her letters, "that in +three days' time the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser comes. I do hope, while +he is here, that you will be fairly free." + +"Not so free as I thought I should be," said the King, and he sighed +heavily. + + +III + +His Majesty had a good many things that day to discuss with the Prime +Minister when at a later hour they met. He began on the matter which was +most regular and formal; had he been at all likely to forget it the +Queen's observation would have reminded him. + +"By the way, Mr. Premier," he said, "as you already know, the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser arrives in a day or two; and there are certain possible +eventualities arising out of his visit which we must be prepared for. +Hitherto the Princess Charlotte has had no definite grant made to her. +While she was still living with us, without an establishment of her own, +I preferred to let the matter stand over. But now--well, now a change +may be necessary." + +The Prime Minister's face beamed with congratulatory smiles. "Your +Majesty may be sure that the matter shall have immediate attention." + +"There will be no difficulty?" + +"Oh, none whatever." + +"I will leave all question of the amount to be discussed later. I +believe that it is etiquette, in the case of a reigning Prince, for him +also to be consulted." + +"That is so, sir." + +"The Prince himself is very wealthy; and I think that you will find him +disinterested. Still there is, of course, a certain balance to be +observed." + +"Oh, quite." + +"I leave the matter, then, entirely in your hands." + +The Prime Minister bowed. + +And then the conversation changed. + +"You know what happened to me last night, I suppose," said the King. + +"Ah, yes, indeed, sir! You will pardon my silence; I was most horrified. +But I thought that perhaps your Majesty did not wish to speak of it." + +"On the contrary," replied the King, "I have got a great deal to say." +And then, with much detail and particularity, he narrated his +experience--all those hours which he had spent in the crowd; and the +Prime Minister listened, saying nothing. + +"Well," said the King, when he had done, "that is what I have seen; and +you cannot tell me it is something that does not matter." + +"By no means, sir; I admit that it is very serious." + +"I was never told so before." + +"We did not wish unnecessarily to trouble your Majesty. This is hardly a +case for Cabinet intervention; the Home Office does its duty, takes +preventive measures as far as is possible, and puts down the +disturbances when they arise." + +"Yes, yes," said the King, "but is nothing going to be done?" + +The Prime Minister raised his eyebrows, as though asked to reply once +more to a question already answered. + +"Everything possible is being done, sir." + +"Legislatively, I mean." + +"Oh, sir," exclaimed the head of Government in a tone of the most +deferential protest, "that surely is a matter for the Cabinet." + +"Quite so," said the King. "That is why I ask." + +So then the Premier explained circumstantially and at great length why, +in that sense, nothing whatever could be done. We need not go into it +here--those who read Jingalese history will find the Prime Minister's +reasons published elsewhere; and it all really came only to this: "It is +the duty of a government to keep in power; and if it cannot do justice +without endangering its party majority, then justice cannot be done." + +You could not have a more satisfactory, a more logical, or a more +unanswerable argument than that. And at all events--whether you agree +with it or not--it is the argument that all ministers act upon +now-a-days, even when, in the House of Legislature which sits +subservient to their will, there is a majority ready and waiting which +thinks differently of the matter, but fears to act lest it should lose +touch with the loaves and fishes. For now it is on the life not of a +Parliament but of a Cabinet that losses are counted. And the reason is +plain; for every member of a Cabinet has to think of saving for himself +some £5,000 a year together with an enormous amount of departmental +power and patronage; while an ordinary private member of Parliament has +only his few hundreds to think about and his rapidly diminishing right +to any independence at all. The life and death struggles of a ministry +are bound, therefore, to be more desperate, more unscrupulous, and more +pecuniarily corrupt than those of any other branch of the legislature. +And, of course, when we put all the leading strings into fingers so +buttered with gold, political corruption is the necessary and inevitable +result, and such incidental things as mere justice must wait. + +But the Prime Minister did not explain matters to the King in such +plain and understandable terms as these; and, as a consequence, his +explanation being incomplete, his Majesty's mind remained unsatisfied. + +"Very well," said he, when the ministerial apologia was concluded; "I +will consider what you say, and when I have quite made up my mind I will +send a message to Council with recommendations; I still have that right +under the Constitution." + +The Prime Minister stiffened. Here was conflict in Council cropping up +again; it must be put down. + +"That right, sir," said he, "has not been exercised for nearly a hundred +years." + +"I beg your pardon," said the King, "I exercised it only two months ago, +when I sent in the message of my abdication." + +"Which your Majesty has been wise enough not to act upon." + +"Which, nevertheless, you were forced to accept, and would have had to +give effect to, ultimately, by Act of Parliament." + +That was true. + +"By the way," went on the King, "arising out of that withdrawal of my +abdication which you say was so wise, there has come a difficulty I had +not foreseen. Believing that by now my son would be upon the throne +instead of me, I gave my consent to his marriage with the daughter of +the Archbishop. Yes, Mr. Premier, you may well start: I am just as much +perturbed about it as you; for the Prince now comes to me and claims the +fulfilment of my promise." + +"Impossible, sir!" exclaimed the Prime Minister. + +"That is what I tell him. He does not think so." + +"But, your Majesty, this is absolutely unheard of. The whole position +would be intolerable!" + +"I indorse all your adjectives and your statements," said the King +coldly; "but the fact remains." + +"Then, sir, I must see the Prince, immediately." + +"It is no use, no use whatever," replied his Majesty. "Besides--the +matter is still rather at a private stage. You had much better wait till +the Prince comes to you; otherwise he may accuse me of having been +premature." + +"But what does the Archbishop say?" cried the Premier, aghast. + +"That is the point; I believe he does not yet know. Technically +speaking, the engagement is scarcely a day old. The Prince's note +claiming my promise reached me only this morning, and I imagine it is +only now that the Archbishop will have to be informed. Hitherto the +matter has been in suspension. You will understand it was dependent--on +my abdication, I might say." + +"In that case, sir, the conditions are not fulfilled." + +"I fear they are," said the King; "the Prince has my promise in writing; +and abdication is not mentioned. You see, it was the bomb that made all +the difference. Very provoking that it should have happened just then; +it upset all my plans!" + +The Prime Minister began to look very uncomfortable. + +"Oh, no," went on the King, observing his change of countenance, "don't +think that I am blaming you. What you said was quite true; abdication +after that became impossible; I am only saying it as an excuse for the +position in which I now find myself. It was not I who made the mistake, +it was that poor misguided person who threw the bomb; he ought to have +killed me. I am confident that, had the Prince been actually on the +throne, the situation would have been radically altered, that he would +not have persisted--that he would have seen, as you say, how impossible +the position would be. Very unfortunate--very--but there we are!" + +"But again I say, sir, that even now, though the Prince is not on the +throne--and long may your Majesty be spared!--the whole thing is +absolutely and utterly impossible." + +"I quite agree," said the King; "but that is the situation. Before now I +have found myself in similar ones, and have tried to get out of them; +yet I have seldom succeeded." + +"But this, sir," persisted the Prime Minister, "is politically +impossible. Things could not go on." + +"And yet, Mr. Premier, you know that they will have to; that is the very +essence of politics." + +"I tell your Majesty that rather than admit such a possibility the +Ministry would resign." + +"Very well--then it must," said the King. "But you will find that the +Prince will not regard my inability to secure an alternative Government +as any reason why he should not marry the lady of his choice. I may as +well tell you, for your information, that he has revolutionary ideas, +and this is one of them." + +"I am confident," exclaimed the Prime Minister, with a gleam of hope, +"that the Archbishop himself will forbid it." + +"Very likely," replied his Majesty; "but I am not sure that he will +succeed. I wish he could; but from all I hear the lady herself is of a +rather determined character. Women are very determined now-a-days." + +He thought of Charlotte and sighed; and yet, in his heart, he could not +help admiring and envying her. + +"We will talk of this all again some other time," he went on, tired of +the profitless discussion. "After all the marriage is not going to take +place the day after to-morrow." + +"Sir," said the Premier, "over a matter of this sort any delay is +impossible--the risk is too great. I must see the Prince myself." + +"Very well," said the King, "do as you like. After all I ought to be +glad that it is with the Prince you will have to discuss the matter, and +not with me." + +And he smiled to himself, for he very much liked the thought of the +Prime Minister tackling Max. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE SPIRITUAL POWER + + + + +I + +But the Prime Minister, though he lost no time, was unable to catch his +quarry. Prince Max had gone out; and his secretary could give no +information as to his whereabouts. "His Highness told me that he had a +very important engagement; he did not say with whom." To apprehensive +ears that phrase sounded ominous; and fearing what risks delay might +entail the Premier drove down to Sheepcote Precincts, the archiepiscopal +residence; and there for three mortal hours he and the Archbishop sat +with heads together (yet intellectually very much apart) discussing what +was to be done. + +It was during those three hours that his Grace of Ebury performed his +most brilliant feat of statesmanship, and redeemed that local off-shoot +of the Church of Christ over which he ruled from the political slough +whereinto it had fallen. To him solely--by means of his daughter, that +is to say (but in politics women do not count)--is due the fact that the +Church of Jingalo still stands on its old established footing, and that +her Bishops have a decisive modicum of political power left to them. + +The Archbishop was, in his heart of hearts--that last infirmity of his +noble mind--quite as much horrified at the news as the Premier had been. +But scarcely were the dread tidings out of the minister's mouth when, +perceiving his opportunity, he rose to it as a fish rises to a fly, and +pretended with all due solemnity to be rather pleased than otherwise. +Though his daughter's elevation to princely rank and to the prospect of +future sovereignty would assuredly seal his political doom, he professed +presently to see in it a fresh stepping-stone to influence and power, +or, as he conscientiously phrased it, to "opportunities for good." His +approach to this point, however, was gradual and circuitous. + +"Of course it is a great honor," he began, deliberately weighing the +proposition in earthly scales, and seeming not wholly to reject it. + +"That goes without saying," replied the Prime Minister, "and hardly +needs to be discussed. Our sure point of agreement is that it must not +be." + +His Grace lifted his grizzled eyebrows in courteous interrogation, and +beginning delicately to disentangle the gold strings of his pince-nez +from the pectoral cross to which like a penitent it clung, said, "Of +course I perfectly understand how great a shock this has been to you. To +me also it comes as an entire surprise: my daughter has told me nothing, +and therefore--in a sense--I can say nothing till I have seen her." + +"You have influence with her, I suppose?" said the Premier. + +"Oh, undoubtedly." + +"I am confident, then, that your Grace will use it to the right end." + +"It has never been my habit, I trust, to neglect my parental +responsibilities," replied his Grace. + +"I was thinking, rather, of your responsibilities to the State." + +"Those, too, I shall have in mind. There is also the Church." + +The Prime Minister was puzzled. + +"This matter does not seem to impress your Grace quite as it does me. I +should have thought there could be no two opinions about it." + +"That was too much to hope, surely? Our points of view are so very +different." + +The Premier felt that plain dealing had become necessary. "It would make +quite untenable your position as leader of a party," he remarked grimly. + +"I was not concerned about myself," replied his Grace with wonderful +sweetness. "As for that, I am growing old." + +"But surely you agree that the thing is wholly impossible?" + +"Impossible is a strong word." + +"That it would profoundly alter the constitutional status of the Crown?" + +"Possibly. I think not." + +This slow weighing of cons in the balance was having a devastating +effect upon the minister's nerves; he got upon his feet. + +"Does your Grace mean to tell me that this thing is even conceivable?" + +"Conceivable? I wish you would state to me, without any fear of offense, +the whole body of your objection. I recognize, of course, that the Royal +House, in the direct line, has made no such alliance for over two +hundred years,--never, in fact, since it ceased to be of pure native +extraction. I also admit that for myself as a party politician (if you +impose upon me that term) it is inconvenient, destructive even to +certain plans which I had formed. But putting myself altogether aside, +and allowing that for a precedent we have to go very far back into the +past, what real objections have you to urge?" + +The Prime Minister was beginning to get thoroughly uncomfortable. + +"It is a breach--a fatal breach to my mind," said he, "in that caste +distinction which alone makes monarchy possible under modern conditions. +I mean no personal disrespect to your Grace: were it a question of my +own daughter, I should take the same view. It disturbs a tradition which +has worked well and for safety, and has not been broken for hundreds of +years. But most destructively of all it threatens that aloofness from +all political entanglements--that absolute impartiality between party +and party--which to-day constitutes the strength of the Crown." + +"I might be quite prepared," said the Archbishop slowly, "in such an +event, to withdraw myself from all political action of a party +character." + +"You cannot so separate yourself from the past," objected the Prime +Minister. + +"I do not see the difficulty. You yourself, in a long and varied career, +have twice changed your party, or deserted it. If that can be done with +sincerity, it is equally possible to become of no party at all." + +The Prime Minister flushed at this attack on his past record, and struck +back-- + +"Not for an Archbishop," he said, a little sneeringly. "The Church +now-a-days has become not merely a part of our political system, but a +stereotyped adjunct of party, and a very one-sided one at that." + +"To answer such a charge adequately," replied his Grace, "I should be +forced into political debate foreign to our present discussion. What +concerns me here and now is that something has taken place--pregnant for +good or ill--which you regard as impossible, and which I do not. In +either case--whatever conclusion is reached--I am called upon to make a +sacrifice. Of that I do not complain, but what I am bound to consider, +even before the interests of the State (upon which we take different +views), are the interests of the Church. When we last met you were +preparing to do those interests something of an injustice: and your more +recent proposals do not induce me to think that you have changed your +mind. If the Church is to lose the ground she now holds in the State she +must seek to recover it elsewhere. I cannot blind my eyes to the fact +that, in the high position now offered to her, my daughter will be able +to do a great work--for the Church." + +"I believed that you had no sympathy with the intrusion of women into +the domain of politics." + +"Not into politics, no; but the Church is different. We have in our +Saints' Calendar women--queens some of them--who were ready to lay down +their lives for the Church, and to secure her recognition by heathen +peoples and kings. Why should not my daughter be one?" + +He spoke with an exalted air, his hand resting upon his cross. + +"Your Grace," said the Prime Minister in a changed tone, "may I put one +very crucial question? Have you a complete influence over your +daughter?" + +"That I can hardly answer; I will only say that she is dutiful. Never, +so far as I am aware, has she questioned my authority, nor has she +combated my judgment in any matter where it was my duty to decide for +her what was right." + +On this showing she seemed a very estimable and trustworthy young +person; and with a sense of encouragement the Prime Minister went on-- + +"Then upon this question of her marriage with the Prince, would she, do +you think, be guided by you?" + +"She would not marry him without my consent." + +"And your consent might be forthcoming?" + +"Under certain circumstances, I think--yes." + +"And as the circumstances stand now at this moment?" + +The Archbishop paused, and looked long at the Prime Minister before +answering. + +"How do they stand?" he inquired. + + +II + +That evening when Jenifer returned home the Archbishop was waiting her +arrival. The door of his private library stood ajar. "Come in, my dear," +he called, hearing her step in the corridor, "come in; I wish to speak +to you." + +She entered with a flushed face. "_I_ wanted to speak to you, father," +she said. + +He saw that she was come charged for the delivery of her soul, and +perceiving what a strategic advantage it would give him to hear the +story first from her own lips, he waived his prior claim. "Very well, my +dear," he replied, "for the next hour I am free, and at your disposal." + +"It may take longer than that," she warned him; "I have something to +tell you that seems to me almost terrible." + +"Anything wrong?" + +"Oh, no, but so tremendous I hardly know how to begin." Her breast +labored with the burden of its message, but in her face was a look of +dawn. + +"Has it to do with yourself?" + +"Yes, papa. I am engaged to marry Prince Max." + +The Archbishop paused for a moment, thinking how best to avoid any +appearance of foreknowledge. + +"My child," he said, "what Prince Max do you mean?" + +"The only one that I know of," she answered. + +"You mean the heir to the throne?" + +"Yes, papa." + +"You say you are engaged to him?" + +"Yes." + +"With whose knowledge, may I ask?" + +"The King knows; he has just given his consent. That is why I am telling +you now." + +"Why only now?" There was reproach in his tone. + +"Until we had his consent we were not engaged." + +"And now--being engaged--you come for mine?" + +"No, papa; only to let you know." She paused. "Of course I should be +glad of your approval." + +The Archbishop sat silent for a while. "How long have you known Prince +Max?" he inquired at last. + +"About six months." + +"Is not that rather a short time?" + +"Yes." + +"For so important a decision, I mean." + +"Yes; it is, I know." + +"For learning a man's character, shall I say?" + +"Some characters one learns more quickly than others. I know him, papa, +better than I do you." + +"That may well be, youth does not easily understand age. And so my +question remains: Do you know him well enough to marry him?" + +"I want to marry him," she said. + +"You know there are objections?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Very serious ones." + +"Yes, I told him; I said it was quite impossible. He said he could get +the King's consent. I did not think so: I felt sure, indeed, that he +could not. But to-day he came and showed it to me in writing--a promise +made conditionally more than two months ago." + +"Conditionally?" + +"Yes; it named a date. That is why until to-day there was nothing that I +could tell you." + +"Not even the fact that he had asked you to marry him?" + +"I could not wish that to be known, if nothing was to come if it--not by +any one." + +"It would have been better, my child." + +"No, papa; why should you, or any one, know what I had had to give up?" + +"Of course, it would have been painful; that I can understand." + +"I can smile at it now," she said; "but at the time it was terrible! For +I found, then, how much I loved him." + +The Archbishop withheld all speech for a moment, then said tenderly-- + +"I am very sorry for you, my child." + +"Ah, but there is no need to be now!" she cried joyfully. + +Once more he paused; then he repeated the words. + +There was quick attention then in her look, but she showed no fear; and +he shifted to easier ground. + +"Tell me," he said gently, "how all this came about. How did you come to +know the Prince?" + +"Only by seeing him at the Court; then I recognized that we had met +often before, when I had not known who he was." + +"Why should he have concealed it?" + +"He did not; one day he told me, and I would not believe him, it seemed +so unlikely. Neither did he believe me when I told him who I was; he +said that the facts were incompatible, and that mine was the more +unlikely story of the two." + +"Did you--did you begin liking him very soon?" + +"I began by almost hating him. He used to scoff at everything, he seemed +not to believe in anything that was good. Almost the first time that we +met he told me that the dress I wore was 'provocative'--'a lure of +Satan's devising' he called it, and said that nothing tempted men more +than for women to wear what he described as 'the uniform of virginity.' +He declared that it was because of my dress that he got lost following +me through the slums." + +"Did not that warn you what sort of man he was?" + +"No; for it was not true. We just happened to meet, and he helped me +when I was single-handed. He confessed afterwards that he had said +everything he could to shock me--to put me to the test. He has grown up +distrusting all religious professions." + +"A scoffer? Did not even that warn you?" + +"No; under the circumstances it seemed the most natural thing; it showed +me that he was honest." + +These sounded dreadful words to the Archbishop, coming from his +daughter's lips; he felt that, in passing from theory to practice she +had become shockingly latitudinarian in her views; and again, cautious +and circumspect, he shifted his ground. + +"My dear," he said, "you do realize, I suppose, that from a worldly +point of view the Prince has committed a very grave indiscretion." + +She smiled. "He tells me so himself; it rather pleases him. But now the +King has given his consent." + +"Yes, nominally he has," replied the Archbishop. "But in that there is a +good deal more than meets the eye. When his Majesty first gave that +promise he never intended that it should take effect." + +She paled slightly at his words, and he saw that only now had he scored +a point. + +"Why do you think that?" + +"I do not think it, I know; but I am not at liberty to reveal secrets of +State. Let us put that aside, I cannot give you proof; if you wish to +disbelieve it, do. But now I come to my main point. There is a side to +this question about which you know nothing, but you know that in the +State to-day the Church has her enemies. This indiscretion on the part +of the Prince, supported by a promise from which the King cannot in +honor withdraw, has suddenly put into my hands a great opportunity which +must not be missed." + +"Into _your_ hands, papa?" + +"Under Providence, yes; I say it reverently. You are my daughter, and +in service and loyalty to the Church you and I are as one." + +She looked at him steadfastly, but did not respond in words. + +"A great opportunity," he said again; "a great power for righteousness, +to save the Church in her dire need. That is a great thing to be able to +do--worth more than anything else that life can offer. To you, my +daughter, that call has come; how will you answer it?" + +Her face had grown white, but was still hard to his appeal; he had not +won her yet. + +"Yes," she said, "I do partly understand. I will do all for you that I +can." + +"Then you will release the Prince from his bond." + +"He does not ask to be released." + +"That may be." + +Then there was silence. + +"My dear child," murmured the Archbishop; there was emotion in his +voice, and putting out his hand he laid it upon hers. + +She drew herself gently from the contact. + +"Only if he wishes it," she said. + +"He will not wish it." + +"Then he has my word." + +"Your life contains other and holier vows than that, my child." + +She did not seem to think so. "Father," she said, "this is the man I +love!" + +"That I realize," he replied gravely. "The question is which do you love +best,--him or the Church?" + +Jenifer opened her eyes in a limpid and childlike wonderment. How could +he ask a question the answer to which was so obvious? "Why, him!" she +cried; "there is no possible comparison!" + +The Archbishop was deeply shocked as well as nonplussed at such an +answer coming from his daughter; and meanwhile with clear sincerity of +speech she went on-- + +"You mean the Church of Jingalo--do you not, papa?" + +Of course it was the Church of Jingalo that he meant, but it would not +do at this juncture to say so. His daughter might be one of those +dreadful people who believed that the Church would get value out of +disestablishment. + +"I meant the Church of our fathers," said he, "the faith into which you +were baptized,--the spiritual health and welfare of the whole nation." + +"I do not think that by marrying the Prince I shall do it any harm. I am +sure that he means none." + +Her idea of the power of Princes struck him as curiously feminine; how +little she understood of politics! + +"It is rather a case," said he, "of harm that you cannot prevent, except +in one way. What have you in your mind? Is it the wish to sit upon a +throne?" + +"Oh, no!" she said; "I shall never like being queen." Then, after a +pause, she added honestly, "All the same, I could do things, +then--things which I have longed to do; and I know that he would let +me." + +Her face glowed at the prospect; and suddenly she turned upon him a full +look of self-confidence and courage, and there was challenge in her +tone. + +"I know far more about the poor than you do, father," she said, "and +much more of their needs. If I were queen I would have a house down +among the slums; and I would never spend Christmas, or Easter, or Good +Friday in any other place." Her voice broke. "I would try--I would try," +she said, "to set up Christianity in high places. That has been my +dream." + +"Have you told your dream to the Prince?" + +She smiled tenderly, and with confidence. "He is already helping to +make it come true. I asked him to be upon the Commission. That is why he +is there." + +"You?" + +The Archbishop was now realizing that he knew very little about his +daughter, and she not only amazed him, she frightened him. For the first +time he feared that he might lose the great stakes for which he was +playing; and one thing was essential--this woman, this domestic pawn +which he held in his hand, must never be allowed to become queen. + +And so with great pain he forced himself, and spoke on. How right he had +been when he told the Prime Minister that in one way or another +sacrifice would be required of him! For now he was going to sacrifice +his most sacred conventions, his ideal of how an unmarried woman should +be trained. + +"My child," he said, "do you think that you know this man?" + +"Yes; I know him better than any one else in the world." + +"Do you also know his life?" + +Jenifer's look turned on him a little curiously. + +"I know," she said, "that he is not really a Christian." + +"Ah!" he exclaimed, in a sort of joy, decorously flavored with grief, +"that I did not know! Of course that explains everything. The rest +inevitably follows." + +"What follows?" + +"No man who is not a Christian leads a life that will stand looking +into." And then, avoiding her eyes, he spoke of things which he knew; +some of them in certain quarters were almost common property; of others +he had only recently become informed. + +And as he spoke he felt, with a strange oppression, the heart beside him +grow dumb. For this woman, with her clear and gracious understanding of +so many human ills and weaknesses, had been kept in one matter, the most +important of all, with the mind of an undeveloped child. Evil things she +knew of--they had an existence, a place, and a name--but for her no +reality except in their awful results. All that she had hitherto seen of +"irregular living" bore the stamp of betrayal and disease, a thing more +grossly criminal than anything else in the social body. She did not know +how that body was permeated, and how no class and no ordinary standard +of morality was free from the taint. + +And now she heard that the man she loved had been keeping that thing +called "a mistress"--housing her in luxury, visiting her day after day, +not very greatly troubling himself whether the fact remained secret or +became known. Then dates were mentioned; and she was given to know how +those visits had still gone on while her lover had been offering her the +devotion of his heart. It was there, after his recent accident, that he +had gone to be nursed. + +The Archbishop was extremely well informed, and he told nothing which +he did not absolutely believe to be true. And now at last all the +advantage was on his side, for ignorance left her almost without +defense; with no sense of proportion she stood looking out into a +non-dimensional world. + +Dimly her mind made a struggle to escape. + +"But what, what does it mean?" she asked. "There must be some reason for +it. Is it a kind of disease?" + +"A corrupt nature," said her father solemnly; "these are what the Church +calls in her teaching 'the sins of the flesh.'" + +She shuddered, for to her by religious training "flesh" had come to have +a dreadful sound. In her spiritual world she pictured it as a shop hung +with butcher's meat; yet why it was dreadful she did not know. + +"Tell me," she murmured with pained speech, still trying for a way out, +"it isn't--natural, is it?" + +"That doctrine is preached by some," said her father; "Christianity +forbids any such view." + +"He said," she went on, "he said this, when he first asked me to marry +him: 'I have done some natural things which you would hold to be wrong. +I have loved,' he said, 'for mere comfort, not for honor or life.' He +asked me if I understood; I said 'Yes.' 'That is my confession,' he +said. 'I have been,' he said, 'no better than others; I hope not worse.' +And that was all. I thought he meant that he had been selfish and +worldly. Is that other thing what he really meant?" + +"No doubt." + +"But he _told_ me," she said, and looked at him with a forlorn hope. + +"It was the best thing that he could do for himself; no doubt he guessed +that eventually you would come to know." + +She stood thinking back into the past. + +"After he had told, he kissed me," she said; "he had never done that +before." Her lips trembled and the tears ran down her face. + +"You know enough now, my dear. That will not happen again." + +"I still love him," she said, as though confessing to shame. + +The Archbishop had sufficient wisdom to accept the statement without +protest. "It would be hard for you to do otherwise," he said. "The heart +cannot change all at once." + +"I believed that with him I could do good." + +"Can you believe that now?" + +"I don't know." + +"That sort of life enters the blood," said her father, "taints it, makes +evil that which would otherwise be holy." + +"You mean----?" + +"I speak of marriage; the drawing together of two into one." + +"It still is marriage." + +"Its mystery has been profaned. Marriage then, coming after, may be only +a reminiscence of sin." + +She stood looking at him, her face very pale. + +"I shall still have to ask him if it is true." + +The Archbishop resigned himself to what he could not avoid. "If you +must," he said. And then, thinking forward to what might possibly +happen, he added: "It was my duty to tell you everything." + +"Yes," she replied, "but you did not mean to tell me at first." + +"I hoped that I might spare you," he explained. "These are not things +that one speaks of willingly; if they can be avoided it is better that +they should not be known." + +She gave a gesture of impatience, pressing her hands against her eyes. + +"Do not say anything more to me," she said, and her voice sounded +hopeless and dead. "Not now." + +And then, very slowly, she turned and went out of the room. + +The Archbishop told himself that he had done his duty. Personal +aggrandizement, great opportunities of power and social position he had +put away, he had done a true and holy thing. And so he sat down and +wrote to the Prime Minister. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE THORN AND THE FLESH + + + + +I + +The next day Prince Max received a letter written by the hand which had +become for him the dearest in the world. It was very simple and +straightforward and methodical: it began with the word "Beloved" and +asked whether certain things were true. It seemed, then, that for the +first time his confession was understood. Not a single one of the +questions put to him contained anything that was untrue, but they did +not go much into detail, and no commentary was made upon the facts +indicated. + +Max sat down and wrote a very beautiful letter in reply, and got no +answer. + +For three days he put up with this rebuff to his honesty of character +and his literary ability; then not finding his lady where he expected +her to be, he went and called upon her father. + +The Archbishop was out; but Max, not to be denied, sat down and waited +for his return. He waited for over two hours. It was getting towards +dusk when his Grace entered, a reverend, high-shouldered figure, showing +a stoop and beginning now to look old. + +The Archbishop's very formal greeting told Max that here was the enemy. +This did not at all dismay him; at that time, indeed, he was full of +confidence. The temporary separation between himself and his beloved, +brought about in a conventional way which he thoroughly despised, was +for the moment a hindrance; but it had not yet taken to itself the +colors of doom. He knew that Jenifer's heart was entirely his, and that +they, with their common honesty, had only to meet again to be made one. +What he wanted to know, therefore, was not so much the opinion of +Jenifer's father about himself and the engagement, as to find out her +present whereabouts. From the first moment of their meeting he knew that +he did not stand in the Archbishop's good graces; but that hardly +concerned him; and so it was almost without circumlocution that he asked +for Jenifer's address. + +The Archbishop, by a simultaneous depression of the head and raising of +the eyebrows, managed to convey his just sense of the honor which was +being done him and the liberty that was being taken. + +"I wrote the other day," explained Max, "asking her to arrange a time +when I might come and see you. In strict etiquette I believe that your +Grace ought first to call upon me; but we have so few precedents to go +by. She has, I trust, done me the honor to tell you that we are +engaged?" + +"I have been informed of the circumstance," replied the Archbishop with +stately formality. + +The Prince took the matter boldly in hand. "From your manner I have to +presume that we have not the happiness of your consent?" + +"My consent was not asked." + +"Had it been?" + +"I could not have given it." + +"That I think," said the Prince, "would have been the perfectly correct +attitude until such time as the King gave his. It is for that we have +been waiting; had it not been so I should have come to you earlier." + +"Early or late, my answer to your Highness would always be the same." + +"May I ask upon what grounds?" + +"I would ask, sir, in return, upon what grounds is it suitable that you +should marry my daughter?" + +"It so happens," replied Max, "that I am in love with her." + +"What precisely, sir, to your mind does the phrase 'being in love' +convey?" + +The Prince saw that the tussle was coming; he gathered his thoughts +together, then said, "An intense personal desire to endow a certain +woman with motherhood." + +The Archbishop flushed: sharp enmity showed itself in his eyes; he made +a gesture of repulsion. + +"Ah!" cried Max, "does that shock the Church?" + +The challenge went unanswered; instead came question. + +"Have you not had this desire before--in other directions?" + +"Never!" exclaimed Max. "No, never!" + +The Archbishop eyed him keenly. "You have had experience." + +"I have lived my life openly," said the Prince. + +"I was aware of that," returned his Grace. "Need I trouble your Highness +with any further grounds for my refusal? Not with my consent shall my +daughter marry a libertine." + +"Great Judge of Heaven!" cried Max, springing to his feet. "Hark to this +old man!" + +"Don't shout," said the Archbishop; "He hears you." + +Max's scorn dropped back like a rocket to earth. + +"Yes," he retorted, "no doubt! The question is, are you capable of +hearing Him?" + +"I am always ready to be instructed," replied his Grace sarcastically. + +"I must remind you," said the Prince, "that as a Doctor of Divinity I +have some claim. Yes," he went on in answer to the Archbishop's look of +astonishment, "though you have forgotten the circumstance, you yourself +dubbed me Theologian by hitting me over the head with a Greek +Testament." + +The Archbishop accepted the reminiscence. + +"In that case," said he, "I bow to your Highness's authority." + +"Yes: you were a shepherd of that fold, yet you let me in? I was the +clever one of my family; and the title was given me when, with three +lives standing between, there was little likelihood of my becoming Head +of the Church. Was I to wear it, then, as an ornament, or as an amulet +to guide me into right doctrine? Whatever faith I still hold, I fear me +that miracle has not been wrought." + +"In these days," said the Archbishop, "faith itself is the great +miracle." + +"That people should have any faith in the Church is indeed a miracle," +said Max. "Yet I suppose it is but another instance of how easily the +world accepts what it finds. I myself remain outwardly a Churchman; +merely because it seems to me hardly to matter, and because any overt +act on my part would hurt those whom I love. And what spiritual +experience have I acquired as the result of my outward conformity? I +have found the pulpit the most polished of all social institutions: and +never once have I heard from it any word troublesome to a conscience +which has still, I can assure you, its waking moments. The eloquence +that flows from it never trespasses beyond the bounds of polite +conversation; and as regards 'unpleasant subjects' it deals faithfully +only with the lives of those who do not form the bulk of its +congregations. If it dealt faithfully with them, those polite +congregations would get up and walk out." + +"I do not think, sir, that your experience puts you in a position to +know how the Church deals with the consciences of the faithful." + +"You mean," said Max, "that in the ears of royalty uncomfortable +subjects are avoided? That merely indicates the system. As the snail +withdraws first his horns into his head, then his body into his shell, +so your Church adapts itself to its surroundings. Let me give you a case +in point--it touches on our present discussion. I have heard often +enough the cheaper forms of prostitution decorously alluded to; but when +did I ever hear dealt with, either for approval or reprobation, the +established practice among the unmarried youth of our aristocracy of +keeping mistresses?" + +"I think, sir, that you must have been often inattentive. The virtue of +purity is, I am sure, constantly inculcated by our clergy." + +"In such a form," replied the Prince, "that we need not apply it to +ourselves. The betrayal of innocency, yes, I have heard of that, for +that only touches a small minority. But these mistresses whom most of us +keep are no more innocent than ourselves, nor are we more innocent than +they. And yet, while to them all social entrances are barred, we men are +allowed to go in free." + +"Society cannot act on mere rumor and suspicion," said the Archbishop. + +"In the woman's case it does," replied the Prince. "And I wonder whether +it has ever occurred to any one to connect that fact with the +cheapening of our modern definition of chivalry. Are you ever +chivalrous; am I?" + +"Charity is a greater thing than chivalry." + +"I am not so sure of that," said the Prince. "You had forgotten just now +that I was a Doctor of Divinity; have you also forgotten that we share +the honors of one of the most ancient knighthoods in the world?" + +"Will your Highness be so good as to explain?" + +"Your Grace will perhaps remember--since you officiated upon the +occasion as prelate of the Order--my investiture rather more than two +years ago as a Knight of the Holy Thorn?" + +The Archbishop bowed assent. + +"Your discourse upon that occasion was both learned and eloquent; but it +did not really touch the subject that had brought us together." + +"How would you define the subject?" inquired his Grace. + +"The subject on which I hoped to be instructed," said the Prince, "was +the real meaning of Chivalry as expressed in the Order of the Thorn, and +the reason why I was deemed worthy to be made a knight of it. There had +already been some comment owing to the fact that the honor was not +conferred immediately on the attainment of my majority. Perhaps my +shortened career at college had something to do with it--perhaps the +fact that I had brothers who were older and worthier than myself. I am +not in the least blaming my father for the delay; rather am I now +inclined to be grateful. But that year the death of my two brothers +created more than a vacancy: and any further postponement would, I +suppose, have made the omission too pointed. I stepped into those dead +shoes." + +"What a talker the man is!" said the Archbishop to himself. But +etiquette held him bound, and there he was obliged to sit, looking +interested and attentive, while Max went on. + + +II + +"For some reason or another--perhaps because it was the one thing for +which, in spite of legitimate expectations, I had been kept waiting--I +conceived for the honor, when it was bestowed on me, a sentimental +regard which I did not experience toward my other titles. They had all +dropped upon me without any merit on my part; for this one honor I felt +in some curious way that I was not worthy. It may have been that feeling +of unworthiness which made me, before the date of my investiture, study +the history of the Order and the legend of its origin. I had hoped that +you would touch upon that legend, and give it some modern application. I +wonder now whether your Grace is aware of the legend; or whether I, +indeed, am not the only Knight of the Order who has troubled to think +anything about it." + +"I fancy," said the Archbishop, "that the legend you refer to has a +flavor of medieval Romanism that would hardly commend itself to modern +ears." + +The Prince smiled bitterly. "Your Grace persuades me," he said, "to tell +the story myself. At the point where it does not commend itself I shall +be glad to hear your criticism. + +"The Founder--or ought I not rather to say the first Knight?--of the +Order was (if the story be true) a certain ancestor of our royal house +who had spent the greater part of his life in wars of unjust aggression. +To atone for them--or for other things which weighed more heavily on his +conscience--he went late in life on a crusade to the Holy Land; and +after being there handsomely trounced by the infidel, was returning in +dejection to the sea-coast with the mutinous remnant of his following, +when the founding of the Order of the Thorn occurred to him. + +"It occurred to him thus: this at all events was his own account of it. +He had become separated from his company of knights, darkness was coming +on--when, as he spurred his tired steed with little mercy for its +exhausted condition, he passed by the roadside a beggar who cried out to +him for charity. But the charity asked for was not alms, but only the +withdrawal from the mendicant's foot of a thorn which troubled him. + +"My ancestor, softened by some accent of gentleness or patience in the +suppliant's voice, dismounted to do the service required of him, and in +the growing darkness drew out the thorn. But when he had got it free +from the flesh it seemed no more a thorn but an iron nail; and the wound +out of which he had drawn it shone with celestial radiance. Then was +founded the Order. The Mendicant bade him bind the Thorn upon his heel +in the place of his spur, so that whenever thereafter he should be +tempted to goad or oppress whether man or beast the Thorn should remind +him of pity and mercy. I wait for your Grace's criticism of that +legend?" + +The Archbishop made no reply: with a courteous gesture of the hand he +invited the Prince to continue. + +"I hoped," said the young man, "to be instructed in the connection +between that Founding and the continuance of the Order. You spoke of +chivalry and loyalty; but the chivalry which you invited us to emulate +was merely the physical daring of our ancestors as proved in war +(wherein I am no longer allowed to take part); and the loyalty was to a +form of monarchy which modern conditions now threaten with change. And +I, looking at all my brother Knights around me, and at myself, wondered +by what right we wore that iron thorn upon our heels. + +"Among us--I need not mention names--were men whose lives were far more +notoriously evil than mine--men whose wealth had been gained for them by +the grinding of sweated humanity; men who received enormous rents from +houses not fit for human habitation--men who opposed every act of +remedial legislation which disturbed their own vested interests, and who +did these things with an untroubled conscience because the conditions +they fought for were all the outcome of custom or of law. + +"And I remembered that some day I should be required to become their +Grand Master--the titular head of that dead Order of Chivalry; and I +wondered what would happen if I acted honestly upon my conscience and +refused." + +"Yet you say, sir, that for this Order, of which you now speak so +slightingly, you had sentiments of reverence?" + +"For the Order--yes; but none for the men--including myself--who make up +its membership." + +"Surely," said the Archbishop, "your Highness must admit that they are +all men of mark; many of them have spent their lives in the public +service--leaders of the people in peace and war. You cannot regard these +things as nothing." + +"For these things they already have their titles," said the Prince, +"their state-pensions, or the wealth personally acquired on which their +power and influence are based. Has the Order of the Thorn ever once in +its history been given to a man because he was conspicuously good, or +gentle, or forbearing, or unselfishly thoughtful for others? Has it ever +once been given to a successful philanthropist who was not also of high +lineage and title? I have looked through the lists; I can find none. +Your Grace is the only one among us whose profession is to serve God +rather than to be served by men." + +The Archbishop glanced uneasily at the Prince; but there was no sarcasm +in his look or tone. Max was never more of an artist than in his +adaption of manner to theme. Sadly, almost dejectedly he went on. + +"And now let us come to myself. It seems that I am not accounted worthy +to receive your daughter's hand in marriage. In a certain sense I admit +it. That he is unworthy seems true to every man who ever loved a woman +well; and perhaps the woman feels the same of herself. But I do not +admit that the reasons for your judgment are just. You deny me my claim +because, during my early manhood, I have had illicit connection with one +woman. Tell me--do you propose that your daughter shall ever marry at +all?" + +The Archbishop looked at the Prince with a half-pitying surmise and drew +himself up as though he had some statement to make. Then putting the +inclination aside he said: "That is for her to choose." + +"From her own rank in life?" persisted Max,--"not limited, I mean, to +the clerical profession?" + +"I impose no limits on my daughter's freedom," said the Archbishop. + +"And do you mean to tell me," inquired the Prince, "that of every +suitor for your daughter's hand--lawyer, soldier, politician, man of +letters--you will make it your business to inquire--and will expect to +be told the truth--whether they have not at some period of their career +had illicit connection with women?" + +"I could recommend no suitor," said the Archbishop, "who had been at so +little pains as your Highness to avoid the setting of a bad example to +others." + +"Is it, then, merely secrecy that you advocate?" + +"A respect for moral observances is in itself a ground of +recommendation," answered his Grace; "though at times a man may fall +short of what he knows to be right." + +"You mean," said the Prince, "that I have flagrantly committed myself in +the upkeep of an establishment, where others have only paid an +extravagant price for a night's lodging?" + +"Your Highness puts the matter in a way that makes it impossible for me +to discuss." + +"I beg your pardon; I really was trying to be delicately indirect. But +that you should beg off discussion because my way of putting things +seems to you indelicate is yet another count in my quarrel with your +established ministry. You seem to me to be amateurs where you ought to +be professionals. How can you possibly deal with poor weak humanity in +kid gloves? Like the surgeon before he can hope to bring healing in his +wings, you too must be anatomical in your researches. It is the +anatomical your civil churchmen fight shy of. Well, I will endeavor to +get at the matter from another and a more accessible side. Your Grace +is, I take it, a man of the world?" + +The Archbishop was inclined to demur; humbly but firmly he deprecated +the imputation. + +"But surely!" protested the Prince, "had you not been, you would not now +be in the place which you occupy; every one knows that an Archbishop's +appointment is political. I ask you then, as a man of the world, +how--short of a miracle--could you expect a man in my position and +circumstances to have kept a technically unblemished record? Surrounded +with luxuries from my birth, disciplined by no real hardship, having to +make no struggle for my existence; brought up to eat meat and drink +wine; athletic, but without any reason or opportunity for leading a +strenuously athletic life; with brains, but with no compulsion to use +them; passed, for the perfecting of my education, from one privileged +grade to another; from the University to the Army, and from thence to +sport and the race-course; from where on God's earth, in this modern +curriculum for kings, was the idea to have occurred to me that I should +do this thing, in attempting to do which your early hermits went +hullabalooing to the desert? + +"I am now nearly twenty-six. My father, for reasons of State, married at +twenty-one: I, for similar reasons, have been kept unmarried, no +sufficiently eligible partner could be found for me. And I solved the +time of waiting by contracting a non-legal conjugal relationship with a +woman for whom I had a very real affection, who was considerably my +senior in years, and who knew quite well that the arrangement could only +be temporary. My Lord Archbishop, I ask you--could you in my +circumstances have shown a better, a more blameless record? I was even +punctilious enough to tell your daughter--an excessive scruple, I +think,--she did not understand." + +"She understands now," said the Archbishop. + +"And who is it," inquired the Prince sharply, "who has thus played +bo-peep with her intelligence--first shutting and now opening her eyes?" + +"When evil is encountered," said his Grace, "instruction has to be +extended." + +"And still you have stopped halfway, just at the point where it serves +you best. What does her pure soul know of these problems which to her +are only a few hours old?" + +"She is a daughter of the Church; and she knows what the Church's answer +has always been." + +"She knows, then," said Max, "what no school of historians has yet been +able to decide! See over in England to-day how the Church, clinging to +its establishment, has to dodge and shuffle over the changes in the +moral law arising out of national habit. Is the Church of Jingalo so +greatly superior, think you, that it can boast?" + +At that moment a clock upon the chimney-piece intoned the hour; and the +Archbishop, reduced to extremity in order to get rid of his +distinguished but unwelcome visitor, permitted himself to throw an +involuntary glance in the direction of the sound. + +The Prince, perceiving the indication, rose at once to his feet. + +"Pardon me," he said, "for having kept you so long." + +"Pardon _me_," returned his Grace; "unfortunately I have to dine." + +"Of course. I ought not to have forgotten." + +"I mean that I have guests." + +"They shall not be kept waiting by me," said the Prince. He moved to the +door. Then he stopped. + +"Your Grace," he said, "I know that we cannot be friends, still----" + +He paused; and there was silence. + +"I greatly wish to see your daughter. Surely you cannot deny me that +right." + +"_I_ cannot," said the Archbishop. "She does." + +This pulled Max up with a jerk: not that he yet believed it, however. + +"Where is she now?" he inquired. + +"She has joined the Sisterhood of Poverty. To-day she entered her +profession." + +The Prince choked. + +"That is horrible!" he said. "You mean she has taken vows?" + +The Archbishop of Ebury bowed his head. "For the remainder of _my_ life +at all events," he said in a stricken tone. "She will not return here. +My house is left desolate to me--because of you." + +"You still have guests," said the Prince. + +"That is an unworthy gibe," retorted his Grace. "My work has still to go +on." + +"I beg your pardon," said Max. + +"I have written to her," he added after a pause; "and she has not +answered. Will your Grace be good enough----" + +"I do not think she will. She prays for you. If you came, I was to tell +you that." + +Again there was silence for a time. + +"When I was a child," said the Prince, "I had an old nurse, who whenever +I did anything wrong--as whipping was not allowed--used to go down on +her knees and pray for me; and she always did it against a blank wall. I +suppose it helped her. That has always remained my vision of prayer. And +now I shall always think of your daughter with her dear face turned to a +blank wall, praying for you and me--her murderers." + +He went out. + +"Upon my word!" thought the Archbishop, "that is a dangerous man to be +heir to a throne." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +NIGHT-LIGHT + + + + +I + +And meanwhile the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser had arrived; and Max, +instead of pursuing his own love-affair, ought to have been busy +entertaining him. + +The first meeting between Charlotte and her suitor had been tactfully +arranged; they had met riding to a review of troops in the great Field +of Mars which occupied a central space in the largest of the royal +parks. The Princess had a healthy taste for riding in thoroughly cold +weather; she also particularly disliked to be in a carriage when those +round her were on horseback; and so, by following her own taste, when +the Prince met her she was looking her very best. Down a white-frosted +avenue of lindens she and her escort came trotting to the +saluting-point; and there, once more in his sky-blue with its sable and +silver trimmings, the Prince was presented, and opening upon her mild +blue eyes that looked curiously light in his bronzed and ruddy +countenance, with dutiful promptness he fell in love with her. + +By a little quiet maneuvering and attendance to other matters the +King left them side by side for a while. Troops stood massed in the +distance waiting the signal to advance. + +"Do you like soldiers?" inquired the Prince. + +"It rather depends upon the uniform," replied Charlotte. + +"Oh! Do you like mine?" + +She looked at it, and smiled; for there were no sky-blue tunics in +Jingalo; and such cerulean tones on a man were to her eyes a little +incongruous. + +"It would be rather trying to some complexions," she observed. "But you +look very well in it." + +"Ah! I have been abroad," he explained. "That has given me the colors of +a Red Indian." + +"You look just as if you had dropped from the sky," she said, smiling +still at him. + +"Oh, no, not this sky!" and he cast up a grudging glance at the opaque +grayness overhead. "Here you seem to have a sun that looks only the +other way." + +She threw back a light remark, while her eye strayed over the field. +Presently he returned to the subject. + +"So you only like soldiers because of their uniforms?" + +"And when they ride well. I like drums too," she added. + +"Ah! good! I can play on the drum. It is my one instrument." + +"Does it require much practice?" + +"Oh, yes; it is very difficult--to play well. But it has been very +useful to me. I took a drum with me to South America. That is music that +the natives can understand, it can make them afraid; and when one is all +by oneself in the forest, then it helps that one shall not feel lonely. +One night when I had no fire left, I was saved my life from wild beasts +just by beating at them with my drum. It is funny that you should like +drums." + +"I like something with them as well," said Charlotte. + +"Ah," grunted the Prince, "that depends. There is some music in the +world that ought never to be allowed." + +"Well, there is some of ours," said the Princess, as the massed bands of +three regiments sent forth their blast. "How does that strike you?" + +The Prince listened with the ear of a connoisseur. "For you here, that +is good," he said judicially; "but you are not a musical nation. And +there is a man there that is playing his drum as it ought not to be +played." + +And then his formal duties called him away. This was their first +exchange of compliments. Old Uncle Nostrum, who had kept within ear-shot, +reported to the King that things had gone sufficiently well. There was +no secrecy about the intended affair in the royal circle now; everybody +knew of it. + +And that evening, at a State ball given in the Prince's honor, the +destined pair met again. + +Nothing very much happened at the ball. The Prince danced once with +Charlotte and once with the Queen, and with nobody else; while Charlotte +danced nearly the whole evening; and Max, moving about with a pensive +and preoccupied air, danced with nobody. But the only reason why this +ball has to be mentioned is because of something that happened +immediately after, quite unconnected either with the about-to-be-linked +or the about-to-be-separated lovers--something which takes us back to +those underground workings of the body politic which his Majesty was +only now beginning fully to apprehend. + +State balls end punctually, and as it were upon the stroke; as soon as +the royal countenance is withdrawn they come to an end. And so within +half-an-hour of the retirement of the royal party all the great suite of +chambers was empty, and in less than an hour light and movement had +ceased in all that part of the palace wherein the royal family resided. + +But the King, hindered during the day by constant attendance upon his +guest, had some papers to look through before his next meeting with the +Prime Minister. He went into his study, switched on the light, and for +an hour sat at work. Outside traffic died away; the sense of silence +grew deep; the whole palace became permeated by it. Wearying for bed, +having got through his last batch of papers, the King looked at the +clock; it was half-past one. + +Just as he was getting up from his seat the mere ghost of a sound caught +his ear. The door, silent on its hinges, had softly opened; and within +its frame stood a figure in dark civil uniform who gave the military +salute. + + +II + +"Mr. Inspector!" cried the King in surprise, recognizing the face. + +"I beg your Majesty's pardon." + +"Ah! You came to see that everything was safe? This time you were a +little too early. Still, as you are here, I should rather like to know +how far those keys do allow you to penetrate?" + +"Everywhere, your Majesty." + +"You mean, even to the private apartments?" + +Apparently he did. + +"Do you often have occasion to use them?" + +"Not after to-night, your Majesty--never again." + +"Oh, do not suppose that I am objecting, if it is really necessary." + +"I give these keys up to-morrow, sir," said the man. "I ought to have +given them up to-day; but I wanted to see your Majesty." + +The King drew himself up; this seemed an intrusion. + +"You could have asked for an interview," he said. + +"I could have asked to the day of my death, sir; you would never have +heard of it." + +"You could have written." + +"Does your Majesty think that all letters personally addressed are even +reported to your Majesty?" + +"I suppose not all of them," said the King after considering the matter. + +"Not one in a hundred, sir." + +"Still, any that are important I hear of." + +"Mine, sir, would not have been reckoned important," said the man +bitterly. + +The King looked hard at him, not with any real suspicion, for his +straightforward bearing inspired liking as well as confidence. But here +was a man whose measure must be carefully taken, for he was certainly +doing a very extraordinary thing. + +"And have you something really important to tell me?" + +Their eyes met on a pause that spoke better than words. + +"Yes," said the man. Quietly he shut the door. + +"Won't you come nearer?" said the King, for the depth of a large chamber +divided them. But the disciplined figure kept its place. Slowly but +without hesitation he gave what he had to say. + +"I am dismissed the force," he began; "but that's not important--at +least only to me--though I suppose that's partly why I'm here, for a man +must fight when his living is taken from him. I am dismissed because +your Majesty got out of the palace the other night without my hearing of +it." + +The King breathed his astonishment, but said nothing. + +"I admit I ought to have known, but the man we had on duty at that door +didn't know your Majesty--at least not so as to be sure. I asked him +yesterday who it was went out, and he said--well, sir, he thought it was +one of the palace stewards. They use that door a good deal at night, so +I'm told." + +"That he did not recognize me was, of course, my own doing," said the +King. + +"I know that, sir," replied the man, "but in the detective force we +can't afford to make those sort of allowances. The consequence is--I'm +out of it." + +"I'm sorry, Inspector. What do you want me to do?" + +"Well, sir, I'm here because I know something that I can't tell to +another soul on earth. If I could have gone to them with it, I needn't +have troubled your Majesty. But, so happens, I haven't got the proof." + +"Are you going to ask me to believe you without proof?" + +"Your Majesty can get the proof--or see it anyway. It's there at Dean's +Court." + +"Dean's Court? What is that?" + +"Where the police museum is, sir. The proof of what I'm going to tell +your Majesty lies there." + +This was getting interesting. "Pray go on," said the King. + +"That bomb," said the man, "the one that was thrown at your Majesty the +other day--all the pieces of it are in the museum now." + +He paused, then added-- + +"They have gone back to the place they came from." + +It was evident then, from the man's tone, that to his own mind he had +stated the essential part of his case. + +But the King, his brain working on unfamiliar ground, missed the +connection. + +"I do not quite understand," he said. + +"No, sir? Well, then, it's like this. After the bomb was thrown, we were +put on to the ground, and the public were kept off. All the pieces +picked up were brought to me. It must have been a very mild sort of +charge, sir, nothing much besides gunpowder I should say; no slugs nor +anything. Most of the shell I was able to put together again. It was +blackened all over, partly by fire, partly new painted I think, but, +under the black, I found lettering and numbers, all quite faint. I've +got them here." (He drew out a pocket-book as he spoke.) "D.C.M. 5537." + +He closed the book with a snap as though clinching an argument. + +"The bomb that had that number on it," said he, "came from Dean's Court +Museum; it's been there fifteen years. I've been in to look; that number +is missing now. You'd have thought, sir, they might have been more +careful than that!" He spoke with professional contempt for a job that +had been bungled. + +The solemnity of the man's manner, and the queer mystery of it all sent +a cold sensation through the King's blood; he felt now that he was up +against something dangerous and sinister. + +"What do you mean me to understand from all this?" he asked? + +"Well, sir," said the man, "it doesn't need me to tell your Majesty +that when anarchists or any of that sort want to do a bit of +bomb-throwing they don't go to our police museum for their materials. +But that's not all. They found out, down at head office--after it was +over, only then--that the local authorities had given permit for a +cinematograph record to be taken from a stand just opposite, overlooking +the new buildings, so as to get the procession as it came along under +the arch. And so, as it happened, those films had got the whole thing +recorded. We only heard of it when they were announced to be shown at +the theater that night. I was sent down to get hold of them, and I +brought them back with me. + +"I've been through every one; most people wouldn't see anything. The +point where the bomb went off was about fifty yards away; and those +films give a view that just takes in a bit of the palisade. At number +139 you see an arm come up, and a face just behind it, very small, under +the scaffolding; you'd hardly know it was there. But if that were put +under a good microscope I shouldn't be surprised but what it could be +recognized." + +By this time the King's understanding had become clear; he saw where the +argument was leading. + +"Before I could do that," the man went on, "they were locked away. I +didn't say anything about it--didn't point it out to them, I mean--for +I'd begun to have a feeling that things weren't all right; and I daresay +they haven't noticed what _I_ noticed. If they have, number 139 and the +ten plates following will be gone. Whether they have or not--that's my +proof." + +The King was now following the man's narrative with tense interest; +every moment its import grew more clear; yes, clearer than day, sharp +and bright as a rocket shot up against the blackness of a midnight sky. + +The inspector paused for a moment and wiped his hand over dry lips; in +the telling of that tale his face had grown white. + +"Whom do you mean by 'they'?" inquired the King. + +The man hesitated. "Well, your Majesty, I'd rather not say." + +"I ought to know." + +"Oh, yes, sir, I can't deny that! But, there, I've got no proof--so it's +not the same thing. But I do say this, your Majesty, that to be able to +lay hands on those things in the first place, and now to keep them +locked away, needs somebody higher up in the department than I'd like to +name. If I may leave it at that?" + +"That will do," said the King. + +"Your Majesty sees I couldn't safely go to anybody else with that proof; +either it would be somebody who couldn't get at it before it was +destroyed, or it would be those who had the whole thing in their own +hands." + +"I quite see that," said the King. + +"That's all I had to say, then, sir." + +"I am very much in your debt; I shall not forget what I owe you. There +is one question I want to ask--you say that the charge must have been a +very feeble one?" + +"Yes, sir, much less than an ordinary shell." + +"What do you deduce from that fact?" + +"Well, your Majesty, I should say that killing had never been intended." + +"That it was only done to frighten some one?" + +"That is about it, your Majesty." + +"Thank you; that is what I wanted to know. And if you will leave me your +name, I think I can promise that you shall be at no disadvantage after I +have gone into the matter." + +"I am much obliged, your Majesty." The inspector came forward, drew out +a card, and respectfully presenting it, retired again. + +"Then, for the present, that is all," said the King. "It is now nearly +two o'clock. You can, I believe, let yourself out?" + +And in the light of a gentle, half-quizzical smile from the royal +countenance, the inspector withdrew. + +"What an amazing thing!" said the King to himself. "And oh! if it is +true!" + + +III + +He knew that it was true; for in a flash he had seen the meaning of it. +And instead of angering him, it filled him with an almost intoxicating +sense of power. For it meant that the Prime Minister, or the +Government, could not do without him, he had been necessary to their +plans. + +He could not distinctly see why, whether it were a fear of Max +succeeding to the throne at such a juncture or of popular resentment at +the sovereign being driven to so desperate a remedy for his griefs, or +fear merely of the damage that might be done to the monarchical system +while bureaucracy was still depending upon it as a cloak for +constitutional encroachments--whether one or all of these fears impelled +his minister, the King did not know; but he saw clearly enough that to +force him into withdrawal of his abdication the Prime Minister had +adopted a desperate and almost heroical remedy. + +He bore the man no grudge; the more he envisaged the risks, the more he +admired and respected him. Feebly though the bomb had been charged, +carefully though directed by slow underhand bowling only at the legs of +horses, at a moment when the royal carriage had actually passed, still a +bomb is an incalculable weapon--pieces of it fly in the most unexpected +directions; and it was evident that for the execution of this +ministerial veto on the Crown's action it had been necessary to risk the +lives not merely of a picked body of troops, but of several high court +officials and staff-officers riding in close attendance upon the royal +coach. And a child in politics could see that if all this risk had been +run to make abdication impossible, then abdication had been the right +card to play. + +And now that game was over, and another had begun, and if, in a certain +sense, the leading cards had reverted to the ministerial hand, the King +had the advantage of knowing what they were; and by leading off in +another suit he might prevent the Ministry from playing them till too +late for effect. + +It was necessary, however, first to get his proofs. They lay at Dean's +Court under official lock and key; and the hand which held that key was, +for all he knew, the same which had thrown the bomb in order to +frighten him. How, then, was he to get at it? + +A brilliant idea occurred to him; so simple and easy that without +worrying himself further he went to bed and slept upon it. And next +morning, at their first meeting, he said to the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser, "Would you not like to come and see our police museum? +Just now it contains some rather interesting exhibits--especially for us +personally--that bomb, you know." And he proceeded to give details. "The +actual pieces are all there, and a whole set of photographs, showing how +the explosion took place." + +Her Majesty, hearing of the project, backed it warmly. + +"You will find it quite an intellectual treat," said she, "our police +are such intelligent creatures. I went all over the museum myself once; +and it felt exactly like being in a kaleidoscope--everything so +wonderfully arranged." + +"Ah, yes," said the Prince, "that should be very interesting." + +And so, though it was not in the day's program, quite at an early hour +the King and his guest drove down together to the Prefecture. + +The Prefect himself had not arrived, but they saw one of the high +permanent officials; and stating the purpose of their visit were +formally handed over to the Superintendent of detectives. The department +was his. + +"Mr. Superintendent," said the King, "we come upon you by surprise; are +you sufficiently prepared for us?" + +The Superintendent declared that his department was ready at all hours. + +"I wanted to show the Prince some of your relics," his Majesty went on, +"particularly those connected with the recent outrage." + +Of course the Superintendent was delighted; he led the way into the +museum; and before long the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser became very much +interested in all the things that were shown him. + +Case after case was opened; and the King, seeing how smoothly matters +were shaping, made no hurry toward the attainment of his goal. + +Presently, pointing toward a case that stood in a window recess, the +official remarked with a smile, "There lies your Majesty's +death-warrant--what is left of it." + +The case was opened; the King took up the fragments. + +"Very interesting," he said. "There are also some photographs showing +the actual event, are there not?" + +"They are here, your Majesty." The Superintendent produced a small box +with numbered slides. + +"Very interesting," murmured the King again as he continued to handle +the shards. + +Presently he detected in one of these a faint trace of figures and +lettering; he laid it to one side, took up the films, and began to +examine them. Film after film he held up to the light; the scale was +very small. Unable to decipher them in detail he sought only for the +identifying numbers under which they stood catalogued. + +After a while he came to the one he was in search of; that and the other +two or three which immediately followed it he selected for closer +scrutiny. Two of them he handed to the Prince. "This is just before," he +said by way of explanation. "It was from behind those palisades that the +bomb was thrown after our coach had passed." + +"Here your Highness can see the actual explosion taking place," said +their guide. + +"Ah, very good! Very interesting!" murmured the Prince, with cordial +appreciation. "That seems to have gone off quite well." + +The King meanwhile had re-collected the four innocuous-looking films and +set them apart from the rest. "And have you been quite unable," he +inquired, "to trace the bomb to its origin, or to discover anything as +to who threw it?" + +"No trace at all, sir. The whole thing is a perfect mystery." + +"Remarkable!" said the King. + +And then with the leisurely air of a collector of curios he took up +again the four films and the shard bearing the faint trace of figures, +and before the astonished eyes of the Superintendent put them into his +breast-pocket. + +"I will keep these as a souvenir," he observed. "They will always be of +great interest to me." + +"I ask pardon, your Majesty," replied the official a little stiffly, +"but it is against all regulations for anything to go out of this museum +when it has once been catalogued." + +"Ah, yes," retorted the King, smiling pleasantly, "but then it is +against all regulations for bombs to be thrown at the royal coach when I +am in it; so you must allow, for once, this small breach that I make in +your chain of evidence. There is plenty of material for conviction still +left, should you ever discover the criminal." + +"I am afraid, sir," said the Superintendent, speaking gravely, "that +this will get me into trouble with the Prefect. May I express a hope +that your Majesty will reconsider the matter?" + +"Oh, no, not at all!" said the King. "Tell the Prefect that the +responsibility rests with me. The Prince here is witness that I robbed +you and that you were helpless. Lay all the blame upon me without any +scruple! And if it is a very grave breach of the regulations--well--you +can inform the Prime Minister; and then, no doubt I shall hear of it." + +The Superintendent stood mute; he had made his protest, and he could not +pretend that he was satisfied. + +"By the way," went on the King, "I have a very particular request to +make which I think concerns your department. In connection with a +certain incident that took place the other night--and which shall be +nameless--one of your special inspectors has been dismissed, I hear?" + +"That is so, your Majesty." + +"Well, I do not wish to interfere in anything that makes for efficiency; +but I have to request--will you please to make a particular note of +it--that he shall be retired on a full pension." + +For a moment the official hesitated. "May I ask why, sir?" + +"Because practically I have promised it. It is either that or I +re-engage him for my own personal service. He is a man whom I have +trusted in matters of an exceedingly confidential character. Pray see to +it." + +The head of the department could hold out no longer. "It shall be as +your Majesty wishes," said he. + +"Very well," said the King. "Please report when you have seen the matter +through. And now, Prince, I think that we have exhausted +everything--including, I fear, your patience, Mr. Superintendent. What a +very criminal part of society you have to deal with! I hope that the +influences of the place are not catching." + +"As to that, sir, I can hardly say," replied the other with a wry smile. +"Your Majesty has just committed a robbery which I shall have to report; +the first that has ever taken place in this department." + +"Oh, surely not quite the first!" protested the King. + +Then he checked himself. "Well, if that is so, you can but take out an +order for my arrest. And you will find," he added slyly, "that I am +already well known to the police." + +And so saying, he and the Prince took their departure. + + +IV + +But if the King was satisfied with his morning's exploit--a raid so +successfully conducted--he had harassment to face before the day was +over. His message to Council, on the matter of the Women Chartists and +their grievances, was received by the Prime Minister not only with +disfavor but with a clear though respectful intimation that it would not +be allowed to effect the ministerial program. + +"I must remind you, Mr. Prime Minister," said his Majesty, "that the +Constitution gives me this right." + +"That, sir, I do not question. But it gives to us also a discretion as +to when time can be found for attending to it." + +"Well," said the King, "you may fix your own date within reason." + +"I can fix no date, your Majesty." + +That was flat, and the monarch could not help showing his annoyance. + +"If you think that that answer satisfies me," he said, "you are +mistaken." + +"I fear," replied the Prime Minister, "that it is often my duty to give +your Majesty dissatisfaction." + +"Well, well," said the King, "we shall see!" + +He had drawn out of his pocket a small shard and was toying with it as +he spoke. + +"By the way," he said, considerately changing the subject, "I was at the +Prefecture this morning; I took the Prince to see the museum." + +"So I was informed, sir." + +The Prime Minister showed no discomposure; his demeanor was wholly +urbane and conciliatory. + +"I brought away with me a small memento," went on the King. + +"I was told of that too, sir," replied the Premier, smiling. "It was a +little irregular; but if your Majesty wishes for it I do not think there +can be any real objection." + +"Really," thought the King to himself, "is he going to pretend that he +knows nothing about it?" Yet the good face which his minister put upon +the matter did not fail to win the King's admiration; he respected the +man's courage and ability to brazen the thing out. The Superintendent, +he judged, was not actually in the secret; but of the Premier he was now +quite sure. That air of calm was just a little bit overdone. "I suppose +he thinks that I can't do anything," mused the King. "Well, well, we +shall see." + +And then he inquired whether the Prime Minister had interviewed Prince +Max. + +"I have not, sir; but I have seen the Archbishop." + +"You have been talking to the Archbishop about it?" cried the King +sharply. + +"At great length, sir," replied the Prime Minister. + +"Then I must say that you have taken a most unwarranted liberty! You +have gone entirely beyond and behind my authority. No, it is no use for +you to protest, Mr. Premier; I did consent that you should speak to the +Prince; but beyond that--until it had been thoroughly discussed with +him--what I communicated to you was entirely confidential and private." + +"An affair of such importance, sir, cannot possibly be private." + +"It can have its private preliminaries--otherwise where would be +diplomacy?" + +"The Prince might any day have taken overt action--he might even have +announced the engagement." + +"He might, but he did not! And without even seeing him you have been +behind his back and discussed it with the Archbishop! And pray, with +what result?" + +"At present, sir, I am not in a position to say, but I have good hopes. +We are still in correspondence. I assure your Majesty that my conscience +is clear in the matter." + +"Your conscience, Mr. Prime Minister, has an easy way of clearing +itself; you lay the burden of it on me! Yes, this is the second bomb +that has been dropped upon me from Government back premises, and I am +tired of it; I am not going to stand it any longer! In this matter of +the Prince's engagement you and I were in entire agreement; but now you +have so acted that you have endangered the relations--the very friendly +and affectionate relations--between the Prince and myself. I hardly know +how I shall be able to look him in the face. I give him my consent; and +then I suddenly turn round and I work against him; I go behind his back, +yes, I steal a march upon him--that is how it will appear. And if he so +accuses me, what am I to say?" + +"I appreciate your Majesty's feelings; but I say, sir, that any +sacrifice was necessary to prevent so dangerous a proposal from going +further." + +"No!" cried the King, "no! not of straightforward dealing and of honor! +That is what comes of being mixed up in politics. People forget what +honor means, their sense of it becomes blunted. Unfortunately mine does +not! Mr. Premier, you have profoundly distressed me; you have made my +position extremely difficult. And I do not think that you had any excuse +for it." + +The Prime Minister had never seen the King so disturbed and agitated. He +moved quickly up and down the room beating the air with his hands; and +when his minister endeavored to put in a word he threw him off +impatiently, almost refusing to hear him. + +"No," he said, "no, you had better leave me! With the Prince I must make +my peace as best I can. With you I no longer intend peace; it has become +impossible! I have my material; and now my mind is made up, and I mean +to use it! Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, you can go!" + +And thereupon they parted. + + +V + +Max was far gentler to his father than the King could have hoped. They +did not meet till the next day; and for the first time in his life the +King found him utterly cast down and dejected. + +"Oh, do not blame yourself," he said in answer to his parent's +explanations and apologies; "I do not suppose that what you have done +makes any real difference. I have spent my life despising convention, +occasionally defying it, and now it has overthrown me. Yes, sir, that is +the true solvent of the situation; my morals have been weighed in the +balance and found wanting." + +"Dear me," said his father, "is that so? Well, well!" and he sighed. + +"Of course, sir, I cannot expect you to be sorry about it." + +"I am sorry, my dear boy--very sorry. Don't think because I have still +to be King that I have not the feelings of a father. Ah, if you only +knew how hard I have tried to get out of it all, you would believe what +I say." + +"Out of what?" + +"Being King at all. Yes, Max, I have yet another confession to make; I +meant to conceal it from you, but now I would rather that you knew. +Perhaps you will think it wasn't quite fair; I intended to leave the +responsibility of all this to you; and--well, it so happens that when +you asked me I had determined to abdicate." + +Max opened his eyes. + +"I actually did abdicate. And then the bomb came, and that made it +impossible. And so--here I still am; and that is how you got my +consent!" + +"You abdicated?" + +"Yes, my boy, I really did. And if that bomb had not happened I should +have been off the throne and you would have been on it. So now, Max, I +am going to tell you everything." And he did, from beginning to end. + +And when it came to giving Max the actual proof, he got up and unlocked +a drawer, and handed out of it the shard and the four films for him to +look at. + +"Take a magnifying-glass," said the King. "The face and the raised arm +are behind the palisade to the right." + +"I can't see them," said Max. + +"Very small," said the King; "a man with a dark beard." + +Max continued to look without result. "I can't find it," he said. + +"Well, look at the figures and lettering on the shard; you can see +those." + +"No," said Max, "I can't." + +The King came impatiently across and took them off him. Then, as he +examined them, he saw that the shard and the four films had been +changed. + +He had his souvenir; but the incriminating evidence was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A MAN OF BUSINESS + + + + +I + +While these events of political moment were going on, Prince Hans Fritz +Otto of Schnapps-Wasser had been busy planting himself in the good +graces of the Princess Charlotte. They rode, they skated, they lunched, +they played billiards together; and so easy did their relations to each +other become that the Queen ceased to have any anxiety as to the future, +and left the entire conduct of the affair to Providence. + +Charlotte all her life had been quick and impulsive in her decisions; +her hatreds and her affections had always been precipitately bestowed, +and while her conduct was seldom reasonable, her instincts were +generally right. So now--when a most crucial question was coming to her +for decision--for she no longer needed to be informed of the Prince's +mind in the matter--she did not allow its serious character to weigh +upon her spirits or make her less ready and spontaneous in the bestowal +of her liking. On the contrary, if anything, it hastened her verdict of +approval. "I do believe that I am going to fall in love with him!" she +said to herself after an acquaintance of only twenty-four hours; and +having so determined, she set forth with all speed to study +"philosophically," as she phrased it, this huge healthy natural specimen +which fortune had thrown in her way. "For if I don't take a +philosophical view of him now," she said to herself, "I shall never be +able to do it afterwards." + +The effort to do so rather amused her; she was not in love with him but +she liked him more than a little. She had not yet, however, put him to +the test by revealing the awful fact that she had been in prison as a +common criminal; and before doing so (a little nervous as to the result) +she took such opportunity of survey as was left to her, studied him up +and down, noticed his ways, demeanor, habits, and wondered to herself +whether in three weeks' time she would be so infatuated with this great +creature as not to know where divinity ended and mere earthly clay +began. + +She had plenty of material to go upon: he was as naïve in the +revelations of his own character as in his half-bewildered admiration +for the swift mercurial motions of her livelier temperament. + +For a while, at the beginning of their acquaintance, some question as to +the degree of her sincerity seemed to trouble him. + +"How much of what you say do you really mean?" he inquired. + +"Oh, it varies!" she answered. "I talk so as to find out what I think. +Don't you? Some things one can't judge of till one hears them spoken." + +"That seems funny to me." + +"Why? You are fond of music: don't you find that sound is very +important? Can you _think_ music without ever hearing it?" + +"Sometimes," he said. + +"But only the airs." + +"Oh, no; sometimes I can think like an orchestra, when I know all what +is in it." + +"You must be very musical." + +"Yes; that is my misfortune sometimes. The world has so much ugly sound +already; and then some people go out of their ways to make more." + +"Ah, yes," she smiled, "I remember you were a musical critic once." + +He let that go; and turning the conversation abruptly, as was his wont, +to more personal ends, said-- + +"Tell me, do you like my name?" + +"Schnapps-Wasser?" Shaping the word elaborately, she made a wry face +over it. + +"No--not that; my own name." + +"But you have three." + +"Yes; Hans, Fritz, Otto. Which of them you like best?" + +"Fritz suits you best." + +"Then will you always call me it?" + +"Prince Fritz, Prince Fritz?--sounds like a robin," she said, trying it +in musical tones. + +"No, just Fritz; no more, only that." + +"Wait till I have known you a few more days; then we will see." + +"But I shall already be nearly gone by then," he protested. "I am only +here such a short time." + +"Perhaps some day you will come again." + +"Ah! Again!" He sounded unutterable things, as though upon that word +hung his whole fate. Anything might happen to him before they met again. + +"I have a secret," he said; "I want to tell it you." + +"Are you sure you can trust me?" + +"When I have told you it, you can tell anybody." + +"Then it can't be much of a secret." + +"Oh! You think?" He opened his big childish eyes at her and nodded his +head solemnly. "This secret has been with me thousands and thousands of +miles. Every time I shot off my gun, every day I went 'tramp, tramp' +through the forest walking on snakes, every time I fought for my life I +had this secret of mine to live with." + +"You had better not tell it then; it may lose its interest." + +"I want it to interest you." + +"It does," said Charlotte, "very much." + +"Huh! You do not know what it is." + +"That is why; it is much more interesting not to know." + +"Ah, you are playing at me! But what I go to tell you is no joke." + +"I was not laughing," she said. + +"No; only 'chatter, chatter'!" + +"You know where I have been?" he continued. + +"I know the continent." + +"Yes;--you are right; that is all anybody knows about it. Well, inside +of it there is a country as big as this Jingalo of yours; and it +belongs really to nobody. I have been all over it." + +"The people are very savage, are they not?" + +"Savage?--oh, no. They are very fierce and proud, and strong; they are +also the most wonderful artists. You call that to be a savage?" + +"Artists?" + +"Yes; look at that." + +As he spoke he drew up his sleeve almost to the elbow, exposing a +sunburnt arm, smooth, fine of texture, and enormously muscular. Over its +brawny mold, with scaly convolutions elaborately tattooed, writhed a +dragon in bright indigo. + +"Oh, how beautiful!" exclaimed the Princess. Marveling at the clear +intricacy of its detail, she stooped to examine it more closely. + +Prince Fritz turned his arm this way and that, displaying it. He snapped +his fingers: flick went each separate muscle, the dragon became alive. + +"What do you think?" he inquired, smiling with childish vanity and the +delight of feeling upon his skin the warmth of her breath. + +"It is very beautiful," she murmured again, her admiration divided +between the scaly dragon's wings and the splendidly molded limb. + +"I have them far more beautiful upon my legs," said the Prince. + +"Dragons?" + +"Yes; but oh! quite different; more--how do you say?--'bloodthirsty' you +call it? Here and here"--he went on, indicating the locality--"I have +two. One of them is climbing up and the other is climbing down; and they +are both biting on my knee-cap with their teeth--like mad." + +"They must be quite wonderful." + +"They are all that! When I look at them I am lost with admiration of +myself." Then he gazed speculatively into her eyes and speaking in +dull, soft tones of Teutonic sentiment, said confidentially, "If you +will marry me, you shall see them some day." + +Charlotte's laughter rang loud. "Do you think I should marry you for +that?" + +A wistful, rather nonplussed expression came into the Prince's face. + +"I do not know," said he, "why women marry at all; they are so +wonderful, so beautiful, so good all by themselves; we men are not +beautiful at all--not our bodies nor our hearts. And I--oh, well!"--he +drew down his sleeve as he spoke,--"I have nothing more beautiful to +offer you than those--my dragons. If you do not want them, why should +you want me?" + +"But women don't marry dragons!" objected Charlotte, scarcely less +puzzled than amused. + +"Oh! Do they not? I think you are wrong. Many of them marry only because +the man they marry makes them afraid. I have seen it done in the country +where I come from;--Germany I mean--and everywhere here it is the same. +I am not a dragon myself; but if you are that sort of woman, these might +help you to pretend. Do you not think you could be afraid of me enough +to marry me?" + +This was strange wooing. + +"I am not afraid of you at all," said Charlotte; "but I like you--very +much." + +"Ah, then you want me to be quite another person? Very well, that make +it so much easier. Then now I will tell you what I am really like; and +you will try not to laugh, will you not?" + +Charlotte composed her countenance to as near gravity as was possible, +and the Prince went on. + +"I am just one little child that has lost its way through having grown +so big and strong. And I want some nice, kind woman, that is more +sensible than I, to be a mother to me--to take me in her arms and let me +cry to her when I am afraid. Herr Gott! I am so frightened +sometimes--how I have cried! Of the dark night, of loneliness, of the +stillness when there is no noise near, but only _that_, something far, +far away, that comes! Everything frightens me when I am alone. Fighting? +No, I am not afraid of that; it is this wait, wait, wait--for what? And +I want to have one woman just at my heart, and her voice at my ear, and +children--yes, plenty of them; and when I have plenty children, then I +shall not be afraid of loneliness any more." + +"But if you so dislike it, why did you go away into the wilds?" + +"Ah! I had to run away from the music. That was awful! And then--have +you lived in a German town?--that is awful too. Do not think that I am +asking you to live in a German town? No: I could not be so cruel. So now +I tell you my secret." + +"You mean the dragons?" + +"The dragons? No, no! They go with me,--they are part of me, they are +'in the know': but they themselves are not the secret. That is much, +much bigger thing still!" + +He paused, and she saw his blue eyes looking far away, as though he had +forgotten her presence. + +"Well?" she said encouragingly, "you are going to tell me, are you not?" + +"Oh, yes! That is what I am come for." His tone was quite business-like +now. + +"That big country I told you of--it belongs to nobody. You know that +those North Americans say that nobody from Europe is to have it, though +they do not use it themselves. Well, I am going to have it." + +"You?" + +"Schnapps-Wasser,--me, with my water-bottles. I have turned them into a +company; and they are going to give for it--well, never mind how much. +But with what my bottles bring me I can make that country so that no +power in the world can prevent it from being a great country to itself." + +"But you say it has no coast?" + +"No--just like Jingalo; that is what makes it strong. If I were foolish, +if I were only going there to make money, I should try to get some +treaty, some concession, some sort of trade-monopoly--rubber, or gum, or +niggers' blood, it is all the same thing--I should try to get that from +the Brazils or the Bolivias or whoever thinks that it is theirs to sell. +I am not such a fool: I do not want to trade, if I have got the people. +They are strong, they can run, they live clean lives--nobody has spoiled +them; they do not want to be rich; they are still a wonderful people; +they know a leader when they have found him. And when they gave me these +dragons that I have on me, then I became their King. That is my secret. +Now!" + +"But if I were to tell people _that_----" + +"Pooh! They would not believe you. 'Mad,' that is what they would say. +'Don't marry that man, he is mad!' And besides I am not King as we talk +of kings here in Europe; they would not pay taxes to me or anybody, but +I can show them what to do. That country on the map may 'belong' to +anybody--the United States may write 'Monroe'--one of their big +'bow-wows' that was--they may write 'Monroe' all round the coasts of +South America and at every port that they like to stick in their noses; +but they cannot get there to say that the people living on that land +shall not become great and strong in their own way, without any one else +to say about it. To those men outside I shall only look like a trader +what is too stupid to trade with them; but all my trade will be among my +own people. That country can live on itself; there, that is my secret! +It wants nothing, nothing from outside at all; and the people want +nothing either. They have great high plateaux where they can live cool; +and they have all the brains and the blood that they want to make +themselves a great nation. I have drilled them; ah, but not German +fashion, no! They are much too splendid for that. Every man is an army +to himself. They do not fear, for in their religion it is forbidden +them. But if you can think of Bersaglieri--which are the best troops in +Europe--able to climb like monkeys, to swim like fish, to go along the +ground like snakes, and to get all by different ways to the same place +in the dark with their eyes shut, though they have never been there +before--for that is how it seems--well, that is what my army is going to +be like. I have ten thousand of them drilled already; in a year I shall +have them armed; and I tell you that at six hundred miles from the +nearest coast nobody will be able to beat them." + +"No, perhaps not with armies," said Charlotte; "but what about +civilization itself--all the evil part of it, I mean? How are you going +to keep that out?" + +"Civilization will find us a bad bargain," said the Prince, "we shall +not trade: that is to be our law. I have told them how dreadful +civilization has become, and they are afraid of it; they will not touch +it with a pair of tongs. Traders may come to us; they shall get nothing, +and we shall get nothing from them. Only the King, with those that he +has for his Council, shall choose what is to bring in from outside; and +that will not be for trade at all. + +"Well, now you know! And it is to be Queen of that country, but never to +wear any crown, that I ask if you are going to marry me?" + +"It would be rather a big adventure, would it not?" said Charlotte. + +"Of course! I thought that is what you like." + +"Yes, so it is. But what about papa? I don't know what he would say if +he knew." + +"Do you always tell him what you do, beforehand, to see if he shall +approve?" + +"I've not done lately," said Charlotte. And then she saw that a suitable +moment for her own confession had arrived. She had very small hope of +shocking him now; but she did her best. + +"Do you know that I have been in prison?" she said. + +"No. Who was it that put you there--your papa?" + +"I put myself." + +"Did you get the keys?" + +"I made them arrest me." + +"How?" + +"I took a policeman's helmet from him, and ran away with it. At least +that is what he said afterwards: I don't know whether it was true." + +"Beautiful!" exclaimed the Prince in ravished tone. He did not turn a +hair; it was merely as though he were listening to some fairy tale. + +"But very likely it was!" persisted Charlotte, anxious for the worst to +be believed; and then she gave him a full account of the whole thing. + +"And what for did you do it?" he inquired when she had finished. + +"Because they had told me that you were coming, and I had promised not +to run away." + +"I do not understand?" + +"Well, I didn't know what you were like; and I didn't want you to think +I was a bit anxious to meet you.--That was all!" + +"That was all, was it?" Enlightenment dawned on him; he beamed at her +benevolently. + +"And I wanted to see," she continued, "whether you would be shocked: at +least, I wanted to give you the chance of being." + +"Well, you have given it me, and I am not; I am delighted. The more +women can do that sort of thing the better--pull men's heads off, I +mean." + +"Goodness me!" exclaimed Charlotte, "but I'm not going on doing it." + +"Why not? A good thing done twice is better." + +The simplicity of his approval left her without words. + +"In that country where you and I are going to," went on the Prince, +imperturbably, "the women can fight just as well as the men. They are +trained to wrestle; and before they allow to marry they must have +wrestled off on to his back a man as old as themselves." + +"But the men?" cried Charlotte, astonished. "How can they stand being +beaten by women?" + +"Pooh, that is nonsense!" said Fritz; "men do not mind being beaten by +women unless it is that they despise them. In that country the woman +that has thrown most men is the one that they are most anxious to +marry." + +"I have never thrown any one yet," said Charlotte reflectively. + +"You!" Peaceful of look he eyed her wonderingly. "You have thrown +something much stronger than a man," he said--"you, a princess, that has +gone to prison!--and for that silly notion of yours that you could shock +me. Ha!" + +"I did it for other reasons, too." + +"Quite like; people may have a lot of reasons they can make up +afterwards for doing wise, brave, foolish things like that!" + +"But I did think," insisted Charlotte, "that those Women Chartists were +right." + +"I do not care whether they are right or wrong;--that is not my concern. +They may be just as foolish as you, or just as wise--what difference to +me? But when I go to think of you sitting there in that common prison +all those ten days with everybody looking for you--looking, looking, and +not daring to say one word--so afraid at what you had done--oh, that is +marvelous! That is to be a King! That is power!" + +Charlotte had become very attentive to her lover's praise. "You think +they were really afraid, then?" she inquired, "afraid that it should be +known." + +"You ask them!" replied Fritz, "and see if they do not all cry 'Hush'!" + +And then in his usual abrupt way he returned to matters more personal to +himself. + +"Well, what are you going to say to me? For the last hour I have been +asking you to marry me, and you have said nothing; only just 'wriggle, +wriggle,' talking off on to something else." + +"Wriggling is one way of wrestling," said Charlotte. Her eye played +mischief as she spoke. + +"Just waggling the tongue!" retorted Fritz with genial scorn. "Throw a +man with that?--you cannot throw me!" + +"But I must throw somebody, or else I shall not be qualified. The women +of that wonderful country of yours would look down on me." + +"Throw me!" The Prince opened his arms, smiling. "I will let you!" he +said. + +"And despise me afterwards! No, Mr. Schnapp-dragon, I shall choose my +own man, and throw him in my own way." + +"And if you succeed?" + +"Then--yes, then I will marry you." + +"And if you fail?" + +"Then I won't." + +"H'm!" observed the Prince in easy-going tones, "you must have been very +sure of him before you would say that!" + +Charlotte opened her mouth to rebuke that brazen remark; and then shut +it again. + +"When do you do it?" went on Fritz, equable as ever. "Before I go?" + +Charlotte pretended to temporize. "Well, perhaps to-morrow," said she. + +And sure enough, to-morrow it was. + + +II + +Nobody in Jingalo knows to this day what finally induced the Prime +Minister to concede so unexpectedly that preliminary point of vantage--a +mere foothold among the interstices of the ministerial program--which +the Women Chartists had so long and vainly striven for. What use they +made of the opportunity thus accorded has now become a matter of +history: we need not go into it here. + +No royal message to ministers in Council assembled worked that miracle; +for, as we shall see in another chapter, the King's mind was destined at +this point to be suddenly distracted in quite other ways; and when he +was again able to turn his attention anywhere but to himself he found +that and other matters which had disturbed his conscience tending with +comparative smoothness toward a solution in which he personally had had +little share. + +But though Jingalo knows nothing of these inner workings of history, we +peering behind the scenes may note how, when bureaucracy is bent on +keeping up appearances, fear of scandal can become more potent to +constitutional ends than love of justice. + +Never in his long career had the Prime Minister known so flagrant an +instance of blackmail unpunishable by law as that which the Princess +Charlotte sprung on him when, in brief interview, she dictated the terms +on which alone the Ann Juggins episode was to be allowed to sink into +oblivion. And perhaps one can hardly wonder, under the circumstances, +that even then he did not feel secure, and was anxious to see so +incalculable a "sport" or variant of the royal breed removed to a safe +distance. For even though he might rely on her word as to the past, +where was his guarantee that she might not do the same thing again? + +"That Prime Minister is very anxious to get rid of you," said Prince +Fritz when at a later date he and the Princess began once more to +compare notes as to future plans, when in fact the joyful news of their +engagement was about to be publicly announced in a general uproar of +thanksgiving. + +"Oh, yes," went on Fritz, enjoying the retrospect, "one could see that +quite well. He was putting on my boots for me all the time, and was +willing to pay a good deal more for the accommodation than he had +expected me to ask." + +"Pay?" + +"Yes, dearest; but it all goes into your pocket, not mine. It is the +price he pays for your character; that is all." + +"But what has my character to do with him?" + +"Your character, beloved," said the Prince, turning upon her an adoring +gaze, "leaves him with no moment in which he can feel safe. He thinks +that you have 'a great vitality,' but here not enough scope. And he +seems that he cannot govern this country so long as you stay in it. I +think him very wise. Shall I tell you what I did?" + +"Well?" + +"I made a bargain." + +"About me?" + +"Of course about you, beloved--for you; who else except would I bargain +for? Besides was it about anything but your business that he and I were +having to seek each other? Well, because you so frighten him now he pays +rather more to get rid of you; and you, oh my dear heart's beloved, you +will get more. That is all that your Fritz had to do yesterday--and he +has done it. So now!" + +And then, well pleased with himself, the practical Fritz let his +romantic side appear again, and for two minutes or so he lived up to the +sky-like blueness of his eyes and the childlike gentleness of his face, +and because his heart was very full of love he talked his own native +German, and not Jingalese any more. + +And these two sides of him are here given so that the reader, if kindly +anxious about Charlotte's future, may trouble about her no more; for +when your idealist is also a very practical man of business he can, up +to the capacity of his brain-power, go anywhere and do anything, and +even in a land that is outside Baedeker will assuredly find his feet. +Not for nothing had Prince Hans Fritz Otto of Schnapps-Wasser turned his +bottled industry of home-waters into a company. + +In tentative motherings of her gigantic babe, Charlotte had forgotten +all about money and business affairs when once more the practical man in +him came out of childish disguise to make an inquiry. + +"Beloved," said he, "tell me--was he that man?" + +"Which man?" inquired Charlotte innocently. + +"The one that you wrestled with?" + +Charlotte nodded; a smile flickered over her face. + +"And you got him down?" + +"Yes." + +"Quite down?" + +"As flat as he could go." + +"And that is why you marry me?" + +The two lovers exchanged sweet looks of candor and honesty. + +"Yes," said Charlotte, smiling, "that is why." + +"O Beloved," murmured the infatuated Fritz, "how beautifully you do tell +lies." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +"CALL ME JACK!" + + + + +It was noticed when the King came down to the first Council of the new +session that his face was flushed and his manner strangely discomposed. +He barely returned the respectful greetings of his ministers, and by +postponement of the customary invitation to be seated, kept them out of +their chairs for quite an appreciable time. Standing awkwardly about +the board they looked like a group of carrion crows awaiting the +symptoms of death before descending to their meal. To none did he accord +any word of personal recognition. + +Even when proceedings had commenced it was evident that his attention +constantly wandered, only returning by fits and starts at the call of +some chance phrase on which now and again he would seize, remarking in a +tone of irritation, "And what does this mean, please?" And thereafter he +would require to be instructed at some length, as though he had +forgotten all current or preceding events. + +In consequence of this the formal reports of the various departments +became a lengthy business; and the really important matters, to discuss +which the Council had been specially called, were proportionally +delayed. + +Presently the word "strikes" caught his ear. + +"Ah, yes, what about those strikes?" he inquired. + +"They are still going on, your Majesty." + +"Yes, _I_ know that! Why are they going on--that's what I want to know? +The strike you are talking about was practically over more than a month +ago; why has it begun again?" + +"They have secured fresh funds, sir, and other trades have joined in." + +"Is it the other trades that are finding the funds?" + +"Not entirely, sir; large contributions are now coming in from abroad." + +"From abroad?" interjected the King irritably, "where are they getting +funds from abroad?" + +"From England, sir." + +"From the Government, do you mean?" + +"Of course not from the Government, sir." + +"Well, explain yourself, then! Don't call it England if it isn't +England." + +"I might almost say that it is England, sir, since a judicial decision +is the immediate cause of it. Labor in that country has just won a very +important action for damages arising out of a Crown prosecution. It has +now been decided that the Crown is responsible for the torts of its +civil and military agents. The unions in consequence are flush with +funds, and a portion of the Court's award, amounting to £50,000, has +been handed over to the strike fund in this country." + +"And this subsidy from a foreign and a so-called friendly Power is +having the effect of prolonging our industrial conflicts, and is doing +damage to our trade?" + +"Undoubtedly, sir, it has that effect." + +"Well, and has nothing been said about it--to the English Government, I +mean?" + +"It is not a direct act of the Government, sir." + +"I don't need to be told that," said the King. "Neither was it a direct +act of the Government when a party of English undergraduates climbed to +the top of our embassy and hauled down the national flag because +Jingalese had been made a compulsory substitute for Greek at their +universities. But for that the English Government apologized, publicly +and privately, and all round. Do they apologize for this? Do they offer +to compensate us for the loss it is to our trade and the corresponding +gain to theirs? Have they been asked to apologize?" + +"Certainly not, sir." + +"And pray, why not?" + +By this time, around the ministerial board, much open-eyed interrogation +was going on. Where, they seemed to be asking, was this glut of foolish +interrogations going to end? But still the minister under examination +endeavored to answer as though the questions were reasonable. + +"There would be no chance, sir, of obtaining any redress." + +"Yet this is doing us infinitely more harm?" + +"It is merely a development, sir, of that new thing called +'syndicalism.' It is cropping up everywhere now." + +"It may be new as it likes," protested the King. "All I say is that as +it stands it is a casus belli. You say it is cropping up; all the more +reason why it should be put down! What else is government for? Take +cattle disease; you put that down, you do not allow that to be imported. +Why should you allow syndicalism to be imported either?" + +The Council sought resignation of spirit in sighs and looked to its +Chief in mute appeal. + +"How would your Majesty propose to prevent the importation of ideas?" +inquired the Prime Minister dryly, in a tone that tried to be patient. + +"Don't tell me," said the King, "that a syndicalist subsidy to Labor of +£50,000 is only an idea. But you are quite right, Mr. Prime Minister; in +the past countries have gone to war largely over the importation of +ideas, as you call them, either religious or social; that is why they +failed. England went to war with France at the end of the eighteenth +century merely because France was importing revolutionary ideas into +England. Was she able to prevent it? No; she only got the disease in a +much more virulent form herself, and has been running tandem to it ever +since. It is no use going to war for sentimental reasons; you must do it +for business reasons, and you must do it in a business-like way." + +"Merely as a matter of business, sir," said the Prime Minister, his +hopefulness now on a descending scale, "war with England would cost us +considerably more than the loss of trade occasioned by this subsidy +which you complain of." + +"Not a bit of it!" retorted the King, "not if you went the right way to +work. The Chancellor was saying just now that we should have to devise +some fresh taxes. Well, put a tax on Englishmen; quite enough of them +come here to make it worth while. Every summer the place is alive with +them!" + +"I am afraid, sir," said the Prime Minister, sighing wearily, "that the +most favored nation clause stands in the way of your Majesty's brilliant +suggestion." + +"Not if we do it openly as an act of war," explained the King; "then it +becomes a war tax. That's what I mean when I say conduct your wars on +business lines. Don't tax yourself, tax your enemy! England is the one +country we can fight on our own terms. She can't get at us. We are an +inland power; there isn't a coast within three hundred miles of us; and +Dreadnoughts can't walk on land, you know. They really can't!" he added, +as though there might be some doubt among those who had not yet given +the matter their consideration. + +"I assure you, gentlemen, that war on England, if scientifically +conducted, would be a profitable thing. I've been reading a book by a +man named Norman Angell, who says that war doesn't pay. Well, the reason +for that is we don't conduct our wars on the proper lines. Now if we +made war on England----" + +"Your Majesty," entreated the Prime Minister, "may we proceed to +business?" + +"If we made war on England," persisted the King, "we should not have to +send out a single regiment, or impose any extra taxation on ourselves; +in fact we should save. We should simply raise our railway and hotel +tariffs fifteen or twenty per cent. to all Englishmen, except children +in arms; children up to thirteen half price. There's the whole thing in +a nutshell; no difficulty, no difficulty whatever." + +At this point, to the Premier's annoyance, Professor Teller took up the +question with a humorous appreciation of its possibilities. + +"But, sir," he inquired, "how should we know that they were Englishmen? +They might disguise themselves as Americans." + +"They couldn't!" said the King. "An Englishman trying to talk American +makes as poor an exhibition of himself as an American trying to talk +English; and besides, you don't know the British character! Penalize +them in the way I am suggesting and they would flaunt their nationality +in our faces; they would wear Union-jack waistcoats and carry in their +pockets gramophones which played 'God save the King' when you touched +them. They would make a point of showing us that they didn't care +twopence for our fifteen per cent.; in fact, their Tariff Reformers +would applaud us--they would put it in large headlines in all their +newspapers, and call it an object lesson and would demand a general +election on the strength of it." + +"But supposing, sir," inquired the Professor, "that they did not come at +all? We have to remember that we live largely by our tourists; and if we +eliminate the English tourist----" + +"Better and better," said the King. "Think how popular we should be with +the rest of Europe! No English? The Germans would simply flock to us; +our hotels would be crammed; we should be turning away money at the +door." + +The Prime Minister tapped wearily upon the table; all this was such +utter waste of time; and he began to think that the King was so +intending it, and was bent upon making a royal Council a constitutional +impossibility. + +But in some curious magnetic way other members of the Cabinet were now +beginning to be infected. The idea tickled their national vanity; and +though it was all put in a very amateurish way, many of them saw well +enough that for war to be retained as a solution of international +problems something on these lines would have to be done for it. +Syndicalism was merely a showing of the way. + +"But, your Majesty," inquired the President of the Board of Ways and +Means, "might not England retaliate by declaring a Tariff war on us?" + +"She might," said the King; "but not with the Liberals still in power; +they couldn't reduce themselves to absurdity in that way. Still, +supposing our declaration of war threw the Liberals out, what could the +others do? Our trade in English goods comes to us mainly through France +or Germany; and our own return trade is chiefly limited to our native +crockery, toys, wood-carving, and needlework, supposed survivals of our +peasant industries, which, as a matter of fact, are nearly all of them +manufactured for us in Birmingham, the home of Tariff Reform. In that +matter, by the taxing of articles which are only nominally made in +Jingalo, English trade would suffer more than ours; and there might, in +consequence, come about a real revival of our native crafts (an +advantage which I had not previously thought of)--lacking our usual +supply of the bogus article we should at last become honest in our +professions and truthful in our trademarks. Let the Minister for Home +Industries make a note of it." + +"The prospect your Majesty holds out is certainly alluring," replied the +minister thus appealed to; "but if war is to teach us moral lessons, +surely we ought to have moral reasons for engaging in it as well as +business ones." + +"Well, if you want them, you've got them!" said the King. "If moral +reasons were to count we ought to have been at war with England any day +for the last fifty years. England has become--if she has not always +been--a center of infection to the whole of Europe. Every disastrous +experiment on which we have embarked has come from her. By her gross +mismanagement of established institutions--the Church, the Peerage, the +Army, Land, Labor, Capital--the whole system of voluntary service and +voluntary education--she has driven the rest of Europe into +revolutionary changes for which there was no necessity whatever. In +avoiding the woeful example she has set us, of always standing still on +the wrong leg, we have run ourselves off both our own. And now she is +nourishing syndicalism like a bed of weeds, and sowing the seeds of it +into her neighbors' territories. If you are looking for moral excuse +there is no end to it; I preferred, however, to put it to you as a +business proposition." + +"I must assure your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, "that your +Majesty's present advisers have no intention whatever of making +themselves responsible for a war on England, however advantageous the +circumstances may seem." + +He might as well have spoken to the wind; with an increasing volubility +of utterance the King went on-- + +"If it were decided," said he, "that an actual invasion of England were +advisable, I have three separate plans now forming in my head, all +equally feasible and promising, and all capable of being put into +operation at one and the same time. Each one, in fact, would serve to +divert attention from the others." + +It may be noted that at this point Professor Teller suddenly ceased to +be amused; his look of half-quizzical detachment becoming changed to one +of gravity, almost of distress; his Majesty's "pace" had apparently +become too much for him. + +"We know, for instance," pursued the King, "that if we succeeded in +effecting a landing the German waiters would rise as one man and join us +as volunteers. Germany would, of course, officially disown them, while +for the purposes of the war we should give them letters of Jingalese +naturalization on their enlistment; these, which they would carry in +their knapsacks, would prevent them from being shot in the event of +their being taken prisoners. Our own army of twenty thousand picked +Jingalese sharp-shooters would go to England disguised as tourists. Each +in his bag would carry a complete military outfit; our new uniforms are +so like those of the English territorials that they would arouse no +suspicion at the Customs House, and even when worn only experts would +know the difference. At a given signal----" + +There the Prime Minister, having extracted a look of despairing +encouragement from the Council, got upon his feet. + +"I have to ask your Majesty," he said very resolutely, "that we may now +be allowed to proceed to the business for which we have been called +together." + +"At a given signal----" went on the King. + +"I must protest, your Majesty." + +It was quite useless. + +"At a given signal--I will give you your signal, Mr. Prime Minister, +when you may throw your bomb; yes, for I have seen you preparing it!--at +a given signal when the King and his Parliament were assembled together +in one place, some of our forces would mingle with the crowd; others +emerging from places of concealment would form into ranks and advance +from various quarters upon Westminster. Then, before any one was aware, +we would cable our declaration of war, rush the House, seize the heads +of the Government, carry them off to the topmost story of the clock +tower, garrison it from basement to roof, and there, with the King and +his whole Cabinet in our hands, stand siege till the rest of the nation +sued for peace." + +Once more the Prime Minister endeavored to interpose; he was borne down. + +"They could not blow us up," went on the King, "without blowing our +prisoners up also; they could not starve us out, for the King and his +Cabinet would perforce have to share our privations. We should have in +our possession not only the whole personnel of the Government, but that +supreme symbol and safeguard of the popular will which crowns their +constitutional edifice. And, gentlemen, you may think me as mad as you +like--you may arrest me, you may take me to the police-station, you may +rob me of all the evidence of conspiracy I have against you, and you may +call me Jack--jack-of-all-trades, master of none--Jack, plain Jack----" + +The Prime Minister and Council sprang to their feet. Consternation was +upon the faces of all. + +"But nothing! nothing!" he went on, "no power on earth--except it were a +whole army of steeplejacks----" + +At that word the flow of his eloquence ceased; his mouth remained open +but no sound came from it. Suddenly his staring eyes puckered and +closed, wincing as from a blow; and his face flushed to a fiery red, +then paled. + +He gave a short cry, threw out an arm feebly; wavered, toppled, crumpled +like a thing without bone, and fell back into his chair. + +"My God!" muttered the Prime Minister. "Oh, great Heaven!" + +Some one, more nimble of wit than the rest, dashed out of the room to +seek aid. All the others, impressed with a true sense of incompetence, +stood looking at their fallen King. Not one of them knew how to handle +him, whether it were best to lay him down or leave him alone. First +aid--even to their sovereign lord--had formed no part in the education +of these his counselors. + +The Prime Minister did the one thing which he knew to be correct--and +which could not possibly do harm; he felt the King's heart. But nobody +for a moment supposed him to be dead; unconscious though he lay, his +heavy breathings could be seen and heard. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING + + + + +I + +For three whole weeks thereafter--if the papers were to be believed--the +entire nation hung upon the bulletins which were issued hourly from the +royal palace. The King's illness gave the finishing touch to his +popularity; devotion to affairs of State had brought on brain-fever, and +the more desperate the symptoms of the illness could be made to appear, +the more sublime became the moral character of its august victim, and +the more deeply-rooted the affection of his people. + +Professional vanity had also to be flattered; and during those fierce +fluctuations of hope and despair, Jingalo's topmost place in the world +of medical science became vindicated to the meanest intelligence. If by +a scientific miracle the King's life was to be saved, Jingalese +doctoring, and no other doctoring in the world would do it. + +Nobly the press performed its task of giving to every factor in the +situation its due prominence; even the Church got its share; and when +favorable bulletins became the order of the day, their origin was +generously ascribed, even by the ministerial press, almost as much to +the prayers of the people publicly offered as to the skill of the six +best medical authorities. But when all was said and done it was to the +King's marvelous constitution, his patient courage, and his quiet +submission to the hands of his nurses (foremost of whom was her Majesty +the Queen), that the praise was chiefly due; for it was necessary, in +order to complete the situation, that the loyalty so nobly tendered +should be nobly earned. + +And nobly tendered it certainly was. Never could the nation have had so +good an opinion of itself as during those dark weeks when, taught by +its press the meanings of the various symptoms, it sat by the King's bed +feeling his pulse, holding his breath, and scarcely daring to raise any +voice above a whisper. Various sections of the public were informed in +their daily journals how they and other sections were behaving +themselves; how business men went to office almost apologetically, and +only because they could not help themselves; how nursemaids hushed the +voices of their charges as they wheeled them past the precincts of the +palace for their morning's airing in the royal park; and how Jingalo +only consented to its accustomed portion of beer in order that it might +drink to the King's health and his quick recovery. + +Every week in the streets at the back of the palace fresh straw was laid +down, not so much for the benefit of the sufferer (whose room was too +far away for any sound of traffic to disturb him), but as a stimulus to +popular imagination. The men who laid it down performed their task as +though the eye of the whole nation were upon them; and even upon the +Stock Exchange one learned that the rise and fall of prices were but the +harmonious accompaniment of a stupendous national anxiety. + +All these things Jingalo was told by its newspapers, and some of them +were true; and in the reading and the doing of them how Jingalo enjoyed +itself! It had never had such a time of feeling good, unselfish, and +thoughtful on a large and homogeneous scale, without having to do +anything particularly unpleasant in return. The theaters suffered, but +not nearly so much as the charities; for though Jingalo was still able +decorously to amuse itself--and did so at her Majesty's special request, +for the sake of trade--it could not have its heart successfully wrung by +human compassion in more than one direction at a time--at least, not to +the same extent. And so, charitable appeals had to wait till a livelier +sense of gratitude prompted by the King's recovery should revive them. + +In the conduct of human affairs association plays a very curious part. +When a man is shouting for joy he can scatter largesse with a free hand, +but he cannot loosen his purse-strings while he is holding his breath; +and even when it is only being held for him by a sort of hypnotic +suggestion, his nature is still undergoing a certain impedimental +strain. + +And as a visible embodiment to all this strain of calculation and +suspense, small crowds could be seen standing constantly at the gates of +the palace, waiting for bulletins and watching with a curious +fascination the flag that so obstinately continued to float mast high. +They watched it as a crowd watches for a similar sign outside the walls +of a jail: not that they wanted it to fall--but still, if it had to, +they dearly wished that they might be there to see. Thus, even in their +griefs, did the sporting instincts of the Jingalese people rise to the +surface and bring them a consolation which nothing else could afford. + +My readers will give me credit, I trust, for not having sought to impose +on them that fear of impending doom, that apprehension of what the next +hour might bring forth, on the strength of which the Jingalese press so +sedulously ran its extra editions from day to day. I have never for a +moment pretended that the King was going to die, seeing, on the +contrary, that he was destined to make a complete recovery. But he was +not to be quite the same man again--not at least that man whom we have +seen in these pages bumping his way conscientiously through a period of +constitutional crisis. For when the six Jingalese medicos came to put +their heads together over him, they found in the back of his head a +small dislodgment of bone, rather less than the size of a florin, and +protruding almost an eighth of an inch from the surface of the skull. +Great was their speculation as to how such a thing could have come about +without their knowing it--for here, of course, was the root of the whole +mischief. This fracture, brought about perhaps by some flying fragment +of bomb, unnoticed in the excitement of the moment and afterwards +ignored, had evidently been the cause of the brain-fever; and when a +cause of this sort is discovered nothing is easier for medical science +than to put it right again. + +And so, seeing that the bone was out of place, they put it back just +where it ought to be, that is to say, where it had been. And as soon as +that was done, and the right pressure once more restored to the King's +brain, then his temperature went down, his delirium abated, and his +mind, as it gradually came back to him, recovered the dull, safe, and +retiring qualities which had belonged to it a year ago; and with its old +constitutional balance restored to it, it became once more contented +with its limitations and surroundings, and made a very quiet, happy, and +peaceful convalescence. And though on his recovery the King still +remembered the events of the past months they appeared to him rather in +the light of a bad dream than as a slice of real life. + +The Prime Minister came to see him on the very first day when he was +allowed to sit up and receive visitors, and they met without any sign of +constraint or enmity. + +"Well, Mr. Prime Minister, how are things going?" inquired the King. + +"Very well, indeed, sir," replied the minister, "now that your Majesty +has taken the necessary step to relieve us of all anxiety. And, though I +have not come on this occasion to intrude politics, it may interest you, +sir, to hear that on the question of the Spiritual Chamber, the +Archbishop and I have come to an arrangement, and the necessary +legislation is to be carried through by the consent of both parties." + +"Very gratifying, I am sure," said the King. "How did it come about?" + +The Prime Minister hesitated. "Well, sir," he said, "there were several +contributing causes: I need not go into them all. The one thing, +however, which made some modification of our plans clearly necessary was +the death of the Archimandrite of Cappadocia. After that our proposed +consecration of Free Churchmen to the new bishoprics ceased to be +possible. No doubt your Majesty will feel relieved." + +"Yes, I am," murmured the King mildly. + +And so was the Prime Minister; for that event, happening so fortuitously +at the right moment, had saved his face; his political retreat was +covered, partly at any rate, by the death--in a queer odor of sanctity +all his own--of that exiled patriarch of the Eastern Church. + +His exit, though opportune, had not been dramatic; attention being at +the moment otherwise directed. His two wives nursed him devotedly to the +end, and wrapped him for burial in the magnificent cape which in his +brief day of political importance the Prime Minister had given him. Very +quietly and unostentatiously he was laid to rest under the rites of an +alien Church--for his own would have none of him; nor was there any one +left to say of him now, in the land of his exile and temporary +adoption, "Ah, Lord," or "Ah, his glory!" Only in his duplicated +domestic circle was he in anywise missed; polities had shifted the +ground from under him, and he had become negligible. + + +II + +The King's recovery was the event of the new year, not only giving it an +auspicious send-off, but lending thereafter a peculiar flavor to the +whole social calendar. For months, addresses of congratulation kept +coming in from all the societies and public bodies in the kingdom, and +at every philanthropic function in which any member of royalty took part +during the next twelve-month it gave pith to all the speeches and +focussed the applause. Its influences extended to every department of +public life; it affected politics, trade, public holiday, art, science; +it invaded literature, increased the circulation of the newspapers, and +lent inspiration even to poetry. + +And those being the facts, how useless for satirists and cynics to +pretend any longer that monarchy as an institution was not firmly and +inextricably imbedded in the very life and habits of the Jingalese +people? + +Even at the universities the theme chosen for the prize poem that year +was the King's recovery from sickness; and though the prizes were few an +unusually large number of the rejected poems, owing to the popularity of +their subject, were published in the local newspapers. Perhaps only a +few of them were good, but one at least achieved success, and was +recited at all charity bazaars, concerts, and theatrical entertainments +given in the ensuing year. One couplet alone shall be here quoted, +portraying as it does in graphic phrase the national suspense during +those weeks of prolonged crisis when telegram after telegram continued +to pour monotonous negation on the hopes of an expectant people-- + + "Swift o'er the wires the electric message came, + He is no better: he is much the same!" + +Even amateur reciters could make an effect out of lines like that. Many +of them did, and on one occasion the Princess Charlotte was a +conspicuous member of the touched and attentive audience. It was a +difficult moment for her, but with the help of a handkerchief she +concealed her emotion, and the papers referred to it appreciatively as a +touching incident. + +The joy-bells that rang for a King's recovery, rang also for the public +announcement of a royal betrothal. Prince Fritz had returned to the +enchantment of his Charlotte's society at the earliest possible moment, +and was in consequence one of the royal family group which went in state +to the Cathedral to return thanks for the sovereign's restoration to +health. + +Across that bright scene we have to note the passing of one shadow +which, though not of impenetrable gloom, should not fail to enlist the +equable sympathy of kindly hearts. Max still moved upon the public stage +with a pensive and a chastened air. In the last month he had matured +visibly, yet he did not mourn as one without hope, for he remembered +that in the Church of Jingalo virginity could only vow itself for a +limited number of years, and he knew that time could bring wisdom to +inexperience, and make conspicuous the virtue of a heart that would not +take "no." Also he had certain fireworks up his sleeve whose brightness, +when they were let off, would penetrate even to the most cloistral +abode--he had, that is to say, his Royal Commission to work on, and the +preparation of a minority report which could not fail, when it was +divulged, to startle the world. He was even beginning to have hopes that +three or four others would sign it; for to be in a minority with royalty +has its charm. + +But though he still believed in the future he was for the moment in very +solitary plight. His Countess, to whom alone he could go for comfort in +his grief, had cried over him and kissed him with all the motherly +kindness imaginable; and then, disturbed by the very depth of her pity +and afraid of what might come of it--her heart being but tender +clay--had suddenly packed up her traps and flown, leaving, if you would +like to know, most of her jewels behind her. And Max, sending after her +with his own hands those souvenirs of the past, had added a few tender +words of regret and thanks which to her dying day that good woman +cherished and said her prayers over. + + +III + +The Thanksgiving was a very splendid affair; but the people who liked it +least were the piebald ponies. Never in their lives did they so narrowly +escape a hugging at the hands of the great unwashed; and this unwelcome +demonstration as directed against them was quite without reason or +excuse. They had not had brain-fever, or bones put back into place, or +made miraculous recoveries from anything; and they practically said as +much when resenting the liberties that were taken with them. All they +knew was that they were doing rather more than their usual tale of work; +and in consequence they were a little cross. Nothing serious happened, +however, and while waiting at the Cathedral doors they were given sugar +which quieted them down wonderfully. + +Inside the Cathedral all that was great and good and noble in Jingalo +had assembled to celebrate the occasion; and in its midst, still looking +rather frail and delicate after his illness, sat the King with the Royal +Family. To right and left of him sat judges, bishops, lords, ladies, +members of the House of Laity, staff officers, diplomatists, mayors, and +corporations, heads of public departments, all very gorgeously arrayed +in their official uniforms; and there amongst the rest sat a compact +bunch of prominent Free Churchmen in black gowns--their chances of +episcopal preferment flown. + +With triumphant suavity the Archbishop of Ebury conducted the service, +assisted by deans, chapters, bishops, and a dozen cathedral choirs. +Something in G was being intoned; the Archbishop was in splendid voice. + +He asked that the King might be saved; and, man and boy, the twelve +choirs were with him. + +He asked a blessing on the Church; and his prayer was seconded. + +He implored wisdom for Cabinet ministers; that, it was agreed, would add +to the national satisfaction. + +"In our time, O Lord, give peace!" + +Peace: the echoes of that blessed word thrilled down the vaulted aisles +of the Cathedral. + +Put into another form that might mean, "After our time, the deluge." But +the better word had been chosen: "Peace." + +To the King's ear it came with all the softness of a caress; he welcomed +it, for it meant much to him. And thinking of all that was now happily +past he rubbed his hands. + +The watchful reporters in the press-gallery above took notes of that; to +them, whose duty that day was to interpret all things on a high and +spiritual plane, it betokened the stress of a fine emotion, and in their +grandiloquent reports of that solemn ceremony they set it down so and +published it. + +Yet as a matter of fact, the King had only rubbed his hands. And, truly +interpreted, his thoughts ran thus--"Peace? Well, yes, I think that now +I have earned it! Here am I, still King of Jingalo, alive and in my +right mind. During the last few months I have abdicated--put myself off +the throne, and been blown on to it again by a bomb engineered by my own +Prime Minister; I have been arrested, I have been locked up in a police +cell, I have committed robbery, and in my own palace been robbed again. +My daughter has been in prison for ten days as a common criminal; my son +seriously assaulted by the police, and for about four months +surreptitiously engaged to the daughter of an Archbishop; while a +revolutionary and seditious book written by him as a direct attack on +the Constitution and on society has been providentially burned to the +ground--that also, probably, at the instigation of my ministers. And +though all this has been going on in their midst, making history, +bringing changes to pass or preventing them, the people of Jingalo know +nothing whatever about it. What a wonderful country is the country of +Jingalo!" + +And at that happy conclusion of the whole matter the King had rubbed his +hands. + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's King John of Jingalo, by Laurence Housman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING JOHN OF JINGALO *** + +***** This file should be named 18498-8.txt or 18498-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/9/18498/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: King John of Jingalo + The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties + +Author: Laurence Housman + +Release Date: June 4, 2006 [EBook #18498] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING JOHN OF JINGALO *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>KING JOHN OF JINGALO</h1> + +<h3>THE STORY OF A MONARCH IN DIFFICULTIES</h3> + +<h2>BY LAURENCE HOUSMAN</h2> + + +<h4>NEW YORK<br /> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br /> +1912</h4> + + + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1912,<br /> +<span class="smcap">BY</span><br /> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br /> +<i>Published November, 1912</i></h4> + +<h4>THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS<br /> +RAHWAY, N. J.</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">A Domestic Interior</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">Accidents Will Happen</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Wild Oats and Widows' Weeds</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">Popular Monarchy</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">Church and State</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">Of Things not Expected</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">The Old Order</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">Pace-making in Politics</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">The New Endymion</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">King and Council</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">A Royal Commission</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">An Arrival and a Departure</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">A Promissory Note</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. <span class="smcap">Heads or Tails</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. <span class="smcap">A Deed Without a Name</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. <span class="smcap">Concealment and Discovery</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. <span class="smcap">The Incredible Thing Happens</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. <span class="smcap">The King's Night Out</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. <span class="smcap">The Spiritual Power</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. <span class="smcap">The Thorn and the Flesh</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. <span class="smcap">Night-light</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. <span class="smcap">A Man of Business</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. "<span class="smcap">Call Me Jack</span>"</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. <span class="smcap">The Voice of Thanksgiving</span></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>KING JOHN OF JINGALO</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h2>A DOMESTIC INTERIOR</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The King of Jingalo had just finished breakfast in the seclusion of the +royal private apartments. Turning away from the pleasantly deranged +board he took up one of the morning newspapers which lay neatly folded +upon a small gilt-legged table beside him. Then he looked at his watch.</p> + +<p>This action was characteristic of his Majesty: doing one thing always +reminded him that presently he would have to be doing another. +Conscientious to a fault, he led a harassed and over-occupied life, +which was not the less wearisome in its routine because no clear results +ever presented themselves within his own range of vision. By an unkind +stroke of fortune he had been called to the rule of a kingdom that had +grown restive under the weight of too much tradition; and +constitutionally he was unable to let it alone. So must he now remind +himself in the hour of his privacy how all too fleeting were its +moments, and how soon he would have to project himself elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Glancing across the table towards his consort he saw that she was still +engrossed in the opening of her letters—large stiff envelopes, +conspicuously crested, containing squarish sheets of unfolded +note-paper; for it was a rule of the Court that no creased +correspondence should ever solicit the attention of the royal eye, and +that all letters should be written upon one side only. The Queen was +very fond of receiving these spacious missives; though they contained +little of importance they came to her from half the crowned heads of +Europe, as well as from the most select circle of Jingalese aristocracy. +They gave occupation to two secretaries, and were a daily reminder to +her Majesty that, in her own country at any rate, she was the +acknowledged leader of society.</p> + +<p>Having looked at his watch the King said: "My dear, what are you going +to do to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Really," replied the Queen, "I don't quite know; I have not yet looked +at my diary."</p> + +<p>Her Majesty seldom did know anything of the day's program until she had +consulted her secretaries, who, with dovetailing ingenuity, arranged her +hours and booked to each day—often many months in advance—the +engagements which lay ahead. Therein she showed a calmer and more +philosophic temperament than her consort. The King always knew; every +day of his life with anxious forecast he consulted his diary while +shaving, and breakfasted with its troubling details fresh upon his +recollection.</p> + +<p>Having answered his inquiry the Queen relapsed into her correspondence, +while the King resumed his newspaper; and the moment may be regarded as +propitious for presenting the reader with a portrait of these two august +personages, since so good an opportunity may not occur again. The kind +of portrait we offer is, of course, of an up-to-date and biographical +character, and does not limit itself to those circumstances of time and +space in which the commencement of this history has landed us.</p> + +<p>So, first, we take the King,—not as we have just found him, seated at a +table with chair turned sideways and features sharply illuminated by the +reflected lights of the journal he holds in his hands—for thus we do +not see him to advantage, and it is to advantage that we would exhibit +in its externals a character of which, before we have done with it, we +intend to grow fond. Time and space must provide us with a broader view +of him than that.</p> + +<p>This King had been upon the throne for twenty-five years; and during +that period, like a rich wine in the wood, monarchy had mellowed within +him, permeating his system with its mild and slightly dry flavor; it had +become as it were a habit, and he carried it quite naturally, almost +unconsciously, though with just a suspicion of weight, much as a scholar +carries his learning or a workman his bag of tools.</p> + +<p>A pleasantly florid face, quaintly expressive of an importance about +which its owner was undecided, imposed above a fullish waistcoat a chin +which was now tending toward the slopes of middle age. The eyes were +mild and vaguely speculative, the lips full and loosely formed, and when +they smiled they began tentatively in a tremulous lift showing only the +two upper front teeth—the smile of a woman rather than of a man. This +smile—when it made, as it so often had to make, its appearance in +public—was curiously suggestive of interrogation. "Am I now meant to +smile?" it seemed to say. "Very good, then I will." This tentatively +advanced smile of a countenance so highly exalted for others to gaze on, +was peculiarly winning to those who were its recipients; it suggested a +gentle character, indicating through its shyness both the giving and the +receiving of a favor; and among those in personal attendance on him the +King was—perhaps on account of that smile—more liked than he knew. +Servants whom the vastness of his establishments did not convert into +total strangers found him a considerate master, full of a personal +interest in their snug lives, and with a carefully practised memory for +the numbers and names of their children; and the only complaint that +even his valets had against him was that he remained his own barber and +evinced a certain reluctance in casting his suits until they had begun +to show a suspicion of wear. In outward relations he was a kind, touchy, +companionable soul; inwardly he was one who suffered acutely from lack +of companionship and conversation, not because he had not plenty of +people to talk to, but because so many things came into his head that he +must not say, while the correct substitutes for them only occurred to +him later. And thus it came about that a good deal of his intercourse +with humanity was limited to a pleasant expression of face, wearing +generally, especially when it smiled, a wistful note of interrogation.</p> + +<p>To present this face to the public in the regulation doses which were +considered inducive to loyalty, he had sat thirty-nine times for his +portrait to popular rather than famous painters, and to commercially +successful photographers more times than any one could count. And +painters and photographers alike had agreed that he was a steady and a +patient sitter. They all liked him. He himself preferred the +photographers; they came more often but they took less time and did not +require the give-and-take of artificially made conversation. They were +also more amenable to criticism, and kept behind the scenes for +"touching-up" purposes wonderful anonymous artists who gave no trouble +whatever, requiring no sittings and yet producing results that for tact +and skill combined with accuracy could not be beaten. Occasionally, +after having sat for his portrait to one of the painters, the King was +advised to bestow on him a knighthood or an order. In his heart of +hearts he would have much preferred knighting a photographer; but for +some reason which was beyond him to discover this was not considered the +correct thing, and the knighthoods went accordingly to the people who +gave him the most trouble and the least satisfactory results.</p> + +<p>It had never been the King's lot to be handsome; but now the approaches +of age were giving to his countenance a dignity which in youth it had +lacked. This was part and parcel of a certain mental obtuseness or +obstinacy: when his Majesty did not understand, majesty became sedentary +in his face. Often when it was the duty, or the device, of his +ministerial advisers to confuse his mind with explanatory details about +things which lay far beyond it, they would presently become aware that +he did not in the least understand what they were saying, or that such +understanding as he possessed at the beginning had become darkened by +judicious counsel. This stage of the reasoning process was marked by a +gentle access of majesty to the royal countenance; and when it appeared +ministers were informed that, for the time being, their object was +attained. When, however, the King did understand, or thought that he +did, he was less majestic and more troublesome, and had to be +circumvented in other ways; and a good deal of this history will be +taken up with the circumventions practised by an astute Cabinet upon a +monarch who was brought by accident to imagine that he really did +understand the position of ignominy combined with responsibility in +which the Constitution had placed him.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>John of Jingalo had been in harness all his life: he had never known +freedom, never been left to find his own feet, never been taught to +think for himself except upon conventional lines; and these had kept him +from ever putting into practice the rudimental self-promptings which +sometimes troubled him. He had been elaborately instructed, but not +educated; his own individual character, that is to say, had not been +allowed to open out; but a sort of traditional character had been slowly +squeezed into him in order to fit him for that conventional acceptance +of a variety of ancient institutions (some moldering, some still +vigorous) which, by a certain official and ruling class of monetarily +interested persons, was considered to be the correct constitutional +attitude. Monarchy, that is to say, had been interpreted to him by those +who sucked the greatest amount of social prestige and material benefit +from its present conditions as a "going concern"; and in that imposed +interpretation deportment came first, initiative last, and originality +nowhere at all.</p> + +<p>In many respects, indeed, his training had been like that of a young +girl whose parents have determined, without leaving her any choice in +the matter, that matrimony is to be her single aim and the sphere of the +home her outward circumference. Like a young girl whose future is thus +controlled he had acquired a pleasant smattering of several social +accomplishments; he had learned to speak three languages with fluency, +to draw, to dance, to ride, to behave under all likely circumstances +with perfect correctness, and to walk down the center of a large room +with apparent ease. He had been trained, for review purposes and for the +final privilege of carrying a cocked hat as well as a crown upon his +coffin, in a profession which he would never be allowed to practise; +and, having been "brought out" with much show and parade at an early +age, had been introduced to a vast number of very important people, and +dragged through a long series of social functions, which, however +crowded, gave always a free floor for his feet to walk on and never +presented a single back to his view. But as a result of all these +crowds, with their bewildering blend of glittering toilet, deferential +movement, and flattering speech, he knew no more of the inner realities +of life than the young girl knows of it from a series of dances, +flirtations, and afternoon teas. This polite and decorous, yet dazzling +mask had been drawn between him and the actualities of existence, +presenting itself to view again and again, and concealing its essential +sameness in the pomp and circumstance with which it was attended. At +these functions thousands of brilliant and distinguished people had +bowed their well-stored brains within a few inches of his face, had +exchanged with their monarch a few words of studied politeness and +compliment, now and then had even laid themselves out to amuse him, but +never once had they imparted to his mind an arresting or a commanding +thought, never once endeavored to change any single judgment that had +ever been formed for him. Not once in all the years since he came to +man's estate—except occasionally with his wife and on one isolated +occasion with his father—had he ever found himself involved so deeply +in argument, or in any difference of opinion, as to be forced to feel +himself beaten. That single discussion with his father had been closed +peremptorily—parental and regal authority combining had cut it short; +and as for his wife—well, she was dear, amiable, and, within her +limits, sensible; but intellectually she was not his superior. Thus +there had come to him a good deal of social discipline, experience of a +kind, but of education in the higher intellectual sense scarcely any. He +had merely been taught carefully and elaborately to take up a certain +position, and in a vast number of minutely differing circumstances +(mainly of social formality) to fill it or seem to fill it "as one to +the manner born."</p> + +<p>In addition he had been trained, on strictly impartial and noncommittal +lines, to take an interest in politics; to have within certain narrow +and prescribed limits an open mind—one, that is to say, with its +orifice comfortably adapted to the stuffing process practised on kings +by the great ones of the official world; and when his mind would not +open in certain required directions, well, after all, it did not much +matter, since in the end it made no practical difference.</p> + +<p>Under these circumstances he would have been a mere social and official +automaton had not certain defects of his character saved him. Though +timid he was impulsive; he was also a little irritable, rather +suspicious, and indomitably fussy in response to the call of duty. +Temper, fuss, and curiosity saved him from boredom; he was +conscientiously industrious, and though there was much that he did not +understand he managed to be interested in nearly everything.</p> + +<p>In the fiftieth year of his age, this monarch, amiable, affable, and of +a thoroughly deserving domestic character, was destined to be thrust +into a seething whirlpool of political intrigue in which, for the first +time, his conscience was to be seriously troubled over the part he was +asked to play. And while that wakening of his conscience was to cause +him a vast amount of trouble, it was to have as enlarging and educative +an effect upon his character as her first love affair has upon a young +girl. From this moment, in fact, you are to see a shell-bound tortoise +blossom into a species of fretful porcupine, his shell splintering +itself into points and erecting them with blundering effectiveness +against his enemies. And you shall see by what unconscious and +subterranean ways history gets made and written.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>And now let us turn to the Queen. In her case less analysis is needed: +one had only to look at her, at the genial and comfortable expression of +her face, at the ample, but not too ample, lines of her person, to see +that in her present high situation she both gave and found satisfaction. +She did, with ease and even with appetite, that which the King, with so +much anxious expenditure of nervous energy, was always trying to do—her +duty. She had a position and she filled it. She was not clever, but her +imperturbable common-sense made up for what she lacked intellectually. +No one, except the newspapers, would call her beautiful; but she was +comely and enjoyed good health, and she had what one may describe as a +good surface—nothing that she wore was thrown away on her, and any +chair that she occupied, however large, she never failed to adorn. There +you have her picture: you may imagine her as plump, as blonde, as +good-tempered, and as well-preserved for her age as suits your +individual taste—no qualifying word of the chronicler of this history +shall obstruct the view; and you may be as fond of her as you like.</p> + +<p>The Queen was the head of Jingalese society, and of its charities as +well. Her influence was enormous: at a mere word from her organizations +sprang into being. Without any Acts of Parliament to control or guide +them—merely at the delicately expressed wish of her Majesty—thousands +of charming, wealthy, and influential women would waste spare hour upon +hour and expend small fortunes of pocket-money in keeping uncomfortable +things comfortably going in their accustomed grooves. It was calculated +that the Queen's patronage had the immediate effect of trebling the +subscription list of any charity, while the mere withdrawal of her name +spelt bankruptcy. Her Majesty was patron to forty-nine charities and +subscribed to all of them. For the five largest she appeared annually on +a crimson-covered platform, insuring thereby a large supply of silk +purses containing contributions, and a full report in the press of all +the speeches. It was her rule to open two bazaars regularly each summer, +to lay the foundation-stones of three churches, orphanages, or hospitals +(whichever happened to require the greatest amount of money for their +completion), to attend the prize-giving at the most ancient of the +national charity schools, and every winter, when distress and +unemployment were at their worst, to go down to the Humanitarian Army's +soup-kitchen, and there taste, from a tin mug with a common pewter +spoon, the soup which was made for the poor and destitute. This last +performance, which took so much less time and trouble than all the rest, +proved each year the most popular incident of her Majesty's useful and +variegated public life, for every one felt that it provided in the +nicest possible way an antidote to the advance of socialistic theories. +The papers dealt with it in leading articles; and the lucky casuals who +happened to drop in on the day when her Majesty paid the surprise visit +arranged for her by her secretaries would report that they had never +tasted such good soup in all their born days.</p> + +<p>It may truthfully be said that the Queen never spent an idle day, and +never came to the end of one without the consciousness of having done +good. All the more, therefore, is it remarkable that, as the outcome of +so much benevolence and charity, the Queen knew absolutely nothing of +the real needs and conditions of the people, and that she knew still +less how any alterations in the laws, manners, or customs of the country +could better or worsen the conditions of unemployment, sweated labor, or +public morality. Her whole idea of political economy was summed up in +the proposition that anything must be good for the country which was +good for trade; and it may certainly be said that for the majority of +trade interests she was as good as gold. Without caring too much for +dress (being herself wholly devoid of personal vanity) she ordered +dresses in abundance, and constantly varied the fashion, the color, and +the material, because she was given to understand that change and +variety stimulated trade. Her most revolutionary act had been to +readopt, one fine spring morning, the ample skirt of the crinoline +period in order to counteract the distress and shortage of work caused +in the textile trade by the introduction and persistence of the "hobble +skirt." As a consequence of this sudden disturbance of the evolutionary +law governing creation in the modiste's sense of the word, there was a +sharp reaction a year later, which—after the artificial stimulus of the +previous season—threw more women out of employment than ever; new +fancy-trades had to be learned in apprenticeships at starvation +wages—with the result that wages had to be eked out in other ways. But +of all this her Majesty heard nothing. It never occurred to anybody that +these ultimate consequences of her amiable incentive to industry could +possibly concern her; and the Queen, finding that people no longer knew +how to adapt themselves to the long, full skirts of their grandmothers, +accepted without demur the next wave of fashion that swept over Europe +from London <i>via</i> Paris.</p> + +<p>The Queen never herself opened a paper. Extracts were read out to her +each day by one of her ladies; these being selected by another lady +appointed for the purpose as those most likely to interest the royal +mind. It was made known in the press that her Majesty never read the +divorce cases; neither did she read politics or the police news. No +controversial side of the national life ever entered her brain—until +somehow or another it was reached by the dim uproar of the Women +Chartists' movement. She expressed her disapproval, and the page was +turned.</p> + +<p>Her instinctive tastes stood always as a guide for what she should be +told; and experience limited her inquiry. In all her life her influence +had never been used for the release of an unjustly convicted prisoner, +the abatement of an inhuman sentence, or the abolition of any abuse +established by law. Queens who had done these things in the past were +medieval figures, and such interference was quite unsuitable for a royal +consort under modern conditions. Had Philippa of Hainault lived in these +more enlightened times she would have been forced to let the Burghers of +Calais go hang and restrict herself to making provision for their widows +and orphans; for to arrest any act of government had long since ceased +to be within the functions of a queen.</p> + +<p>Like her husband, this royal lady was surrounded by officialdom, or, +rather, by its complementary and feminine appendices—the wives and +daughters of the aristocracy, of politicians, of ecclesiastical and +military dignitaries: these to her represented the sphere, activity, and +capacity of her own sex. Other women—pioneers of education and of +reform, rescue-workers, organizers, writers, orators, had—the majority +of them—lived and died without once coming in contact with the official +leader of Jingalese womanhood; for they and their like were outside the +official ranks, and stood for things combative and controversial and +dangerously alive, and only a few of them had been brought to Court in +their venerable old age, to be looked at as curiosities when their +fighting days were over and their work done.</p> + +<p>On the governing boards of the hospitals to which the Queen gave her +patronage there was not a single woman—or a married one either; but +when her Majesty visited the wards she was very nice to the nurses. She +was, in fact, very nice to everybody, and everybody was very nice to +her.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>A king and a queen take so long to describe that the reader will have +almost forgotten how we left them at the breakfast table. But the Queen +had her letters and the King his newspapers, and there, when we return +to them in the historic present, they still are.</p> + +<p>Yes, there they sit, an institutional expression of the nation's general +complacence with the state of civilization at which it has arrived, +interpreting in decorous form the voice of the articulate majority—the +inarticulate not being interpreted at all. There they sit, he with his +newspapers, she with her letters: the King a little anxious and +perturbed, the Queen not anxious or perturbed about anything.</p> + +<p>She was still enjoying her superfluous correspondence, he studying in a +vague distrustfulness the various organs of public opinion which lay +around him, doubtful of them all, yet wishing to find one he could rely +on. For now they were all very full of the approaching constitutional +crisis, and were adumbrating in respectful, yet slightly menacing terms, +what the King himself would do in the matter. Whereas what he actually +would do he had not himself the ghost of a notion,—did not yet know, in +fact, what legs he had to stand on, having no information upon that +point beyond what the Prime Minister had chosen to tell him.</p> + +<p>And being puzzled he wanted to talk, yet not directly of the matter +which perturbed his mind; but somehow by hearing his own voice he hoped +to arrive at the popular sentiment. It was a way he had; and the Queen, +who was often his audience, knew the preliminary symptoms by heart. So +when presently he began crackling his newspaper and drawing a series of +audible half breaths as though about to begin reading, his wife +recognized the sign that here was something she must listen to. She put +down her letters and attended.</p> + +<p>"I see," said his Majesty, culling his information from the opening +paragraph of a leading article, "I see that the Government is losing +popularity every day. That Act they passed last year for the +reinstitution of turnpikes to regulate the speed of motor-traffic is +proving unpopular."</p> + +<p>"Is it a failure, then?" inquired the Queen.</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, it is a success. But the system was expected to pay +for its upkeep by the amount of fines it brought in, whereas the result +has been to make the conduct of motorists so exemplary that the measure +has ceased to pay. Unable to escape detection, 'joy-riding' has become +practically non-existent, motor-cars are ceasing to be used for breaches +of the peace, and the trade is going down in consequence by leaps and +bounds. The fact is you cannot now-a-days put a stop to any grave abuse +without seriously damaging some trade-interest. If 'trade' is to decide +matters it would be much better not to legislate at all."</p> + +<p>"My dear! wouldn't that be revolutionary?" inquired the Queen.</p> + +<p>"Keeping things as they are is not revolutionary," replied his Majesty, +"though it's a hard enough thing to do now-a-days."</p> + +<p>"But," objected his wife, "they must pass something, or else how would +they earn their salaries?"</p> + +<p>"That's it!" said the King,—"payment of members; another of those +unnecessary reforms thrust on us by the example of England."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes!" answered his wife, feeling about for an intelligent ground of +agreement, "England is so rich; she can afford it."</p> + +<p>"It isn't that at all," retorted his Majesty; "plenty of other countries +have had to afford it before now. But it was only when England did it +that we took up with the notion. We are always imitating England: the +attraction of contraries, I suppose, because we are surrounded by land +as they are by water. Why else did they start turning me into a +commercial traveler, sending me all over Europe and round the world to +visit colonies that no longer really belong to us? Only because they are +doing the same thing over in England."</p> + +<p>"They saw that you wanted change of air," said the Queen.</p> + +<p>"Change of fiddlesticks!" answered the King; "I consider it a most +dangerous precedent to let a sovereign be too long out of his own +country. It makes people imagine they can do just as well without him!"</p> + +<p>The Queen looked at her husband with shrewd and kindly furtiveness. She +had a funny little suspicion that the ministry did at times greatly +prefer his absence to his presence: and that "change of fiddlesticks" +was really their underlying motive. About this monarch she herself had +no illusions: he was a dear, but he fussed; and when once he began +fussing he required an enormous amount of explanation and persuasion. +Even she, therefore, was not at all averse to letting him go on these +State outings in which she need not always accompany him. They gave him +something fresh to think about, and to her a time of leisure when she +need not pretend to think about anything she did not understand.</p> + +<p>"Of course," went on the King, "it makes good copy for the newspapers. +The press is powerful, and governments are obliged now-a-days to throw +in a certain amount of spectacle to keep it in a good temper. We are +sent off to perform somewhere, and after us come the penny-a-liner and +the cinematograph."</p> + +<p>"Oh! my dear, much more than a penny-a-liner," corrected the Queen; "I +heard of one correspondent who makes £5,000 a year. And think how good +for trade! Besides, do not we get the benefit of it?"</p> + +<p>"Benefit!" exclaimed the King irritably, "where is the benefit to us of +journalists who describe State functions as though they were jewelers' +touts and dressmakers rolled into one? The vulgarity of people's present +notion of what makes monarchy impressive is appalling. Listen to this, +my dear! This is you and me at the Opening of Parliament yesterday." He +unfolded his paper and read—</p> + +<p>"'The regal purple flowed proudly from the King's shoulders; above their +three ribbons of red, green, and gold, the Orders of his ancestors +burned confidingly on the royal breast. The Queen's diamonds were +supreme; upon the silken fabric of her corsage they flashed incredibly; +one watched them, fire-color infinitely varied, infinitely intensified, +like nothing else seen on earth. As she advanced, deeply bowing to right +and left, parabolas of light exhaled from her coronet like falling +stars. When King and Queen were seated, their State robes flowing in +purple waves and ripples of ermine to the very steps of the dais, the +picture was complete. Single gems of the first water glistened like +dewdrops in the Queen's ears, while upon her bosom as she breathed the +three great Turgeneff diamonds caught and defiantly threw back the +light. They became the center of all eyes.'</p> + +<p>"I call that disgusting!" said the King. "Why diamonds should burn +confidingly on my breast, and flash incredibly on yours, I'm sure I +don't know. But there we are: a couple of clothes'-pegs for journalists +to hang words on."</p> + +<p>The Queen had rather enjoyed the description, it enabled her to see +herself as she appeared to others.</p> + +<p>"I don't see the harm," she said; "we have to wear these things, so they +may as well be described."</p> + +<p>"I wish some day you wouldn't wear them!" said the King. "Then, instead +of talking of your trinkets and your clothes, they would begin to pay +attention to what royalty really stands for."</p> + +<p>The Queen was gathering up her letters from the table: she smiled +indulgently upon her spouse.</p> + +<p>"Jack," said she, "you are jealous!"</p> + +<p>"I wish, Alicia," said the King testily, "that you would not call me +'Jack'; at least, not after—not where any of the servants may come in +and overhear us. It would not sound seemly."</p> + +<p>"My dear John," said the Queen, "don't be so absurd. You know perfectly +well that it's just that which makes us most popular. People are always +telling little anecdotes of that kind about us; and then, think of all +the photographs! If people were to talk of you as 'King Jack,' it would +mean you were the most popular person in the country."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if they do?" murmured the King. "I wonder!" He felt remote +from his people, for he did not know.</p> + +<p>The Queen noticed his depression; something was troubling him, and being +a lady of infinite tact, she abruptly turned the conversation. "What are +you doing to-day, dear?" she inquired brightly.</p> + +<p>"I have a Council at eleven," moaned the King, "and I really must get +through a few of these papers first. It gives me a great advantage when +Brasshay begins talking—a great advantage if I know what the papers +have been saying about him. To-day it's the Finance Act. By the way, +Charlotte was asking me yesterday to raise her allowance. Is there any +reason for it?"</p> + +<p>"A little more for dress would now be advisable," said the Queen. "She +has lately begun to open Church bazaars: I thought they would do for her +to begin upon. And the other day she laid the foundation-stone of a +dogs' orphanage—very nicely, I'm told."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said the King, "she's old enough, and it is quite time I +asked for a definite grant from Parliament. But if one did that now they +would probably not raise it afterwards. Very much better to wait, I +think, till we have made a really brilliant match for her; then, for the +sake of its financial prestige, the nation will do the thing +handsomely."</p> + +<p>"She has got an idea she doesn't like foreigners," said the Queen +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"She will have to like some foreigner!" said the King. "As the only +daughter of a reigning monarch she must marry royalty, and we haven't +any one left among ourselves who is eligible. Charlotte must get to like +foreigners. Max has no objection to foreigners, I hope?"</p> + +<p>The Queen gave her husband a curious look.</p> + +<p>"From what I hear," she murmured, "I should say none: but it is not for +me to make any inquiries."</p> + +<p>"Dear me! is that so?" said the King. "Well, well! When did you hear +about it?"</p> + +<p>"Only yesterday; but it has been going on a long time."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," sighed his Majesty, "I suppose one couldn't expect it to be +otherwise. Well, I must speak to him, then; and we shall really have to +get him married to somebody. The religious difficulty, of course, +narrows our choice most unfortunately; and when we happen to be on bad +terms both with Germany and England, through trying to be friendly to +both, why, really there is hardly anybody left."</p> + +<p>"I hear," remarked the Queen, "that the Hereditary Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser is returning from his three years' exploration of +central South America this autumn. Wouldn't he be worth thinking about?"</p> + +<p>"You mean for Charlotte? But I expect he will be wanted at the Prussian +Court."</p> + +<p>The Queen shook her head. "Oh, no! He is out of favor there. They have +never forgiven him his description of the Kaiser's oratorio as 'Moses +Among the Crocodiles.' That is why I thought he might not be averse to +looking in our direction. He used to be a nice boy; he is handsome +according to his portraits, and Charlotte is not without her taste for +adventure."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't solve the problem about Max," said his Majesty +discontentedly. "And, by the way, where is Charlotte?"</p> + +<p>"She has gone to stay with Lady—oh, I have forgotten her name—the one +who had a fancy for history and took a diploma in it. They are opening +that new college for women, with a Greek play all about the Trojans, and +Charlotte particularly wanted to go."</p> + +<p>"H'm?" queried the King; "rather an advanced set for Charlotte to +consort with—just now, I mean,—don't you think? There might be some of +those Women Chartists among them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" replied her Majesty; "they are all quite respectable,—ladies +every one of them. I took care to make inquiries about that."</p> + +<p>And then, quite contentedly, she made a final gathering of her +correspondence, and sailed off for a preliminary interview with her two +indispensable secretaries; while the King, selecting three out of the +pile of newspapers, carried them away with him to his study. There was a +sentence in one of them which he particularly wanted to read again. And +with this vacating of the breakfast-chamber we may as well close the +chapter.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h2>ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The sentence which had attracted the King's attention, coming as it did +from the newspaper on whose opinions he most frequently relied, ran +thus—</p> + +<p>"In this developing crisis the Nation looks with complete and loyal +assurance to him who alone stands high and independent above all +parties, confident that when the time for a final decision has arrived +he will so act, within the recognized limits of the Royal Prerogative, +as to add a fresh luster and a renewed significance to that supreme +symbol and safeguard of the popular will which, under Divine Providence, +still crowns our constitutional edifice."</p> + +<p>The King read it three times over. He read it both standing and sitting: +and read in whatever attitude it certainly sounded well. As a peroration +its rhythm and flow were admirable, as a means of keeping up the courage +and confidence of readers who placed their reliance mainly upon literary +style nothing could be better; but what, by all that was constitutional, +did it mean?—or rather, how did it mean that he, the high and +independent one, was to do it? Point by point its sentiments were +unexceptionable; but what it actually pointed to he did not know. "Add +luster?" Why, yes, certainly. But was not that what he was already doing +day by day on the continuous deposit system, even as the oyster within +its shell deposits luster upon the pearls which a sort of hereditary +disease has placed within its keeping? "Renewed significance?" But in +what respect had the significance of the royal office become obscured? +Was anything that he did insignificant? "Symbol and safeguard of the +popular will?" Yes: if his Coronation oath meant anything. But how was +he, symbol and safeguard and all the rest of it, to find out what the +popular will really was? No man in all the Kingdom was so much cut off +from living contact with the popular will as was he!</p> + +<p>The King was in his study, the room in which most of the routine work +of his daily life was accomplished—a large square chamber with three +windows to one side looking out across a well-timbered park toward a +distant group of towers. But for those towers, so civic in their +character, it might well have been taken for a country view; scarcely a +roof was visible.</p> + +<p>Upon a large desk in the center of the chamber lay a pile of official +letters and documents awaiting his perusal; and he knew that in the +adjoining room one of his private secretaries was even now attending his +call. But from none of his secretaries could he learn anything about the +popular will.</p> + +<p>He walked to a window and stood looking out into the soft sunlit air, +slightly misty in quality, which lay over the distances of his capital. +Away behind those trees, beneath those towers, sending toward him a +ceaseless reverberation of bells, wheels, street cries, and all the +countless noises of city life, went a vast and teeming population of men +and women, already far advanced on the round of their daily toil. He was +in their midst, but not one of them could he see; and not one of them +did he really know as man to man. Everything that he learned about their +lives came to him at second or at third hand; nor did actual contact +bring him any closer, for wherever he moved among them they knew who he +was and behaved accordingly. For twenty-five years he had not walked in +a single one of those streets the nearest of which lay within a stone's +throw of his palace. As a youth, before his father came to the throne, +he had sometimes gone about, with or without companions, just like an +ordinary person, taking his chance of being recognized: it had not +mattered then. But now it could not be done: people did not expect it of +him; his ministers would have regarded it as a dangerous and expensive +habit, requiring at least a trebling of the detective service, and even +then there would always have been apprehension and uncertainty. He was +King; and though, whatever might happen to him, his place would be +automatically filled, and government go on just as before, yet, as a +national symbol, his life was too valuable to be risked; and so on +ascending the throne he had been forced, as his father before him, to +resign his personal liberty and cease to go out in the happy, +unpremeditated fashion of earlier days.</p> + +<p>He had long since got over the curious home-sickness which this +separation had at first caused him, and as an opening to personal +enjoyment the impulse for freedom had long since died within him; but +his heart still vaguely hungered for the people who called him their +King; and looking out into the pale sunshine that was now thinly +buttering the surface of his prosperous capital, and listening to the +perpetual tick and hum of its busy life, he knew that for him it was and +must remain, except in an official sense, an unknown territory. And yet +out there, in that territory which he was unable to explore, the thing +that is called "the popular will" lived and moved and had its being! +Dimly he dreamed of what it might be—a thing of substance and form; but +there was none to interpret to him his dream—except upon official +lines.</p> + +<p>Before his eyes, a salient object in the heavens surpassing the stony +eminences which surrounded it, rose the tall spire of the twin Houses of +Parliament. Upon its top swung a gilded weathercock; while about a +portion of its base stood a maze of scaffolding, the façade of the +building having during the last few months been under repair. There +seemed, however, for the moment, to be no workmen upon it. Presently, as +he gazed vacantly and without intent, something that moved upon the +upper masonry engaged his attention. Slowly along its profile, out of +all those hidden millions below, one of his subjects, a single and +minute representative of the popular will, emerged cautiously into view.</p> + +<p>The King was gifted with good sight; and though the figure appeared but +as a tiny speck, it was unmistakably that of a man bearing a burden upon +his back and ascending steadily toward the highest point of all. In a +word it was a steeplejack. As the name passed through the King's mind it +evoked recollection; and he said to himself again, "I wonder whether +they call <i>me</i> Jack,—I wonder."</p> + +<p>With a curious increase of interest and fellow-feeling he watched the +distant figure mounting to its airy perch. And as he did so a yet +further similitude and parable flashed through his mind. For the man's +presence at that dizzy height he knew that the Board of Public Works was +responsible: as a single item in the general expenditure the weathercock +of the Palace of Legislature had had voted to it a new coat of gilt, and +this steeplejack was now engaged in putting it on. He was there in the +words of a certain morning journal, "to add fresh luster to that supreme +symbol of the popular will which crowned the constitutional edifice."</p> + +<p>As the words with their caressing rhythm flowed across the King's brain +he discerned the full significance of the scene which was being enacted +before him. This weathercock—the highest point of the constitutional +edifice—requiring to be touched up afresh for the public eyes—was +truly symbolical of the crown in its relation to the popular will; +twisting this way and that responsive to and interpretative of outside +forces, it had no will of its own at all, and yet to do its work it must +blaze resplendently and be lifted high, and to be put in working trim +and kept with luster untarnished it required at certain intervals the +attentions of a steeplejack—one accustomed to being in high places, +accustomed to isolation and loneliness, accustomed to bearing a burden +upon his back before the eyes of all: one whose functions were rather +like his own.</p> + +<p>He saw that the steeplejack had now reached the point where his work was +waiting for him, work that required nerve and courage. He wondered +whether it were highly paid; he wondered also by what means the man +slung himself into position, and by what process the new gold had to be +applied so that it would stick. Perhaps he only polished up what was +already there, coated and covered from view by the grime of modern +industry. If so, how did he scrape off the dirt without also scraping +off the gold? Perhaps, on the other hand, all the old gold had to come +off before new gold could be put on. He wondered whether the man ever +forgot his perilous position, whether habit did not make him sometimes +careless, whether he ever felt giddy, and how far the exploit was really +attended by danger to one possessed of skill and a cool head; and as he +thought, putting himself in the man's place, his hands grew +sympathetically moist.</p> + +<p>Well, he was wasting time, he must really get to his own work now; that +secretary would be wondering what had become of him. He glanced away +over the distant roofs that here and there emerged above the trees, and +then for a last look back again. And as he did so all at once he started +and uttered an acute exclamation of distress. A dark speck had suddenly +detached itself from the ball upon which the vane stood, and could now +be seen glissading with horrible swiftness down the slope of the spire. +It fell into the scaffolding, zigzagged from point to point, and +disappeared. There could be no mistake about it, it was the man himself +who had fallen: that single and minute expression of the popular will +had passed for ever from view; and the smooth and equable hum of the +unseen millions below went steadily on.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Fleeing from the sight still registered upon his brain the King rang for +his secretary. A figure of correctitude entered.</p> + +<p>"There has been an accident," said his Majesty. "Over there!" He +pointed. "A steeplejack has fallen."</p> + +<p>The secretary slid respectfully to the window and looked out. To that +polite official gaze of inquiry the scene of the tragedy returned a +blank and uncommunicative stare.</p> + +<p>"Poor wretch!" murmured the King. "I actually saw him go! Ring up, and +inquire at the Police Center; though, of course, the poor fellow must be +dead!"</p> + +<p>The secretary sped away on his errand, and the King, moving back to the +window, gazed fixedly at the spire, as though it could still in some way +inform him of the tragedy consummated below. Then he returned to his +desk and looked distractedly at his papers, but it was no use—back he +went to the window again.</p> + +<p>Presently the secretary returned and stood drooping for permission to +speak. Permission came. "The man is dead, your Majesty. He was killed +instantly."</p> + +<p>The King gave a sigh of relief. "Of course," he murmured, "from such a +height as that!" He stood for a while still cogitating on the sad event: +then he said, with that considerate thoughtfulness which habit had made +a second nature, "Be good enough to find out whether the poor fellow was +married. If so let a donation be sent to his widow,—whatever the case +seems to warrant—more if there should happen to be children."</p> + +<p>Over his tablets the secretary bowed the beauty of his person like a +recording angel. Then he paused that the heavenly measure might be taken +with accuracy.</p> + +<p>"Shall it be five pounds, sir?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Better make it ten," said the King; "I believe that pays for a funeral. +In sending it, you might explain that I had the misfortune to be an +eye-witness."</p> + +<p>The secretary cooed like a brooding dove. Of course everybody would +understand and appreciate. He made a memorandum of the ten pounds and +closed up his tablets.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the King went on thinking aloud. "I wonder," he said, "whether +they take proper precautions in a trade like that? I would like to look +it up. Find me the 'ST' volume of the <i>Encyclopedia Appendica</i>."</p> + +<p>And when the volume was brought to him the King sat down and read all +about steeplejacks and climbing irons, and cranks, and pulleys, and all +the other various appliances requisite for the driving of that dreadful +trade; read also how the men were inclined to prime themselves for the +task in ever-increasing measure, and so one day having over-primed to be +found at the bottom instead of at the top, knowing nothing themselves of +how they got there. It was all very interesting and very apposite, and +rather pathetic; and when he had done he turned over the pages backward +till he came from steeplejacks to "Statesmen" and "Statecraft" and +"Statutes" and the affairs of State in general (it was from the +<i>Encyclopedia Appendica</i>—a presentation copy—that he got most of his +information upon practical things); and in these articles he became so +absorbed that he quite forgot how time flew, until his chief secretary +came formally to announce to him that the hour for appearing in Council +had arrived.</p> + +<p>This announcement, be it observed, was made by no ordinary working +secretary, but by the chief of them all, the Comptroller of his +Majesty's household, a retired general who had passed from the military +to the civil service with a record brilliantly made for him by other +men—adjutants and attachés and all those indefatigable right-hand +assistants of whom your true diplomatist forms his stepping-stones to +power. General Poast and the Prime Minister shared between them the +ordering and disposal of the King's public services to the Nation, while +over other departments impenetrable to the Premier the hand of the +Comptroller was still extended. Though personally the King rather +disliked him, he had become an absolutely indispensable adjunct to the +daily life—so smooth in its workings, yet so easily dislocated—of the +Royal Household; also, as a go-between for ministers whose intercourse +with the Crown was purely formal, he had proved himself a very efficient +implement when on occasion it became necessary to circumvent or reduce +to reason the King's characteristic obstinacy in small matters of +detail. He might, in fact, be regarded as the keeper not so much of the +King's conscience, as of his savoir faire, and of that tact for which +Royalty in all countries is conspicuous. Everything that related to the +remembering of names and faces, of dates, anniversaries and historical +associations, all those small considerate actions of royal charity which +robbed of their due privacy have now become the perquisite of the press; +all these things stood ranged under minutely tabulated heads within the +Comptroller-General's department. He was, literally, the King's +Remembrancer; and so, on this occasion also, he had come as intermediary +to remind his Majesty that the hour for the Council was at hand.</p> + +<p>But the Council was one of those functions in which it was held +necessary that the part played by the King (albeit no more than a silent +presidency at a Board where others spoke) should wear an appearance of +importance. And so the announcement made by the Comptroller was merely +preliminary to another and more flourishing announcement by an usher of +the Court. Two lackeys threw open a door—other than that through which +the General had just entered, and a bowing official, beautifully dressed +and waving a fairy-like wand, announced from the threshold, "Your +Majesty's Council, now in attendance, humbly begs audience of your +Majesty."</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Then followed a pause. The Comptroller-General with head deferentially +bent waited to catch the royal eye. The King graciously allowed his +royal eye to be caught; and the Comptroller-General, interpreting the +silent consent of that glance, uttered with due solemnity the +traditional form of words indicative of the royal pleasure. "His Majesty +hears," he lowed in the correct "palace accent": and the usher bowed and +retired.</p> + +<p>All this helped, of course, to make the act of presiding in Council seem +highly important and consequential to any monarch susceptible to +ceremonial flattery. Whether it had originally been so devised may be +questioned, for monarchs of old had needed no such ceremonial backing to +their very practical incursions into ministerial debate. What we have to +notice is that the ceremony had survived, while the other thing—the +practice of substantial interference—had become obsolete.</p> + +<p>The King passed from his private apartments to broad corridors and +portals where resplendent footmen stood in waiting, where everything +worked with silent and automatic precision to prepare the way for his +feet, signaling him on from point to point as though he were a sort of +special train for which the line had been expressly cleared and all +other traffic shunted. And yet when he came to the small anteroom which +opened directly into the Council Chamber he felt for all the world like +a timid bather about to unbutton the door of his bathing-machine and +step forth into a strange and hostile element. That moment of +trepidation was one he never could get over,—to face his Council of +Ministers was always a plunge; for here truly he felt out of his depth, +aware that politically he was no swimmer. And now for a couple of hours +he would have to endure while, thoroughly at home in their own element, +twenty stout aquatic athletes tumbled around him.</p> + +<p>The door was thrown open; and with an air of calm self-possession he +walked to the head of the table about which his ministers stood waiting. +"Be seated, gentlemen," he said, embracing in a single bow the +obeisances of all; and like slow waves they closed in on him, subsiding +in large curves and soft fawning ripples of hand-rubbing around the +empurpled board at which nominally he was to preside.</p> + +<p>When all were seated in order, he signed for the Prime Minister to open +the proceedings, and thereafter had scarcely to speak; for at a King's +Council only general reports were presented, no discussions took place, +no fresh proposals were mooted; and so he sat and heard how this +department or that was extending its beneficent operations, how +statistics were completing to their last decimal places the +prognostications of experts, and how along with these things imports and +exports were balancing, trade declining, education advancing, and +strikes growing every day more formidable and more popular.</p> + +<p>It was only this last point that really interested him; for here he +seemed to get a dim rumor of something that was part at least of that +popular will which it was his duty to symbolize and to safeguard. But +these official advisers of his were all for putting strikes down, and +yet while putting them down they seemed to wish to curry favor with the +strikers themselves. For on the one hand there was trade declining, if +the strikes were not put down, to support fresh taxation, on the other +the Labor Party, eighty strong, declining, if the strikes were put down, +to support the Government. And with the Finance Act coming on the +question was whether to accept an increasing deficit in the revenue or a +declining majority in the Legislature. This could be read vaguely +between the lines of the report presented by the Minister of the +Interior. But all this time not one word was said about the coming +constitutional crisis which was in everybody's mind. That had been +thoroughly discussed by ministers sitting in real Council elsewhere, a +Council at which the Head of the Constitution had not been present, and +about which he would hear no more than the Prime Minister chose to tell +him.</p> + +<p>And so, smoothly, equably, and uneventfully the Council reached its +conclusion; ministers one after another closed up their portfolios, and +sitting mute in their places respectfully waited the royal word of +dismissal.</p> + +<p>Then the King rose: and all around the board the fawning ripples of +hand-rubbing ceased, and the slow curving wave of the ministerial body +receded to a respectful distance; while his Majesty passed forth to the +adjoining chamber, there to give, as was customary, separate audience to +those ministers who had any special memoranda to submit requiring the +royal endorsement.</p> + +<p>On this occasion he found his Comptroller already awaiting him, +apologetic for what might seem intrusion on territory belonging more +properly to the Prime Minister. Under the correctness of his deportment +it was clear that urgency impelled.</p> + +<p>"I have come, sir," he said, "to submit to your Majesty, before the +matter goes further, a certain difficulty which has arisen in connection +with your Majesty's gracious donation to the widow of the unfortunate +workman who——" He paused.</p> + +<p>"You mean the steeplejack?" queried the King.</p> + +<p>The Comptroller-General bowed assent. "Your Majesty ordered inquiry to +be made."</p> + +<p>"I did. Has it been found whether he had a family?"</p> + +<p>"A large family, sir: a wife and seven children."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said the King, "then you would suggest that ten pounds is not +quite——? Well, make it twenty."</p> + +<p>"That, sir, is not the difficulty. The fact is we have discovered that +the man was what in the industrial world is known as a 'blackleg.' As +your Majesty may be aware there is at this moment a strike in the +building trade: and this man was working against the orders of his +Union. Under those circumstances a donation from your Majesty becomes +pointed."</p> + +<p>"Pointed at what?"</p> + +<p>"At the Trades Unions, sir."</p> + +<p>"But what," cried the King, astonished, "have a widow and children to do +with the Trades Unions?"</p> + +<p>"The man was working against orders, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"But at somebody's orders, I suppose? Anyway, it was for the +Government."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, sir!" Correctitude protested against so dangerous an +implication.</p> + +<p>"But surely! Wasn't he there at the orders of the Board of Works?"</p> + +<p>"At the orders of the contractor, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"Who was under contract with the Board to complete by a certain date."</p> + +<p>"That, sir, cannot be denied."</p> + +<p>"Well, really then," said the King, "from what department does this +objection to the donation emanate?"</p> + +<p>"From no department, your Majesty. The objection is on general grounds +of policy."</p> + +<p>The King's pride and modesty were becoming a little hurt; he was annoyed +that so small a matter of private charity should be thus canvassed and +brought within the range of politics. Subconsciously he had also another +and a more symbolic reason which helped him to show fight.</p> + +<p>"Really, my dear General," he said, "I think we are discussing this +matter very unnecessarily. The widow is still a widow, and the children, +who you tell me number seven, are orphans; and surely at his death a man +ceases to be either a blackleg or a trades unionist. He is not working +against orders now, at any rate. Make it twenty! make it twenty." (His +utterance grew hurried; a way he had when crossed and anxious not to +have to give way.) "I can't hear anything more about it now: I have +Brasshay waiting to see me." And as at that moment the Prime Minister +was announced, the Comptroller-General, for the present at any rate, +"made it twenty" and retired. But he did so with a wry and a determined +face.</p> + +<p>As for the King he was thoroughly put out; the steeplejack was by +association beginning to assume in his mind a very particular +importance; he had become a symbol not merely of the sovereign himself, +but of that act of statesmanship which he had been adjured to undertake +by his favorite newspaper. This man, his prototype, had failed to add in +completeness that luster which he had set out to add; had even died in +the attempt; and here, in seeking with all his sympathies aroused to +provide for the widow and children, the King was finding himself +thwarted, and thwarted, too, on purely political grounds. Well, it +should be a test: he would not be thwarted. The Cabinet couldn't resign +on this; so he would do as he liked! And under the table, on a soft deep +carpet of velvet-pile he stuck his heels into the ground and felt very +determined.</p> + +<p>And then he found that he must attend to something else, for the Prime +Minister was speaking, and now at last was speaking on a very important +matter.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>"Your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, "the Bishops are blocking all +our bills; the business of the country is at a standstill."</p> + +<p>"Blocking?" queried the King; for he did know a little of contemporary +history at all events.</p> + +<p>"Amending," corrected the Minister. "Amending on lines which we cannot +possibly accept."</p> + +<p>"Some of them seemed to me quite excellent amendments," said the King. +"But, of course, I don't know."</p> + +<p>"They express, sir, no doubt, a point of view—quite an estimable point +of view, if it were not a question of politics: they reflect, that is to +say, the mind of the ecclesiastical side of the Spiritual and Judicial +Chamber. Your Majesty's House of Laity sees things differently: I am +bound, therefore, to submit to your Majesty certain important proposals +for the relief of the impasse at which we have now arrived. As no doubt, +sir, you are aware, we have the Judges, the Juridical half of the +Chamber, for the most part with us, since for the last few years their +appointment has been entirely in our hands. But the Bishops, with the +exception of one or two, are obdurate and immovable. We select the most +liberal Churchmen we can find: but it is no use; each new Bishop, +adopted by Dean and Chapter, becomes when once seated in the Upper +Chamber, merely a reflection of those who have gone before him: the +Juridical minority is swamped, the Spiritual element remains supreme, +and we have no chance of obtaining a majority."</p> + +<p>"It is only because you will try to do things too fast!" said the King; +but the Prime Minister continued—</p> + +<p>"And now, sir, our one opportunity has come. The Bill for dividing the +dioceses and doubling the number of the Bishoprics has just passed into +law. I flatter myself that when the Prelates assented to that Bill they +did not realize how its powers might be directed. It is the proposal of +your Majesty's advisers to nominate to those Bishoprics only Free +Churchmen, men whose political views coincide with our own."</p> + +<p>"Free Churchmen!" cried the King, startled; "but they are outside the +Establishment altogether."</p> + +<p>"Merely on a point of Church discipline," answered the Prime Minister. +"They are ministers properly ordained. When they seceded over the +'Church Government Act' they carried their full Canonical Orders with +them: only as they had no Bishops they have become a diminishing body. +Their beliefs, or their disbeliefs (for on many points the churches are +merely maintaining an observance of definitions which their intellects +no longer really accept)—their professed beliefs, then, shall I +say?—in all matters of doctrine are not more heterogeneous than those +which distract the councils and the congregations of the Establishment. +It is only on matters of administration and Church discipline that they +fundamentally differ. We count upon the Free Church Bishops to give us a +majority both on the secularization of charities and the opening of the +theological chairs and divinity degrees of our Universities to all sects +and communities alike. After that we shall be in a position to deal +with State Endowment and with Education generally."</p> + +<p>"But will the Chapters, under such circumstances, accept the Crown's +nominees?" inquired the King. "And even if they do, may not the Bishops +refuse to consecrate them?"</p> + +<p>"The right in law of a Dean and Chapter to reject the Crown's nominee +and to substitute one of their own has already been decided against +them," said the Prime Minister. "As for the consecration, if the Bishops +refuse their services we have an understanding with the exiled +Archimandrite of Cappadocia to see the whole thing through for us."</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!" cried the King, "a black man with two wives."</p> + +<p>"His orders," said the Prime Minister, "are perfectly valid, and are +recognized not only by us but by Rome. Only last year the Bishops were +making quite a stir about him; there was even a proposal that he should +assist at the next consecration so as to clear away all doubts in the +eyes of Romanists as to the validity of our own orders. It would, +therefore, be a measure of poetic justice if now——"</p> + +<p>"I don't think we ought to do it," interrupted the King.</p> + +<p>"If the Bishops give way in time, sir, it will be unnecessary."</p> + +<p>"Will you consent to my seeing the Archbishop about it?" inquired the +King, much perturbed.</p> + +<p>"Sir, I have already seen him."</p> + +<p>"Well, what did he say?"</p> + +<p>"He said a good many things, and said them very well. His general +impression seemed to be that we should not dare to do it. That is where +he is mistaken."</p> + +<p>"You have to consult me also," remarked the King.</p> + +<p>"Sir, that is what I am now doing." The Prime Minister bowed with the +utmost deference.</p> + +<p>"You put me in a great difficulty!"</p> + +<p>"I am sorry that your Majesty should make difficulty," retorted the +Premier dryly.</p> + +<p>"You seem to forget," pursued the King, "that I am sworn to maintain +both Church and Constitution as established by law."</p> + +<p>"Sir, we propose nothing unconstitutional."</p> + +<p>"Free Churchmen are not constitutional, they have no standing."</p> + +<p>"They have a right to their opinions like all the rest of your Majesty's +subjects."</p> + +<p>"Not to be made Bishops."</p> + +<p>"That merely legalizes their position."</p> + +<p>The King shook his head. "I don't like it," he said; "I don't like it! +And if you won't let me consult the Archbishop how am I to know what I +ought to do?"</p> + +<p>"If as advisers to the Crown we have had the misfortune to lose your +Majesty's confidence," said the Prime Minister suavely, "I hope your +Majesty will not hesitate to say so. But I am bound to inform you, sir, +that should your Majesty be unable to accept the advice now offered, it +will be the most painful duty of your Majesty's ministers to tender +their resignation."</p> + +<p>"I observe," retorted the King tartly, "that whenever you begin +reminding me of my 'Majesty' you have always something unpleasant to +spring on me! You are treating me now just as you have been treating the +Bishops; you will not listen to advice; no, you will not accept +amendments, you behave as though you were already a single Chamber +Government. You ought to accept amendments! I don't like Free Church +Bishops. If they want to become Bishops they can go to the Archimandrite +for themselves. I suppose you are making it worth his while?" he added +suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"Doubtless there will be an arrangement," answered the Premier smoothly. +"There again the Archbishop has already helped us. Less than a year ago +he made representations to us on the subject, recommending the +Archimandrite for a State pension."</p> + +<p>"And pray, will that appear in the estimates?"</p> + +<p>"There is no reason why it should not appear."</p> + +<p>"I have noticed," commented the King, "that if people do an unscrupulous +thing in the full light of day, it takes a certain appearance of +honesty."</p> + +<p>"A very statesmanlike observation, your Majesty," smiled the Prime +Minister. "In this matter I may say we are without scruple because our +case is unanswerable."</p> + +<p>"You shall have my answer," said the King, "when I have had more time to +think about it."</p> + +<p>With which oblique retort to the Prime Minister's assertion he rose, and +the interview terminated.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>By this time he was thoroughly tired: he had done a hard morning's work; +not only had he been harassed and annoyed, but he had been thinking a +great deal more than he usually thought, and his brain ached. But even +now his troubles were not ended; just as he turned to go the Minister of +the Interior craved audience; and at his first word the King's +irritation grew afresh, for here was dismissed controversy cropping up +again.</p> + +<p>While the King was receiving the Prime Minister his Comptroller-General +had not been idle: indeed he never was idle. He had gone straight to the +Minister of the Interior and had reported to him the failure of his +efforts, for it was this minister who had in the first place come to +him. The steeplejack had fallen, so to speak, right into the middle of +his department; and with the King's donation coming on the top the +catastrophe bulked large. For, be it known, on the order of the day for +the morrow's sitting of Parliament was a motion of the Labor Party, +directing censure on the Government for having brought pressure to bear +on contractors and caused work to be continued upon Government buildings +when Labor and Capital were at war. It was nothing to Labor that the +hire of the scaffolding used in the repairs was costing the country a +considerable sum of money while it stood uselessly waiting about the +walls of the Legislature; blacklegs had gone up on it and blacklegs had +been pulled down from it; and one particular blackleg had gone up on it +and had come down without any pulling whatever—an accident over which +Labor was savagely ready to exult and say, "Serve him right!" And how +would it be if they saw in their morning papers, on the very day when +the motion was down for debate, that the King had gone out of his way to +make a handsome donation to the widow? The Minister of the Interior +simply could not allow it; yet now word had come to him that his Majesty +persisted in his intention. So when the Prime Minister came out the +Minister of the Interior went in and put his case to the King, as I have +put it here to the reader—only far more persuasively, and ornately, and +at very much greater length. He also added to what has already been set +forth, as a point making the man a less worthy object of compassion, +that according to latest accounts he had gone to his work under the +influence of drink.</p> + +<p>"So do all steeplejacks," said the King, and quoted the <i>Encyclopedia</i>: +"It is only when they are drunk that they can do it. <i>I</i> know." He spoke +as though he had tried it.</p> + +<p>Before the minister had done the King was really angry. "Mr. Secretary," +said he, "I don't care how many strikes there are, or how many Trades +Unions, or how many motions of censure from the gentlemen of the Labor +Party: they may motion to censure <i>me</i> if they like! The man is dead, +and I was unfortunate enough to be a witness of his death. He died in an +attempt to do a laudable action." (Here the King was tempted to quote +the peroration from his favorite newspaper, but he checked himself: the +minister would not have understood.) "His wife," he went on, "is now a +widow, and his children are orphans; and if that twenty pounds may not +go to them, then I am not master of my own purse-strings, or"—he added +by way of finish—"of my own natural feelings and emotions as an +ordinary human being."</p> + +<p>And before that burst of eloquence the Minister of the Interior was +abashed into silence, and retired from the royal presence discomfited.</p> + +<p>The King's argument had heated him, like the royal furnace of +Nebuchadnezzar, seven times more than he was wont to be heated. He so +seldom argued with anybody, still less with his ministers: and here he +had been arguing with one or another of them for half the morning. He +almost felt as if something had happened to him; a touch of giddiness +seized him as he turned to retire to his private apartments; and the +thought struck him—if he was as much upset as this over a small +side-issue, what would he be like when he had done adding that luster to +the constitutional edifice which the nation in its crisis would +presently be demanding of him? The wear and tear were going to be +considerable.</p> + +<p>Circumstance had departed as he retraced his steps to the domestic wing. +The lackeys, having done their ceremonial duty, had disappeared: he was +free to go unobserved. As he ascended the marble staircase which led +from the great hall toward the private apartments he was still thinking +of the steeplejack, the man who somehow seemed now to be an emblem of +himself. This man, set to the superfluous task of regilding the +weathercock of the Legislature, doing it in defiance of master craftsmen +and fellow-workmen, lured to do it because the cost of the hiring of the +scaffolding had become an expensive charge on the Board of Works, and +then, after the custom of the Trade, primed, emboldened, and made drunk +to do it, drunk to a point which had brought him to destruction—yes, he +was like that man; his temptations, his perils, his essential +superfluity were all the same. As he went up the stair he tried to +imagine he was the man himself, going up and up, a solitary and uplifted +figure, fixing his thoughts on things above in order that he might +forget the gulf which yawned below. He took his hand from the +balustrade, and gazing upward at the gilt and crystal chandelier +suspended from the dome above, so entirely forgot his surroundings for +one moment that, missing a step, he lost balance backwards and fell with +amazing thoroughness down the full flight of steps till he reached the +bottom.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h2>WILD OATS AND WIDOWS' WEEDS</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Bump! bump! bump! went his head. Through a confused vision of stars, +veined marble, stained glass, and flying stair-rails he saw his legs +trail helplessly after, close in above, fling violently across him feet +foremost, and dash out of view. In other words, having reached the +bottom of the grand staircase he had turned a complete and homely +somersault.</p> + +<p>For awhile he lay half stunned, unable to move. Something had +undoubtedly happened to his head, but he was still conscious. Cautiously +he turned himself over and looked round. No one was about; no one had +seen this ignominious downfall of Jingalo's topmost symbol on the too +highly polished floors of its own abode; and nobody must know. It was +not the right and dignified way for a royal accident to happen: falling +down-stairs suggested the same failing as that to which steeplejacks +were prone.</p> + +<p>He picked himself up, and aware now of a sharp pain in the middle of his +spine as well as at the back of his head, crawled slowly and in a +rather doubled-up attitude toward the royal apartments.</p> + +<p>As he moved cautiously along the private corridor, he met the Queen +coming from her room, dressed for going out. She detected at once his +painful and decrepit attitude. "What is the matter, dear?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, nothing," mumbled the King, "only a touch of sciatica." And as +he did not encourage her impulse to pause and make further inquiries, +she let him go past.</p> + +<p>He went into his room, and sat very carefully down, for he was still +uncertain whether some vertebral bit of him was not broken. Then he put +his hand to the back of his head and felt it. Yes, undoubtedly something +had happened; at contact with his finger it made a sound curiously like +the ticking of a clock, and under the scalp a portion of bone seemed to +move. And yet he was not threatened with unconsciousness; on the +contrary he felt very wide awake: shaken though he was, ideas positively +bubbled in his brain, his whole being effervesced. For a moment a fear +flickered across his mind that he was going mad. But if so it was a +wholly pleasurable sensation, for though his fancy went at a gallop, it +was orderly, logical, and consecutive, not like madness at all. He +dismissed the notion; but further reflection confirmed him in his +determination not to tell anybody; he did not want to explain how he had +walked upstairs fancying himself a steeplejack. It would have sounded +stupid.</p> + +<p>Then all at once he felt very sick and giddy, and going to the couch he +lay down on it, and there, finding relief in the horizontal position, he +fell fast asleep.</p> + +<p>When he awoke an hour later his head, except for an extreme local +tenderness, felt all right again; but when he tested it the faint +ticking sound was still there. His mind was now calm; his thoughts no +longer went at a gallop, but they seemed—what was the word?—freer, +more articulate, more at his beck and call; and in spirit he was far +less harassed and anxious. Altogether he felt that he possessed himself +more than he had ever done before: his mental views had become more +open.</p> + +<p>Then he remembered that he wanted to see his son Max, and talk to him +about certain matters; and so, after a few more tentative touches to the +back of his head to find if it was still ticking—which it was—he went +into his study, and sending for one of his secretaries, got a message +despatched. And only when he was well on in the routine of his +afternoon's labors did he recollect that he had not lunched.</p> + +<p>That break in the regularity of his habits seemed almost an adventure; +but as he did not now feel hungry he plodded on, for this was his day of +the week for signing accumulated arrears of documents, and several +hundreds awaited him. So for a couple of hours he worked as regularly +and monotonously as a bank-clerk, and while he was signing the less +important papers, and passing them to one of his secretaries to be +blotted and sorted, another read out to him those of which he wished to +learn the contents.</p> + +<p>This duty was generally performed by the Comptroller-General himself; +but to-day he was missing, and the King, left to make his own selection, +was rather startled to find what a number of really important documents +had been left over for this day, devoted to what may be described as +routine signatures. As a rule it was the Comptroller who, out of his +long experience, selected those documents which must be read and, only +after due consideration, signed. Now, by some accident, he had been +prevented from attending, and here was a crowd of important documents, +the terms of which the King had never heard. He began to wonder. At +least ten or a dozen were strange to him: he ordered them to be set +aside. And now very dimly, very gradually, he began to suspect his +position, and to perceive that without watchfulness he might very easily +become less a conscious instrument of Government than a mere mechanism. +What if he had become that already?</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>And then it grew dusk. The King dismissed his secretaries, and without +turning on the light sat and thought alone. The effervescence had all +gone from his brain, melancholy ruled him; and as he sat ruminating upon +the past and his own present position his mind became obsessed by all +the historical characters who had preceded him in the exercise of those +royal functions now grown so exiguous in his hands, who had sat and +labored at Statecraft in that very room, some of them, perhaps, in the +very chair in which he was now seated.</p> + +<p>They became almost present to his consciousness. How would they have +behaved in the present situation? How would they have set to work to add +luster to that supreme symbol which still crowned the constitutional +edifice?</p> + +<p>He could imagine his own father opposing over a considerable period the +weight of his personal prestige to the importunacy of ministers, saying +with stately ease: "We will speak of that, gentlemen, some other day," +and so calmly turning from the subject in dispute—not solving it, but +at least imposing delay as the penalty which ministers must pay for a +difference of opinion. That policy of quiet procrastination no minister +of his time would have dared to withstand without first making for it a +certain time-allowance. So much at least would have been secured, not of +right, but through the weight of a stronger personality.</p> + +<p>And what about others before him? Slowly there dawned upon the King's +vision—clear as though he had seen her but yesterday, the regal +presence of a certain ancestress who more than any other had made the +monarchy what it now was—an almost miraculous survival from the past. +It was the old Queen Regent, the lady who for the last twenty years of +her consort's reign, when his wavering mind had failed him, had ruled +her ministers with a rod which was not of iron, but which, none the +less, they had feared, and sought by many devious ways to evade. Out of +some book of memoirs a vision of something that had taken place in that +very room rose up before him. Around her a ring of Bishops, crowding the +royal hearth-rug, each standing defenseless with deferential stoop, +tea-cup in hand; and she, seated before them with plump hands folded in +her lap upon a lace kerchief, or tapping now and again upon the arms of +her chair to give emphasis, was laying down her word of law, and putting +an end to revolt in the Church.</p> + +<p>"I won't have it!" she cried. "I won't have it! This nonsense has got to +be put down!"</p> + +<p>And what could a Bishop do with a tea-cup in his hand? There she had got +them, six or eight chosen Prelates, every one of them in a defenseless +position; how could they argue an affair of State so? What could they do +but assent to the incontrovertible statement that "nonsense" must and +certainly should be put down—though knowing all the time that the +particular "nonsense" in question, being a thing inbred in the minds of +men, could not be put down by any act of Parliament and would persist +even to the breaking-up of Church unity? And so a perfectly ineffective +Church Government Act had passed into law, causing its honest opponents +to secede, while its far more numerous dishonest opponents had remained; +and the Queen Regent, having for the time being asserted her authority +in the Church, had passed on the actual solution of the problem to later +times.</p> + +<p>Later times: the King's brain ceased to visualize, he came back to +himself and to the accumulated problems now pressing for solution. Yes; +for the monarchy, not only as she had made it, but as it had now become, +that great little lady was almost equally responsible. Her genius had +only arrested its decay by bottling it up in the clear preservative of +her own virtues. It now stood out more conspicuously than ever, a +survival from the past: it had not really moved on. Had it, under that +preserving process, become more brittle? With a more open mind he was +beginning to suspect that the ancient institution was crumbling in his +hands; that a creeping paralysis had seized hold of it. Why? What had he +done? Was simple honesty the last and fatal touch that had called these +symptoms of death to light? Had he been too human for an office with +which humanity was no longer compatible? It seemed a confounding charge +to one whose soul was filled with a social hunger which ever went +unsatisfied, whose official isolation from his people was a daily +obsession. His doubt was whether he had been human enough? As he +cogitated on the matter the suspicion grew in him that he had only been +human domestically; outside his domesticity he had resigned his humanity +and become an automaton, a thing in leading-strings. He had allowed +constitutional usage, aye, and constitutional encroachments also, to +crush him down. In constitutional usage he was as harnessed and +bedizened as the piebald ponies who drew his state-coach when he went +each year to open or shut the flood-gates of legislative eloquence. +Constitutional usage, determined for him by others, was the bearing-rein +that had bowed his neck to that decorative arch of mingled condescension +and pride with which he received deputations, addresses, ambassadors. +Constitutional usage had put a bit in his mouth and blinkers upon his +eyes, so that now, even in his own Council Chamber, he was not expected +to speak, was not expected to see unless his attention were specially +invited. More and more the critical and suspensory powers of the Crown +were coming to be regarded as out of place, a straining of the Royal +Prerogative. The growth of the ministerial system had gone on; and he, +shut off from growth in its midst, was being robbed of strength day by +day. And all this was being done, not in the eyes of his people, but +secretly, under smooth and respectful formalities, by a Cabinet +insidiously bent on acquiring as its own that of which it robbed him. In +this unwritten and unnoticed readjustment of the Constitution nothing +was being passed on to the people's representatives. They knew nothing +about it; keeping all that to itself, the Cabinet, like the grim wolf +with privy paw, "daily devoured apace, and nothing said."</p> + +<p>So far (barring the quotation from Milton, a purely literary adornment +on the author's part), so far he had got with drifting and despondent +thought, when again that small regal presence, of low statute but ample +form, became clearly defined, and he heard the soft staccato voice +saying sharply: "I won't have it! I won't have it!"</p> + +<p>The blood of his ancestors thrilled in his veins. There and then he +formed a resolution—neither would he! He moved to his desk and sat down +to write; and even as he did so material for the breaking of that +resolve presented itself,—the Comptroller-General, calm and +self-possessed, glided into the room.</p> + +<p>He had a communication to make: the story did not take long to tell. He +had been extending his inquiries—further and more particular inquiries +into the life and domestic relations of the unfortunate steeplejack; and +he had discovered, oh, horror! but just in time, that the woman who had +lived with him was not his wife.</p> + +<p>"But you told me they had seven children," said the King.</p> + +<p>"That is so, Sir," replied the Comptroller-General; "it has been a +relationship of long standing. Morally, of course, that only makes the +matter worse."</p> + +<p>The King did not know why morally the permanence of that arrangement +should make it worse. It was a statement which he accepted without +question; it came to him with authority from one whose guidance in such +matters he had ever been accustomed to follow and find correct. Before +the weight of the moral law, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost of +the dead steeplejack. The widow and the seven orphans passed out of +existence; they ceased any longer to be mouths and hearts of flesh, and +became instead abstractions to be set in a class apart—one not eligible +for rewards. To such as these no public declaration of the royal bounty +could be made.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said the King despondently, "strike off the memorandum! The +twenty pounds need not go."</p> + +<p>An hour later the Queen came in and found him sitting alone and +miserable in his chair. She spoke to him, but he did not answer. Then as +she drew nearer, to find out if anything were really the matter, his +misery found voice.</p> + +<p>"I can't move! I am unable to move!" he moaned.</p> + +<p>"What is it, dear?" she inquired, "sciatica?"</p> + +<p>His answer came from a source she could not fathom.</p> + +<p>"No one," he murmured in a tone of deep discouragement, "no one will +ever call <i>me</i> 'Jack.'"</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Three hours later, after dinner, the King and his son, Prince Max, were +sitting together in the same room. The King, feeling considerably better +for a good meal, had given Max one of his best cigars, and having gone +so far to establish confidential relations, was now trying to summon up +courage to speak to the young man as a father should.</p> + +<p>But here, as elsewhere, he was met by the old difficulty—he and his son +were not intimates. They had drifted apart, not for any lack of filial +or paternal affection, but simply because in the round of their official +lives they so seldom met privately; and since the Prince had acquired an +establishment of his own the King knew little of what he did with his +daily life beyond the records of the Court Circular.</p> + +<p>Max was now twenty-five; he was taller and darker than his father, more +handsome and more self-possessed. In his appearance he combined the +polish of a military training with the quiet air of an amateur scholar; +his forehead was prematurely, but quite becomingly, bald, his mustache +well groomed, his figure slight but athletic. He had inherited his +father's full lips, but the glance of his eye was of a keener and +shrewder quality, and it might be suspected that the eye-glasses +which he occasionally put on were assumed more for effect than for +necessity. Above all, he possessed what the King conspicuously +lacked—self-assurance, and with it a sort of moral ease as though any +error he might fall into would be taken rather as an experience to +profit by than as an occasion for self-reproach. His face showed as he +talked that quality of humor which enables a man to laugh at his own +enthusiasms, and one could not always be sure whether he were serious or +merely indulging in dialectics. To any one out of touch with his +intellectual origins, he was a man difficult to know; and the King, +being in that matter altogether at sea, knew really very little about +him, and was in consequence a little afraid of him.</p> + +<p>That fact made a frontal attack difficult; nevertheless, having screwed +himself up to speak, he began abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Max," said his father, "have you ever thought about marrying?"</p> + +<p>Max smiled a little bitterly. "I started thinking about it," he said, +"when I was seventeen; and off and on I have thought about it ever +since." Then he added rather coldly, as though to warn off mere +curiosity, "Why do you ask, sir? Has any proposal been made?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said his father, "we might certainly arrange something. I feel, +indeed, that we ought to—at your age. I only wanted first to know how +you felt upon the matter. You see," he added, hesitating, "people are +beginning to talk; and it won't do."</p> + +<p>This oblique and cautious reference to his son's private life marked a +new stage in their relations: it was actually the first occasion, in all +their intercourse as father and son, upon which the sex-question had +ever been broached between them. It was no wonder, therefore, that so +far they had been rather strangers to each other. Now, however, having +decided to speak, the King also decided that he must go on and +interfere. It required some moral courage; for he had never failed to +recognize his son as the stronger character, and, especially in +intellectual matters, his superior.</p> + +<p>"I have been told that you have been keeping a mistress," he said, +avoiding the young man's eye.</p> + +<p>"That," answered Max, "would, I suppose, be the generally received +phrase for it."</p> + +<p>"Who is she?" queried the King, pushing hazardously on, now that the +danger-point had been reached.</p> + +<p>"Do you wish to meet her?"</p> + +<p>Parental dignity was offended.</p> + +<p>"That is a suggestion you ought not to make."</p> + +<p>"Then, my dear father, why inquire after her? She and I suit each other: +to you she is nothing."</p> + +<p>"How long has this been going on?"</p> + +<p>"We have lived together for five years."</p> + +<p>The King recalled a phrase that he had recently heard authoritatively +spoken—"a relationship of long standing. Morally, of course, that only +makes the matter worse."</p> + +<p>"H'm!" he said aloud. "You started early, I must say!"</p> + +<p>"You, sir, at that age were already a father," said Max correctively.</p> + +<p>The King made an interjectory movement, but the Prince went on. "I was +twenty, and I was still virginal. To speak frankly, I was amazed at +myself, perhaps even amused. Yes, even now I am inclined to think that, +among princes, my record must have been exceptional. This lady, to whom +I owe nearly the whole of my domestic experience, saved me from an +adventuress——"</p> + +<p>The King lifted his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"One," went on the Prince, "who would have wrung from me in a single +year far more, from a merely monetary point of view, than the whole +experience has yet cost me."</p> + +<p>The King was slightly bewildered. "This person," he said tentatively, +"is not, then, of the adventuress class?"</p> + +<p>"Nor was that other: by class she was one of the highest of our +aristocracy. I believe that when she is received at Court it is correct +etiquette for you to kiss her upon the cheek. The lady who did actually +befriend me was her companion and secretary, an Austrian by birth. She +had divorced her husband and possessed only a small annuity on which she +was unable to live independently in the style to which she had become +accustomed. Yet for the first year of our liaison she would accept from +me no provision, and we saw each other but seldom. Strange as it may +seem she taught me the value and the charm of conjugal moderation and +fidelity. Just now she is receiving a visit from her son, on leave from +his military services abroad; and respecting the ordinary moral +conventions, which happen also to be hers, I do not go to see her while +the son's visit is being paid. Yet I apprehend that he cannot be in +ignorance of the facts."</p> + +<p>"She has a grown-up son?" queried the King, still a little puzzled; and +Max smiled.</p> + +<p>"A polite way," said he, "of inquiring as to her age. Yes: she is on the +verge of forty, and assures me that she will soon be showing it. You may +be interested also to hear that she is a Roman Catholic, has attacks of +devoutness which occasionally prescribe separation, and has twice +threatened, not in anger but with a most sincere reluctance, to break up +our peaceful establishment. I recognize that in the end her love for her +Church will probably prove stronger than her love for me—at all events +in practice. I have, indeed, some apprehension that her son's visit may +result in a turning of the balance, since he has now inherited his +father's property and can give his mother the position she has a right +to expect. If that should be so, you will find me very attentive to any +offer of marriage that any Court of western civilization (which now +includes Japan) may have to make. Have I said, sir, all that you wish to +know about my feelings in the matter?"</p> + +<p>"What I don't understand," said the King, "is your idea about the +morality of all this."</p> + +<p>"Really," replied the Prince, "I hardly know that I have any. It has +gone on so long; and anything that is regular and of long standing tends +to produce a moral feeling."</p> + +<p>This arrested the King's attention. "You think so?" he interrogated; but +Max waived any decisive pronouncement.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said he, "I do not quite know what morality means. I fancy +sometimes that its full meaning may be sprung upon me when I find myself +in love; or, if I am not destined to undergo that experience, on the day +when I learn that I am to become a father without having intended it. +Morality arises out of the proper or improper performance of social +obligations; and I have sometimes wondered whether society's most insane +treatment of illegitimacy would not have compelled me into a misalliance +with my 'mistress,' as you call her, had she ever——"</p> + +<p>"Max!" cried the King, "you are outrageous!"</p> + +<p>"Is that really how it strikes you?" inquired his son. "I feared, +rather, that it was an inexpugnable remnant of my religious training. If +the notion is anarchic I can feel more at home with it. But do not +forget that I am a doctor of divinity."</p> + +<p>"You!" exclaimed the King.</p> + +<p>"Had it escaped your recollection, sir? I confess that sometimes it +escapes mine. Yes: I became a D.D. before I was sent down from College."</p> + +<p>"You were not 'sent down'!"</p> + +<p>"Not ostensibly, sir; I should have been. I left to take up my +military—accomplishments, for I may not call them 'duties.' But you can +hardly forget that I am the only man who ever dared to screw up the +Master of Pentecost in his own rooms. While my associates were screwing +up the Dean, I was screwing up the Master; it was one of my earliest +attempts to be companionable with my fellow-men."</p> + +<p>The King sympathized, but was puzzled. "Do you mean—with the Master?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, with my fellow-students, those of my own years, amongst whom I +had been placed. But I found that it was impossible. They, for the +lesser offense, were actually 'sent down'; I, having finished my thesis +and obtained my doctor's degree, was merely passed on at a slightly +accelerated pace to receive fresh honors. That gave me a lesson which I +have never forgotten; no honor that has come to me have I ever fully +earned; and no disgrace that I have earned has ever been visited upon me +for the public to know. There in a nutshell you have the moral training +of the heir to a modern throne. What chance, then, have I to know +anything about morality?"</p> + +<p>"My dear son," said the King, "don't say these dreadful things. Even if +they are true, don't say them. They do no good."</p> + +<p>But though he deprecated having to meet such thoughts clothed in the +flesh of speech, he was really very much interested to find that Max had +them; he was seeing his son in a new light. And meanwhile the Prince +went on—</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>"I often think, sir, of those two medieval institutions which we have +now lost—I suppose irrevocably—the whipping boy and the court jester. +What a pity that they cannot be revived! The whipping boy, a device to +put princes on their honor to be neither negligent nor wanton in the +fulfilment of their duties; and the jester to break us of our too +self-conscious airs and exhibit to us our follies. See what we have done +instead! When our growing sense of priggish decorum and our dishonest +ceremoniousness of speech made the jester a figure no longer possible, +we substituted for him the poet-laureate!—not to persuade us of our +follies, but to chant our undeserved praises. And alas, how much more +ridiculous, at certain times, he has made us appear—nay, be! With what +lecherous sweetness or ponderous grief he has put us to bed with our +wives or our ancestors, with what maudlin sentiment he has crooned over +us in our cradles! And how poor a show we present when poetry thus tries +to make our ordinary human doings appear so different from those of +other men! England set us that bad example; and, as usual, we followed +her. Only think how far more resplendent might have been her history had +the Court of St. James's continued and developed the institution of the +jester and let the laureateship go. If Pope could only have had the +teasing of Queen Anne, and Swift the goading of the earlier Georges; if +Johnson could have bumbled gruff wisdom into the ears of number three; +and, following upon these, could Sheridan, and Hook, and Carlyle, and +Sidney Smith (I pick up names almost at random) have had a really +assured position and full plenary indulgence as commentators on the +Court and aristocracy of the Regency, and of the early Victorian period +which culminated in that middleman's millennium, the Great Exhibition, +with its Crystal Palace so shoddily furnished to celebrate the +expurgation of art from industry. If only that could have been allowed, +think how England might have been standing now—honest in her faults as +in her virtues, a beacon light to the whole world. But there! it is no +use wishing such saving grace to a rival nation, when we are so out of +grace ourselves."</p> + +<p>Prince Max paused for breath. "And then the whipping boy," he went on, +"think of him!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Max. I am thinking of him a good deal!" said the King, in a tone +wherein sarcasm and indulgence were pleasantly blended.</p> + +<p>"You mean that I myself need the discipline?" smiled Max, "that my +political ideas are even worse than my morals? Well, here is what you +should do. Choose for me an exemplary young priest of the Established +Church, let him be gentle and comely to attract the hearts of women, +athletic and erudite to command the respect of men; and when I become a +cause of scandal or forget what is due to my position, let him be set to +stand in the old stocks at the doors of the Cathedral on a given day, +for a given number of hours; let it be announced in the Court Circular +that he is there to do penance for my sins, and let it be my privilege, +if penitent, to come in person after the first hour and release him +before the eyes of all. What more effective form of control could you +devise for me than this? How could I remain impenitent and unsubmissive +when for my faults an innocent man stood exposed in contumely to the +public gaze? Sir, you would have me exemplary in a week, or a fugitive +from that country which set so high a standard of honor for its princes. +As it is, our whipping boys go unlabeled with our names; and our +offenses are expiated by countless thousands who know not for whose sins +they suffer."</p> + +<p>"Max," said his father, "you sound as if you were quoting from some +book."</p> + +<p>"I am," answered the Prince; "it is one that I am writing myself, that +being the only form of free action that is left to me. At the threshold +of manhood I recognized what my fate was to be, and that I was not +really intended to do anything. That is why I talk. Activity is +necessary to me. To keep myself in physical vigor I run about and play; +to keep myself in mental vigor I read, I examine life, and I propound +theories. This book which I am now writing would probably excite no +comment if published anonymously, but will be regarded as revolutionary +when it is known to have been written by the heir to a crown."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to publish it, then?" cried the King in awestruck tone.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," answered the Prince. "Has not the nation every right to +know the opinions of its possible future King? Never shall it be said +that Jingalo accepted me blindly under the dark cover of heredity."</p> + +<p>At this news the King looked really aghast. "And you propose, while I am +spending myself in trying to add luster——" he began, then checked +himself; "you propose to publish a work which may destroy the confidence +at present subsisting between the sovereign and the people?"</p> + +<p>"Would not false confidence be a worse alternative, sir?" inquired Max.</p> + +<p>"But you are doing it in my time," said the King plaintively; "it is my +reign you are disturbing, not your own. I don't think you have any +right."</p> + +<p>"My dear father," answered the Prince, "the more impossible I prove +myself to be, the more popular you will become."</p> + +<p>But the King was not to be consoled by that prospect; he was working not +for himself alone—not for himself, indeed, at all.</p> + +<p>"Max," he said earnestly, "believe me, monarchy, even at the present +day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the +public mind, and you unsettle the basis of government and the sacredness +of property; everything else goes with it. The hereditary principle has +in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; +nothing can adequately take its place."</p> + +<p>"Do not forget, sir," said his son, "that if we follow our heredity back +far enough, ours is an elected monarchy. And if once you admit election +you must admit also the right of the to-be-elected one to offer or +refuse his candidature. The nation cannot play fast and loose, as it has +done, with the principle of male primogeniture, and at the same time +impose upon us, its candidates for election, an unavoidable obligation +to accept the burden of heredity. No; let us have the matter quite +clear. If the people—as they have done by others in the past—claim the +right to reject me, should I prove myself an outrageous and impossible +character, I equally claim the right to reject them; and I must see them +capable of making a reasonable use of my services before I will consent +to be made use of."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the King, breathing in resignation, "I suppose I ought not +to mind too much. 'After me the Deluge,' is a wise enough saying when +one has no power to prevent it."</p> + +<p>"'After me the Deluge,'" said Max, "has come down to us with a muddled +application. If monarchy would only adopt it as its motto, monarchy +would be good for another thousand years. Louis XV said it; and Louis +XVI failed to give it effect. Had he but placed himself at the head of +the Deluge, in the very forefront of its rush and roar, waved his hat to +it and cried: 'After me!' like a captain to his company, and started off +at a gallop, it would have obeyed and followed him. 'After me the +Deluge!' should be the rallying cry of the monarchy for the renewal of +its youth, not the quavering note of its dotage. That is the motto I am +going to put on the title-page of my book."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" cried the King.</p> + +<p>Max was pleased to see what an impression he had made: he did not +usually get so good a listener. "And to think," said he, "that all this +talk came of your having asked me a question on a matter that is already +five years old. I am sorry to have taken up so much time explaining +myself."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said the King, "I am glad. Five years? Yes, I am very +glad to know that." He got up and moving to the table made a call on his +private telephone. "Would you mind waiting a few minutes," he went on, +"perhaps I shall need your countenance."</p> + +<p>A secretary answered the call; and presently the Comptroller-General +himself appeared to learn the royal pleasure.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, my dear General," said the King, "to trouble you at so late +an hour. But about that matter of the widow—who is not a widow. I wish +fifty pounds to be sent to her—anonymously. Yes, fifty pounds. Will you +see that it is done to-night?"</p> + +<p>Turning to Max he said, as though referring to conversation already +passed, "You have effectually interested me in her case."</p> + +<p>Max saw that he was being used as a pawn in a game he did not +understand, and held his tongue; and the Comptroller-General, finding +himself dismissed, retired to do for once as he was told.</p> + +<p>And so, by the inglorious device of anonymity and lavishness combined +the King maintained his point, and sent his gift to the relief of one +who was, as a matter of fact, just as legally a widow as any other you +or I may like to name.</p> + +<p>John of Jingalo had not yet broken the official leading-strings, but on +this occasion he had circumvented them. Flushed with his triumph, he +bade his son an affectionate good-night. "Come and talk to me again," he +said. "I don't agree with anything you say, but you help me to think."</p> + +<p>It was a sign of progress. Hitherto he had relied, with a far greater +sense of security and comfort, on those who had enabled him not to +think. Consultation with Max, insidious as the drug-habit, and as +secretively employed, was henceforth to count for much in the +development of the Constitutional Crisis. Hereditary monarchy had +conceived the idea of turning its hereditary material to account. No +doubt the Cabinet would have objected, preferring to keep its victim in +complete mental isolation; but at present, the Cabinet did not know.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h2>POPULAR MONARCHY</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>That talk with Max formed the preliminary to a month of the most +strenuous verbal and intellectual conflict that the King had ever known. +Outside all was calm: the Constitutional Crisis was in suspension; by +agreement on both sides hostilities had been deferred till trade should +have reaped its full profit out of the Silver Jubilee celebrations. The +papers spoke admiringly of this truce to party warfare as "instinctive +loyalty" on the part of the people, "expressive of their desire to do +honor to a beloved sovereign in a spirit undisturbed by the contending +voices of faction."</p> + +<p>There was no "instinctive loyalty," however, within the Cabinet! While +streets were decorating and illuminations preparing, ministers were +giving his Majesty a thoroughly bad time.</p> + +<p>In a way, of course, he brought it upon himself, for at the very next +Council meeting after his conversation with Max he did a thing which, so +far as his own reign was concerned, was absolutely without precedent: he +opened his mouth and spoke;—objected, contended, argued. And at the +sound of his voice uttering something more than mere formalities, +ministers sat up amazed, most of them very angry and scandalized at so +unexpected a reversion to the constitutional usages of a previous +generation.</p> + +<p>Not a word of all this leaked out. The whole thing was an admirable +example of that keeping-up of appearances on which bureaucratic +government so largely depends. And it was, if you come to think of it, a +very deftly arranged affair. There was the whole country bobbing with +loyalty, enthusiasm, and commercial opportunism; the Cabinet +unencumbered for a while by any parliamentary situation that could cause +anxiety, and correspondingly free to direct its energies elsewhere; and +there within the Council, and without a soul to advise him, was the +King, scuffling confusedly against the predatory devices of his +ministers. The poor man's knowledge of the Constitution was but scanty, +and his powers of argument were feeble, for from the day of his +accession the word "precedent" had governed him. Yet he had an idea, a +feeling, that he was now being forced into a wrong position; the +constitutional breath was being beaten out of his body, and he would +pass from his levees, from his receptions of foreign embassies and +addresses of loyalty and congratulation, to a conflict in Council which +reminded him of nothing so much as a "scrum" upon the football field. +Through one goal or another he was to be kicked—the exercise of the +Crown's prerogative to nominate Free Church Bishops, or the refusal to +exercise it. And whichever expedient he was driven to in the end, he +knew that on one side grandiloquent words would be written about his +fine instinct for the constitutional limitations or powers of monarchy, +and on the other, pained, but deeply respectful words of regret that he +had been so ill-advised by his ministers—or by others. Whichever side +loses, it is the football which wins the game. That, however, is merely +the spectator's point of view. The football only knows that it has been +kicked. Yet the King was well aware that in Parliament at any rate +appearances would be kept up; and that whatever corner of the field he +got kicked to, the blame for it would be laid, ostensibly, on others; +though, as a result, the monarchy to which it was his bounden duty to +"add luster" would be either strengthened or weakened: and what course +to take he really did not know.</p> + +<p>His mind, in consequence, was greatly troubled. Being of conservative +instincts he believed that, in the main, the Bishops were right and the +Prime Minister wrong. The Prime Minister had been harassing the country +with general elections; and the country had had about as many as it +could stand: yet without a fresh election no other ministry was +possible. And now, at a moment when the country was bent on profiting by +the revival in trade which the approaching celebrations had stimulated, +nothing would be so unpopular as a fresh ministerial crisis; and he +could have no doubt that, whatever the papers might pretend to say, the +odium of that crisis, if due to his own action, would fall eventually +upon himself.</p> + +<p>And the Prime Minister knew it! Yes, just at that juncture, resignation, +or the threat of it, had become an absolutely compelling card; and he +was playing it for all it was worth. Free Church Bishops were to be +promised for the ensuing year, or the Ministry would be bound to feel, +here and now, that his Majesty's confidence in it had been withdrawn.</p> + +<p>Resignation, aimed not against any opposing majority in Parliament, but +against the demur and opposition of the Crown itself—that fact in all +its political significance, with all its possible developments of danger +for the State and of humiliation for the monarchy, was daily pressing +its relentless weight against the King's scruples. The more unanswerable +it seemed the more angry he became, the more keenly did he feel that he +was being unfairly used. And then, one day, as he sat thinking at his +desk, all at once a new thought occurred to him, throwing a queer +radiance into his face, of joy mixed with cunning. And then, gradually, +it faded out and left a blank; the old expression of anxiety and +distrustfulness returned. He shook his head at himself, scared that such +a thought should ever have come into it. "No, no, it wouldn't do!" he +muttered. "Impossible."</p> + +<p>All the same he got up from his desk, and in deep cogitation began +walking about the room. The carpet with its rich variegated pattern, +like Max's conversation, helped him to think; until certain deliveries +of a royal courier from abroad came to divert his attention to more +particular and family affairs.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless his mind had again reverted to its vetoed notion when, an +hour later, on his way to the Queen's apartments he met the Princess +Charlotte tripping gaily along the corridor. She stopped to give him her +"return home" embrace. "How well you are looking, papa!" cried she, +admiring his flushed countenance. But the King, though he smiled, +remained preoccupied with the embryos of statecraft.</p> + +<p>"My dear," he said abruptly, "do you think that I am popular?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, papa, of course!" she said, opening sweet eyes at him. +"Doesn't everybody cheer you when you go anywhere?"</p> + +<p>"I think," said her father dubiously, lending his ears in fancy to the +sound, "I think that crowds get into the habit of cheering,—not because +they care for me, but just because there are a lot of them, and they +like to hear the sound of their own voices."</p> + +<p>"But sometimes you have quite small crowds," said his daughter, "and +still they cheer."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," he allowed, "so they do. Yes, even the nursemaids, I notice, +wave their handkerchiefs when I ride by them in the park. And I daresay +some of them do it because they are sorry for me."</p> + +<p>"Sorry for you, papa?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, wouldn't you be sorry to have to be King now-a-days? It's no +fun, I can assure you."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't like to be King always," said Charlotte, with honesty; "but +you know, papa, with all the Silver Jubilee celebrations coming on you +are quite immensely popular."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said the King. "Thank you, my dear, that is what I wanted to +know."</p> + +<p>He went on to the Queen's apartments, and Princess Charlotte stood +looking after him. "Poor dear!" she said to herself. She was sorry for +him too—very sorry just now; for she had a secret growing within her +somewhere between heart and head which, if he knew of it—and some day +he would have to know of it—would cause him a great deal of worry.</p> + +<p>This young woman with her growing secret was at that time twenty-three.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The Princess Charlotte had a way of drawing in a breath as if to speak, +and then bottling it. This little performance was at times very telling +in its effect—it spoke volumes: it told of a long training in +self-repression which still did not come quite naturally: it told of +inward combustion, of a tightly cornered but still independent mind. +Ladies-in-waiting had seen the Princess run out of her mother's presence +to tabber her feet on the inlaid floor of the corridor, thence to return +smooth, sweet-tempered, and amiable; for between Charlotte and the Queen +there were temperamental differences which had to declare themselves or +find safety through emergency exits.</p> + +<p>The Princess had no such difficulties with her father, for +imperturbability was not one of his characteristics, and +imperturbability was the one quality in a parent which the Princess +simply could not stand; it made her feel powerless; and to feel +powerless toward one's intellectual inferiors is, to certain +temperaments, maddening. Charlotte had long since been brought to +recognize that her mother, in her own dear way, was quite hopeless: but +she was able with astonishing ease to get upon her father's nerves and +to trouble his conscience; for while the Queen remained impervious to +all influences outside the conventions of her training and her habits, +the King was as open to new scruples of conscience as a sieve is to the +wind—fresh ideas rattled in his head like green peas in a +cullender—when he shook his head it seemed to shake them about, and all +the larger ones came uppermost; and the Princess Charlotte had in recent +years acquired a habit of entangling her father, with the most engaging +simplicity, in moral problems for which constitutional monarchy could +find no answer.</p> + +<p>She was evidently interested in politics, and when of late the King, +wishing to check so dangerous a tendency, had sought to know the reason +why, she had answered with perfect frankness: "Max says" (for to her, +also, Max, the man born to inaction, had been talking), "Max says he is +not sure if he means to come to the throne. If he doesn't, it is just as +well I should know something of the business."</p> + +<p>The young lady had a most disrespectful way of talking about the +monarchy as "the business," and did not say it as if in joke.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to business to-day, papa?" was actually the phrase +uttered in all seriousness, which had met him one of the days when he +went down to open Parliament. But though she spoke thus gracelessly of +an important State function she attended it herself with grace, and +behaved well.</p> + +<p>The Princess Charlotte had learned many things alien to her nature; but +she had never learned that correctitude of deportment which is supposed +to accompany all those born in the regal purple from the cradle to the +grave. She substituted for it, however, something much more individual +and charming. Tall and abundantly alive, she moved in soft rushes +rather quicker than a walk; and her manner of swimming down a room, with +swift invisible run of feet, and just three long undulating bows on the +top of all—those three doing duty for so many—was a sight on the +decorum of which Court opinion was sharply divided. Yet every one +admitted that though she might lack convention or anything in the least +resembling "the grand manner"—she had a style of her own; many +also—even those who disapproved—admitted her charm. As she talked to +her chosen intimates, her two hands would go out in quick bird-like +gestures of momentary contact, while her brightly moving face gave a +constant invitation to the free entry of her thoughts. Barriers she had +none. A dangerous young person for getting her own way; for in the +process she often got not only her own but other people's as well.</p> + +<p>At the moment when she makes her introductory bow from the pages of this +history her main and consuming desire was to secure the ordering of her +own dresses; and to obtain that preliminary measure of independence for +the expression of her own character she was prepared, in the face of +maternal opposition, to go to considerable lengths.</p> + +<p>The King when he met her in the corridor was, as we have said, +preoccupied with affairs of State. But his preoccupation was partly put +on with intent for the concealment of other thoughts. The sight of his +daughter at that moment, embarrassed him—gave him, indeed, almost a +sense of guilt, for he held in his hand a letter from the Hereditary +Prince of Schnapps-Wasser accepting the circuitously worded proposal, +with all its delicate adumbrations of yet other proposals to follow, +that he should visit the Jingalese Court early in the ensuing +year—immediately, that is to say, upon his return from South America; +and though in his reply the veiled object of that visit was not +mentioned there was a touch here and there of compliment, of warmth, of +a wish that the date were not so far off, which indicated "a coming on +disposition."</p> + +<p>And so, under the bright eyes of his daughter, the King was conscious of +a sense of guilt, in that he was concealing from her something in which +her future was very greatly concerned. It seemed hardly fair thus to be +pushing matters on without letting her know: and yet—what else could he +do? So, covering his affectionate embarrassment in inquiries about +himself, he shuffled past; and when he had gone a little further, turned +to take another look at her, and found, startled, that she too was +looking at him. There, at opposite ends of the long corridor, father and +daughter stood interrogatively at gaze, each feeling a little guilty, +each wondering what, at the dénouement, the other would say. Then the +charming Charlotte blew him a kiss from her hand, and his Majesty did +likewise; and, off to the fulfilment of her destiny went the Princess; +and off to his fulfilment of her destiny went he; each quite sure in +their two different ways that they knew what was best for her.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The King found the Queen at her knitting, very placid and contented and +well pleased with herself, for she had just been giving Charlotte a mild +talking to. Charlotte had come home with adjectives in her mouth of +which the Queen did not approve, and with enthusiasms that went +riotously beyond bounds. She had talked of some Professor's translation +of a Greek play as "glorious"; and of the play itself—a play all about +expatriated women who, their proper husbands having been killed in a +siege, were forced to accept at the hands of their enemies husbands of a +less proper kind—she had talked of that play as "the most immense, +immortal, and modern thing in all drama."</p> + +<p>"I told her," said the Queen, "that she was talking about what she +didn't understand; but she answered that she had seen it three times. +<i>I</i> said, that to go and see the same play three times—especially a +play with murders in it—showed a morbid taste. She didn't seem to mind: +'Then I <i>am</i> morbid,' was her reply. And when I said, 'That comes of +making friends with these intellectual women,' she only laughed at me. I +shan't let her go again, it is doing her harm; she has far too many +ideas, far too many: and where she picks them all up I'm sure I don't +know; she doesn't get them from me!"</p> + +<p>And then the conversation—though Charlotte remained its subject—took +another turn, for the King put into his wife's hand the letter he had +received from the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser, and immediately her +comments began.</p> + +<p>"He writes a nice hand," she said, "and expresses himself very well. +Speaks of writing a book on his travels; he must be clever. Well, at all +events, it's very evident that he means to come, and wants to. We must +ask him to send his photograph. I think, my dear, we have made a very +good choice, and Charlotte may consider herself very fortunate. But what +a pity he's not coming sooner. Well, Charlotte must wait, that's all!"</p> + +<p>And so in her own mind the matter was settled, and only the usual +details waited to be arranged. She handed the letter back to him.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she said, "before he comes Charlotte must have a bigger +allowance." She became meditative. "By the way, you had better leave it +in my hands; don't give it to Charlotte herself. She wheedles you, I +know; but she has ideas about dress which I am not going to encourage; +she makes herself far too noticeable as it is. Somebody has been talking +to her about 'national costume' and the folly of fashions; and she +actually said just now that she wanted to have some kind of dress that +she could wear three years running! I told her that fashions were made +to be followed, and that it was her duty to follow them. Oh, she was +quite sweet about it, and said she supposed I knew best, which of course +is true. But she had a sort of 'I'll ask papa' look in her eyes that +made me suspicious. She went out just before you came."</p> + +<p>"I met her," observed the King.</p> + +<p>"And she said nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Not a word about her dress allowance."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's all right, then: she takes what I tell her sometimes." Then +with a quick glance the Queen asked abruptly: "Have you seen Max?"</p> + +<p>"I fancy I may be seeing him this evening," returned the King casually, +for he wished to conceal even from his wife the importance he had begun +to attach to his son's visits.</p> + +<p>"Something is happening," said the Queen pointedly; "at least, so I am +informed. That—that person I told you about—she isn't there now."</p> + +<p>"However do you come to know that?" inquired the King, surprised; but +his question was ignored.</p> + +<p>"She has gone abroad," went on his informant. "Had you said anything to +Max?"</p> + +<p>"I did speak to him."</p> + +<p>"Then it seems to have had its effect."</p> + +<p>The King very much doubted whether the effect was any of his doing; but +he held his peace.</p> + +<p>"Now we must find somebody for him," continued the dear lady, covering +the past in a tone of charitable allowance.</p> + +<p>"I think that Max will find somebody for himself."</p> + +<p>But this was not to her taste at all. "How can he," she objected, +"unless we send him abroad? I'm sure there's nobody here."</p> + +<p>But the King had come recently to know more about Max than his wife did. +"Max will find somebody for himself," he repeated; "and if he thinks it +worth while, he will go all round the world on a wild goose chase to +look for her."</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Could the King only have known it, Max had already found his choice +nearer home. His domestic arrangements having been temporarily disturbed +by a certain lady's departure to visit her son on his estates, he had +gone off on a spurt of social curiosity to inspect the slums of his +father's capital, and on the third day of his investigation had spied, +under a nursing sister's habit, and above a gentle breast bearing an +ivory cross, the face of his dreams. Having taken scientific steps to +discover whether that particular garb entailed celibate vows, and +learning that it did not, he had industriously run its wearer to sainted +earth—had, that is to say, pursued her to a top-floor tenement and +there found her upon her knees with sanitary zeal scrubbing dirt from +the boards of poverty; and poverty upon its bed whimpering with rage and +feebly cursing her for thus coming to disturb its peace. Thus they had +met, and very promptly and practically had the wearer of the habit made +him pay the price for his intrusion by setting him there and then to +work of a kind he had never tackled before.</p> + +<p>Who she was, and all the sacred dance that she led him on holy feet, +before she gave him that reward which was his due, will be told in the +later pages of this history. For the present Max had hardly any idea how +pure and deep a Jordan he was about to be dipped in, or how thorough a +scrubbing he himself was to receive. His voice was still like the +rollings of Abana and Pharpar, when he came on this next evening to +discourse up-to-date wisdom in his father's ears; not a hair of his +well-groomed head showed the ruffling of perturbed thoughts within, nor +were his self-confidence and easy satisfaction in the moral and mental +liberties wherein he ranged at large in any way diminished or disturbed.</p> + +<p>When they had settled down to their talk, the King confidentially +broached the proposed visit of the Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wasser +and its intended significance. Max did not seem particularly impressed. +"What does Charlotte say about it?" he inquired casually.</p> + +<p>"Charlotte does not say anything. How should she? She does not yet +know."</p> + +<p>Max smiled. "It will be time, then, to talk about it when she does."</p> + +<p>"But there is really nobody else; and Charlotte must marry somebody."</p> + +<p>"Has she said so?" inquired Max. "My own impression is that she will +have to get through at least one good healthy love affair of her own +before she settles down to anything you or the Courts of Europe can +provide. After that—if you let her plunge deep enough—you won't have +any trouble; she will marry anything you offer. Of course, if you really +believed in monarchy as a principle, and not as a mere expedient—a +divine institution, and not as the last ditch in which the old +class-barriers have to be maintained—you would let her marry any one +she chose. It would do the monarchy no harm, and might do it good."</p> + +<p>The King shook his head. "It's no use talking like that," said he. "We +are not free, any of us. The more other ranks of society have become +mixed, commercially mixed—for you know it is money that has done +it—the more we must maintain ours. Royalty must not barter itself +away."</p> + +<p>"But you <i>do</i> barter it," said Max, "for rank if not for gold. And the +one is really as base as the other. The great game for royalty to play +now-a-days is courageous domesticity."</p> + +<p>"There are limits," replied his father. "We must maintain our position."</p> + +<p>"That is just where you make the mistake," retorted Max. "You and my +dear mother are always ready to play the domestic game where it is not +important. You allow photographs of your private life to be on sale in +shop-windows; charming private details slip out in newspaper paragraphs; +one of you behaves with natural and decent civility to some ordinary +poor person, and news of it is immediately flashed to all the press. Two +years ago, for instance, when you were triumphantly touring the United +States you arrived by some accident at a place called New York; and +there, early one morning, having evaded the reporters, you stood looking +up at the sky-scrapers when you trod on an errand-boy's toe, or knocked +his basket out of his hand; and having done so you touched your hat and +apologized—you a King to an errand-boy! And immediately all America, +which yawps of equality and of one man being the equal of any other, +fell rapturously in love with you! You, I daresay, have forgotten the +incident?"</p> + +<p>"Quite," said the King.</p> + +<p>"But America remembers it. When you left, with all the locusts of the +press clinging to the wheels of your chariot, they dubbed you 'conqueror +of hearts'; and it was mainly because you had knocked over an errand-boy +and apologized to him. Now you do these things naturally; but they are +all really part of the business: your secretaries report them to the +press."</p> + +<p>"What?" exclaimed the King, startled.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course! The errand-boy didn't know you from Adam, and no one +but your private secretary was with you at the time; at least, so I +gathered: it was before breakfast and you had given the detectives the +slip. Well, then, merely by letting your human nature and your sense of +decency have free play you help to run the monarchic system—you almost +make a success of it. But you stop just where you ought to go on. You +are natural—you are yourself—where there is no opposition to your +being so. If you would go on being natural where there <i>is</i> +opposition—where all sorts of high social and political reasons step in +and forbid—you would find yourself far more powerful than the +Constitution intended you to be, for you would have the people with you. +There is a mountain of sentiment ready to rush to your side if you only +had the faith to call it to you. Have you not noticed, whenever a royal +engagement is announced, how every paper in the land declares it to be a +real genuine love-match? And you know—well, you know. I myself can +remember Aunt Sophie crying her eyes out for love of the Bishop of +Bogaboo whom she fell in love with at a missionary meeting and wasn't +allowed to marry; and six weeks later her engagement to Prince +Wolf-im-Schafs-Kleider was announced as a sudden and romantic +love-match! Why, he had only been sent for to be looked at when the +Bogaboo affair became dangerous; and so Aunt Sophie was coerced into +that melancholy mold of a jelly which she has retained ever since.</p> + +<p>"Now that is where my grandfather showed himself out of touch with the +spirit of the age. Had he allowed Aunt Sophie to marry the Bishop and go +out during the cool months of the year to teach Bogaboo ladies the use +of the crinoline—it was just when crinolines were going out of fashion +here, and they could have got them cheap—he would have done a most +popular stroke for the monarchy."</p> + +<p>"But you forget, my dear boy," said the King, "the Bogaboos were at that +time a really dangerous tribe—they still practised cannibalism."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they still had their natural instincts unimpaired; the Christian +substitute of gin had not yet taken hold on them, and their national +institution still provided the one form of useful martyrdom that was +left to us. Had Aunt Sophie, or her husband, been eaten by savages there +would have been a boom in missions, and both the Church and the monarchy +would have benefited enormously. Royalty must take its risks. Kings no +longer ride into battle at the head of their armies: even the cadets of +royalty, when they get leave to go, are kept as much out of danger as +possible. But if royalty cannot lead in something more serious than the +trooping of colors and the laying of foundation-stones, then royalty is +no longer in the running.</p> + +<p>"Now what you ought to do is—find out at what point it would break with +all tradition for you to be really natural and think and act as an +ordinary gentleman of sense and honor, and then—go and do it! The +Government would roll its eyes in horror; the whole Court would be in +commotion; but with the people generally you would win hands down!"</p> + +<p>"Max, you are tempting me!" said the King.</p> + +<p>"Sir," said his son, "I cannot express to you how great is my wish to be +proud of your shoes if hereafter I have to step into them. Could you not +just once, for my sake, do something that no Government would +expect—just to disturb that general smugness of things which is to-day +using the monarchy as its decoy?"</p> + +<p>The King gazed upon the handsome youth with eyes of hunger and +affection. "What is it that you want me to do?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>Max held out his cigar at arm's length, looked at it reflectively, and +flicked off the ash.</p> + +<p>"Don't do that on the carpet!" said his father.</p> + +<p>Max smiled. "That is so like you, father," he said; "yes, that is you +all over. You don't like to give trouble even to the housemaid. Now when +you see things going wrong you ought to give trouble—serious trouble, I +mean. You ought, in vulgar phrase, to 'do a bust.'</p> + +<p>"When I was a small boy," he went on, "I used to read fairy stories and +look at pictures. And there was one that I have always remembered of a +swan with a crown round its neck floating along a stream with its beak +wide open, singing its last song. To me that picture has ever since +represented the institution of monarchy going to its death. The crown, +too large and heavy to remain in place, has slipped down from its head +and settled like a collar or yoke about its neck. Its head, in +consequence, is free, and it begins to sing its 'Nunc dimittis.' The +question to me is—what 'Nunc dimittis' are we going to sing? I do not +know whether you ever read English poetry; but some lines of Tennyson +run in my head; let me, if I can remember, repeat them now—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of that waste place with joy<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The warble was low, and full, and clear;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And floating about the under-sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But anon her awful jubilant voice,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With a music strange and manifold,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As when a mighty people rejoice<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"That, my dear father, is the song I wish to hear you singing—that I +want to take up, I in my turn after you. I want your voice now to be +awful and jubilant, and your carol to be 'free and bold' like the carol +of that dying bird; and the sound of it to be like the rejoicing of a +mighty people on a day of festival."</p> + +<p>The King shook his head. "My dear boy," he said, "I don't understand +poetry; I never did."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the son, "let me interpret it then into prose. Monarchy as +an institution is dying, and it can either die in foolish decrepitude, +or it can die mightily, merging itself in democracy for a final blow +against bureaucratic government. All that is written in my book. That is +why I am now able to express myself so well: these periods are largely a +matter of quotation. The right rôle for monarchy to-day is, believe me, +to be above all things democratic—not by truckling to the ideas of the +people in power—the 'ruling classes' as they still call themselves—but +by daring to be human and natural, and to refuse absolutely to be +dehumanized on the score of its high dignity and calling.</p> + +<p>"If, for instance, I came to you to-day and said I wanted to marry one +of my own nation—say even a commoner—in preference to the daughter of +some foreign princeling, let me do it! It breaks with a foolish +tradition—largely our own importation when, as foreigners, we were +seeking to keep up our prestige—it may annoy or even embarrass the +Government. Well! have they not annoyed and embarrassed you?"</p> + +<p>The King nodded sympathetically, but in words hastened to correct +himself. "One has often to make sacrifices in defense of an +institution," he said. "That is a duty we both owe."</p> + +<p>"Why," inquired the Prince, "should I make sacrifices to an institution +I do not really approve? Why should I pretend to love some foreign +princess if I have given my heart to one—I cannot say of my own +race—for I remember that we are an importation—but of the country of +my adoption? Do you really suppose that because it annoys the Prime +Minister and disturbs his political calculations, an alliance within +those artificially prohibited degrees imposed on royalty will lessen the +influence of the Crown by a straw's weight, or quicken its demise by an +hour? This country, like all civilized countries, is moving towards some +form of republican government. If we are sufficiently human, if we show +ourselves determined to call our souls our own—it is not merely +possible, it is probable, that when the change comes we shall be called +on by popular acclaim to provide the country with its first President. +If we did we could secure for that presidency a greater power and +prestige than any bureaucratic government would willingly concede. It +may be that the real counter-stroke to the present increase of Cabinet +control can most effectively be administered by a monarch who is not too +careful to preserve the outward forms of monarchy. When that is done, by +you, or by me, or by one who comes after us, I am confident that there +will be the sound of a people's rejoicing."</p> + +<p>"You have strange ideas," said the King, "for one who calls himself a +monarchist."</p> + +<p>"I am a republican," said the young man.</p> + +<p>The King stared at him as though at some strange animal. "You don't say +so!" he murmured half aghast. "Supposing the Prime Minister were to find +out."</p> + +<p>"He will soon," said the Prince. "I shall be sending him a copy of my +book on the day of publication."</p> + +<p>The King shook his head warningly. Then he smiled, a shy nervous smile. +"It would be very awkward," he said slowly, "very awkward indeed, if you +happened to come to the throne just now. I really don't know what +Brasshay would do. But it's too late for me to begin that sort of +thing—far too late now."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h2>CHURCH AND STATE</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>All this while other swan-songs were in preparation to be forced down +other throats (and thence presently to be rejected); forced with that +gentle air of persuasion which rears its lying front over all forms of +"peaceful picketing." Starvation and stuffing were the two methods to be +employed.</p> + +<p>While the Government was picketing the King with threats of withdrawal +from office, and the Labor Party the Government with threats of a +national strike, the Government was preparing to picket the Bishops by a +process of forcible feeding—a plethora of their own kind be thrust upon +them—of their own kind but of a very different persuasion. And now at +last the Bishops understood that the doubling of their dioceses was but +a device of Machiavellian subtlety for the halving of their +temporalities.</p> + +<p>The Bishops had just opened their holy mouths to protest when the +approach of the Jubilee festivities shut them up. The Church of Jingalo +was on a tight and established footing, and had to conform to the +commercial, conventional, and constitutional requirements of its day; +for you cannot, if you are by law established, play fast and loose with +those institutions on which a nation bases its prosperity. So even when +the Government proposed the creation of demi-mondain bishops, and the +setting up of what amounted to a second establishment in the upper +chamber of its spiritual spouse, the outward proprieties were still +observed, and the sanctities of national interests respected. It is true +that the Bishop of Olde, lifting from his bed a burden of ninety years, +climbed up into the central pulpit of his diocese to preach a sermon +which was ecstatically applauded by all Churchmen, and committed +thereafter to the keeping of a carefully selected few. It won for him +the affectionate nickname of "Never-say-die" and put his followers into +a hole from which they never afterwards emerged. And so the Bishops +entered into the loyal silence of the Jubilee truce with a flush of +conscious rectitude upon their faces; while behind closed doors the +Prime Minister and the Primate Archbishop of Ebury had met to talk +business, to drive conditional bargains, and to kill time till such +other time as seemed good to them.</p> + +<p>They met at the town-residence of the one Bishop of the Establishment +who had lent a favorable ear to the Prime Minister's proposals. +Boycotted by his brother Bishops this solitary pelican in piety was +still on terms of official acquaintance with his titular head. Placing +his well-stored nest at the disposal of the two combatants, he retired +for a discreet week-end into the wilderness; and the Prime Minister and +the Archbishop, after announcing in the press that they also had gone +elsewhere, came together by appointment for the indication of ultimatums +and the fixing of dates when ju-jitsu was to commence.</p> + +<p>When the Prime Minister arrived his Grace the Primate, attended by his +chaplain, was already in the house. An ecclesiastical butler carried +word to the chaplain, and the chaplain carried it to the oratory.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop finished his prayer; it served the double purpose of +strengthening him in his resolve to present a firm front that for the +time being could do no harm, and of keeping his opponent waiting. The +effect did not quite come off. Under that enforced attendance, the Prime +Minister had turned his back on the door, and wrapt in contemplation of +the book-shelves stood as though unaware that the Primate had made his +state entry. It was a pity that he should have missed it.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop came into the room bearing in his hands a large Bible, +subscribed for and presented to him by a general assembly of Church +clergy and laity when the constitutional crisis first began to loom +large. It was fitting, therefore, that it should now accompany him to +the field of battle. Corners of silver scrollwork, linked together by +bands and clasps of the same metal, adorned its surface, and over the +glowing red of its Venetian leather binding, lambs, lions, eagles, +doves, and pelicans stood lucently embossed, bearing upon their +well-drilled shoulders the sacred emblems and mottoes of the +ecclesiastical party. More important and more central than these showed +the proud heraldic bearings of the metropolitan see of Ebury, crowned +with a miter which its occupant never wore, and a Cardinal's hat for +which he was no longer qualified.</p> + +<p>All these collective sources of inspiration the Archbishop bore in +monstrant fashion with hands raised and crossed, and, moving to the +strategic position he had previously selected, set down upon the table +before him. While thus designing his way he exchanged formal salutation +with his antagonist.</p> + +<p>"And now, sir," said he, bowing himself to a seat, "now I am entirely at +your disposal."</p> + +<p>"And I at yours," said the Prime Minister.</p> + +<p>But the Archbishop corrected him. "I am here, I take it, rather to be +informed of the latest novelties in statecraft than to admit that any +fresh standpoint upon our side has become possible." Slowly and solemnly +he rested his hands upon the presentation volume as he spoke; across +that barrier, representative of the spiritual forces at his back, his +small diplomatic eyes twinkled with holy zeal. He was an impressive +figure to look at, and also to hear: over six feet in height, with dark +hair turned silver, of a ruddy complexion, portly without protuberance, +and with a voice of modulated thunder that could fill with ease, twice +in one day, even the largest of his cathedrals. As a concession to the +world he wore flat side-whiskers, as a concession to the priestly office +he shaved his lip. By this compromise he was able to wear a cope without +offense to the Evangelicals,—his whiskers saving him from the charge of +extreme views. Under his rule, largely perhaps because of those +whiskers, peace had settled upon the Church; and in consequence it now +presented an almost united front to its political opponents.</p> + +<p>All his life he had been accustomed to command. Even in the nursery, as +the eldest child and only son of his parents, he had ruled his five +sisters with that prescriptive mastery which sex and primogeniture +confer. At school he had pursued his career of disciplinarian first as +"dowl-master," then as captain of teams, then as prefect with powers of +the rod over senior boys his superiors in weight. Continuing at the +University to excel in games, he became at twenty-four a class-master in +Jingalo's most famous public school. Marrying at thirty a lady of title, +he acquired the social touch necessary for his completion, and five +years later was appointed Head. Left a disconsolate widower at the age +of forty-seven, he drew dignity from his domestic affliction, received a +belated call to the ministry, took orders, and became Master of +Pentecost, only on the distinct understanding that a bishopric of +peculiar importance as a stepping-stone to higher things should be his +at the next vacancy. The vacancy occurred without any undue delay; and +from that bishopric, after three years of successful practice, he passed +at the age of fifty-five to the crowning grace of his present position. +Thence he was able to look back over a long vista of things successfully +done and heads deferentially bowed to his sway—deans, canons, priests, +sisters—a pattern training for a humble servant of that Master whose +Cross, as by law established, he was now helping to bear. Even the Prime +Minister, facing him with all his parliamentary majority at his back, +knew him for a redoubtable opponent. This fight had long ago been +foreseen by the Church party, and it was for the fighting policy he now +embodied that Dr. Chantry had received nine years previously his "call" +from collegiate to sacerdotal office. A large jeweled cross gleamed upon +his breast, and a violet waistcoat that buttoned out of sight betokened +the impenetrable resolution of his priestly character.</p> + +<p>"And now, sir, I am at your disposal," said he; and sat immovable while +the Prime Minister spoke.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The Prime Minister's argument ran upon material and mathematical lines; +he imported no passion into the discussion,—there was no need. He had +at his disposal all that was requisite—the parliamentary majority, the +popular mandate, and, so he believed, the necessary expedient under the +Constitution for bringing the Church to heel. Episcopalianism no longer +commanded a majority of the nation; Church endowments had therefore +become the preserves of a minority, and scholarship by remaining +denominational was getting to be denationalized. Having laid down his +premises he proceeded to set forth his demands. Henceforth the +Universities were to be released from Church control, all collegiate and +other educational appointments to be open and unsectarian, scholarships +and fellowships, however exclusive the intentions of their pious +founders, were to follow in the same course; degrees of divinity were to +be granted irrespective of creed, and chairs of theology open to all +comers.</p> + +<p>At this point the Archbishop, who had hitherto sat silent, put in a +word.</p> + +<p>"That will include Buddhists and Mohammedans. Is such your intention?"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister corrected himself. "I should, of course, have said +'all who profess themselves Christians.'"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop accepted the concession with an ironical bow.</p> + +<p>"Unitarians and Roman Catholics?"</p> + +<p>"That would necessarily follow."</p> + +<p>"I am ceasing to be amazed," said his Grace coldly. "We, the custodians +of theological teaching, are to admit to our endowments the two extremes +of heresy and of schism."</p> + +<p>"If both are admitted," suggested the Prime Minister, "will they not +tend to correct each other? We study history by allowing all sides to be +stated, and we admit to its chair both schools, the scientists and the +rhetoricians. Why, then, should not theology be studied on the same +broad lines?"</p> + +<p>"Will the chair of theology become a more stable institution," inquired +the Archbishop, "by being turned into a see-saw?"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister smiled on the illustration, but his answer was edged +with bitterness.</p> + +<p>"That is a way of securing some movement at all events," he remarked +caustically.</p> + +<p>"The Church," retorted his Grace, "denies the need of such movement. Her +firm foundations—we have scriptural warrant for saying—are upon rock. +She is neither a traveling menagerie, a swingboat, nor a +merry-go-round."</p> + +<p>"Yet I have heard," said the Prime Minister, "that she takes a ship to +be her symbol, and one, in particular, very specially designed to be a +traveling menagerie—containing all kinds both clean and unclean."</p> + +<p>"The unclean," said the Archbishop, "were by divine dispensation placed +in a decisive minority."</p> + +<p>"Yet they shared, I suppose, the provisions of the establishment?"</p> + +<p>"They did not, I imagine, sit down at the table with the patriarch and +his family."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the dogs ate of the crumbs?"</p> + +<p>"It is not 'crumbs' that you are seeking," said the Archbishop with +asperity. "From our chairs of theology we dispense to the Church the +bread of wisdom from which she draws sustenance; and you ask us to let +that source of her intellectual life become infected with microbes,—at +a time when latitudinarian doctrines are sapping the unity of the Church +and weakening her discipline, to allow their establishment as a +principle in our centers of learning and in our seats of divinity! What +claim to denounce heresy and schism will be left to the Church if in her +very government heretics and schismatic teachers receive posts of +influence, emolument, and authority? To what extremes may not the minds +of our students be led, to what destruction of ecclesiastical +discipline?"</p> + +<p>"If you will admit free teaching in the Universities," explained the +Prime Minister, "we shall not seek to touch your theological seminaries, +or to invade your orders by an infusion of fresh blood."</p> + +<p>"Invade our orders?" cried the Primate. "That you cannot do; no Bishop's +hands would bestow them!" and he drew back his own with a declamatory +gesture. "You yourself are not a Churchman, and you do not perhaps know +what to us the Church means. We hold in sacred trust the power of the +Keys—if we surrender those we surrender everything."</p> + +<p>"They are in a good many hands already," remarked the Prime Minister +blandly. "Episcopal power is not limited to the Church of Jingalo." And +then for the first time, as a pawn in the political game, the +Archimandrite was mentioned. The Archbishop could not believe his ears. +"You would not dare," he said.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry," replied the other, "that you should be under any such +misapprehension. Let me remind you that only a year ago you yourself +recommended him for an honorary benefice—a church that had not a +parish."</p> + +<p>"Yes, honorary; not with administrative powers."</p> + +<p>"Yet I fancy it was devised in order that at a later date you might +employ him—merely by accident as it were—for confirming the validity +of your orders."</p> + +<p>"While your device," said the Archbishop, "is to use him as a means for +placing schismatics in a position of control and authority. Sir, I say +to you that you would not dare. The nation will not allow it."</p> + +<p>"Time will show," replied the other smoothly.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" cried the Archbishop passionately; "you trust to time; I to the +power of the Eternal. If such an attempt is made to violate the body of +our Mother Church then I pronounce sentence of excommunication upon all +who take part in it."</p> + +<p>"It would have no legal effect," said the Prime Minister. "You miss the +point in dispute. We have not to discuss matters of faith and doctrine, +but only of government. If you prefer—if you will give us your +co-operation and consent—we are ready at any time to offer you the +alternative of disestablishment. It is a solution which for the moment I +do not press; but undoubtedly it would leave the spiritualities of the +Church more free. Your real fear, I have gathered, is that it would +prepare the way for extremes of doctrine, which you yourself cannot +countenance. The Church Triumphant, I am told, would run the risk of a +larger recognition than is allowed to it under present forms; and the +limitations imposed by a State connection are your most hopeful means of +retarding doctrinal development. Is not that so?"</p> + +<p>"We have not to discuss matters of doctrine," countered the Archbishop +stiffly, "but only of government. Our concern is not with the Church's +teachings but with her powers for enforcing them upon her own members."</p> + +<p>"Including," commented the Prime Minister, "what you have called 'the +power of the Keys.' That power you seek to extend over temporalities to +which we claim access; and to retain it you have in the past used +political means; we are using them to deprive you of that power. I +recognize that had your Grace occupied to-day the position of advantage +which is now mine, you would have used it—and with justification—for +the strengthening of your order; from the popular verdict you would have +had authority to deliver sentence against me. Upon the same ground I now +take the only sure means that are open to me to strengthen my own order +and to safeguard its future liberty."</p> + +<p>"What is your order?" smoothly inquired his Grace.</p> + +<p>"My order is the representative system, which voices the popular will."</p> + +<p>"Mine," said the Archbishop in richly reverberating tones, "is divine +revelation, which voices the will of God."</p> + +<p>"You claim a closer acquaintance with that Authority than I," remarked +the Prime Minister. "Yet I, too, have faith in the efficacy of its +workings."</p> + +<p>"We base our faith differently," retorted his Grace. "I have my +principles; you, as you have just boasted, have your opportunity. I do +not think that opportunities are of the same eternal character as +principles. To-morrow your opportunity which now seems to give you +power, may disappear. My principles will remain."</p> + +<p>"I shall always respect them, in their proper place. As an adornment to +the Church I am sure they will continue to shine. In the State they have +become an excrescence and an impediment."</p> + +<p>"You are pushing your definition of impediments rather far when you plan +a new thoroughfare, giving strangers the entrée to church premises."</p> + +<p>"It is really your definition of 'premises,'" said the Prime Minister, +"over which we are chiefly at issue. What right has the Church to regard +as strangers any who are baptized Christians?"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop seized his advantage exultingly. "I will only remind +you," said he, "of the Church Government Act—a measure of no ancient +date—by which Parliament forced the Church to expel from benefice those +who would not accept her discipline in matters of outward observance. +You yourself voted for that measure."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister had to acknowledge the stroke; but he made light of +it. "I think that measure has already become obsolete. It was not put +very thoroughly into practice even at the beginning."</p> + +<p>"Let Parliament, then, admit its error," said the Archbishop, "and +abolish the act and the principle which it enshrines before proceeding +with other acts diametrically opposed to it. While the law claims a hold +over the Church, the Church claims to hold by existing law."</p> + +<p>"I may possibly, then, satisfy your Grace," insinuated the Premier, "if +presently I propose the restoration of certain Free Church ministers by +episcopal consecration to the fold from which they were expelled."</p> + +<p>The Archbishop rose to his feet, and raising the presentation Bible high +over his head brought it down upon the table with a bang. Then +instantaneously conceiving his mistake, he laid his hands over it in the +act of blessing.</p> + +<p>"Never!" he said firmly and solemnly, with ever deepening inflection of +tone, "never! never!"</p> + +<p>"It is a measure that might be avoided," conceded the Prime Minister. +"The alternative is before you. We have made you our offer."</p> + +<p>"You have offered," said the Archbishop, "an alternative which I am not +able to discuss. Roman Catholicism and Unitarianism in alternate doses +is the price you ask us to pay. The Church of Jingalo will accept +neither the Triple Crown nor an untriune Divinity as its guide." He drew +himself to his full height. "That, sir, is her answer."</p> + +<p>"So you really think," inquired the Prime Minister, "that yours and the +Church's voice are one?"</p> + +<p>"The blood of her martyrs," said the Archbishop, "has stained the very +steps of that throne from which under divine Providence I am +commissioned to speak with authority. I call on them to witness that +never in her hour of need shall the Church surrender her divine mission +to preach only pure doctrine and to defend the faith committed to the +saints."</p> + +<p>"I thought," said the Prime Minister, "that, officially at least, you +did not invoke the dead."</p> + +<p>"Sir, we have no need. Their record is our inheritance. It is they who +invoke us from an imperishable past."</p> + +<p>"Our discussion, then, seems to be at an end. We have gone back into the +middle ages."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister, having got very much the answer he expected, here +rose and began buttoning his coat. "Well, Archbishop," said he, as he +thus trimmed himself to give a neat finish to the discussion, "before we +part I will put the question quite frankly: Is it to be peace or war?"</p> + +<p>"I am a servant of the Church Militant," answered his Grace.</p> + +<p>And then they compared notes and settled dates as to when war was to be +declared. Jingalo was about to exhibit to the world the continuity of +her institutions, and with her mind thus carried back to ancient times +modern controversy was an anachronism.</p> + +<p>It was on those historic grounds that they arranged their armistice; but +Recording Angels are more truthful than Archbishops or Prime Ministers; +and the Recording Angel, having listened to their conversation, was led +to set down upon his tables this notable memorandum—that on no account +were popular pageantry or trade interests to be disturbed during so +golden an opportunity as the Silver Jubilee. While that was going on +defense of Church and State must be relegated to obscurity.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>All this had taken place before the truce actually began (see, in fact, +Chapter II). How much, or rather how little the King had heard of it we +already know. How little the truce brought benefit to him we shall learn +more fully in later chapters. Still for the moment he was not without +comfort, for he had got Max to talk to. Every evening that they spent +together much talk went on; and the King sat infected and edified while +Maxian oratory flowed.</p> + +<p>"How is it," inquired his father, "that you have been able to think of +these things? I see them when you tell me; but how did they ever come to +enter your head?"</p> + +<p>"For some years," answered Max, "I had the advantage of being your +youngest son. Until I was twenty, two lives stood between me and the +succession, and while Stephen and Rupert were drilling I managed to get +educated."</p> + +<p>"Poor Rupert!" murmured his father, "he would have made a much better +King than either of us."</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," said Max. "He would merely have kept the monarchy to +its old lines—that means sticking in a rut. If the monarchy is to mean +anything it will have to move, not merely with the times but ahead of +them."</p> + +<p>"How can it move ahead of them?"</p> + +<p>"How otherwise can it lead? That is what the heads of the privileged +classes never seem to understand. Look at the Bishops! See what a +spectacle they have made of themselves, all through not leading."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," sighed the King; "I thought you'd be against the Bishops."</p> + +<p>"Against them?" cried Max, "of course I'm against them! The Bishops are +a set of prehistoric remains: and even if they were all up to date, a +combined house of Bishops and Judges with full legislative powers is +antediluvian (I'm speaking of the Deluge now in the sense in which Louis +XV spoke of it)—it's an eighteenth-century arrangement.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm against the Bishops, but I'm much more against the Cabinet. +The Cabinet is seeking to control not only the Upper but the Lower +Chamber as well, it is fighting the Bishops merely to delude the people; +and there are the Laity so stupid, or so lazy, or so corrupt that they +won't see it. Every one knows that the Government sells honors for party +purposes, and then covers it up by pretending that contributions to the +party funds are 'public services.' Everything now is to be had for a +price, a Chancellery at so much, a Knighthood at so much more; an Order +of the this, that, or the other, in exact proportion to its prestige or +its rarity. Last year they had a debate on it in the House, a debate +where, between them, the corruptors and the corrupted were in a +majority! And they solemnly took a vote on it, and declared that there +was no corruption, though everybody knew it to be a fact. The Opposition +lay low because they mean to do exactly the same when their time comes. +Oh, and it's not only the House of Laity: I daresay a bishopric has got +its price if we only knew!"</p> + +<p>The King would have rejected such a suggestion as fantastic only a month +ago; but now with the Archimandrite in his mind he began to be +suspicious. What price, monetary or political, might not the Free +Churchmen be paying for their bishoprics, what secret bargain of which +it was no one's duty to inform him? He lashed at his own impotence, for +the ignominy of his position increased with his growing consciousness. +Here was the Prime Minister respectful but compulsive, able to threaten, +to browbeat, to dictate terms; but he himself had no counter means to +extract from that minister on what terms he was consenting to do these +things or what price he was paying to get them done. How +constitutionally was he to obtain knowledge of anything? And still, +piling up the accusation, the voice of Max went on.</p> + +<p>"I presume," said he, "that quite lately a list of Jubilee honors has +been submitted to you for approval. What does your approval mean? Is a +single one of them your own selection? Do you know what the majority of +them are for?"</p> + +<p>The King shook his head. "Mostly they are political," said he. "The +Government has the right; I have no call to interfere. Isn't it perhaps +better that I should not interfere?"</p> + +<p>"It may be arguable, sir, that the uncomfortably high position to which +we are born cuts us off from the more strenuously fermenting issues of +the political game, and from the malignities and hypocrisies of that +party system of which, as a nation, we pretend to be so proud, and are +secretly so much ashamed. It may be well that some single authority +should stand removed from and above party, if in the hands of that +authority there is also left power of sentence and dismissal, power also +to withhold unmerited reward. But that power you are no longer expected +to exercise,—it lies like a china nest-egg never to be hatched, but +only to promote the laying of other eggs.</p> + +<p>"Yet while your prerogatives have been thus diminished, the claim that +you shall act with judicial impartiality has increased, and has become a +fetter. To oppose any course of ministerial action to-day is by +implication to ally yourself with the other side. You are in the +position of a judge whose directions the jury has authority to ignore, +and from whose hands all power of imposing a penalty has practically +been withdrawn. And these changes have been thrust upon the monarchy by +the will, not of the people, but of that class or section which in the +evolution of our political system happened at the time to be the ruling +one. At one period it was the Church, at another the army, at another +the landlord or the capitalist; it was never that latent force lying in +the future, that peace-loving, industrial democracy which to-day we are +still striving to hold back from its aim. These ruling powers of the +past have now concentrated on the Cabinet as their last line of defense; +and so at the present day it is the Cabinet which has the largest +control not only of patronage (much of it corruptly applied), but of +certain penalizing devices by which monetary pressure can be brought +upon those who thwart its will. By its practical usurpation of the +Crown's right to decree a general election, and by its control of the +party funds, from which parliamentary candidates are subsidized and +assisted to the poll, it is able to hold over the heads of its +supporters a financial threat to which very few can remain indifferent. +And this is how our so-called popular chamber is manipulated and run. +The power of the purse (I speak now of the moneys voted for public +service) lies almost entirely in the hands of those who themselves have +the largest monetary interest for keeping away from their constituencies +and maintaining their leaders in power; and as a consequence the +Ministry's evasion of all regulations and safeguards, its increasing +seizure of parliamentary time, its postponement of finance to a date in +each session when the legislature's energies are exhausted, have become +more and more corrupt in character. Why, the very minister whose duty it +is to see that members are constant in their voting and their attendance +is the one with whom lies, if not the distribution of patronage, at +least its recommendation. He is the go-between, and they know it. How +likely, then, are the rank and file to throw their Government out of +office when the immediate result will be not only to transfer these +bribes to the hands of their political opponents but to inflict upon +themselves the cost of a contested election which privately they cannot +afford, and to face which they are accordingly obliged to go, cap in +hand, to the very men they have voted from power, but who still have +absolute control of the party organization and its funds?"</p> + +<p>Here Max stopped to take breath.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>"But can you suggest any other way?" questioned the King. "Surely we +must have party?"</p> + +<p>"I have no reason to suggest it," answered his son, "it stands written +in history. Under our more ancient Constitution the House of Laity came +pledged from its electorate to criticise, and to control (by the giving +or withholding of supply) the acts of a separate and administratively +independent body. Now Government is carried on by an administrative +body, which, though nominally dependent, has at its back a majority of +the elected pledged <i>not</i> to criticise. And the difference between the +two systems is as the difference between darkness and light. That body +is now forcing the monarchy also into the same non-critical attitude, or +at least is securing that the criticism shall be impotent of result. And +I have the right, sir, to ask what are you doing to-day to preserve for +me the powers which you inherited?"</p> + +<p>"To tell you the truth, my son," answered the King, "it is only lately +that I have begun trying to find out what those powers are. It seems a +strange confession to make after twenty-five years; but it is true. When +I came to the throne, at a moment of great political changes, I was +entirely uninstructed and quite naturally I made mistakes, letting +things go when I was told to. From that false position successive +ministries have never allowed me to escape; they have kept me (I have +only just found it out) as uninstructed as they possibly could. They +burden me with routine work, they busy my hands while starving my brain. +One of their little ways—done on the score of relieving me of +unnecessary trouble—has been to submit in large batches at intervals +important documents requiring my assent, smuggling them in under cover +of others. And when I find it out, they plead unavoidable delay and +urgency, as though it were quite an exception. But I tell you it has +been going on, oh, dear me, yes, for a long time now; and the General +has known of it as well as any of them! The other day I made one of my +secretaries go through the entries, and I find that in the last year I +signed sixty Acts of Parliament and about fifteen hundred other State +documents, besides mere commissions, titles, diplomas, and all that sort +of thing, and I tell you that I haven't a ghost of a notion of what more +than a dozen were about! They don't give me time to digest anything; and +you are quite right, it's a system!"</p> + +<p>"Well," said his son, "at least they don't treat you much worse than +they do the people's representatives. It has become their regular plan +now to bring in six bills all rolled into one, in a form far too big and +complicated ever to be properly discussed. They insert a lot of +unnecessary contentiousness at the beginning, and all the really +administrative part—the machinery which provides them with political +handles throughout the country, and which they call the non-contentious +part—at the end; and then—on the score of it being non-contentious, +and because by the time they get to it the mind of the legislature is +exhausted—then they shut it down with the closure. One result is that +we have laws on the statute-book which don't even make grammar. Only +last session the Minister of Education got a bill sent up to the +Spiritual Chamber with three split infinitives in it."</p> + +<p>"What is a split infinitive?" inquired his Majesty.</p> + +<p>"Merely a grammatical error for which in your day school-boys used to be +whipped. You were not. It's important, because when lawyers get on to +the interpretation of the law, loose syntax gives them their +opportunity; they make fortunes out of the grammatical errors of +Parliament. And, of course, it was a lawyer who drew up this bill."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that some one paid him to put in the split infinitives?" +inquired the King anxiously.</p> + +<p>"That was quite unnecessary; the thing paid for itself; good drafting +is never to the legal interest. But what I wanted to say was this: here, +in a House of educated men dealing with education, nobody troubled to +correct the grammar of the thing. That to my mind stands out as a moral +portent of the first magnitude. The Bishops quite rightly sent it back +again, but for the wrong reason. Their reason was pure blind +obscurantism; if they had returned it because of its split infinitives +and its slovenly drafting, and requested that it should be put into +decent Jingalese so that they might pretend to understand it they would +have had all the enlightened educationalists in the country with them. +As it was they were against them. It is curious how the Spiritual +Chamber always seeks its popularity among the fools instead of the wise. +It treats democracy like a dog with a bad name, and yet it is to the +dog's tail that it pins its faith: and so it wags with the tail."</p> + +<p>The King was not happy at hearing the Bishops so abused; and now a word +had fallen from his son's lips which enabled him to change the subject +to a point which more immediately concerned him.</p> + +<p>"Max," said he, "answer me truly, I don't want flattery. Do you think +that <i>I</i> am popular?"</p> + +<p>The young man viewed his father leniently, indulgently even; the worn, +fussy, over-anxious face appealed to his sense of pity. "Oh, yes, I +believe so," he said. "They think you are trying to do your best and all +that sort of thing. You don't enthuse them as my grandfather used to do; +but, then, he had the grand manner, and the grand way of speaking as if +he were an oracle. You have put all that aside—except when you make +speeches which have been written for you by your ministers. Well, decent +people respect you for it; but it has its drawbacks; the crowd prefers +the other thing occasionally;—it likes still to pretend, at moments of +ceremony, that it believes in divine right and the hereditary principle, +and so forth; and where it likes to pretend, the press and the +Government are always ready to play into its hands. Yes; it's a +mixture; you must attend sometimes to the unrealities,—then, with your +real moments, you get your effect."</p> + +<p>"Your grandfather," said the King, "never talked to me about anything. +He didn't like the idea of being succeeded, hated to think of a time +when affairs would have to go on without him. I fancy that he rather +despised my mental capacity, or else thought that by just looking at him +I should learn. So he never talked to me—not on these subjects I mean; +and I am still not sure whether I ought to talk to you. I don't really +know where State secrets begin and where they end, or whether I have the +right to say anything of what goes on in Council to a single living +soul. I wanted to consult the Archbishop the other day—merely to hear +his statement of the case from his own side—but I was not allowed. I am +the most solitary man in my kingdom; and am kept so, in order that I may +remain powerless."</p> + +<p>"As Charlotte would say," observed Max, "we haven't taught each other +the business. And yet, isn't it strange? Here are we, a long-established +firm ('limited, entire,' I suppose we should describe ourselves), +existing upon the hereditary principle, and yet not allowed to extract +any of its living values. As detached forces we succeed each other upon +the throne, each in turn reduced in power and initiative by our official +training and our inexperience. When shall we learn to organize our labor +and combine like the rest of the world?"</p> + +<p>"I think we are combining now," said the King.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Max, "I really believe we are—'John Jingalo and Son'—how +nice and commercial that sounds!"</p> + +<p>"I only hope the Prime Minister won't hear of it."</p> + +<p>"I hope he will," said Max.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h2>OF THINGS NOT EXPECTED</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>"Charlotte!" cried the King, aghast, "what on earth is the meaning of +this?"</p> + +<p>"What is it, papa?" inquired the Princess innocently.</p> + +<p>His Majesty shook at her the paper he had just been reading. "You have +promised a hundred pounds donation to the Anti-vivisection Society! Here +it is in large headlines: 'The Princess Royal supports the +Anti-vivisectionists!'"</p> + +<p>"Well, so I do."</p> + +<p>"But you mustn't," said her mother.</p> + +<p>Princess Charlotte made a face—rather a pretty one.</p> + +<p>"I can't help having my opinions, mamma."</p> + +<p>"Then you mustn't express them—not publicly."</p> + +<p>"If I am not to express them," argued the Princess, "why do you send me +into public at all? Isn't laying foundation-stones and opening bazaars a +public expression of opinion? Don't I go because you approve of them?"</p> + +<p>"That is a very different matter," said her mother. "Good objects like +those no one can possibly object to."</p> + +<p>"But I think anti-vivisection a good object."</p> + +<p>"I don't care what you think," said her father, "you are perfectly free +to think as you like. What I want to know is—who do you suppose is +going to pay that hundred pounds?"</p> + +<p>"You are, papa." She smiled on him sweetly.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, your father will do nothing of the sort!" interposed the Queen, +while the King was still opening his mouth in wonder at the suggestion.</p> + +<p>"If he will only make me an allowance, he needn't," said Charlotte; and +while her parents were giving weight to that pronouncement she went on.</p> + +<p>"I am going to promise a hundred pounds to every deserving charity you +send me to; and if you leave off sending me, I shall write and offer it. +It will be in all the papers—it will become the recognized +thing—people will begin to look for it,—me and my hundred pounds. And +as soon as it is the recognized thing, you know quite well, papa, that +you will have to pay."</p> + +<p>"Why do you disapprove of vivisection?" inquired her father, finding +this frontal attack unmanageable.</p> + +<p>"Just a fellow-feeling, I suppose, through being myself a victim. Oh, I +don't say there's any torture involved, but now and again mamma gives me +an anesthetic, and when I wake up I find something has been done that I +don't like—something vital taken off me."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" said the Queen, "I never do anything of the kind."</p> + +<p>But this statement corresponded so startlingly to his Majesty's own +experience that he began to pay closer attention.</p> + +<p>"When have I done it?" demanded the Queen.</p> + +<p>"The last time was when you sent me to spend three weeks with Aunt +Sophie in order to develop a taste for foreign missions. It didn't +succeed. And when I came back you had changed my suite of rooms without +asking me; and I was done out of my balcony!"</p> + +<p>"I found her," the Queen explained, "going down by the balcony in the +early morning, while the gardeners were still about, to gather flowers."</p> + +<p>"I didn't talk to the gardeners."</p> + +<p>"You went out when I told you not to."</p> + +<p>"You see!" appealed Charlotte, "she does vivisect me. Last time Aunt +Sophie was the anesthetic: sometimes it's even worse. You don't hear of +these things, papa, because I don't often complain; but there they are. +And mamma is so pleased with herself about it—that's what tries me!"</p> + +<p>"Charlotte," said her father, "that's not pretty—that's not +respectful."</p> + +<p>"No, but it's true."</p> + +<p>The Queen attempted a diversion. "Why do you want an allowance? I give +you pocket-money, and you get all the dresses you need."</p> + +<p>"I get a great many more," admitted Charlotte; "but I don't get one that +I really like."</p> + +<p>"That shows your want of taste."</p> + +<p>"Of course, I haven't your taste, mamma, you can't expect it; and what's +too good for me doesn't suit me."</p> + +<p>But this obliquity of speech missed its point, for of her own taste the +Queen had no doubt whatever.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear child," interposed the King, "do try to be reasonable! +Whatever allowance we made you, you couldn't go on giving a hundred +pounds to every charity. You'd have all the benevolent societies in the +kingdom flocking about you; life wouldn't be worth living."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know that, papa," said the Princess, "I'm not charitable in the +least. I'm only doing it to bring pressure on you; I haven't any other +reason whatever."</p> + +<p>At this brazen avowal the Queen gasped; but his Majesty became more +sympathetic.</p> + +<p>"I wanted," she went on, "to do it as nicely and respectably as +possible, and I thought to give you away in charity was better than +gambling or anything of that sort. Not that I haven't been tempted; for +you know, papa, I could quite easily lose you a hundred pounds at every +tea-party I go to. But now, if I'm asked to a bridge-table, all I can +say is, 'Papa won't make me an allowance, so I can't play for money.'"</p> + +<p>"Surely you don't say that!" cried the Queen in horror.</p> + +<p>"No," answered the Princess slyly, "but I can say it. And, of course, I +shall have to say it to the charities and the anti-vivisectionists if +papa doesn't pay up. There'll be headlines about that, too," she added +reflectively. "You see, I am in the business now that I've begun helping +at sales."</p> + +<p>The King got up from his seat, and began to pace the room. For the first +time he had discovered in his daughter's character a resemblance to Max, +and much as he was beginning to love certain mental values which his son +possessed, it rather frightened him to see them cropping up in his +daughter.</p> + +<p>"Charlotte," he said, in a tone of affectionate appeal, "when have I +ever denied you anything that was right and reasonable?"</p> + +<p>"Never, dearest papa, never!" said his daughter. "And I'm sure you are +not going to begin now. It's too late," she added mischievously.</p> + +<p>Yes. It was too late. The King knew it. He had known it from the moment +the discussion started. Even the Queen was beginning to know it. +Charlotte, sweet, smiling, and determined, held them in the hollow of +her hand. Newspaper headlines, if properly manipulated, will defeat in +its own domestic circle any monarchy that is now existing.</p> + +<p>So the long and short of it was that the King promised Charlotte her +allowance; and the Queen sat by and heard, and did not object. And as +the Princess passed out to follow her own avocations, whatever they +might be, she gave each of her parents the nicest kiss imaginable, +thanking them quite humbly for that which they had been powerless to +withhold.</p> + +<p>The King looked enviously on that bright presence as it flitted away, +calm, wilful, and self-possessed; and much he wished that he could +conduct his own affairs with the same gay insouciance, and emerge with +as much success. Max might be able to manage it, but not he.</p> + +<p>The Queen's voice broke in on his deliberations.</p> + +<p>"Jack," said she, "we must get her married."</p> + +<p>It was her Majesty's remedy for that new portent, the revolting +daughter. And there and then she started to discuss ways, means, and +dates for bringing the wished-for affair to a head. The dear lady was +already exuberantly hopeful. A carefully selected portrait of the +Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wasser now stood on the central table of +her boudoir, and only two days ago she had spied Charlotte looking at +it. A fine, adventurous figure, it stood out prominently from all the +uniformed splendors surrounding it. "Who is this person in fancy +costume?" Charlotte had asked, and the Queen, alive in certain +fundamental instincts, had cleverly informed her that it represented one +who had been driven by his musical taste to a three years' wandering in +the wilderness, and who, though still sadly under a cloud, was now +obliged to return to his princely duties. Charlotte did not know, as she +looked with amused pity on that sunburnt visage of adventurous youth, +that she was gazing on the remedy for her own ailments, nor did she or +any one else guess to what surprising results the attempted application +of that remedy would lead.</p> + +<p>It was quite sufficient for the Queen's gentle lines of diplomacy that +Charlotte now knew who he was, that he was presently returning to +Europe, and would, on his way or soon after, present himself at the +Court of Jingalo. In another quarter her Majesty was less contented, she +had not yet found any one good enough for Max; and as the quest added +greatly to her daily correspondence, she felt it as a burden and an +anxiety, for she did not want to hear of another case of morals.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>To the King, on the other hand, Max had become a very real and positive +relief. The "Max habit" had grown and flourished exceedingly; and as +this history deals largely with the mental developments of King John of +Jingalo we must follow him to his hours of training and set down their +record wherever we can find room for them.</p> + +<p>His Majesty told Max of the Charlotte affair that same evening.</p> + +<p>Max chuckled. "So Charlotte is not to disapprove of vivisection?" he +commented. "How very characteristic that is of the way we have to avoid +giving countenance to any movement or change of opinion till it is +backed by a majority."</p> + +<p>"Is it not our duty to avoid all matters of controversy?"</p> + +<p>"If it is we do not act on it. There is much controversy to-day on the +subject of vivisection; but that did not prevent you quite recently from +bestowing a high mark of favor on its foremost exponent. What you dare +not do is bestow a similar mark on one who is opposed to it. Your favors +go only to those who represent a majority; minorities are carefully shut +away from your ken. You are taught to believe that they are unimportant. +Whereas the exact opposite is the truth; for it is always the minorities +who have made history and brought about reform."</p> + +<p>"Are you still quoting your book at me?" inquired the King.</p> + +<p>"I am always quoting it," said Max, "or, rather, I am composing it. Yes; +this is the beginning of a chapter which I am about to put together with +your help and assistance."</p> + +<p>"Make it a mild one!" entreated his father.</p> + +<p>"I assure you, sir, that throughout I am understating the case. We have +already discussed the question of a monarch's relation to the political +and religious controversies of his day. Is he any more truly in contact +with the national life on its intellectual side? The only occasion on +which I meet at your Court any representatives of literature, or art, is +when popular authors and dramatists have come among a miscellaneous +gathering of pork butchers, politicians, stock-brokers, bankers, and +other prosperous tradesmen to receive at your hands the now somewhat +tarnished honor of knighthood. They come in a strange garb hired for the +occasion, and they go again. How much have we ever troubled ourselves +about the value and quality of their work, or as to why they were +selected? Are they the men, think you, who will be reckoned a hundred +years hence the artistic and literary giants of their day? I doubt if +anybody thinks so except themselves. Is it not rather because by winning +contemporary popularity they represent the trade values of their +profession, something that can be made to pay, and which, when it does +pay, invites public recognition and encouragement? We give small +pensions to the specially deserving, I know, to save them from the +extremes of poverty and ourselves from disgrace; but to those pensions +do we ever add a title? No; titles are the reward of prosperity."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Max," said the King, "how do you expect me to judge of +such things? I should only make mistakes."</p> + +<p>"You have for your advisers," answered his son, "some twenty men drawn +from all departments of life; ought you not to be able to rely on them? +When you came to the throne one of our greatest literary men lay +bed-ridden, dying quietly of old age. He had received a State pension, +for he was poor; he was a giant whose work was done; and he had never in +all his life been to Court. Did it occur to you to go and pay this old +man reverence? Did it occur to any of your advisers to suggest that you +should? Yet in the past kings have done these things, and history has +remembered to praise them for doing it. No, sir, we are out of touch +with all the really great things that are going on around us in +literature and art; for whenever anything new is really great it +inevitably divides opinion; and wherever opinion is sharply or at all +evenly divided we are out of place. You are under exactly the same +orders as those which Charlotte received from my mother—you must not go +down into the garden while the gardeners are actually at work; only when +they have finished you may come and gather the results. You are run by +the State merely to give prestige to the established order, and you must +not support things that are not already popular."</p> + +<p>"You are mistaken, Max," said his father, in despondent protest. +"Nothing whatever prevents me; only I haven't anything to take hold of."</p> + +<p>"Yet I have been credibly informed," replied Max, "that when you go to +see a so-called problem play of the more intellectual kind, it is +arranged for you to go in Lent, for the simple reason that during that +period of fasting it is against etiquette for the papers to make any +announcement of the fact."</p> + +<p>"You don't say so!" exclaimed the King.</p> + +<p>"You were not aware of it, then? Yet it is all arranged for you by the +Comptroller-General. Tell him that you wish to go and see <i>The Gaudy +Girl</i> presently, on its five hundredth performance, and he will raise no +difficulty whatever. Tell him that you intend to be present at a +performance of <i>Law and Order</i>, a piece that has managed to hold on +through thirty performances in spite of the many interests opposed to +it, and difficulties will immediately occur to him. Your going would +revive the fortunes of that play; and as it makes a very direct attack +upon our present judicial system, you can have nothing to do with it. +Yet I hear that as a result of its production modifications in our +criminal procedure have already been discussed."</p> + +<p>"Max," said the King, "you are quite unfair! Our last State performance +was of a play that attacked the very things you are always talking +about, money-lending, gambling, commercial greed, and the rest of it; +and it was the Comptroller-General himself who selected it."</p> + +<p>"There!" exulted Max, "now you have given me an example, and I will tell +you what happened. You had as your guest the king of a country +possessing a real school of drama which is affecting the whole of the +European stage. What did we do in his honor and for the honor of our +dramatic literature? We chose a play of sixty years ago—our worst +period—a piece of clever bombastic fustian mildewed with age; and we +chose it merely because it contained the greatest possible number of +small 'effective' parts in which 'star' actors could strut across the +stage, make their bow before an extremely distinguished audience, and +speak their lines in the ears of royalty as the accepted representatives +of modern drama. And how they did speak them! How they clung to their +entries and exits, how they gassed, and gagged, and threw in fresh +'business' to extend the all too brief time of their appearing; and what +an abysmally boring performance the whole thing was! Over a score of +these leading actors and actresses had appeared in a similar gala +performance on the occasion of your coronation, twenty-five years ago. +Most of them are now living on their past reputations, but they have +become established; and so that woeful exhibition of utterly used-up +material was royalty's public recognition of drama in this country! +There, then, you have our connection with art! What good do you suppose +we do by countenancing performances like that? We are merely employed to +flatter the popular choice and to fatten out the drama in its most +commercial connection. All that was done to suit the managers. It gave a +pleasant little fillip to the star-system on which most of our theaters +are now run; every theater contributed its quota and secured its +proportion of reward."</p> + +<p>"I was under the impression that they all gave their services."</p> + +<p>"Just as you gave yours. You were all busily engaged in making each +other popular, and in maintaining your prestige; and you were all very +well paid for your trouble."</p> + +<p>"But what else do you expect me to do?" exclaimed the unhappy monarch +irritably. "All this destructive criticism of yours is so easy; but what +does it lead to? Nothing!"</p> + +<p>"Revolution," declared Max, "peaceful, bloodless revolution! Whenever +any matter is submitted to you over which you have control and a +deciding voice, do the unexpected, and you will nearly always be right! +That is the biggest revolution in this unwritten Constitution of ours +that I can suggest. Do it, and then watch the results."</p> + +<p>"But, for instance, do what?"</p> + +<p>"Well, go for a beginning to the very plays your Comptroller refrains +from recommending or tries to dissuade you from. Oh, you won't come upon +anything shocking; quite the reverse. That play, <i>The Gaudy Girl</i>, which +I spoke of just now, is about to be revived in a new form—with +additions. No doubt it will draw enormously; and as a fortune has been +spent on it you would do a popular thing by attending the first +performance. It is a risky and indecent piece, but no one will object, +on that score, to its receiving the royal patronage."</p> + +<p>"How possibly can it be indecent," protested the King, "when it has +already run for five hundred nights at one of our leading theaters?"</p> + +<p>Max smiled. "Father," he said, "in all your life have you ever once been +in a crowd—formed part of it, I mean? Well, then, how can you tell? I +have. There is plenty of indecency in a Jingalese crowd—especially +indecent suggestion; and it is crowds the theaters have to cater for."</p> + +<p>"Still, they have the Censor to reckon with."</p> + +<p>"The Censor!" exclaimed Max. "Have you ever asked the Lord Functionary, +who controls him, to show you the text of the plays he passes?—or gone +further in order to compare them with those he does not pass? Till you +have, you know nothing about the Censor's protective powers. He merely +protects the existing order of things, like yourself; whatever is paying +and popular it becomes his duty to countenance. Well, all that is +strictly within your own department, for the supervision of the morals +of the stage is still a royal prerogative outside parliamentary control. +And I tell you this—that if you were to begin exercising your +prerogative conscientiously you would get into more intimate touch with +the popular will than would suit the calculations of your ministers. As +for the Lord Functionary, he would probably resign. He might be glad of +the excuse. Just now there is a considerable row on, and he finds +himself in hot water. When you see him you had better ask him about it; +and as he is technically the keeper of your conscience you really have a +concern in the matter. What has he been doing? Oh, merely drawing the +usual invidious distinction between adultery treated seriously and +adultery treated as a joke. Under this latter and more popular form it +is now occupying with success half the theaters in Jingalo. And if you +want to see the deeps open, and understand what they contain,—well, +there you have your cue: follow it! Only do that, and you will light +such a candle—Ah! now I am quoting from English history; and as I am +only concerned with that of Jingalo—I perceive that my present chapter +has come to an end. May I take another cigar?"</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>All this time the King had sat cautiously imbibing the stimulus of his +son's words. They sent a curious glow through his system; for they +touched on the very point which was now daily engaging his +thoughts—how, in connection with his own ministerial problem, to do the +thing which Brasshay did not expect without thereby involving the +prestige of the monarchy in ruin. He looked at his son, so full of +self-confidence, so easy and unconcerned in the opinions of others, and +very greatly he envied him.</p> + +<p>"Max," he said slowly, "you are a very dangerous character."</p> + +<p>And Max was flattered, as your man of words and not of deeds always is +flattered when the attributes which belong by rights to his betters are +ascribed to him.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, in this instance the epithet was well earned, for these +secret potations of Max were having their effect upon the King's brain; +they reproduced in facsimile the cerebral excitement which had followed +upon his fall, and touching the same spot kindled in him a curious +mental ardor, which sent him to his Council a different person +altogether, one whom his ministers were finding it difficult to +recognize and still more difficult to reconcile to their plans. Only +when the effects had died down towards the end of each day did the King +become himself again. Obstreperous till noon, he would then quiet down +by degrees till, at six o'clock, his spirits had reached a strange nadir +of depression. Had Brasshay only caught him then, in that period of +reaction, he would have found him unformidable as of old; but Brasshay +did not know. And then, night after night, came Max with his tangle of +words and whipped him into fresh revolt.</p> + +<p>He still carried the memory of that last conversation—that chapter +which Max had composed into the echoing cavities of his brain—when he +next encountered the Lord Functionary.</p> + +<p>Certain questions of court etiquette and procedure having been disposed +of: "By the way," said his Majesty, "I was told yesterday that you are +being criticised—in the play department, I mean."</p> + +<p>The Lord Functionary had been spending sleepless nights in a scrambling +attempt to acquire a literary education; but his own royal master was +the last person to whom he would give himself away; so he only smiled +with that air of deference and self-complacence which all court +officials know how to combine. "I have heard rumors of it, sir," he +replied, in a tone of easy detachment.</p> + +<p>"Who are making the complaints?"</p> + +<p>"Certain members of Parliament, I believe. They have constituents to +satisfy; and under a democracy, of course, autocrats can never do +right."</p> + +<p>"Are you the autocrat?" inquired the King.</p> + +<p>"At your Majesty's disposal," returned the Lord Functionary with a bow.</p> + +<p>"Then you are not responsible to Parliament?"</p> + +<p>The Lord Functionary smiled, with a touch of disdain. "I should not be +holding office if I were," said he.</p> + +<p>"Then you are not under the Prime Minister, either?"</p> + +<p>"No more than your Majesty," said the magnificent one blandly. "In the +order of precedence I am, indeed, several degrees above him. It is, of +course, a Government appointment; but while I hold it my discretionary +powers are unlimited."</p> + +<p>This seemed a very great person, and the King looked on him with envy.</p> + +<p>"To whom, then, are you actually responsible?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"To you, sir."</p> + +<p>"To me alone?"</p> + +<p>"My official title would make it indecent for me to consult any one but +your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, you keep my conscience for me, don't you?" said the King. Max +was right, then; here was something still left for him to do. He +addressed himself to the previous question.</p> + +<p>"What exactly is the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"A self-advertising minority, sir, has been persistently submitting +plays which it was quite out of the question to pass. Being annoyed, +they are now attacking the plays which <i>have</i> passed."</p> + +<p>"I should like," said the King, "to see some of these plays; to be in +touch, if I may so put it, with my own conscience. Would you be good +enough to send me three of those you have not passed, and three of the +others which are now being attacked. I would like also," he added, "to +see <i>The Gaudy Girl</i> in its new version."</p> + +<p>The Lord Functionary raised his pale eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"May I be allowed to know why, sir?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Just curiosity," said the King. "I thought of going to see it, and I +wanted first to be sure that there was nothing—nothing, you know——"</p> + +<p>The Lord Functionary's face became wreathed in smiles.</p> + +<p>"Why, certainly, sir. I will see that a copy is sent to your Majesty at +once. It is, of course, work of a very light and frivolous kind—but it +is popular and it does no harm." Then, as by an after-thought, the +official countenance grew grave. "Was her Majesty also intending to be +present?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>The King, discerning that a negative was invited, gave the required +assurance. "As a matter of fact," said he, "it was the Prince who asked +me to go—suggested it, that is to say." And immediately official +confidence was restored, for to the Lord Functionary Max as a reformer +was still unknown, while his taste for frivolous diversion was more +easily assumed. And so in due course a copy of the play reached the +King's hands.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was through mere inadvertence that the other six did not +accompany it. The King noted the omission; but when once he started to +read the single play which had reached him he forgot all about the +others, for he found that his hands were full. At one stroke of the +scythe he had reaped a plentiful harvest.</p> + +<p>Here was a play on the very eve of production, reeking with the +sniggering improprieties which the keeper of the King's conscience had +permitted to become the popular vogue. Suggestions and innuendoes to +which the ordinary theater-going public had now grown accustomed, struck +his inexperienced Majesty as bold and glaring novelties. The mere +cheapness of the wit he passed uncritically by, but the indecencies +were so bare and bald that even he, with all his innocence and +inexperience, could not fail to understand them. The explanation, of +course, was easy; this new version of an old and accepted play had +received the official sanction through oversight. Providence had sent +him to the rescue in the nick of time; and delighted to have found +something which his hand really could do, he took up the blue pencil and +set to work.</p> + +<p>Snatches of dialogue, half lines of lyric—especially when it came to +the last verse—here, there, and everywhere he scored them through with +a ruthless hand; and with a renewed sense of usefulness, and a +conscience well at ease, he returned the much deleted copy to the Lord +Functionary.</p> + +<p>Before long that official visited him, presenting a grave countenance. +He was by no means enthusiastic over the royal handiwork; the production +was about to take place; the play had already practically been +licensed—silence up to so late a moment having virtually given consent; +and—most difficult point of all—these things which the King was now +ruling out had almost all of them been in the previously accepted +version.</p> + +<p>"Then I suppose," said his Majesty, "that nobody really reads the +plays?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir, they are always read," corrected the Lord Functionary, +"but our readers have necessarily to go upon certain lines. They are +guided by precedent and custom, which it would be highly inadvisable to +disturb."</p> + +<p>So he pleaded that the <i>status quo ante</i> might prevail; and yet, man to +man, he could not defend what the King showed him.</p> + +<p>"Could you," inquired his Majesty indignantly, "read such things aloud +to your own family? Could you comfortably, if I called upon you to do +so, read them aloud to me?"</p> + +<p>"The drama," explained the Lord Functionary, "is so different from +anything else; it has not to observe the same conventions. In light +comedy, especially, these things really do not count. People never +trouble to think about them—they mean nothing."</p> + +<p>"In that case," said the King, "no one will mind your cutting them out."</p> + +<p>The Lord Functionary seemed not so sure,—his assurance went, in fact, +in quite an opposite direction. He pleaded hard for the trade interests +which he stood to represent. The play was in an advanced state of +rehearsal; many thousands had been spent upon it; and, seeing that it +was but a revival, no doubt about the new version passing had existed +anywhere.</p> + +<p>But to all his entreaties the King remained adamant.</p> + +<p>"In this matter," said he, "you have to consult my conscience."</p> + +<p>The point could not be further argued.</p> + +<p>"It is very unfortunate," said the Lord Functionary in acid tones.</p> + +<p>"I must insist," said his Majesty, "that you see to these omissions +being made." And the Lord Functionary bowed his pained body over the +hand which the King graciously extended.</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty must be obeyed," said he.</p> + +<p>It was a phrase that the King very seldom heard; it gave him a taste of +power.</p> + +<p>"Max," said he to his son, upon their next meeting, "I have been doing +as you advised. And I do believe you are right."</p> + +<p>"What did I advise?" inquired Max, assuming forgetfulness.</p> + +<p>"That I should 'do a bust' was, I think, your expression; something +unexpected."</p> + +<p>"And how have you done it?"</p> + +<p>"I have censored <i>The Gaudy Girl</i>."</p> + +<p>Max whistled.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>The sibilations of that whistle were prophetic of atmospheric +disturbance to come. In a week the storm broke.</p> + +<p>The King happened to be away, paying a visit of complimentary inspection +to frontier fortresses and heard nothing about it. But on his return Max +came to him charged with tidings.</p> + +<p>He stood over his father and looked at him with a note of satirical +approval in his eye, which did not inspire the King with any confidence.</p> + +<p>"Sir, do you know what you have done?"</p> + +<p>His Majesty denied the impeachment. "I haven't done anything. Not yet."</p> + +<p>"You have revolutionized the drama! Even now, at this very moment, the +great heart of Jingalo is throbbing from plushed stalls to gallery +stair-rail. Because of you <i>The Gaudy Girl</i> is playing its third night +to an accompaniment of hilarious riot and uproar such as have not been +known in our dramatic world since the public was forced to give up its +right to free sittings."</p> + +<p>The King was startled; some alarm crept into his voice. "Do you mean +that I have done harm?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least; no, quite the reverse. But you have certainly doubled +the play's fortune. The run is going to be tremendous."</p> + +<p>His Majesty felt flattered; had he not reason? For this surely must mean +that he had rightly interpreted the public taste, and that what the +popular will really wanted was a pure and carefully expurgated drama.</p> + +<p>But Max speedily undeceived him.</p> + +<p>"What happened," said he, "is this. The Lord Functionary obeyed your +orders, and less than a week ago word went to the management, happily +engaged with its finishing touches to the play. Your share in the +business, of course, was not mentioned; your cuttings had become the +official act of the department. What that meant, you can perhaps hardly +conceive. Here was popular musical comedy censored as it had never been +censored before. Time was too short for negotiation; besides the whole +thing was too drastic for half measures to be of any avail. Dullness, +decorum, and disaster stared the management in the face. Suddenly +perceiving that its strength lay in submission, it accepted the +situation like a man, and in all Jingalo to-day, no hand is raised for +the censorship. You have given it the <i>coup de grâce</i>—it will have to +go; for you have enlisted the managers—the trade interest against it."</p> + +<p>"I?" exclaimed the King.</p> + +<p>"Its moral position, as I told you," went on his son, "had recently been +shaken by the attacks of the intellectuals—a camp, however, so much in +the minority that hitherto its hostility has not been seriously +regarded. But now Jingalese drama, as a great commercial enterprise, an +interest wherein hundreds of thousands of pounds are yearly invested, +has been touched on the raw, and Jingalese drama has risen and shaken +itself in wrath. The press, which depends on it for advertisement, has, +of course, rushed to its assistance, and condemnation of the censorship +now figures in stupendous headlines on all the posters. Leading +articles, interviews, and indignation meetings are the order of the day; +I wonder you can have missed them."</p> + +<p>"I have been busy with other things," explained the King.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you are not too busy to-night, I invite you to come and see +your handiwork."</p> + +<p>"I can hardly do that," said the King, "under the circumstances—if, as +you say, there is disturbance going on."</p> + +<p>"It is disturbance of a very unanimous kind," said the Prince; "the +public is enjoying itself thoroughly. Did I not the other day advise you +to reach out a fearless hand to democracy? Well, you have done so; and +the dear, good beast has given you its paw."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I can go."</p> + +<p>"Then you will never understand. But, indeed, sir, I think that you +should. I have taken a box under a private name and we can go +unobserved; the play has already begun; and if you will keep to the back +no one will know that you are there. Besides it is Lent, a season when +the incognito of your visits becomes a recognized rule. Do you think you +are justified in missing so vivid an interpretation of the popular +will?"</p> + +<p>The King's hesitation ended. "I suppose I must go on doing the +unexpected," said he, "now that I have once begun."</p> + +<p>"You could not make a better rule," said Max.</p> + +<p>And so, quite unexpectedly, and to the extreme bewilderment of a +detective force taken suddenly by surprise, the King found himself in +the theater where performance number three of <i>The Gaudy Girl</i> was going +on.</p> + +<p>The house was packed, tumultuous, and excited. As he entered the +sheltering gloom of the box his Majesty recognized the words of the +play, remembered, too, that a censored passage lay close ahead. It came.</p> + +<p>A sumptuously bosomed figure stepped into the limelight and sang. In the +second verse she threw out a rhyme that seemed to clamor for its +pair—threw it out as the angler throws out his fly for the fish that is +sure to rise. The King held his breath as the blue-penciled passage drew +near. The voice quavered and broke; singer and orchestra stopped dead. +The house roared. "Go on!" cried encouraging voices from gallery and +pit. "Go on! Go on!" And the singer thus emboldened, and accompanied by +one small piping flute, a ridiculous starveling of sound after all the +blare that had preceded it, sang with a modest and deprecating air a +line which fell very flat indeed—a mere nothing tagged from a nursery +rhyme—obviously an importation. Stalls, pit, and gallery rocked and +shouted with laughter. "Try again!" roared the crowd; and with small, +frightened mimminy-pimminy tones the singer tried again. This time a +snippet from the national anthem served her turn—but it was no good, +the audience would have none of it; in a crescendo of uproarious demand +it invited her to try again. Patient as a cat waiting for its chin to be +stroked the conductor sat with extended baton. Down to the footlights +she minced, delicately as Agag to the downfall of his hopes, thrust out +an impudent face, and waggled it. "I can't! You know I can't!" she +remonstrated in a shrill cockney wail. And straight on the anticipated +word the house roared its applause. Off pranced the singer to her encore +on cavorting toes, down flourished the conductor's baton in a crash of +chords, and away to its fortunes sailed the play, more than ever a +confirmed triumph in the popular favor.</p> + +<p>"You see," whispered Max in the parental ear, "you see now what you have +done."</p> + +<p>"It's a perfect scandal!" exclaimed the King, much put out, for he +could not but feel that he was being mocked.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said Max. "All the scandal has been eliminated."</p> + +<p>"It ought to be put a stop to!"</p> + +<p>"A law doesn't exist."</p> + +<p>"This holding authority up to ridicule!"</p> + +<p>"When authority has made itself absurd, could you wish it a better fate? +To my mind, you have done a noble work."</p> + +<p>"But this," said the King, "this is not what I intended at all."</p> + +<p>Max smiled indulgently.</p> + +<p>"So much the better," said he. "The unexpected is just as good for you, +sir, as for others."</p> + +<p>Then the King drew back again into his corner, to prepare himself for +fresh shocks as the play went on.</p> + +<p>The managerial device was simple, effective, and very easy to +understand; and from start to finish it was played with little +variation, though with ever-increasing success. Here and there, where +for a long period no blue-penciled passage occurred, imaginary +censorings had been inserted merely to whip curiosity, with the result +that the atmosphere of innuendo and suggestion was greatly increased. +Indeed, the whole piece reeked of it, new situations had been evolved +which the play had not previously contained; and a stimulated audience +sat metaphorically with its eye to an eye-hole from which the key had +been accommodatingly withdrawn.</p> + +<p>And then came the sensation of the evening.</p> + +<p>Whether in the course of the performance the King had become so +interested as to forget his caution, or whether between the acts too +much light had penetrated the box at the back of which he had been +sitting, it is now impossible to say. Just before the fall of the +curtain he and the Prince got up and left, and traversing the still +empty corridors unrecognized, returned to their carriage and the care of +the anxiously waiting detectives. But somehow, as the play ended, a +whisper got round from the stage and, like an electric flash, through +the whole theater the fact of the royal visit became known.</p> + +<p>Instantly, with cheer upon cheer, the audience broke into loyal and +excited plaudits. The orchestra struck up the national anthem. Hands +down popular opinion had won; for in this matter of "the new censorship" +as it was called—in this attack upon the interests and liberties, not +of a foolish minority, but of a sacred and freedom-loving public, +Jingalo and its monarch had joined forces, and bureaucracy was +dethroned.</p> + +<p>The next day it was on all the posters; newspapers celebrated the event +in flaring headlines—"<span class="smcap">The King Condemns the Censor</span>!" And before +the week was over, the Lord Functionary had resigned his high office on +grounds of health.</p> + +<p>The King was much puzzled over the whole affair; and his advisers did +their best to keep him mystified. Both the Prime Minister and the late +Lord Functionary himself earnestly assured him that his conscientious +interference had had nothing whatever to do with the latter's +retirement; for at this juncture it would never have done for the +monarch to suppose that he held so much power over the official lives of +his ministers. Quite by accident he had come in contact with that great +unknown quantity "the popular will," and, without in the least realizing +what he was about, had first touched it on the raw, and then tickled it; +and the "dear good beast," as Max phrased it, recognizing only the +second part of his performance, had turned rapturously round and given +him its paw.</p> + +<p>The King had his scruples; he did not like thus to win popularity by +accident, and yet, the more he looked into it, the more he saw this for +a fact, that by committing a popular <i>faux pas</i> he had secured far more +consideration from his ministers than by doing the correct thing.</p> + +<p>John of Jingalo did not yet understand that his correctness of conduct +was one of the chief factors relied on by a bureaucratic government for +reducing him to political insignificance. He had yet to learn that a +submissive and well-behaved monarchy was essential to its very +existence.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h2>THE OLD ORDER</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>All this, the reader will remember, had taken place in Lent. The King +had done something which according to the accepted canons was quite +incorrect; he had been to a frivolous but popular play during the +penitential season and it had got into the papers. But instead of being +blamed for it he had gained enormously in popularity.</p> + +<p>Now had his Majesty been merely aiming for this, as politicians aim for +it (deserting principles for party, or party when its principles become +a hindrance), he might have followed the lead given him by the people of +Jingalo, and, recognizing that the Church Calendar had lost its hold +upon the popular imagination, might thenceforward have secularized his +conduct, and paved the way in Court circles for that separation of +Church and State which his ministers were itching to bring about but did +not yet dare.</p> + +<p>But John of Jingalo had all the defects which belong to a conscientious +character. He had not gone to the play for amusement, it had not amused +him, he did not at all agree with the public's attitude towards it, and +yet he was reaping the benefit; he was standing in a glow of popular +approbation under false pretenses; and the more he thought about it the +less he liked it—it gave him a bad conscience.</p> + +<p>Yet, in spite of that, he could not but recognize that he had touched +power; under a misapprehension the people had responded to him as never +before; he had done what they regarded as a sporting thing in sending +unpopular officialdom to the right-about; it was even possible that +among theatrical circles when the exploit was talked of he was now known +as "good old King Jack." All the same he did not feel that he had been +good, and he wanted to make amends.</p> + +<p>The highly colored conversations of Max, the talk about whipping-boys +and Court jesters, and all those ancient divinities which had once +hedged a King but were now mere barbed wire entanglements, had turned +his attention toward certain medieval institutions the practice of which +had lapsed, or had become reduced to a mere shadow of their former +selves. And with a conscience ill at ease over the damage he had wrought +to a season which he still regarded with a certain conventional +reverence, his thoughts lighted upon Maundy Thursday, then less than a +fortnight off.</p> + +<p>He remembered having once watched from a private gallery in the royal +chapel the impoverished ceremony which now did shabby duty for the old +symbol of kingly humility and service. He had seen the vicarious +sacrifice of silver pennies doled out by his almoners to a duplicated +dozen of old men and women who had lost their better days in +circumstances of the utmost respectability; and shocked at the poverty +of the display he had been glad to learn that a more Christian gift of +tea, clothes, snuff, and tobacco was added outside the Church door when +the ceremony was over. But even so its ritual had not attracted him: it +had lost its human values, and seemed to have been kept in life merely +for archeological association.</p> + +<p>Now on looking into the matter once more (the <i>Encyclopedia Appendica</i> +gave him the required information) he was astonished to find that the +old foot-washing ceremony of Holy Thursday was originally the chief +function at which every year the Knights of the Holy Thorn were bound, +if not unavoidably prevented, to appear and do service. Nay, when he +turned to it, he found that it still stood so expressed in the Charter +of the Order, and that each new Knight, upon admission thereto, swore +solemnly to keep and observe the same—so help him God—faithfully unto +his life's end.</p> + +<p>If he had had any doubt before, the terms of that oath, which he himself +had taken—probably without understanding it since it had been read to +him in Latin—were sufficient to decide him. Without loss of time he +sent word by his Comptroller-General to the Prime Minister that he +intended in the following week to revive the full ceremony and to recall +the Knights of the Thorn to the duties they had so long neglected. The +ceremony, as of old, was to take place in public at noon outside the +doors of the metropolitan cathedral.</p> + +<p>"The King is going off his head," said the Comptroller-General by way of +preface to the announcement with which he was charged; and the Prime +Minister was ready to agree with him when he heard it.</p> + +<p>"Preposterous!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"He has got chapter and verse for it," lamented the Comptroller-General.</p> + +<p>"Can't you persuade him that it's a forgery?"</p> + +<p>"It's in the oath," replied the other; "you yourself have taken it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, the form; but the ceremony—the accompanying service, I +mean—was cut out of the Church Prayers at the time of the Reformation. +It has become illegal."</p> + +<p>"Inside a church, yes; not outside. At least that is his contention. Oh, +I have already done my best! He got quite excited when I ventured to +discuss the matter,—asked me if I understood the nature of an oath, and +whether I had ever taken one."</p> + +<p>"Is he much set on it?"</p> + +<p>"I have had to write to the Archbishop."</p> + +<p>"What do you think he'll say about it?"</p> + +<p>"Ordinarily he would oppose it as savoring of Rome; under present +circumstances my impression is that he will welcome it as giving the +Church an added importance. You don't like it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, I don't."</p> + +<p>"Then you had better see the King yourself. You have only a week left; +and he has already begun looking at the weather-glass and wondering if +it's going to be fine."</p> + +<p>"That's just like him!" said the Prime Minister.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he's getting more like himself every day. My part is not a +sinecure, I can assure you."</p> + +<p>Accordingly the Prime Minister went over to the Palace and saw the King. +Informed as to what line of argument had already been tried and failed, +he approached the matter from a new standpoint: he spoke in the name of +Protestantism. This ceremony had only survived in Catholic countries; in +Jingalo the Reformation had killed it, and it had gone with graven +images, the invocation of saints, and the worship of relics to the limbo +of forgotten foolishnesses.</p> + +<p>"The Charter of the Holy Thorn has not gone," said the King.</p> + +<p>"Nor has your Majesty's title to the Crown of Jerusalem; but who ever +thinks of enforcing it?"</p> + +<p>"I am willing to resign it any day," replied his Majesty. "I can also, +if you think it advisable, abolish the Charter of the Holy Thorn and the +Knighthood with it. But I don't think the Knights would quite like +that."</p> + +<p>"If it comes to a question of liking," said the Prime Minister, "I do +not think they will quite like washing beggars' feet in public."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do the washing and the drying," said the King. "They only carry +the basins and put on the boots. I have looked up the whole ceremony; +it's very impressive. You have only to read it and you will become +converted: it is so symbolical."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister objected that though in its origin the ceremony might +have had symbolic meaning and beauty, its performance now-a-days would +be looked upon as a mere form and superstition, contrary to the spirit +of the age.</p> + +<p>This reminded the King of a certain "maxim."</p> + +<p>"'The spirit of the age,'" he quoted, "'is the industrious collection of +bric-à-brac—good, bad, and indifferent': this one happens to be good, +and has been neglected. And talk about forms and ceremonies!—what can +be more formal, superstitious, and idiotic than the procession of Court +functionaries and King's Musketeers (with the Dean of the Chapels Royal +carrying a candle) which, on every ninth of November—the anniversary of +the Bed-Chamber Plot—comes to look under my bed to see whether +assassins are not lurking there? On one occasion I was laid up with +influenza, but I had to submit to that form and superstition because it +had become traditional. And all the papers gloated over the fact, and +called it 'a link in the chain of monarchy,' though as a matter of fact +the conspiracy in question had been got up against that branch of the +succession which we afterwards succeeded in dethroning. All the personal +inconvenience I had to endure on that occasion was as nothing in +comparison to the satisfaction which the public got out of it. No, Mr. +Prime Minister, if you are going to do away with things because they are +forms and superstitions, then I institute the Order of the New Broom, +and I make you the first Knight of it; and the rest of your life will +have to be spent in sweeping." ("And oh!" thought the King, feeling +himself in form, "I only wish Max could hear me now!")</p> + +<p>Failing in his personal appeal the Prime Minister turned on the +Departments, and the King fought them one by one: the Board of Works +which wanted to have the roads up; the Clerk of the Weather who said +that a depression unsuitable for open-air gatherings was crossing +Europe; the Chief of the Police who said that so large an open space was +bad for a crowd; the Minister of Public Worship who wished everything to +be done—if done at all—indoors and unobtrusively, by preference in one +of the Royal Chapels: the effect, he said, would be more reverent. And +when all these in turn had failed, the Prime Minister asked for a +Council on the subject, and was told it was none of the Council's +business.</p> + +<p>"I am Grand Master in my own Order," said the King, "and you, as one of +its Knights, in any matter pertaining to the Order owe me your +unquestioning obedience."</p> + +<p>That was unanswerable; he did. And so the King got his way.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The revival proved a tremendous success, although it did not reproduce +the medieval conditions in their entirety.</p> + +<p>The twelve old women were left out; it was not considered decent for the +King to wash their feet in public and the Queen absolutely refused to do +so. Instead they were invited to take tea at the Palace, and afterwards +were all presented with foot-warmers.</p> + +<p>In other directions also invidious distinctions were attempted, and a +certain amount of controversy was raised. The Bishops made a scrambling +and desultory fight for it that, as the steps of the Cathedral were to +be used, all the washen beggars should be actual communicants of the +Established Church; but the demand died down when it was found that such +a breed did not exist; and a rush of undesirables to the altar in order +to qualify could hardly be welcomed as a tolerable solution.</p> + +<p>There was a tussle, too, among the Knights of the Thorn as to how many +towel-bearers there should be (the towels remaining perquisites +afterwards); but the King and his Master of Ceremonies—the delighted +Max helping them—were able to settle matters to the general +satisfaction, and, by allowing a towel to each foot and twelve cakes of +soap, provided a sufficient number of souvenirs to go round.</p> + +<p>And so the day came, the weather was fine, and the attendant crowd +rapturous. The King and his Knights, in nodding plumes and robes of +thorn-stamped velvet, made the show of their lives; organ music rolled +from within, bands played without, and massed choirs sang like angels +from the parapets and galleries above the west doors of the Cathedral.</p> + +<p>And when their ordeal by water was over, then the twelve beggars—all of +guaranteed good character although not actual communicants—received +with delight each a new pair of shoes and stockings, which they were +able to sell at fabulous prices, immediately the ceremony was over, to +collectors of curiosities, chiefly Americans. And that same night twelve +very happy beggars, all more or less drunk, made their appearance on the +largest music-hall stage in the metropolis, where the whole scene was +elaborately re-enacted in facsimile, followed by a cinematograph record +of the actual event.</p> + +<p>The King was a little disappointed at these modern developments, they +seemed to take away from the penitential character of the performance, +and rather to weaken than restore in the public conscience the due +observance of Lent.</p> + +<p>Max, however, assured his father that he had made the greatest hit of +his life; his personal popularity had been greatly enhanced. What +pleased him better was that in feeling for the public pulse, by the +light of his own conscience, he had proved that he was right and the +Prime Minister wrong.</p> + +<p>Yet, though ostensibly in the wrong, the Prime Minister had really been +right. He had reckoned that the move might prove a popular one—for the +monarchy; and though a dull average of popularity for that ancient +institution suited his book for the present, he did not wish, in view of +certain eventualities, to see it greatly increased, and still less did +he wish the King to discover that by acting in opposition to his +ministers he might gain in popular esteem.</p> + +<p>As one of the Knights of the Thorn he himself had been obliged to +attend the ceremony; and by some it was noticed that, as he stood +holding a golden ewer in his two hands, he looked very cross. But +all the other Knights of the Thorn—those who had towels and soap as +perquisites—enjoyed themselves thoroughly and were already looking +forward to a repetition of the performance next year. Even in their +case, then, the King had proved to be right,—forms and ceremonies +accompanied by fine clothes were still popular things; the Order of the +New Broom would not be yet.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>And then, with blare of trumpet and clash of drum, with troopings and +marchings, with garlanded streets and miles upon miles of cheering +people, came the great Jubilee festivities. Silver was the note of the +decorations—silver in the midst of green spring. The Queen herself wore +silver gowns and bonnets of heliotrope, and the King a uniform wherein +silver braid formed the becoming substitute for gold. Corporations came +carrying silver caskets; army pensioners and school-children, fêted at +the public expense, received white metal mementoes which, while new at +any rate, looked as real as any coin of the realm. For a whole week the +piebald ponies really worked for their living, grumbling loudly between +whiles in their stalls; for a whole week "loyalty" was the note on which +the press harped its seraphic praises of monarchy and nation; and for a +whole week people actually did drop politics, reduce their hours of +labor, and run about enjoying themselves.</p> + +<p>The poet laureate published an ode for the occasion; he remarked on the +passing of time, said that the King had acquired wisdom and +understanding, but that the Queen did not look a day older; said that +the trees were green on that day twenty-five years ago when the King +ascended the throne, and that they were green still; said that cows ate +grass then, and were eating it now without any decrease of appetite; +said, in fact, that nothing sweet, reasonable, or beautiful had really +changed at all, and that the monarchy, taking its constitutional day by +day, was the national expression of that unchangeableness.</p> + +<p>The day after the appearance of his poem he received that titular +recognition for lack of which a poet laureate must feel that he has +lived in vain. And then, all this unchangeableness of things having been +thus ratified and sealed with the official seal, the King, his +ministers, and the whole political world advanced to the edge of changes +such as the country had not seen the like of for the last hundred years.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h2>PACE-MAKING IN POLITICS</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Inside the Council, meanwhile, curious and uncomfortable things had been +happening. The King's talkativeness had steadily increased; no one could +reduce him to reason.</p> + +<p>"He reminds me," said one of his ministers irritably, "of the +school-boy's story of the tea-kettle which discovered locomotion. Off +boiled the lid: 'Why!' cries the observant inventor, 'put that upon +wheels and it would go!' So he put it upon wheels and it went. He is +exactly like that tea-kettle on wheels, miraculously set going without +any inside reason to guide him! In my opinion before long there will +have to be a regency." He tapped his skull meaningly, but in the wrong +place: he should have tapped the back of it.</p> + +<p>"What? Prince Max!" ejaculated his auditor; "I should hardly call that a +remedy!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing can be worse," declared the other, "than things as they are!"</p> + +<p>In that he made a mistake; they were going to be much worse. The King's +new mental activities were only just getting into their stride; and from +a very unexpected quarter he was about to receive aid.</p> + +<p>At the Council board, where the King had now found voice, one alone sat +humorously interested and amused—the Minister of Fine Arts. He was not +an artist himself—had he been he would never have been allowed to +occupy that position; he was a Professor of History, Teller by name, +and more than any of his fellow-ministers he studied life. Nothing +interested him so much as the human machine; and to see this rather +humdrum monarch suddenly developing into a tea-kettle on wheels, as his +colleague had so happily phrased it, filled him with profound interest +and an underlying sympathy.</p> + +<p>Dimly the King had become aware that somewhere in that body of adroit +shufflers who were supposed to minister to his constitutional needs the +confused cry of his conscience had evoked an echo. He saw under a high +bald forehead kindly eyes watching him; and it was a kindly voice +charged with considerateness which one day, over a matter in which time +pressed, begged for a further interview.</p> + +<p>International exhibitions had become the vogue; and in putting on its +peace paint for the Jubilee, Jingalo had determined to maintain its +prestige among the nations by holding a conversazione of the Arts. In +matters of that sort his Majesty had no particular taste; but in an art +exhibition it was his duty to be interested. If need be he would open +it, and would say of art and of its relations to the national life +anything that the commissioners required of him. He would also lend any +pictures from the royal collection which did not leave too obvious a gap +upon the walls. All this was a mere matter of course; but the occasion +being important—one of the great events indeed of the Jubilee +festivities—it was expected of him that he should give a rather special +consideration to the final plans.</p> + +<p>Though wearied by the circumlocutions of his Council which had lasted +throughout the morning, he named an hour, and at six o'clock received +his minister in private audience.</p> + +<p>The Professor began to explain matters in the usual official tone, but +before long perceived that the attention paid to him was merely formal. +The King sat depressed, listless, and cold. This renewal of the official +routine found him mentally fagged out; it was evident that his thoughts +were elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Making the matter as short as he could in decency, the Professor folded +his memoranda and returned them to his pocket.</p> + +<p>Recalled to himself by the ensuing silence the King spoke—</p> + +<p>"I really don't know enough about it to say anything," he murmured. "No +doubt you have arranged everything for the best." But still he remained +seated as though the interview were not ended, and the minister had +perforce to remain seated also.</p> + +<p>"I fear that to-day we have wearied your Majesty," he said at last to +fill up the pause. "The Council is sometimes very trying."</p> + +<p>The King lifted forlorn eyes in a sort of gratitude upon this, the least +troublesome of all his ministers. "You, at least," he answered, "have +not to reproach yourself, for I noticed that you did not speak."</p> + +<p>"I was listening," answered the Professor; "I was much struck by your +Majesty's line of argument."</p> + +<p>"You agreed?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot separate myself from my colleagues," returned the minister +cautiously; "but I recognized the strength of your Majesty's case. On +its own premises, if well put, it becomes unanswerable."</p> + +<p>"I hardly thought that I had put it well." The King's voice showed +despondency.</p> + +<p>"To be perfectly frank, sir," said the Professor, tempering the amiable +twinkle of his gaze with a deferential movement of the head, "you did +not. The historical argument requires a knowledge of history."</p> + +<p>"You remind me of another of my deficiencies, Professor."</p> + +<p>"It is shared, your Majesty, by nearly the whole of the Cabinet. Very +few of us, sir, knew anything more of it than you; and those of us who +did were intent on concealing our knowledge."</p> + +<p>"Very considerate, I am sure."</p> + +<p>"Not at all, sir: our knowledge would have given strength to your +argument."</p> + +<p>The King sat up a little at this confirmation of his suspicions. "Do you +mean, then, that my ministers make it a part of their duty to conceal +from me the truth?"</p> + +<p>"Some truths, sir," submitted the Professor, "may have undue weight +given to them, which it then becomes a councilor's duty to correct. +After all, history is only history; if at times we cannot break from it +we shall never get anywhere."</p> + +<p>"Yet all to-day," protested the King, "history, precedent, and the +Constitution are the words that have been drummed into my ears, for all +the world as though I, and not you, were the preacher of subversive +doctrine."</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty will remember that in this country we have had three +successful revolutions against the Constitution. In one the monarchy was +successful, in two the people."</p> + +<p>"Is that said as a warning?"</p> + +<p>"By no means, sir; merely to show that precedents lie on both sides like +dry bones in the wilderness. But it requires the power of a prophet to +call those dry bones to life. At present I see no prophet in Israel."</p> + +<p>"Yet every member of the Government prophesies."</p> + +<p>"I noticed, sir, that you did not. Never once did you pretend to know +what the future would bring forth: you only pointed to the past, +deducing therefrom your duty, as you conceived it, to the Constitution. +Conditionally that commanded my respect."</p> + +<p>"Surely," said the King, "I am bound, whatever the conditions, to hold +sacred a trust which has been committed to me by inheritance."</p> + +<p>The Professor bowed. "With your Majesty," he assented, "the hereditary +principle must naturally be strong: it is implanted in your blood. I +have no such impulse in mine. My father was born in a workhouse."</p> + +<p>"That is very remarkable," said the King. "To have attained to your +present position, your life must have been full of interest and +adventure."</p> + +<p>"Full of interest—yes. Adventure—no. Very plodding, very uneventful, +almost monotonous apart from mental happenings. Now and then an unsought +stroke of fortune. That is all."</p> + +<p>"How did you ever get into the Cabinet?" inquired the King, in a tone +that betrayed a sort of puzzled respect.</p> + +<p>"Merely to fill a gap in a ministry whose days were numbered. Then an +unexpected turn of the wheel kept us in power, and I remained. It was an +inglorious arrival, but I found I could be of use: a sort of connecting +line between incompatibles. I am not unpopular with my colleagues, and +left alone in my department, I go my own way."</p> + +<p>"And what is your way?" inquired the King, still searching for guidance.</p> + +<p>"I do nearly everything as my permanent officials tell me, recognizing +that while ministers come and go permanent officials remain and acquire +experience from both sides. On the other hand, I use my own discretion +in the hastening or suspension of the superannuation clause; I promote +by results and not by seniority. My department, in consequence, is the +most efficient in the whole Civil Service, and I have less work to do +than any other minister. Thus I am left with more leisure and energy to +devote to the consideration of policy, and affairs in general."</p> + +<p>"And do you approve," inquired the King, "of the present policy?"</p> + +<p>The minister paused. "I think the pace is about right," he said +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"The pace?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; government to-day, sir, is largely a matter of pace, the actual +measures do not so much matter. Modern democracy is making for something +of which we are all really—the governing classes I mean—profoundly +apprehensive: and the problem now is to let it come about without actual +catastrophe. When I used the word 'pace,' I had a certain graphic +illustration in my mind—an incident I once heard from the manager of a +railway—the recountal of which will show your Majesty what I mean.</p> + +<p>"A passenger train, before arriving at the head of a long, evenly +graded declivity, had taken on three or four good trucks heavily laden. +Owing to some carelessness in the coupling these wagons became detached +on the very crest of the descent, and falling to the rear came almost to +a halt. Not quite: sluggishly at first they began to move, and gathering +impetus from sheer weight followed in the track of the proceeding train. +Halfway down the declivity, the engine-driver discovered his loss and +the danger that threatened him. Looking back, he saw in the distance the +wagons weighted by the labor of men's hands drawing nearer with a speed +that grew ever more formidable. His one chance, therefore, of avoiding a +catastrophe was to put on pace in the hope of arriving at more level +conditions before the impact took place. Yet he must still limit himself +to a speed which enabled the train to keep to the rails on a certain +sharp curve which lay ahead. That was the problem which the +engine-driver set himself to solve: up to a certain point the more pace +he could allow the greater his chance of safety, beyond that point a new +danger arising out of pace lay ahead of him."</p> + +<p>The minister paused.</p> + +<p>"What happened?" inquired the King.</p> + +<p>"He negotiated the curve with success, and had got so far ahead that +when the wagons finally overtook him their impetus had been diminished +by the more level conditions of the road, and the impact was but slight. +Only the guard's van was smashed, and the guard himself rather badly +disabled."</p> + +<p>"And what happened afterwards to the guard and the engine-driver?" +inquired his Majesty, much interested.</p> + +<p>"The guard was pensioned for life: the engine-driver was promoted."</p> + +<p>"And whose fault was it—the guard's?"</p> + +<p>"Well, not exactly," replied the Professor; "the careless coupling was +done by others, but the guard had the right, which he had not chosen to +exercise, to refuse to accompany any train in which his van was not put +last—so as to embrace the whole combination. At least, he had the +technical right."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he did not wish to give trouble," said the King meditatively.</p> + + +<p>"Very likely; for, of course, had he exercised his right the whole train +would have been delayed by the extra shunting."</p> + +<p>"And he in consequence a less acceptable servant to his employers."</p> + +<p>"No one could have blamed him."</p> + +<p>"Not for excess of caution?" queried the King. "Did you not yourself +say that on those lines government would become impossible? You have +to run your railway system, it seems, with a certain risk of +accidents—otherwise you would never be up to time."</p> + +<p>"That is so," said the Professor. "In every political crisis it is pace +more than principle that I find one has to consider. If it is solved in +such and such a way, our pace will be so and so, and the question—will +it take us safely over the curve? If it is solved in another way so that +the pace slackens, those wagons in the rear may be down upon us."</p> + +<p>"And the guard, whose control, while the train makes its running, is but +nominal, is then the first to suffer!" He saw himself in the man's +place. "Poor glow-worm!" he cried, "he may change the green light in his +tail to red—or was it red to begin with? but it is no use! Those +proletarian forces descending upon him from the rear are quite blind in +their purpose: it is merely dead weight and impetus that send them +along." And then he pulled up abruptly, astonished to find that he was +talking in Max's manner. Was it so catching?</p> + +<p>"Not wholly blind, sir," said the Professor; "believe me, they mean +well—mainly to themselves, no doubt: that is only human nature. Every +body in the community, whether energized or sluggish, has some weight +attached to it; and the more that bodies can agree to combine the +greater is their weight politically. One has to recognize that consensus +of opinion carries with it a certain moral as well as physical force. +Out of that springs the evolution of our governing system."</p> + +<p>"Only I," said the King, "in the nature of things have always to stand +alone."</p> + +<p>"Sir, you have all history!" said the Professor.</p> + +<p>"Which, as you have reminded me, I do not know."</p> + +<p>"May I inquire, sir, whether you have a real wish to know?"</p> + +<p>"Why, naturally!" exclaimed the King. Whereupon the Professor, as though +laying aside something of his officialdom, took up an easier attitude +and addressed himself to the point.</p> + +<p>"It would, I think, sir, be quite compatible with my duty to my +colleagues were I to send your Majesty a few volumes of constitutional +history with certain appropriate passages marked. It would interest me +very greatly to hear the argument developed on the lines you have +already laid down. The history I would venture to send is a thoroughly +reliable and standard authority, written by an eminent jurist to whose +words we later historians still bow. As I said, sir, <i>pace</i> is to-day +the thing which really matters; beyond a given pace we, certainly, are +not able to go. Luckily for our present plans there is no source from +which any forcing of the pace seems probable. I do not think this or any +other ministry dare attempt it. Speaking for ourselves any increase of +the present pace would, I conceive, become a grave embarrassment. If, +therefore, your Majesty has been apprehensive of our adopting any +increase of speed, I think you may be reassured. After the +constitutional readjustment our pace is scarcely likely to grow +dangerous."</p> + +<p>The Professor had managed to indicate that these were—if so it might be +allowed—his last words. The King rose.</p> + +<p>"I shall be much obliged, Professor," said he, "if you will lend me the +books you have mentioned. When may I look for them?"</p> + +<p>"Sir," said the Professor, in smooth matter-of-fact tones, "it so +happens that I have them with me in my carriage. I will have them +conveyed to your Majesty immediately."</p> + +<p>And therewith he bowed over the King's hand and departed.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Left to himself the King stood considering for a while. He was pleased, +but puzzled. What had this man, wise and kindly, been telling him? What +advice were his words intended to convey? He was quite sure now that +this minister had come and talked to him for a purpose: and what he had +mainly talked about was "pace." It was "pace" that mattered. That was +all very well, but with pace he himself had nothing to do—except in a +negative sort of way. He, occupying the position of guard with brakes to +his hand but no steam-power, could only cause delay; he had no means, +and no object that he could see, for accelerating matters. Besides, had +not the Professor said that in his estimation the pace was about right? +All his efforts to secure delay would—he was already aware of it—fail +of their effect; ministerial resignation threatening, he would have to +give in. The alternative, the mad alternative that had for a moment +occurred to him—no, it would not do! The results might be too +tremendous, might lead even to revolution and a republic, and so he gave +the problem up. And then a pile of six large volumes "with Professor +Teller's humble duty" was brought in and set down before him; and John +of Jingalo sat down to read the marked passages.</p> + +<p>It was a reading that for its completion extended over many days.</p> + +<p>What first attracted his attention, however, was a chronological series +of plates, showing the map of Europe in all its political changes from +the tenth to the twentieth century. This was, in fact, a key to the +whole work, for as the author rightly pointed out in his opening +paragraph the history of Europe was inextricably bound up in the history +of Jingalo, and the one could not be properly studied without some +understanding of the other.</p> + +<p>These maps of Europe he turned from century to century; and there, as he +marked their many variations, there always to be recognized was Jingalo +occupying its proud historical position—so often challenged, yet still +on the whole unchanged. It had found room to live and breathe, not by +its own strength, but by a careful adjustment of the political balance +between others, and a neutralization artfully and sometimes +treacherously contrived of greater forces than its own. It had for +neighbors two great military states and several smaller ones; and had at +some time or another been at war with nearly all of them. +Often—generally in fact—it had come out of those wars more vanquished +than victorious (though Jingalese school-books carefully concealed the +fact): it had lost, for proof, more territory than any other power in +the world except England, and yet, like England, cherished the curious +conviction that it had won all the really important battles and dictated +each peace upon its own terms. Having been wholesomely driven out of +France in the fifteenth century, it had captured and carried away with +it as trophy the order of the White Feather, with its proud motto, "J'y +suis, j'y reste." In the eighteenth century it had adopted by compulsion +from Germany an alteration in its law of regal inheritance, and had +marked its adhesion to the new formula by the institution of the order +of the Dachshund, with the obsequious motto, "Das ist mir ganz Wurst," +popularly mistranslated by the wags of the day into, "That is the worst +for me." Beaten by the infidel in the Crusades it had joined thenceforth +to its regalia the holy crown of Jerusalem; and having thrown over the +Papacy at the time of the Reformation, had added to its armorial +bearings the Keys of St. Peter, and to its royal claims and titles the +Kingship of Rome. A frequent and murderous deposition of its kings had +but accentuated its devotion to the monarchic system: while its solemn +confirmation of each fresh breach of continuity had stood to reaffirm +its general belief in the hereditary principle, and in divine providence +as controlled by Act of Parliament. The only other country in the world +which had acted with such scrupulous inconsistency, unrepentant and +unashamed, was England. It was no wonder, therefore, that in their +history the two countries had much in common; and it must have been +through sheer inadvertence, in view of their rival claims to be the +constitutional pace-makers of Europe, that while they had often stood +badly in the way of each other's interests they had never yet fallen to +blows.</p> + +<p>International politics, however, were not for the moment the King's +chief concern, and he turned back from the pages of Europe to study in +detail the constitutional history of his own country and the powers it +still reserved for its kings.</p> + +<p>While he pursued these studies, many things new and strange presented +themselves to his gaze. There were, he discovered, powers of the Crown +still extant, though lapsing through gradual desuetude, of which he had +never dreamt, and as to the existence of which no one had made it his +duty to inform him. Some of them had been in regular practice less than +forty years ago; they were becoming obsolete merely because the advisers +of the Crown wished it. Just as the House of the Laity was now falling +more and more under the control of a Cabinet whose powers waxed as the +other's waned, so the King himself was in the hands of those whose +interests were to conceal from him the powers he possessed.</p> + +<p>He came on a page where the right of royal initiative in Council had +been thoughtfully underlined by the Professor; and he discovered with +astonishment that a whole series of constitutional questions lay +altogether outside the competence of ministers to deal with until they +had been first formally submitted to the King himself. Under this +heading he found that no financial proposal touching on Crown lands, or +on grants to the royal family, could become a matter of ministerial +discussion without his consent first given; no proposal to alter the +royal line of succession or the oath taken by the King at his +coronation; no change of definition in the articles or creed of the +Established Church; no alienation of Church lands; no fresh institution +of any rank, title, order, or degree, nor the abolition thereof; no +alteration in the laws governing the right of the voteless to petition +the King against the acts of his ministers; no subsidy or treaty of war, +and no surrender, barter, or exchange to a foreign power of any part +whatsoever of the King's dominions; no appointment to a foreign embassy; +no elevation of a commoner to rank or title; no issue of royal patents; +no free pardons for criminals, and no change in the composition of +either of the two Houses of Parliament. All these things must be +formally submitted to the will of the Crown before being entered as +items of the ministerial policy.</p> + +<p>"My word!" cried the King, perceiving for the first time how +unconstitutionally that word had been set at naught. He could hardly +believe his senses. Here under his nose, all these weeks lèse majesté +had been rampantly disporting itself; and he knew nothing of it! +Possibly the Prime Minister knew nothing of it either; had not the +Professor said that many of his colleagues were as ignorant of +constitutional history as the sovereign himself? But some knew—some +must know! And the King, who but a few hours before had believed himself +the most helpless of emblems, a mere ornamental topknot to the +constitutional edifice, now found himself armed with weapons of +far-reaching precision that would enable him to carry war into the +enemy's country. Metaphorically he clapped his wings and crowed. Yes, it +was as though that weathercock, to which hitherto he had likened +himself, that toy of chance, swung this way and that upon a pivot with +no will of its own, had suddenly taken to itself life and wing and +power, and quitting its stake had descended into the arena with beak and +claw stiffened for the fray. That board of tormenting ministers was now +in his power—for a time at any rate.</p> + +<p>In his excitement he got upon his feet and trotted about the room, and +pausing now and again he gazed ahead with a gloating eye on a whole +series of ministerial councils to come. For this monarch, you must +remember, had been departmentalized all his life, and to that extent +dehumanized; and it was only in a departmental way that he recognized +his opportunity. The power to strike which he now visualized came +through no intellectual enlargement, no opening up of moral vistas, but +only through the discovery that he had on his side a mass of red tape +the existence of which he had not previously suspected. In similar +trammels to those which had so long hampered and restricted his own +movements it was now possible for him to entangle the goings of his +ministers. A hundred and one things had been done which were not merely +out of order but—oh, blessed word!—unconstitutional; and in +consequence the poor dear man's mind was in a welter of delight. At last +he had a weapon to his hand whose reach and mechanism he could +manipulate. "Oh, dear me, yes!" he said to himself, and said it several +times.</p> + +<p>When a character of childlike simplicity has got hold of a loaded gun, +it has a natural instinct to let it off. The actual direction, and what +the target is to be, are not so important as the delightful sense of +hearing the gun go off,—of proving by actual demonstration that it +really was a loaded and dangerous thing, capable of causing +consternation. John of Jingalo was simple, and when he got up from his +first solid reading of the Professor's volumes he felt that he was well +primed; and his instinct was to let himself go, to spread himself, to +attack his enemy with extended front so that they would not know where +to have him. Half-a-dozen small tags of red tape gave him a far greater +sense of resource and opportunity for aggression than any one good piece +of measurable length capable of being well wound and knotted. His +powers, such as they were, were largely imitative; and now for some +weeks the wordy Max had been coaching him. The Professor had supplied +him with the material, Max with the method for applying it; the +Professor had given him his head, Max had given him his tongue. Looking +forward to the exercise of his new-found powers he meant, in a word, to +be voluble; and when in later chapters he becomes yet more surprising, +let the reader remember that fortuitous crack at the back of his skull +through which the windows of his head were open and his brain-pan a +place of draughts wherein any winds of doctrine might blow. A word of +opposition, a mere gust of excitement, were now quite enough to set him +going, and once started he was very difficult to stop.</p> + +<p>For much the same reason, having once started to prance up and down the +carpet—that carpet so variegated and Maxian in its pattern—he found it +very difficult to sit down again; and would not have done so had not the +measured striking of the clock upon the chimney-piece reminded him that +he was expecting a visit from Max. Then a curious change came over his +deportment; he stood considering, glancing from the telltale volumes +upon the table to the door through which he was presently expecting his +son to enter. Then with a secretive look and a shake of the head, "Oh, +dear me, no," he murmured very softly; and taking up the books he put +them away in a drawer and locked it, and, when presently Max came in, +said nothing of his new discovery, but sat docile and listened, while +the other drew out the shining length of his vocabulary, making words +sound like deeds.</p> + +<p>Not for nothing was John of Jingalo the son of his father, not for +nothing a descendant of kings who so far as they consciously achieved +power had always held it possessively and exclusively, withholding the +key from their heirs. Post obits were not popular in that royal House of +Ganz-Wurst which for two hundred years had ruled over Jingalo.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h2>THE NEW ENDYMION</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Readers who have hearts will remember that while these things were +taking place in the political world, something of more intimate and +personal concern had happened to Prince Max. That young man, whose head +was so crowded with ideals for others, had discovered—or glimpsed, it +would be more correct to say—an ideal of his own, in the shaping of +which he had nothing whatever to do. Goddess-like she had descended upon +him from skies in which previously he had held no faith at all; and even +yet it was a tussle for his conscience to accept anything coming from +that quarter as really divine. He was agnostic; he did not like the +Church, and he rather despised that attitude of mind which accepted +miracle as a directing power in human affairs, and looked to an unseen +world for the inspirations of life. It was as though some modern +Endymion gazing up at the round and prosaic surface of the moon, and +refusing to admit that there entered into its composition anything even +of so low a vitality as green cheese—it was as though such an one had +seen the affirmed negation suddenly take to itself life and form, and +disclose from afar a whole heaven of thoughts, beauties, and aspirations +which he had not believed existent. And then, having seen that gracious +form so well defined that it must for ever remain imprinted upon his +consciousness, he had watched it steal from him into obscurity, wilfully +concealing its whereabouts, though ever since the silver haze of that +hidden presence had permeated his world.</p> + +<p>Concealment and flight are, we know, the very arrows of love when +directed with subtle intent against the hunter's heart in man; and they +are scarcely less powerful to kindle his ardor when undirected and +without purpose, or, as in this case, of a purpose wholly negative and +without lure.</p> + +<p>His lady had disappeared, because in very truth parting was her intent; +and in haunting for a while the dark and crooked ways which her feet had +blessed, he had but the poor satisfaction of knowing that he was +depriving of her ministrations lives inconceivably more miserable than +his own. That consciousness when it came touched him in a point of +honor, and forced him to relinquish the quest; but there remained with +him thenceforth a maddening sense that if, accepting his withdrawal, she +had resumed her avocations, he now knew daily where she was, and had +only to break with his scruples in order to find her.</p> + +<p>They had met less than half-a-dozen times; and he, driven by his mental +pugnacity to test so unreasonable an apparition, had spared neither +himself nor her. The sincerity of her faith had angered him, though +anything else, had he detected it, would have destroyed his dream; and +when he had scoffed she had not troubled to rebuke him, had only glanced +at him amused, not with pity or condescension or kind Christian charity, +but with a very friendly understanding and often with what seemed +agreement. He was astonished to find that a rippling sense of humor +could go hand in hand with a blind gift of faith, and to hear sayings as +bold as his own uttered as though they were the merest common-sense. +"Why yes, of course," she admitted, in answer to one of his tirades, "if +you want envy, hatred, and uncharitableness in a concentrated form you +will find them in the Church; that stands to reason." And when he +inquired why, she answered, quite simply, "Because a bad Christian is +Satan's best material."</p> + +<p>Nor had she any illusions about that particular branch of the Church +militant for which she labored; she regarded it rather as a half-baked +body of territorials than a regular army equipped for the field. Still +it served a purpose, gave useful occupation to many, and stood for the +time being against unreasoning panic or callous desertion of duty; nor +would she surrender its few poor healing virtues for any of the nostrums +he sought to set in their place. "It does more than you with all your +talking," she said quietly, and, as they passed by, took him into a +mission church where he might see—a small corrugated iron hut, set down +in the midst of slums. Under the scent of incense the smell of +disinfectants was strong; near a stove sat a lay reader, and about her a +dozen poor weary women plying needle and thread. Two or three of them +held children at the breast; in a pen near by lay half-a-dozen others +asleep. Over the stove was a large boiler supplying hot water to poor +parishioners; away by a small side altar knelt a single figure in +prayer. Brightly colored "stations of the Cross," and something upon the +altar that looked like a large tea-cozy, before which burned a light, +told how here the law was systematically broken, and that the "nonsense" +inveighed against by the old Queen Regent had not yet been put down.</p> + +<p>"That is the bit of Christianity I work for," she said as she led him +out again, "a sort of mother-hen whose cluckings, scratchings, and +incubations are run in a parish of five thousand half-starved people on +less than £300 a year. Have you anything better to show?"</p> + +<p>"I want revolution," he said.</p> + +<p>"Choose your own time," she answered mildly. "Here every day we are +facing a far worse thing."</p> + +<p>"Making it endurable," he objected. "These people are patient because of +you and your like."</p> + +<p>"Impatience would only make it harder for them," she returned. "You +can't argue with them; they haven't the brains."</p> + +<p>"Not in working order, I admit."</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile they have to live."</p> + +<p>"And when you help them to that end—are they at all grateful?"</p> + +<p>"A few; yes, that is one of the hardest things we have to bear,—we who +are living stolen lives; for whether we will it or not our vitality +comes from them; daily we drain it from their blood, and nothing we can +do will stop it."</p> + +<p>"Are you in need of money?"</p> + +<p>"Always; but five million pounds given us to-morrow would not go to the +root of this."</p> + +<p>"What would?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing but true worship."</p> + +<p>"You worship an alibi," said Max.</p> + +<p>"What nearer divinity has brought you here?" she inquired. And he, too +conscious of the personal motive, forbore to explain.</p> + +<p>At their fifth meeting she told him quite frankly that he was +interfering with her work, that she could not have him accompanying her, +waiting for her, picking her up as if by chance.</p> + +<p>"If you want to do work you must find it for yourself; you will if you +are sincere," she said in answer to his request that she would +commission him.</p> + +<p>"But may I not be your follower?" he pleaded, choosing the word for its +double sense.</p> + +<p>"Lay sisters don't have followers," she replied. "They don't go with the +costume."</p> + +<p>"Then why wear it? Will you turn away a disciple for a mere matter of +dress?"</p> + +<p>"My dress," she said, "is of more use and protection to me than anything +you can do or than money can buy. You have politicians who say that +society is built upon force. My dress is the work of women; thousands of +lives have made it what it is, and it will take me safely into slums +where no policeman dare go alone. When your politicians can come here in +coats of a similar make, then they will have begun to solve the problems +which they are so fond of talking about. Now, will you please to walk on +the other side of the road?"</p> + +<p>He took her hand, saying earnestly, "When are we to meet again?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head at him, smiling. "Truthfully I haven't time for you," +she said, "and I can't make promises."</p> + +<p>And then, just for once—for it seemed his last chance—Max fell into +sentiment.</p> + +<p>"One I want you to make," he insisted.</p> + +<p>"What is that?"</p> + +<p>"That you will pray for me!"</p> + +<p>"Now you are asking for luxuries," she smiled; "you don't believe in +prayer. But I will." Then, nodding confidently, she added, "And it will +do you good."</p> + +<p>And then, as he still lingered, with quiet business-like demeanor she +crossed the street and disappeared.</p> + +<p>It was true that in thus seeking her intercession Max had asked for a +luxury. He did not believe in prayer any more than he had ever done; but +he did very much like the idea of being prayed for by the woman he +loved. Once, for a brief moment, he had seen her kneel before an altar +empty to him of meaning; and as he then watched the serene joy and +beauty of her face had realized with a jealous envy how in an instant +all thought of him had passed from her mind. So in asking her to pray +for him he had merely sought to penetrate by subtlety the unbelievable +world of her dreams. And then, even as he reveled in the vision, the odd +thought occurred in what terms would he obtain introduction? Once, when +for the repayment of a borrowed cab fare she had asked his name and +address, he had told her who he was, and she had not believed him; had, +indeed, herself tantalized him in return with an address as little +probable as his own. If, therefore, she prayed for him in words how +would they run, or, if in thought, what character would it assume? "That +man," "that nice man," "that talkative man," "that person who called +himself Prince Max," "the tall stranger," "the man whom I sent away," +"the man who emptied my bucket," "the man who brought in the bed," "the +man who waited for me at corners," "the man who wanted to be my +follower." All these variant products of a brief acquaintance, though he +dwelt on them as luxuries, failed to give him satisfaction, they formed +a fretful and at times a tormenting accompaniment to his unapportioned +days. At his hours of rising and setting the thought would insistently +recur to him: "Now, perhaps even now, she is praying for me." And +straightway he would return to the task of trying to realize the nature +of her prayer and with what label she pigeoned him in the columbarium of +her soul.</p> + +<p>Whether or no it could be said that this was "doing him good," he had +certainly begun to apprehend the power of prayer; that dove-like spirit +with overshadowing wing had found means to ruffle very considerably the +even current of his existence. Even had he wished to he could not get +her out of his thoughts. Fantastic and prosaic statements of his +identity kept leaping into his mind. "The man with his trousers turned +up" was one of them. Yes, he had done that in order to make their +immaculate cut less noticeable; he had dressed as badly as he knew how, +and yet—she might possibly be praying for him as "that well-dressed +person." It was a ghastly thought, and he had brought all this purgatory +upon himself merely by asking for a "luxury," for something in which he +did not really believe. And then, at the thought of her deep sincerity, +his mind revolted from all these bywords and subterfuges. "Oh!" he cried +to himself, "she knows, she knows, she must know!"</p> + +<p>And, of course, as a matter of fact she did. She knew that she had a +lover, a young man who had nicknamed himself,—clever and handsome, +evidently with time and money to spare, probably of some social +position, and with an undeniable likeness to a Prince whom she only knew +by his photographs. And for this young man, who on five or six separate +occasions had so hindered her with his attentions, she had a deep and +impulsive liking which, as it ran counter to her plan of life, she did +not choose to encourage.</p> + +<p>But if Max could only have known he would have been comforted: she +prayed for him every day, morning and night, and taking him at his word, +though not in the least believing it, it was as "my Prince Max" that she +begged heaven to look after him. And when in her orisons that nymph +remembered him she smiled a little more than was her usual wont—for +truly he had amused her. In spite of dignified air and polished speeches +and a belief in himself that never failed, she had discerned the +stripling character of his soul; and greatly would Max have been +surprised, and perhaps also a little shocked, could he have learned that +he ranked in her mental affections as "rather a dear boy"; for it is +woman's way to claim the privilege of a motherly regard without any +seniority in age, and with a good deal of feeling that mere "mothering" +will not satisfy.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Another lady, as to whose movements and plans Prince Max could not yet +be indifferent, had meanwhile returned home, and he had been to see her.</p> + +<p>The Countess Hilda von Schweniger had sent word that she had serious +things to say to him; it was only thus that he received notice of her +return. She had a tender weakness for talking seriously at intervals, +for the periodic workings of her conscience were ever open to view. But +whatever special seriousness of purpose was now perturbing her, this +matter-of-fact return to the roof they shared seemed to give it +contradiction,—did not at least suggest that any immediate breach in +their present relations was to be looked for from her.</p> + +<p>And so Max went to the interview wondering how he was going to behave +over this new fact which had so largely entered his life; whether he was +going to "behave well"—whether indeed it were possible at the same time +to behave well and be honest and above-board. He was, in fact, up +against the usual difficulty of the man who, having run domesticity on a +temporary basis, has discovered grounds for wishing to exchange it for a +more permanent one. And as he put his latch-key into the garden door of +the quiet tree-shadowed house which for five years he had regarded as +his second home, he uttered to himself a kind of a prayer that his +relations with a good woman would not now have to be less honest than +formerly.</p> + +<p>It was evident that she had been on the lookout for him; a French-window +in a creeper-covered veranda opened as he advanced, and gracious +domesticity stood smiling in the green-lighted shade.</p> + +<p>She laid her hands on his shoulders as she kissed him. "Well, mon +Prince," she said, "are you glad to see me again?"</p> + +<p>He took in all the pleasant and familiar appeal of her face before +answering. "Yes, I am," he said, "very."</p> + +<p>"That's true—really true?"</p> + +<p>And at that challenge he gave a funny little duck of the head, known to +her of old, and kissed her again.</p> + +<p>She turned quietly and walked away into the room.</p> + +<p>"I came back just to hear you say that," she murmured in a moved tone, +and stood waiting with her face away from him.</p> + +<p>The heart of Max was wonderfully relieved: gladdened also, for as he +looked at her he realized that she remained dear to him. With her old +simple directness she had let him know what was in her mind, and by her +clean brevity of speech had already, in this their first moment +together, saved him from the trap into which he might have fallen. Not +that the ordinary male temptation to let her resolution stand as cover +to his own did not for a moment occur to him. Nay, he could even suggest +good reasons; for was not this the kindest reward now left within his +power—to let her think that the wish was not shared—to show even a +little resentment and reproach? Max, the satirical critic of human +nature, could see clearly the attractiveness of such a course,—knew +himself a sufficiently good actor to play the game at least well enough +to satisfy his artistic taste. But he did not yield to the temptation; +had he done so he would have formed a more moral emblem for the +edification of my readers than I am now able to provide; and they must +face instead the uncomfortable fact that out of this long and immoral +liaison between a prince and his mistress certain moral values held +good, and that being in need of a sincere friend and confidante he found +it in the woman from whom he was about to separate.</p> + +<p>He crossed to her side, and taking her hand kissed it with more +frequency and fervor than he had kissed her face, and heard then her +breath struggling against tears. She reached up her other hand and began +stroking his head; and it is life's truth that these two still found +attraction and comfort the one in the other.</p> + +<p>"Then you are going back again?" whispered Max.</p> + +<p>She nodded, saying "yes" afterwards on a catch of breath.</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him wistfully. "I didn't want to go—yet."</p> + +<p>"Why should you?"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't worry you?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. Very much the reverse."</p> + +<p>"I should want to see you, though."</p> + +<p>Max smiled. "You mean, then, shouldn't <i>I</i> worry <i>you</i>——"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I did mean that," she said, viewing him speculatively.</p> + +<p>Then Max was tempted to show off. "Who gave me my first lesson in not +worrying?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," she admitted, "but then, you see, I was yours. It has to be +different now."</p> + +<p>"I want it to be different too," he said; and as by that statement he +wished to convey important inner meanings, he spoke solemnly.</p> + +<p>She looked at him radiant, half incredulous—the pious wish shining in +her eyes. "Oh, Max!" she cried amazed, "has it come to you too, then? +Has Our Lady——"</p> + +<p>But Max shook his head. "Your Lady is not my lady," he gently confessed.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" her voice went down into the deeps of despondency. "Oh! is that +what you mean?"</p> + +<p>A solemn nod from Max informed her that it was.</p> + +<p>"You always told me that it would happen some day."</p> + +<p>"I hoped I should have gone."</p> + +<p>"And I," said Max, "am glad that you have not. Selfish of me, isn't +it?" Then he kissed her hand again.</p> + +<p>She began a homely mopping of her face.</p> + +<p>"Then it doesn't matter how I look now?" she commented, and paused. "How +am I looking?"</p> + +<p>"Well, and as dear as ever," he replied.</p> + +<p>"That isn't what I wanted to know. You know it isn't."</p> + +<p>"You are looking," he said, "just two evening moons older than when I +saw you last."</p> + +<p>"What have evening moons got to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"They are your most becoming time."</p> + +<p>She took the compliment with a sigh and a smile; then with an air of +resignation sat down.</p> + +<p>"Who is she?" she asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I haven't a ghost of a notion. We haven't been properly introduced, she +hasn't encouraged me, I haven't said a word, and I'm not to go near her +any more."</p> + +<p>This for a start. The Countess Hilda became deeply interested, and very +much alarmed. "Then it isn't a princess?" she cried in consternation, +"she isn't royalty?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," said Max, "far from it. She is what you call a sister of +mercy, and 'sister'—horrible word—is the only thing I am allowed to +call her; she is a sealed casket without a handle."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Max," cried his Countess, "don't do it, don't do it; it's +wickedness! <i>I</i> didn't matter; but this—oh, Max, you don't know what a +grief and disappointment you'll be to me if you——"</p> + +<p>"Dearly beloved friend," interrupted Max, "do give me credit for a +morality not very greatly inferior to your own. After all I am your +pupil."</p> + +<p>"But you can't <i>marry</i> her?" cried the Countess.</p> + +<p>"Saving your presence, I mean to," asseverated Max.</p> + +<p>"You! Where will the Crown go?"</p> + +<p>"Charlotte will have three inches taken out of its rim and will fit it +far better than I should—that is if anybody is so foolish as to object +to my marrying where I please."</p> + +<p>"Then in Heaven's name," cried the Countess, "why in all these years +haven't you married me?"</p> + +<p>Max smiled; they were back into easy relations once more. This was the +lady with whom he had never spent a dull day.</p> + +<p>"I did not wish to give you the pain of refusing me," said he. "Had I +asked you you would have said that I was far too young to know my mind, +and that you yourself were too old."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I should," she admitted, "but you should have left me to say it." +Then she returned to her original bewilderment. "But, my dear boy, if +she is a sister of mercy she has taken vows."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, we don't do that in Jingalo. No Jingalese Church-woman may +throw away her whole life on so problematical a benefit as a religious +vow of celibacy. She may lease herself to Heaven for a given number of +years, but freeholds are not allowed."</p> + +<p>"And you call that a Church!" cried the Countess.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Prince, "I think that in this case she has got hold of +a scientific point worth keeping. Seven years ago I was not, science +tells me, the man that I am now; and seven years hence I shall be yet +another. What right has my past man to bind this present 'me' in which +he has no particle of a share?" And Max, having taken wing on a fresh +notion, was off into flight when the Countess brought him to earth.</p> + +<p>"And how long is your next lease going to be?" she inquired dryly, "if +seven years is all you can answer for?"</p> + +<p>"My next man will renew," said Max confidently.</p> + +<p>"Sisters of mercy don't accept tenants on those terms," she retorted. +And then, seeing that he looked at her with a benevolent eye, added, +"Oh, yes, I know that I did, but that isn't the sort of mercy you are +looking for now. You'll find, Max, that you need a religion in order to +become a freeholder. Mark my word! There! I couldn't have put it better +than that! And now as I've come to the end of <i>my</i> lease I had better +retire and see to dilapidations and repairs."</p> + +<p>She left him smiling; but he knew, in spite of her brave face and +jesting words, that there was still trouble of spirit to be gone +through; and the repairs took some time.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>In the days that followed, Max, now launched on his new quest, had as +good and sympathetic a listener as lover could wish. And while the +Countess thus paid penance and endured some purgatory for a five years' +breach with her own conscience, she found compensations, as all sensibly +good women will when they come on logical results of their own making. +In our conventional readiness to reverence the mother and disown the +mistress as social institutions, we are apt to ignore, as though the +mere suggestion were an impiety, the fact that in their instincts and +affections they have often much in common. It is one of Nature's kindest +and wisest economies; yet perhaps the woman treasures it secretly, +because it is a quality of her sex scarcely to be understood by men. The +chaste mistress sleeps in many a mother's breast, ready to welcome in +her grown son that touch of the lover which nestles before it takes +flight; and in the unchaste mistress, homely of heart, there is often +more of the mother than her paramour has wit to discern.</p> + +<p>The Countess Hilda, cut off from home ties and kindred in the very prime +of her maternal powers, had cast her eye on Max with a possessive but +with no predatory aim; and in her own illicit fashion, contrary to some +qualms of conscience and the strict dictates of her creed, had mothered +him through the dangerous years with as little damage to his moral fiber +as seemed reasonably possible. And now, not without some pangs of +maternal jealousy, but with none of the baser kind, she listened while +he sat at her feet and talked of the woman he loved. But the real price +to be paid, as she clearly saw, lay still in the future and in all those +possibilities of beautiful domestic possession wherein she could have no +part. Left to herself she sometimes wept in woeful abandonment at the +thought that she and his children must for ever remain strangers; and +then she dried her eyes and sat eager and attentive to learn what manner +of woman their mother would be, if Max had his present will.</p> + +<p>"I met her," said Max, "or rather found her again, washing the floor of +a single-room tenement on a 'four-pair back' to the accompaniment of +screams from its enraged occupant. And when, as a means of introduction, +I tendered assistance, she sent me down to the basement to refill her +bucket,—offered me a child's head to wash, and then as an alternative +bade me bring in a mattress from a second-hand dealer who had neglected +to send it. I went. Required to give proofs of my honesty by a shopman +who rightly regarded all strangers with suspicion, I deposited the +value, which I forgot afterwards to reclaim, and set off with my load. +Before I reached the first corner I made the humiliating discovery that +I did not know how to carry it. I was bearing it embraced like an infant +in arms, but owing to its size my arms would not go round. Twice it +unrolled itself and lay like a drunken thing in the gutter; small +children stood round and laughed at me. From one of them came these +words of wisdom: 'Lor', 'e's only a gentleman, he don't know nothing!' +On my second attempt, not seeing well where I was going, I stumbled into +an apple-stall; and immediately I, heir to a throne and engaged in a +charitable action, found myself regarded as a criminal lunatic by people +quite obviously my superiors in all honest ways of earning a living. A +small boy took pity on me and offered to carry it on his back—any +distance for a penny. That taught me; I gave him the penny and put it +upon my own, and having disentangled myself from the crowd in which for +foolishness I had become conspicuous, found with relief that thenceforth +no one took any notice of me. The old scriptural act of a man carrying +his bed struck nobody there as absurd; the streets of our sweated +quarters are far more genuine and human than those in which we parade +the clothes they make for us. Ah, yes; that statement, at which you show +some incredulity, is directly pertinent to my story; for it was an +endeavor to trace my clothes to their origin—over the many impediments +and difficulties placed in my way—that had led me into those slums. I +won't go into that just now, though it had an important connection with +our future acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"By the time I returned with the bed to the four-pair back attic I had +received a better lesson in human values than in any previous half-hour +of my existence. I was then given other commissions, and these without +any word of apology; as I had volunteered so I was to be used without +scruple or mercy, just as a millionaire's motor-car is used at election +times, till scratched, battered, broken down, it creeps from the fray. +'We are all sweated workers here,' she said to me afterwards, and then I +saw her uses of me explained; anything which came to that mill came to +be ground, and the chaff to be cast out. I submitted to her test, and in +that first day saw her only by glimpses; but in accompanying her back to +the Home from which she emanated I told her why I had come—said that I +wished to have a clear conscience and wear clothes upon my back in which +there was no element of sweating. She told me it was quite impossible, +impossible, that is to say, unless I controlled every stage of +manufacture from the raw material to the finished article; and even +then, I was warned, the paper cover, the cardboard box, and the string +with which it was tied, would all be sweated products. And when I asked +what I could do to help matters, she bade me go with empty pockets and +see as much of the life as possible for myself, and make others like +myself see it also. That is what she had been doing to me—rubbing my +nose into it before I should get tired and run away. Even while +accepting it she showed a fine indifference to my money. 'Don't let that +salve your conscience,' said she, 'we can make it useful, but it won't +change matters.' And had I given her a million pounds I do not think she +would have thanked me any more."</p> + +<p>All that Prince Max narrated of his charitable adventure would take too +long to tell here. One thing the Countess noted, as a point well scored, +he had begun to learn humility; his offers of service had been rejected +as of little use, his company as a hindrance, his new lady had left him +to feel small, and he had not resented it, had indeed owned that her +judgment on him was just. He had also put himself to her test of +sincerity and failed. "I tried to go on with it," he confessed, "but it +was no good. What my father says is quite true—we can't really get at +the lives of these people, we are too cut off. We make use of them, they +of us; but we are still hiding from each other round corners, or walking +on opposite sides of the street. She, having become one of them, meant +me to see that."</p> + +<p>"But she doesn't know who you are."</p> + +<p>"She knows what kind I am; it's all the same."</p> + +<p>"You didn't cross after her?"</p> + +<p>"How could I? It wouldn't have been manners."</p> + +<p>"She presumed on your having them, then?"</p> + +<p>"She has a generous nature."</p> + +<p>"And then, for whole weeks, you did much more than cross after her; you +hunted for her, lay in wait for her, doing nothing all the time. My dear +grown-up man, wasn't that rather childish?"</p> + +<p>"What else could I have done?"</p> + +<p>"Made her miss you."</p> + +<p>"Well, as we haven't seen each other since, it comes to the same thing."</p> + +<p>"But she knows you've been there; she would have thought much more of +you if you hadn't been."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"It would have made her more repentant. Now she only thinks that you've +tired of it."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, she promised to pray for me," said Max.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I pray for you, my dear," sighed the Countess; "not that I suppose +that does any good!"</p> + +<p>And therein may be discerned a difference between the two women who most +concerned themselves for the good of Max's soul; for the other had been +quite confident that her prayers would do good. And it is curious how +often those who have faith prove to be in the right.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Max had given up the quest, but he had not given up hope. Though love +had humbled him, he yet believed in his star, and reminded himself that +the world was small.</p> + +<p>In the late spring the Jubilee celebrations took up some of his time; +maneuvers followed. He went and played at soldiering for the public +satisfaction; then returned to his more private and serious avocations, +put the finishing touches to his book, and began to receive proofs from +the foreign printing-house to which through the Countess's hands he had +entrusted it. She herself with kind, charitable intent stayed on; more +than ever now he needed some one to talk to and—he did not worry her. +Others were trying to worry him. The Queen, after voluminous +correspondence, had found and offered him choice of two German +princesses whose photographs said flattering things of them; and, when +he declined both propositions, had looked at him very sadly indeed—had +almost broached the unmentionable subject. "Oh, Max, what are we to do +with you?" she sighed; for she was still keeping herself badly informed +of his goings-on. "That woman is back again," she informed her husband; +"I really think we ought to consult the Archbishop."</p> + +<p>The King saw no hope in that. "You must leave Max to take his own time," +he said. He did not just then want to worry about Max, since he was +preparing to plunge on his own account. "Alone I did it," was to be his +boast, and he knew that if once he resumed fathering Max, Max would be +fathering him, and his small spurt of initiative would be over.</p> + +<p>But all that must be kept for another chapter. This one belongs to Max +and his love affairs, past, present, and future; and it is still Max and +his fortunes that we are following as we step back into the limelight of +publicity.</p> + +<p>At the first Court following on the Jubilee celebrations the Bishops +appeared in force. It was their final demonstration of loyalty to the +throne before the political battle joined, for they were now preparing +to reject, just as a last fling, the whole of the Government's program, +and then to see what the country thought of it.</p> + +<p>As a bilious man sticks out his tongue toward the glass in order to know +whether he looks as he feels, so the Bishops were sticking out their +tongues toward the country in the hopes of looking as brave as they were +pretending to be. And they came to Court that they might advertise their +attitude.</p> + +<p>They came in silken court-cassocks, preceded by their croziers and +followed by their women-folk, a nice expression of that ecclesiastical +and domestic blend on which the Church of Jingalo prided itself. These +Church ladies were moral emblems in another respect as well: they had +the privilege of appearing at Court functions more highly dressed—that +is to say, less denuded—than others of a more aristocratic connection. +The sacred and unfleshly calling of a bishop threw a protecting mantle +over the modest shoulders of his wife and daughters; and these did not +go unclad. In accordance with Pauline teaching they were covered in the +assembly, expressing in their own persons that "moderation in all +things" which was the accepted motto and policy of the Church.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop of Ebury was there also; his crozier was different in +shape from the rest, and as an addition to his silken cassock he wore a +train. He was accompanied by his daughter. Daring in her assertion of +the vocation which had withdrawn her from the gaieties of life she wore +the gray robe of a little lay-sister of Poverty.</p> + +<p>"His Grace the Archbishop of Ebury, Prince Palatine of the Southern +Sees, Archdeacon of Rome, Vicar of Jerusalem, and Primate of all the +Churches," so, upon entry to the Presence, his full and canonical titles +were proclaimed by an usher of the Court.</p> + +<p>After so high a flourish more impressive in its way was the simple +announcement that followed: "Sister Jenifer Chantry."</p> + +<p>Dignity led, quiet unassuming modesty came after; indifferent to her +surroundings, obedient to the call of duty, she advanced in her father's +wake toward the royal circle. They bowed their way round; and there, +suddenly before him, Prince Max beheld the face of his dreams.</p> + +<p>The eyes of the beloved met his; and he, struggling desperately to +conceal his excitement and emotion from those who stood looking on, saw +himself recognized without shock or quiver of disturbance. No +heightening of color belied that look of quiet assurance and peace; with +disciplined ease, perfect in self-possession, she courtesied and passed +him by. And suddenly it seemed to him that all the air was filled with a +strange humming sound, soft yet penetrating, like the populous murmur of +a summer's day. Above the rustle of robes, the patter of feet, the +subdued murmur of voices, and the regulated tones wherein Court ushers +were announcing fresh names, that high vibratory note went on; elated +and thrilled he listened to it and wondered, not knowing its cause—the +quickened murmur of his own blood at the touch of Love's index finger +upon his heart.</p> + +<p>Now at last he knew who she was; now he could find her again on +unforbidden ground, follow her where she had no excuse to hide, +and press against all obstacles for an earthly fulfilment of +that unpractically directed thing called prayer. For now it +should not be only her prayer for him, but his for her; her very +name—Chantry—expressed the need he had of her. She was the shrine +within which his soul kneeled down to pray—not to any God, but to life +itself. Here was the matrix from which all his desultory and scattered +forces had been waiting to receive form and direction; to his own small +fragment of that general outpouring which we call life, purpose and +destiny had come. He with his adventurous theories, she with her patient +and unflinching practice, how gloriously together they could tumble old +monarchy to the dust and build it anew. For the first time in his life +he felt almost fiercely desirous to step into his father's shoes. +Strange that such sudden ambitions should be sprung on him by contact +with a heart which apparently held none.</p> + +<p>All this while he was returning the bows of bishops and their wives. +They flowed by in solid file forty or fifty strong; for this was a +demonstration with political import behind it, this was going to be in +all the press to be understanded of the people; the Bishops about to +fight for their own order were passing before the steps of the throne to +indicate in dumb show that allegiance to Crown and Constitution which +animated their hearts.</p> + +<p>And then, gorgeous in cloth of gold and high funnel-shaped hat, +introduced by the Minister of Public Worship but unaccompanied by his +two black wives, came the Archimandrite of Cappadocia—a counter +demonstration; and after him, forty Free Churches divines, all in black +gowns, silkened for the occasion, but unenlivened by the moral emblems +of their domesticity; a queer somber tail they seemed to that great +eastern bird of Paradise under whose wing they would presently acquire +the right to wear feathers as fine as his own.</p> + +<p>Most of them had never been at Court before, and in consequence were not +so well drilled as the Bishops. Some of them bowed too often, and too +hurriedly, and before they need, beginning with the Lord Functionary +whom they mistook for royalty; and they walked out sideways instead of +backwards, reactionary methods of progress not being in their blood. +Still, taking them for all in all, they were a very learned-looking +body, and their presence in such uncongenial surroundings showed that +they meant business.</p> + +<p>And deficiency in their demeanor was quite covered by the deportment of +the Archimandrite. In the new robe presented to him for the occasion by +the Prime Minister (for the moth had got into his own) he looked superb, +and behaved with a majesty beside which Jingalo's home-bred royalty sank +into insignificance. Max frankly recognized his superior, and bowed low. +"This is a descent of the spirit, Archimandrite," he said, as they +touched palms; and as he did so a queer breath of eastern spices blew +over him, for the man of God was chewing them.</p> + +<p>And so, in this great overt act of respectful homage to the throne from +both sides, the truce came to an end and the signal for fight was given. +More important to Prince Max was the fact that it had revealed to him a +certain lady's identity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h2>KING AND COUNCIL</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>During the weeks of the Jubilee recess the King had spent his spare +moments in taking notes, and priming himself on fresh points of +constitutional usage.</p> + +<p>The Comptroller-General was greatly puzzled to see writing going on day +after day in which neither he nor any of the secretaries were invited to +take part. He was more puzzled still when, by means available to him, +he obtained access to what the King had actually written.</p> + +<p>After a single reading he felt it his duty to report to the Prime +Minister.</p> + +<p>"He seems to be writing a history of the Constitution," said the +General. "Where he gets his facts from I don't know, but they don't seem +to have come from you; quite the other side I should say."</p> + +<p>On this note-taking, so voluminous that it resembled the writing of a +history, the King was getting into his stride, and was discovering how +very much better all these years he could have made his own speeches, +had he only been allowed to. He had within him the gift of expression, +though not the power of condensing it; he had industry, a good case, and +now at last behind his back an unimpeachable authority. And so, at its +next meeting he came down into Council stuffed full of facts and +phrases, and quite determined that before things went any further his +Ministry should hear them.</p> + +<p>The constitutional crisis had reached a head as soon as Parliament again +met. The defiant action of the Bishops had thrown the Government's +program so much into arrears that a drastic quickening of the pace had +become necessary; and if, in spite of scare and warning, the Bishops +meant to go on doing as they had hitherto done it was evident that their +constitutional powers must be limited. The Archimandrite and the Free +Churchmen between them might supply the Government with a bare working +majority; but that alone would not be sufficient to make legislation +fruitful between then and the next general election. Unless the +Government, after striking the blow, could come before the country +bearing its sheaves with it, there was a very serious chance that its +patriotic intention of continuing in power would be frustrated; and even +a Government busily engaged in marking time to suit its own bureaucratic +interests must appear to have covered the ground mapped out for it.</p> + +<p>For this reason Cabinet ministers had been meeting and deciding on a +good many things behind the King's back; and the "Spiritual Limitations +Bill"—all the world has since heard of it—was the device they had +adopted as most suitable to their needs. They proposed to bring it +forward in a late winter session.</p> + +<p>On the day before Council a draft of the proposed bill reached the hands +of the King; and his Majesty on reading it and after referring once +again to certain passages in Professor Teller's books of history, smiled +gleefully and rubbed his hands; for though he had the heart of a +vegetarian he was beginning to scent blood and rather to enjoy the smell +of it.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The Council was already standing about the board when the King entered. +Having bowed them to their seats he formally called on the Prime +Minister to read the presented draft. This was done, and through the +whole of it without a word of interruption his Majesty sat quiet and as +good as gold.</p> + +<p>Polite exposition was about to follow; but as the Prime Minister essayed +an enlargement of his text his flight was stayed.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said the King, "I am dissatisfied with my position."</p> + +<p>All turned amazed; the Professor with less amazement than the rest, for +he observed, as confirmation of his suspicions, that the King's hand +rested upon a bulky pile of manuscript.</p> + +<p>"In this bill," said his Majesty, "you are proposing to remodel a +Constitution that has lasted in an unwritten form for five hundred +years. I see in your proposed emendations that the Crown is frequently +mentioned, but its powers are nowhere defined—unless that constantly +recurring phrase 'on the advice of his ministers' is a definition which +you wish to see indefinitely extended. Otherwise there is no open +indication that the Crown's powers are affected. But the question of +constitutional rights as between the Bishops and the Laity to-day may +to-morrow be a question involving the Crown also; and if you now mean to +impose limits on one branch of the legislature, you must extend your +definitions to cover the whole ground. I require, gentlemen, if this +matter is to be carried any further, that my own powers and prerogatives +shall be as accurately defined and set as much on a working basis as +those of your two Chambers."</p> + +<p>"'Working basis' is distinctly good," murmured Professor Teller, and +looked admiringly at the King, whom the Prime Minister hastened to +reassure.</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty's powers," said he, "are in no way touched. At no single +point of our proposals is any limitation suggested."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I daresay not, I daresay not!" replied the King, "but though it +isn't there in the text it is between the lines; yes, written with +invisible ink which will be plain enough to read presently. What I am +thinking about is the future. You may be perfectly right as to the +wisdom of change; but we must have chapter and verse for it. We can't +treat these matters any longer as an affair of honor. It used to be: now +it isn't. Honor to-day is not a help but an impediment; I've found that +out. To me it has lately become a question—a very grave +question—whether I can in honor accept the advice of my ministers; and +I do not intend to leave so disquieting a problem for my son to solve +after me. There, now you have it!"</p> + +<p>The King panted a little as he spoke, like a dog that has begun to feel +the pace of a motor-car too much for him.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry that your Majesty has found any reason to complain," said the +Prime Minister in a tone of grieved considerateness.</p> + +<p>"I am not complaining," answered the King, "I'm only saying. And what I +say is, let us have chapter and verse for it from beginning to end. +Define the powers of the Crown as they exist to-day—but as they won't +exist to-morrow unless you do—and your proposals shall have my most +sympathetic consideration; but not otherwise."</p> + +<p>"Surely the question your Majesty raises," interrupted the Prime +Minister, "is an entirely separate one."</p> + +<p>"No doubt you would treat it so," replied the King. "Oh, yes—break your +sticks one at a time as the wise man did in the fable!"</p> + +<p>A breath of protest blew round the Council board. What would he be +accusing them of next?</p> + +<p>"I daresay you don't mean it," he went on; "but it will be said, at some +future day, that you did. And either you do mean it, or you don't; so if +you don't what can be your objection to having it put down in black and +white? I'm sure I have none. I have got everything written out here +ready and waiting." And the King fingered his manuscript feverishly.</p> + +<p>"One very obvious objection," interposed the Prime Minister in alarm, +"is that there is no demand for it in the country. No political +situation has arisen—the matter is not in controversy."</p> + +<p>"You must pardon me," said the King, "we are in controversy now. Though +the country knows nothing about it, my position is affected; the demand +is mine."</p> + +<p>"It is quite impossible, your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, with a +brevity that was almost brusque. "It would entirely confuse the issue in +the public mind."</p> + +<p>"Direct it, I think you mean."</p> + +<p>"In a most dangerous and inadvisable way."</p> + +<p>"Dangerous to whom?" the King inquired shrewdly.</p> + +<p>"The functions of the Crown must not be involved in party politics."</p> + +<p>"Though party politics are involving the functions of the Crown? Oh, +yes, Mr. Prime Minister, it is no use for you to shake your head. I +contend that, without a word said, this bill does directly undermine my +powers of initiative and independence. You deprive the Bishops of their +right to vote on money bills; very well, that will include all royal +grants, whether special or annual,—maintenance, annuities, and all that +sort of thing. At present these are fixed by law and cannot be disturbed +without the agreement of both Houses. That is my safeguard. But in +future you leave the Bishops out, and you have me in the hollow of your +hand. Oh, gentlemen, you need not protest your good intentions: I am +merely putting the case as it will stand supposing a—well, a +socialistic Government, bent on getting rid of the monarchy altogether, +were to succeed you. Where should I be then? That is what I want you to +consider. Oh, you don't need two sticks to beat a dog with! If you mean +that, let us have it all said and done with,—put it in your bill; and +if the country approves of it, well, if it approves of it, I shall be +very much surprised."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister rose.</p> + +<p>"Does your Majesty suggest," he began, "that any such idea——"</p> + +<p>But the King cut him short. "Oh, I don't know what your ideas were; this +isn't an idea, it's a bill."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister sat down again; all the Council were looking at him +with mildly interrogating eyes, wondering what they should do next. The +King had often been voluble before, but this time he was reasonably +articulate; and as his pile of manuscript indicated he had come armed +with definite proposals.</p> + +<p>"I am asking for safeguards," said the King. "How do I know, how do any +of us know, at what pace things may not be moving a few years hence? It +is the pace that kills, you know; yes, very important thing—pace." His +eye caught a friendly glance; it twinkled at him humorously; he appealed +to it for support. "Yes, Professor, have you anything to say?"</p> + +<p>The Professor rose and bowed. "I am only a listener, your Majesty," he +said, and sat down again.</p> + +<p>"Pace," said the King again, having for a moment lost the thread of his +discourse. Then, having clung to that anchor to recover breath, once +more he plunged on.</p> + +<p>"If any royal prerogatives still exist," said he, "if I am to be still +free to act upon them, then I want to be told what they are, and to have +the country told also; yes, before any more of them become obsolete! At +present it seems to me that anything of that kind is obsolete when it +becomes inconvenient to the party in power."</p> + +<p>Once more a respectfully modulated wave of protest went round the board.</p> + + +<p>"Oh, yes, gentlemen, I have become quite aware from what has recently +taken place that an unexercised authority, if not set down in black and +white, comes presently to be questioned as though it did not exist. If +the title-deeds are missing, then you are no longer on your own +premises. Well, for the future, I want to be upon mine. And here you +come to me with this bill, and not a single one of you has seen fit to +advise me as to how my own position is affected by it; no, I have had to +go to other sources, and find out for myself."</p> + +<p>At these words the Prime Minister saw an opening, and also a possible +explanation of the manuscripts which lay under the King's hand. He put +on a bold front and spoke without waiting for the royal pause.</p> + +<p>"Have I, then, to understand," he inquired, "that your Majesty's +advisers have lost the benefit of your Majesty's confidence?"</p> + +<p>"By no means," replied the King. "If I am not confiding in you now, I +don't know what confidence is. I am putting all my difficulties before +you, and asking for your advice. But I don't want to have it in a +hole-in-corner way, a bit at a time, first one and then another. We are +in Council, and it is from my whole Council that I want to know how +these difficulties are to be met. When I am alone I can get anybody to +advise me, go to whomsoever I like; there is no difficulty about that."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister bristled; he seemed now to be on the track. "I must +ask further, then," said he, "whether upon this question of a new +written Constitution your Majesty has thought fit to consult +others—those, that is to say, who are politically opposing us?"</p> + +<p>Under an air of the deepest respect a charge of unconstitutional usage +was clearly conveyed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you mean the Bishops?" said the King. "No; since all this trouble +began I have been deprived of the consolations of the Church; not a +single one of them has dared to come near me, except in an official +capacity. Though, as I say, I have the right to consult any one."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister raised his eyebrows, in order, while formally +agreeing, to make denial visible.</p> + +<p>"Of course if your Majesty informs us of it," he said, "we shall know +where we are."</p> + +<p>"That is what I am saying," persisted the King. "If we all consult about +it, then you know where you are, and I know where I am. There are the +twenty of you, and here am I, and this is the first time that we have +exchanged a word on the subject. Isn't it unreasonable to expect me to +come to you with my mind made up on a thing I knew nothing about till +yesterday? Why, it was only then I discovered that for you to discuss +such a bill among yourselves, without having first sought my +permission—a bill affecting the Constitution and the powers of the +Crown—was in itself unconstitutional."</p> + +<p>What on earth did he mean? Ministers looked at each other aghast.</p> + +<p>"There!" cried the King, "you are all just as surprised as I was. That +is why I say we must get it put into writing. You didn't know that you +were interfering with royal prerogative. No more did I: we had forgotten +to look up history. Now I've done it, and I daresay that as an historian +Professor Teller will be able to inform you whether I am right?" And +here with a flourish the King named his authority.</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty has stated the constitutional usage with accuracy," +acknowledged the Professor. "Whether usage is decisive remains a +question."</p> + +<p>"There!" said the King triumphantly. "That is what happens if things are +not actually set down in law. Now you see my point."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister's brow grew dark.</p> + +<p>"I think, your Majesty," said he, "that this is hardly a question we can +discuss in Council."</p> + +<p>"In a way you are right," acknowledged the King; "it should not have +been discussed here, as I said just now, without my permission. But as +it has been brought forward we either do discuss it and all that I have +to propose in the matter, or I rule it out of order; and we will pass +on, if you please, to the next business."</p> + +<p>The King had finished; he leaned back in his chair; and the Prime +Minister, collecting authority from the eyes of his colleagues, stood up +and spoke.</p> + +<p>"I think your Majesty hardly recognizes," said he, "that we cannot +legislate on a matter as to which there is no public demand. In regard +to the status of the Crown no political situation has arisen such as +would justify your Majesty's advisers in adopting a course which might +seem to indicate a lack of confidence. Under representative government +no ministry can propose legislation which has only theory to recommend +it. If your Majesty will allow me to make my representations in private, +I think I shall be able to show that the course we propose is the only +practical one. I would, therefore, most respectfully urge that for the +present the points your Majesty raises may be set aside."</p> + +<p>It was as direct a challenge of the royal will as one minister could +well make in the presence of others; never before had a difference of +opinion stood out so plainly for immediate decision under the eyes of a +whole Cabinet.</p> + +<p>The King heard and understood: it was a crucial moment in the exercise +of his partially recovered authority; twenty pair of eyes were looking +at him, curiously intent, one pair benevolently anxious. The Prime +Minister was fingering his brief, ready to go on with the interrupted +disquisition; he even looked surreptitiously at his watch to indicate +that time pressed.</p> + +<p>That little touch of covert insolence was sufficient; by a sort of +instinct the incalculable values of heredity, training, and position +asserted themselves. The King's lips parted in the shy nervous smile +which charmed every one. "Mr. Prime Minister," he said, "I am perfectly +willing to meet you at any future time you may like to name." He took up +the agenda paper as he spoke and turned to the Minister of the Interior. +"The Home Secretary," said his Majesty, "will now read his report."</p> + +<p>Before they knew where they were the Council had passed on to its +accustomed routine.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Nobody looked at the Prime Minister's face just then; for the moment he +had been beaten, though the person who appeared least aware of it was +the King.</p> + +<p>But, of course, it was for the moment only. And when at a later hour of +the day, with mind made resolute, the Prime Minister sought his promised +interview, the monarch was no longer at an advantage. Dialectically he +could not meet and match his opponent, and he had no longer that subtle +advantage which presidency at a board of ministers confers. Speaking as +man to man the head of the Government did not feel bound to observe that +tradition of half-servile approach which in the hearing of others +fetters the mouths of ministers.</p> + +<p>The Jubilee celebrations were now over, the Parliamentary vacation +approached; and what before had been mere talk and threat could now be +put into instant action. And so when he had given the King his run, and +listened to the royal obstinacy in all its varying phrases of +repetition, contradiction, reproach, till it reached its final stage of +blank immobility, he formally tendered the Ministry's resignation.</p> + +<p>The King sat and thought for a while, for now it was clear that one way +or the other he must make up his mind. All those strings of red tape, +which he had meant to tie with such dilatory cunning hung loose in his +grasp; to a Cabinet really set on resignation he could not apply them. +Just as his hands had seemed full of power they became empty again. He +knew that at the present moment no other ministry was possible, and that +a general election was more likely to accentuate than to solve his +difficulties; and so in sober chagrin he sat and thought, and the Prime +Minister (as he noticed) was so sure of his power that he did not even +trouble to watch the process of the royal hesitation resolving itself.</p> + +<p>When after an appreciable time the King spoke he seemed to have arrived +nowhere.</p> + +<p>"This is the fifth time," he said, "that you have offered me +resignation: and you know that I am still unable to accept it."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister bowed his head; he knew it very well, there was no +need for words.</p> + +<p>"And you know that I am still entirely unconvinced."</p> + +<p>"For that," said the minister, "I must take blame; since it shows that +my advocacy in so strong a case has been very imperfect."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all," said the King. "I think you have shown even more than +your accustomed ability."</p> + +<p>"That is a compliment which—if it may be permitted—I can certainly +return to your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"I have felt very strongly upon this matter," said the King.</p> + +<p>"We all do, sir—one way or the other. With great questions that is +inevitable."</p> + +<p>"You admit it is a great question?"</p> + +<p>"I should never have so troubled your Majesty were it a small one."</p> + +<p>The King's thoughts shifted.</p> + +<p>"What a pity it is," said he, "that I and my ministers have never been +friends."</p> + +<p>"Have not loyal service and humble duty some claim to be so regarded?" +inquired the Prime Minister. But the King let this official veneer of +the facts pass unregarded.</p> + +<p>"It would have helped things," he went on. "As it is, when I differ from +my ministers I am all alone. It is in moments of difficulty like this +that the head of the State realizes his weakness."</p> + +<p>"There again, sir, you do yourself an injustice."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that is easily said. But what does my power amount to when all is +done? Perhaps at the cost of constant friction with my ministers I have +been able to delay things for a while—given the country more time to +make up its mind; but then, unfortunately, it was thinking of other +things, and I myself provided the counter attraction. What I was trying +to do in one way I was rendering of no effect in another; all that I +intended politically has been swamped in ceremony."</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty was never more popular than to-day," observed the Prime +Minister. "That in itself is a power."</p> + +<p>The King paused to consider; then he said, "If I am prepared eventually +to give way, what time of grace can you allow me?"</p> + +<p>"We must have our bill ready for the winter session, sir."</p> + +<p>"Will you allow me till then?"</p> + +<p>"If I may know what is in your Majesty's mind."</p> + +<p>"What is in my mind is that the country should know what it is about. +This bill has not yet been seen; by the public nothing is known of it. +Well, that is what I ask: put it before the country, let the terms of it +be clearly stated, and if, when we come to the winter session, you are +still determined that it must form part of your program, then,"—the +King drew himself up and took a breath—"then I will no longer stand in +your way."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister bowed low to conceal his proud sense of triumph.</p> + +<p>"I have your Majesty's word for that?"</p> + +<p>"To-day is the 27th," said the King, "you can claim the fulfilment of +that promise in four months' time."</p> + +<p>"And till then?"</p> + +<p>"Till then," said the King slowly, "this question is not again to come +before Council. I hold to my point that its introduction without my +express consent was unconstitutional, and to maintain the Constitution I +am bound by oath."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister yielded the point readily, seeing in it the effort of +dull obstinacy to score a nominal triumph. "There is, however, the +accompanying condition," said he, "necessary for the success of our +scheme; and to that I must once more refer. In order to pass our bill we +shall need the consecration of at least fifty new Bishops, nominated by +the Government; to that, also, your Majesty has hitherto been opposed."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you mean the Free Churchmen?" queried the King. "Ah, yes, and the +Archimandrite."</p> + +<p>"In that matter," replied the Prime Minister, "I have some reason to +believe that the Bishops will eventually give way."</p> + +<p>The King felt himself a little more alone. "Yes," he said, "I daresay +they will; I shouldn't wonder at all."</p> + +<p>"Then over that, too, I may look for your Majesty's consent?"</p> + +<p>The King repeated his former word. "I shall not stand in your way," he +said; and again the Prime Minister bowed low.</p> + +<p>"I have to thank your Majesty for relieving me of a great difficulty."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, why should you? You have not persuaded me in the least; you +have merely forced me to a certain course, in which I still cannot +pretend that I agree."</p> + +<p>"I shall always recognize that your Majesty has acted on the highest +motives, both in opposing and in ceasing to oppose."</p> + +<p>"I shall ask you to remember that," said the King.</p> + +<p>"There shall never be any misunderstanding on my part," replied the +minister; and applying a palm to the hand graciously extended as though +its mere touch had power to heal, he took his leave, and the fateful +audience was over.</p> + +<p>For a long time after, the King stood looking at the door out of which +he had gone.</p> + +<p>"I think there has been a misunderstanding, though," he said to himself, +with a slow, faint smile, "and I don't think it is mine——" He paused. +"Perhaps, though, I had better write down exactly what I said." And +going to his desk he made there and then a careful memorandum of his +words.</p> + +<p>He read them over, and once again he smiled. He was still quite +contented with what he had done. "And I wonder," he said to himself, +"what Max would say if he knew?"</p> + +<p>There was a great surprise waiting for Max, and well might the King +wonder what that interesting young man would make of it. Yes, it was +just as well that Max should not know anything about it beforehand; Max +might run away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h2>A ROYAL COMMISSION</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>While the King and the Prime Minister had thus been giving each other +shocks of a somewhat unpleasant character, Prince Max had received a far +pleasanter one. Only a week after the holding of the King's court the +lady of his dreams had written asking for an interview.</p> + +<p>The letter was not dated from the Archbishop's palace, but from the Home +of the Little Lay-Sisters; and it was thither that he repaired, in order +to forestall her humble yet amazing offer to wait upon him.</p> + +<p>In the bare, conventual parlor, with high walls that echoed resoundingly +and boards that smelt of soap, they met once more face to face and +alone. She courtesied low, addressed him formally as "sir," and thanked +him with due deference for coming; otherwise there was no change in her +demeanor. The flat-frilled cap showed within its border a delicate +ripple of hair, and above the fair breastplate of linen the face shone +with tender warmth like a white rose resting upon snow; and as her lips +moved in speech he re-encountered with a fervor of delight that curious +quality of look which had ever haunted his dreams—a communicativeness +not limited to words. Though it remained still her whole face spoke to +him; lips and eyes made music together—a harmony of two senses in +alliance, as into morning mist comes the yet unrisen light and the +hidden singing of birds.</p> + +<p>And yet all the while she was but saying quite ordinary things, making +brief the embarrassment of this their first meeting since their relative +positions had become explained.</p> + +<p>"I have taken you at your word, sir," she began. "When we last met you +asked if you could not be useful. Now you can."</p> + +<p>"Your remembrance makes me grateful," said the Prince.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I ought not to be so confident," she went on, "since the idea +is only my own. It came from something I heard my father saying; and as +he strongly disapproves of women taking part in politics it was no use +saying anything to him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, politics?" That explanation rather surprised him.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes—just now and then," explained Sister Jenifer, "politics do +touch social needs: and to their detriment."</p> + +<p>"My acquaintance with politics," answered the Prince, "is +very—Chimerical," he added after a pause, pleased to have found the +term.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she smiled, "I have heard you. You are full of happy ideas, many +of them somewhat contradictory; but you have not yet fallen into any +groove. To you freedom means rebellion; you represent no vested +interest."</p> + +<p>"Is that my certificate of character?"</p> + +<p>"I had not finished," she said. "I was keeping the best to the last. You +have a great position and an open mind."</p> + +<p>"An important combination, you think?"</p> + +<p>"An unusual one."</p> + +<p>"And so you have an unusual proposition to make to me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose you will think so. There is a brand I want plucked from +the burning—a Royal Commission saved from becoming merely official and +useless."</p> + +<p>"What is its subject?"</p> + +<p>"All this!"—she made an inclusive gesture—"slums, the conditions of +sweated labor, the daily material which we have to work on."</p> + +<p>"About which you have taught me that I know really nothing."</p> + +<p>"You said you were anxious to learn. At least half of that Commission +will be anxious not to learn—or not to let others."</p> + +<p>"Then you ought to be on it."</p> + +<p>"No woman is on it."</p> + +<p>"You wish them to be?"</p> + +<p>She threw out her hands. "What would be the use? Their voices would have +no weight."</p> + +<p>"Whose would?"</p> + +<p>"Yours," she said; and, eyeing him full, stopped dead.</p> + +<p>"You wish me to go upon that Commission?" cried Prince Max.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"In spite of all my ignorance?"</p> + +<p>"The sittings do not begin till late autumn; between now and then you +could get more actual knowledge—brought home and made visible to you, I +mean—than most of those who will form its majority."</p> + +<p>"Then you think I could be of use?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, silent for a moment. "I think you have a mind capable +of taking fire, when it learns the facts."</p> + +<p>"Facts only deaden some people," said he.</p> + +<p>"Yes; that is what crushes us here. We have such mountains of facts to +deal with."</p> + +<p>"And you want fire to come down from those mountains and consume me?"</p> + +<p>She nodded prophetically.</p> + +<p>"I know you wouldn't run away."</p> + +<p>"I am trying to feel the call," said Max a little skeptically. And in +truth he was of divided mind, not because he had any doubt of his +ability, but because the temptation to insincerity was so strong. This +would give him the very opportunity he sought—through a vale of misery +he beheld the way to his own Promised Land; but was it fair that he +should take advantage of it without a heart of pity and conviction? This +Prince of ours rather prided himself on his conscientious scruples.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me from the beginning," he said at last, "what put this +thought into your mind? I seem to be getting it only by fragments."</p> + +<p>"Three days ago," she answered, "I heard my father talking with others +of the projected Commission. They were dissatisfied at the Church not +being sufficiently represented—so insufficiently, indeed, that they +took it as an intentional slight, part of the Government's policy for +depriving the Bishops of all standing. It was held that further +representation was imperative."</p> + +<p>"What?" exclaimed Max; "am I to represent the Bishops, then?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head, laughing. "Oh, no!" she answered. "They found some +one very much better for themselves. That is the really immediate +danger. They are afraid that the Commission as it stands will issue +findings of a one-sided and party character, and that any minority +report, unless it obtained the chairman's signature, would have no +weight. Their main hope, therefore, is to secure a chairman of high +standing on whose help they can rely, and it is thought that the +Government could not oppose the nomination of a member of the Royal +Family. It would appeal to popular sentiment; and subject to his +Majesty's assent, his Royal Highness the Duke of Nostrum has expressed +his willingness to serve."</p> + +<p>Max had no great opinion of the collaterals of his grandfather—this one +least of all. "Oh, ye Heavens!" he exclaimed. "For what use these bones +of my ancestors? Why, with him to direct its deliberations, the +Commission will run on into the next century, and its report be only +applicable to the last!" Then, as he took stock of the situation, "And +are you expecting me to head the minority report instead of him?" he +inquired.</p> + +<p>"It is not their report I am concerned about," she answered, "and for +party I care little; it is the majority I fear. On paper the Commission +looks as if it meant business; Church and property have been squeezed +into one small corner, but the trade-interest is very strong; it is +there in concealed ways which outsiders cannot recognize, for even over +our public and medical departments—and still more in the press—it has +now got control. I can give you instance after instance of men known as +philanthropists whose riches come from sweated labor, and whose +munificent charities form not one tithe of their inhuman profits drained +from the lives of the very poorest. Some of them, great advertisers, are +to sit on this Commission, and all the press, irrespective of party, +will praise their appointment; while to defend their interests others +will be attacked. The Government may be quite ready as a temporary +expedient to make scapegoats of the property-owners, but it is not so +ready to antagonize trade. I believe, sir, that on this Commission the +real source of evil will never be traced; we shall hear of the grinding +middleman and the rack-renter, but nothing dangerous to these magnates, +or to the trade-system itself—unless——" She paused, and left silence +to carry her message.</p> + +<p>"Unless," supplemented Max, "some one thoroughly indiscreet occupies the +chair?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody," she replied, "whose minority report of one would attract all +the attention it deserved."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you think——?" His mind sparkled at the prospect: to be in a +minority of one had a peculiar fascination for him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think it may come to that," she said, "if you will honestly open +your eyes."</p> + +<p>"Then you cannot promise me the support of the Church?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head as though that were the last thing possible.</p> + +<p>"I am to be all alone?" His tone invited commiseration, while his brain +soared with the dreams of a hashish-eater.</p> + +<p>"I think about three may be with you, not more," she said, letting him +down to earth again.</p> + +<p>"Why are you so confident about me?"</p> + +<p>Her gentle gray eyes met his with friendly understanding.</p> + +<p>"When I found out who you were," she said, "I saw"—then she +hesitated—"I saw that you had the rare gift of doing naturally what one +would never expect."</p> + +<p>"In what way?"</p> + +<p>"To begin with, in coming here at all. And then you did things which, I +imagine, no prince ever did before, and did them quite easily—'for +fun,' I suppose you would say. Well, if you could do all that for fun, +what might you not do when you became serious? A man who doesn't mind +being laughed at—whatever his position—is very rare."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" cried Max, "but now you are giving me more credit than I deserve. +You set me to do ridiculous things for you—ridiculous, I mean, in one +dressed as I was for fashion and not for use—I was aware of it; but +nobody was aware of me. When I come here into these poor streets, I am +so unexpected that nobody recognizes me. If they thought that they did, +they would not believe their eyes. In that alone there is a sense of +enlargement and liberty which those who have not to live in our position +can hardly realize. It was like holiday; I felt as though I had been let +loose."</p> + +<p>"And so became more yourself?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot say; but I was happy while I was here. Why did you send me +away?"</p> + +<p>"For the same reason that I now ask you to come back. I wanted you to be +of use—independently."</p> + +<p>"Yet here I am dependent upon you again."</p> + +<p>"No; you have this in your own hands: it is your position."</p> + +<p>"That secures the chairmanship? But am I at all likely to be accepted?"</p> + +<p>"From what I hear, nobody suspects you of taking any great interest in +the life of the poor. They have therefore no reason to be afraid of +you."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Max. "As a figure-head chairman I might even be valuable."</p> + +<p>"Very, I have no doubt."</p> + +<p>"Part of the game?"</p> + +<p>"Royalty and Trade are supposed to be natural allies," remarked Sister +Jenifer.</p> + +<p>Max was startled at her discernment. "Oh, but that is true!" he cried. +"How wonderful, then, that you should be able to trust me at all."</p> + +<p>This set her smiling. "I had the advantage to begin with of not knowing +who you were."</p> + +<p>"And that gave you a start."</p> + +<p>"No, finding you out gave me the start."</p> + +<p>"You certainly have not lost time."</p> + +<p>"That I cannot say, till I have your answer." There was no temporizing +here.</p> + +<p>Max thought for a while, then drew breath and spoke. "I want you quite +to understand," he said, "that if I take up this work it will be very +largely for a personal reason. I daresay I shall, as you say, 'take +fire' when I know more about it; but at present I am not so moved. +Commissions do not attract me; and what I undertake I shall do solely on +faith—faith in you. Are you content that it should be so?"</p> + +<p>"For a beginning, yes."</p> + +<p>"Very well; something else follows. I shall need you for my guide."</p> + +<p>"I am always here at certain hours," she said. "But there are others who +know far more than I."</p> + +<p>He let that point go unregarded.</p> + +<p>"Then I may come to you for help?"</p> + +<p>"Always, if really you need it."</p> + +<p>"My needs shall be as real as I can make them," said Max. "How am I to +begin?"</p> + +<p>She named one or two books. "If you follow up what you read there," she +said, "you will find most of it practically demonstrated in this +district alone. For instance, we have a strike on just now among our +tailors and shirt-makers; the men have made the women come out with +them; they did not want to—women can exist under conditions where men +cannot. Go and mix with them, be among them for hours, attend their +street-corner meetings; you will hardly hear two ideas of any practical +value, but you will get many. It isn't theory that is wanted,—it is +that the life which thousands are living should be known and realized. +When the eye has seen, the heart follows. All we really want is +brotherhood; but how are we to bring it about?"</p> + +<p>"From that I am furthest away of all," said Prince Max.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she cried; "that is the great mistake! If kings are not the +very symbol of our community then they have no value left. May I tell +you two of the most kingly things I ever heard done in the present day? +The one was by the old King of Montenegro, the smallest of the Balkan +States. He found that his chief gentry were becoming lazy, too proud to +put their hands to labor—making idleness a class distinction. He sat +down in the courtyard of his palace and began to make shoes, and went on +making them daily while he held his Court and administered justice; and +so the new folly died."</p> + +<p>"And the other?" inquired the Prince.</p> + +<p>"It may seem far-fetched in the present connection," said she, "yet as +an expression of the real kingly instinct it has all that I mean. Some +years ago the heir to the English throne—the one who died young—went +out to India. One day he was holding a durbar of Indian chiefs, and they +with their retinues stood drawn up in parade ready to offer homage as he +passed along their ranks. Opposite was a great crowd of natives watching +the spectacle, and at a certain point in that crowd stood, as a mere +onlooker, one whom Britain had defeated and driven into exile, the old +Ameer of Afghanistan. Just before he rode down the Prince heard of it, +and had the man pointed out to him; and when he came there he wheeled +his horse about and gave the full royal salute. And through all that +great multitude went a thrill because the kingly thing had been done, +and all had seen it."</p> + +<p>Tears glistened in her eyes as she spoke. "He was rather a dull young +man," she went on, "so one has been told, but that was better than +brains, for that was the touch of human kindness done in the grand +manner which royalty makes possible, and ought to make natural—done +with a pride which has its place beside the humility of St. Francis."</p> + +<p>"Well, well," said Max, "put me in touch then, and I will see what I can +do. But I haven't the grand manner, you know."</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The King was considering the request of his revered uncle, the Duke of +Nostrum, to preside over the Commission on slums, when Max came, asking +also to be made useful.</p> + +<p>"What, you too?" cried his Majesty; "isn't one of us enough?"</p> + +<p>"Quite," said Max. "I want to be that one."</p> + +<p>"What are your qualifications?"</p> + +<p>"Willingness," said Max, "a brain capable of taking fire at facts, a +great position, and an open and rebellious mind. I am quoting from +authority; I was given my certificate yesterday."</p> + +<p>To his Majesty this was merely the voice of Max at his flightiest. +"Well," he said, "your Uncle Nostrum happens to have come first."</p> + +<p>"Do you always grant first applications?"</p> + +<p>"He has had much more experience."</p> + +<p>"Of slums?" inquired Max.</p> + +<p>"Of commissions, and all that sort of thing. He has sat on them."</p> + +<p>"So he has—the elephant! And they have died the death."</p> + +<p>"He works," said the King, "and you don't! You only talk."</p> + +<p>"I only talk!" cried the injured Max; his voice went up to Heaven +appealing against parental injustice. "Has he ever in his life been down +into the slums and spent whole days there, as I have? Has he carried +buckets for washing-sisters of charity, as I have; and borne upon his +back the beds of the dying, as I have?"</p> + +<p>"You?" cried the King with incredulity.</p> + +<p>"I do not publish these things upon the housetops," said Max, "but in +the secrecy of your chamber and in strict confidence I tell you that +they are true. And while I, for many anxious weeks, have been toiling to +qualify for this post, he, this Nostrum, this patent-drug from our royal +medicine-chest, this soporific sedative——"</p> + +<p>"Max, Max!" reproved his father.</p> + +<p>"He rushes in where an angel has feared to tread, and filches from me +my reward!"</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, are you serious?" cried the King.</p> + +<p>"I was never more serious in my life, father," replied his son. "But in +order to arrest your attention I have to be theatrical. Now if you will +really believe what I am going to say I will drop play-acting. I have, +as I tell you, been down into our slum districts, I have been among the +slum workers, means have been offered me for studying these problems at +first hand, and I am prepared,—from this week on when Parliament rises, +and the metropolis empties itself of pleasure, and you have gone sadly +to your annual cure at Bad-as-Bad,—I am prepared to devote the whole of +my time and energy to qualifying for this post; and with Heaven helping +me, I will make it the most astonishing and effective Royal Commission +that ever sat down believing itself on cushions to find that it was on a +hornets' nest."</p> + +<p>"You are becoming theatrical again," said the King.</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Max, "but my brain is taking fire; an angel warned me of +it in a dream, and behold it has come true. I have been seeing things."</p> + +<p>"Your Uncle Nostrum won't be pleased," remarked the King.</p> + +<p>"He never is," said Max. "Discontent is his prevailing virtue. Give +himself something to be discontented about, then he can go down to his +house justified."</p> + +<p>"The Prime Minister has already recommended him," went on the King, "at +least, said he would not oppose; but I don't know what he'll say to +this."</p> + +<p>"Nor do I," said Max, "and I don't care; neither do you."</p> + +<p>The King opened his eyes as though he had been surprised in some +secret—how did Max know that? And then his mind traveled a few months +further on; yes, it was quite true, he did not now care in the least. +What he had made up his mind to do had released him from all ministerial +terrors; and as he contemplated the relief in his own case his thoughts +turned to that bright youth over whose head so unlooked-for a fate was +now impending; how dramatic it would be! And here was Max, all +unbeknownst, harnessing himself to the wheels of State, pledged, unable +to run away. It was just one more turn in the toils which a +simple-minded man of gentle and retiring character was able to wind +around the scheming lives of others. By at last daring to be himself he +had become a power.</p> + +<p>"Very well. I will see that it is arranged," he said. "Yes, it is +perhaps time you had some experience in presiding over—over boards and +all that sort of thing. I shan't last for ever; I don't feel like it." +And he shook his head sadly, for he liked to be sorry for himself; +nothing helped him more to bear up under the troubles of life.</p> + +<p>"My dear father," said Max, with some fondness of tone, "you know that +the prospect of going for your cure always depresses you; but as you +insist on doing it you must pay the penalty. And when you are taking +those waters which so upset your digestion, and deprive you of the flesh +which nature meant you to wear, then think of me—not talking any +longer, but really up and doing—preparing myself at last to follow in +your footsteps. Now in this land of Jingalo, in the very heart of its +social and commercial system, I am going to make history."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you think so?" said the King to himself. "Young man, before you +have much more than begun, you may have to come out of it! You can't do +that sort of thing when you are in my shoes."</p> + +<p>And then he bade Max a benevolent good-bye and went off to his cure; and +Max, assured of his seat upon the forthcoming Commission, went off to +his.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>"How am I to dress for this business?" Max had inquired; it was one of +the first practical problems to be solved, and an important one.</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind," said Sister Jenifer, "you had better dress like a +Socialist. Wear a very soft hat, a very low collar, and a very red or +green tie, done loose in the French fashion, and nobody will wonder at +your looking clean, or at your asking questions. Young Socialists come +here to study the social problem and to show themselves off, and in a +vague sort of way the people have begun to understand them; and though +they look upon them as cranks, they don't any longer think they are +inspectors or charity agents—the two things you must avoid."</p> + +<p>"Dress," said Max, "has a very subtle effect upon the character. At a +fancy-dress ball, last season, I wore a Cardinal's robe—there is a +portrait of one in the British National Gallery rather like me—and it +took me a month to get rid of the effects. If I turn into a Socialist, +therefore, it will be upon your advice."</p> + +<p>"As far as politics go it matters very little what you turn into," said +Sister Jenifer.</p> + +<p>"What a statement!" exclaimed Max.</p> + +<p>"It is perfectly true," she said. "At present what we are fighting is +ignorance and indifference; in comparison to that the mere theory of +government doesn't matter, for nothing is going to succeed while one +half of society neither knows nor cares how the other half lives. Your +politicians are welcome to any theories they can find tenable, if only +they will face facts."</p> + +<p>"What are your own politics?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't any; I haven't room for them. My only aim is just to get that +one half of the community to come and look with understanding at the +other half; and then service, I know, would follow. It won't until they +do."</p> + +<p>"Well, you are making me look," said Max.</p> + +<p>"Yet I have not been able to make my father."</p> + +<p>"Has he never been here?"</p> + +<p>"He has opened churches."</p> + +<p>"Well, you believe in prayer."</p> + +<p>"That depends on how you define it."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to ask you that. You are only a lay-sister; but some of you +have taken vows—for a period, at all events."</p> + +<p>"That is all the Church allows; but it makes little difference since +they can always renew."</p> + +<p>"Those who have taken vows—do they give themselves entirely up to +prayer?"</p> + +<p>"No, but they entirely depend upon it."</p> + +<p>"Depend—how?"</p> + +<p>"They could not do their work without it. You asked me for definition: I +can only give you example. Some of our sisters quite literally cannot +face what they have to do except after prayer; otherwise their flesh +would revolt."</p> + +<p>"Is it such horrible work?"</p> + +<p>"They will not tell you so; but I know that it must be. You see I am +rather an outsider. My father only allowed me to come here on certain +conditions; and with the inner side of our work here I have nothing to +do; I understand nothing about it."</p> + +<p>Her face flushed slightly under his gaze, the faint, troubled flush of +maidenhood which apprehends an evil of which it may not know the +conditions; and he saw by swift intuition that this sincere spirit was +ashamed of its own ignorance. His mind darted a guess that he had before +him, in fact, an inexperience of life underlying intimate acquaintance +with grief and poverty which he would not have believed to be possible. +And oh, sexually, how it redoubled her beauty and charm! Yes, he could +not deny that so unnatural a combination attracted him, and yet it +enraged him also. A few moments ago he had heard from this woman's lips +a declaration that no help could come till half and half made up one +whole in knowledge and understanding; and yet there she stood—if his +guess was right—hesitant and bashful on the borders of that great +central problem about which parental authority had decreed she was to +know nothing; an example set before him of that idealistic waste of +womanhood which is for ever going on, and which for bad practical +reasons society is always encouraging. For depend upon it the practical +social result is what we men are really afraid of—not lest our women +should lose either modesty or charm, but lest with knowledge they should +apply themselves too ruthlessly to practical ends, and set upon their +charm a price which hitherto we have avoided having to pay. And as he so +moralized upon the relations of sex, a sentimental desire grew in him to +kneel down there and then at her feet and tell her how good a young man +from his point of view he had always been—and how bad a one from hers.</p> + +<p>For the time being he resisted that temptation; other things that he was +not yet sure of must come first; for before we can allow the beloved to +think ill of us at all she must first think far better of us than we +deserve. Then for the letting-down process there is a safe margin left, +and confession becomes a luxury with no danger involved; since to see +himself retrospectively pardoned by a heart virginally pure has surely +restored to many a weary and disillusioned sensualist a better opinion +of himself than he could ever have hoped to refurbish by his own +efforts. That, oh ye men about town, is a good woman's mission in life; +that is what she is for—when the watch has run down she winds it up +again and sets it domestically ticking. And that she may continue to do +so, let us keep her from all knowledge independently acquired. When we +ourselves bring her the evidence, having first packed her fond jury of a +heart, then we can also dictate verdict and sentence, and the world will +run on in the grooves to which we have accustomed it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You mean they stole the fixings?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And now the next strike has come."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Who are those?" inquired Max.</p> + +<p>"Women Chartists," said Sister Jenifer.</p> + +<p>"What are they doing here?"</p> + +<p>"They go wherever they can get a hearing."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"This does not interest you, then?"</p> + +<p>"It is a subject about which I know nothing."</p> + +<p>"But you came to learn."</p> + +<p>"Well,—is that woman telling the truth?"</p> + +<p>"No, not exactly."</p> + +<p>"Does she know what she is talking about?"</p> + +<p>"Not as well as she ought to."</p> + +<p>"Then, isn't that sufficient?"</p> + +<p>"You have listened to men here whose statements were just as wide of the +mark, and whose proposals were just as useless."</p> + +<p>"Yes, so you warned me; but what I find instructive is not the speaker +but the crowd."</p> + +<p>"You have a crowd here."</p> + +<p>"A much smaller one."</p> + +<p>"So you are for the majorities?"</p> + +<p>Max acknowledged the stroke. "Very well," he said; "let us go back."</p> + +<p>"No, I only wanted you to notice the crowd. Did they seem interested?"</p> + +<p>"They listened."</p> + +<p>"That is something, is it not, when she was talking of things that to +their minds hardly concerned them?"</p> + +<p>"But you say she was not telling the truth."</p> + +<p>"She was ignorant, and she exaggerated; but for all they know what she +is saying might be gospel."</p> + +<p>"Is that how you would have it preached?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do not such exaggerations condemn it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Though I embroider it for myself," said Prince Max, "from others I +prefer to get plain truth."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Now you are preaching pragmatism," said Max.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Surely," she said, "to see the light of its fires in so many faces is +proof enough."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"To any one who accepted absolutely the Divine Will it must be."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And yet," she retorted, "abject submission to antecedents is all that +science can infer when once it starts to investigate the springs of +action."</p> + +<p>"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—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And black is white,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And wrong is right,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">If it be Thy sweet Will.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>His ugly talk roused her spirit of resistance.</p> + +<p>"How can it be sensual," she protested, "when it results in self-denial +and self-sacrifice?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She did not flinch from his attack.</p> + +<p>"What do you know of my training?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"The training was all my own," she said. "I tucked myself."</p> + +<p>"Wastefully, under parental conditions—you yourself have owned it."</p> + +<p>"There is always more work than one can do."</p> + +<p>"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——?"</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h2>AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You are looking very well, child," remarked her Majesty. "I am sure +that the place suits you."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But I am not wearing low dress while I am here."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"I did it for fun, mamma."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, it was such a very—forward thing to do!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Princess flamed into her mother's presence, paper in hand. "Is this +true?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear," she complained, "I do wish these papers would not be so +previous and officious and meddlesome and pretending to know so much."</p> + +<p>"But is it true?" demanded Charlotte.</p> + +<p>"Is what true?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to read such tittle-tattle!" said her mother. "Why can't +you leave the papers alone?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"My dear, don't be so violent!" said the Queen.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Nothing of the sort; you were brought here to be with us and to be kept +out of mischief."</p> + +<p>"Why are we staying a fortnight longer than we intended to?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Charlotte opened her mouth and bottled a breath before she next spoke.</p> + +<p>"Who sent him my photograph?"</p> + +<p>"Gracious me, child, anybody can get your photograph. Isn't it in all +the shop-windows?"</p> + +<p>"Not in South America."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; they are getting quite civilized over there now."</p> + +<p>Charlotte struck at a venture.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> sent it; you know you did! Yes, and then he sent you that thing +of himself."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Begin what?" Charlotte shot the question; the Queen turned it aside and +went on.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Well, what if I did?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried the Princess, "why, why was I born?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>After about ten minutes of it her Majesty rose quietly from her chair +and rang the bell.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>A message came to the King that her Majesty wished to see him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Don't do that there!" remarked the Queen, "any one might see you."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't they? They'd only think that I had a cold."</p> + +<p>"It isn't the time of the year for colds. Either leave off, or come away +from the window."</p> + +<p>"There, you see!" cried Charlotte, stung to fresh exasperation, "I can't +even stand where I like now!"</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" inquired the King.</p> + +<p>"Tell your father what you have been saying," said the Queen, finding it +better that the culprit herself should explain.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I've been saying."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>This threw Charlotte into a fresh paroxysm. "Oh, why did I ever have +parents?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"What are you revolting about, my dear?" inquired the King kindly.</p> + +<p>"Everything!" exclaimed Charlotte.</p> + +<p>"Quite true," said the Queen, "everything."</p> + +<p>"Well, begin at the beginning." And Charlotte screwed herself up to +speak.</p> + +<p>"I came to talk to mamma about something," she said, "something that +mattered very much. I suppose you know about it too."</p> + +<p>The Queen gave her husband an informing look.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I won't marry him!" cried Charlotte, "I've seen his photograph."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and you liked it," said her mother. This did not improve matters.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"But why ever not?" exclaimed her father.</p> + +<p>Charlotte wriggled with impatience.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"I don't want to be anywhere," said the Princess.</p> + +<p>"Outside a lunatic asylum," said her mother, completing the sentence.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"My dear, nobody is forcing you," repeated the King persuasively.</p> + +<p>"Then I won't see him."</p> + +<p>"I tell her she must," remarked the Queen in a tone of comfortable +finality.</p> + +<p>"Mamma, will you stop knitting!" cried Charlotte. "You treat me as if I +were an insect!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes; the Trojan women," corrected Charlotte.</p> + +<p>"She says she's like one of them!"</p> + +<p>"So I am."</p> + +<p>"I don't know which one, you mentioned so many."</p> + +<p>"All of them. Yes, papa, they had to go and live with foreigners—men +they had never seen."</p> + +<p>"Don't say 'live with'; it's an objectionable term."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Charlotte was quite ready to repeat it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't quote poetry to me!" begged the King. "I don't understand +it."</p> + +<p>"And I try not to," said the Queen. So Charlotte's quotation was ruled +out of the discussion.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think, my dear," persuaded her father, "that meeting him +here, as it just so happens, will seem sufficiently accidental?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>The King stooped and began gathering them up.</p> + +<p>"It's all nonsense, John," said the Queen. "Don't indulge her by paying +any attention."</p> + +<p>And at that renewed proof of her mother's imperviousness of mind +Princess Charlotte ran out of the room.</p> + +<p>"Leave her alone!" remarked the Queen, sure of her own sagacity, "she'll +calm down. My belief is that she really likes him. <i>I</i> saw her looking +at his photograph; it wasn't only once, either."</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>The Prince glanced round before asking abruptly: "And the Princess—she +is still here?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Ah, good!" commented the Prince.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Ah, good, very good indeed," remarked the Prince in a spirit of +acceptance.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How very forgetful of her!" exclaimed the Queen.</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>"I have gone home. Charlotte."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Who?" cried his wife, though knowing quite well.</p> + +<p>"Charlotte; she has gone home."</p> + +<p>Husband and wife stared at each other mute and amazed; while the Prince +sat trying with amiable look to excuse himself for being there.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"I must apologize," said the King. "This is really quite unaccountable."</p> + +<p>The Prince's eye flashed with a curious light; he smiled good-humoredly.</p> + +<p>"I think it is very interesting," said he. "When will it be allowed that +I shall see her?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h2>A PROMISSORY NOTE</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>On their return to Jingalo the Princess heard from her parents how badly +she had behaved.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"And pray, do you always mean running away from him?" inquired the +Queen.</p> + +<p>"I shan't go to Bad-as-Bad again, I know that."</p> + +<p>"But if he comes here."</p> + +<p>"Why, are you going to ask him?"</p> + +<p>"He has asked himself," said her father.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" This came as a surprise.</p> + +<p>"But, of course," he continued, "if you mean to go on being rude to him, +it wouldn't do."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But it does, when we have to end by marrying princes. That's the bother +of it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I am trying to make it easier for you. Oh, I admit the drawbacks; +but why make them out worse than they are?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Charlotte, feeling compunction working within her, thought hard for a +while. "Before he comes——" she said, and stopped. "Papa, when does he +come?"</p> + +<p>"Not till after the winter session has opened—perhaps about Christmas."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Now, my dear, don't begin scuffling again!" said her father +deprecatingly. "Very well; that's settled then."</p> + +<p>"And you will give me that fortnight?"</p> + +<p>"Longer, my dear, if you wish."</p> + +<p>"No," said the Queen, "a fortnight is quite enough, if she means to +spend it pretending to be a Trojan woman."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What has he been doing?"</p> + +<p>"Getting his head broken."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" exclaimed the Queen. "However did he come to do that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Did he give you the address?" inquired her Majesty suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"No; he said he would be home in a day or two, and then we might all +come and see him."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear," said the King, "very distressing, very unfortunate. I had +hoped all that was over."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And how much of this has got into the papers?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the King, "at all events the cause of it all—however much +the result of indiscretion—was quite reputable."</p> + +<p>"Oh, quite."</p> + +<p>"Commendable even."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The General hesitated.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>parti pris</i>. +Some of the Commission, I fear, would not like it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Sedition," said he, passing them in review, "is now openly preached +every week in the <i>Women's War Cry</i>."</p> + +<p>"Why do you not suppress it?" inquired the King.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>Women's War Cry</i> +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 <i>War Cry</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>"Why should you try to be popular?" inquired the King.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You mean the trade prosperity?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"I fear that I do not follow your Majesty's argument."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I should like to be assured of the truth of that statement, with all +respect to your Majesty, before I pass any comment."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"We find no reason to alter our opinion as to the necessary solution."</p> + +<p>"Or as to your determination to proceed with it?"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister was very urbane. "Your Majesty has been good enough +to indicate a date when all difficulties will be removed."</p> + +<p>It was a sufficient statement of what was in store.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said the King, "I did wish to know. Have you done well at +the by-elections?"</p> + +<p>"Beyond the inevitable tear-and-wear due to our period of office we have +nothing to complain of."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I hope your Majesty has never regarded as a complaint the advice which +I have felt bound to offer."</p> + +<p>"There is a complaint somewhere," said the King; "perhaps a +constitutional one. All I wanted to avoid was quack remedies."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Max, my dear," she said fondly, "I do wish you would marry."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could," he said, "but there are difficulties that you don't +understand."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I think I do," she answered. "Of course with us there are +always difficulties. The choice is so limited."</p> + +<p>"I should rather incline to say that it is fixed."</p> + +<p>"You mean just to the two I told you of? But you wouldn't have either of +them."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps <i>I</i> ought to say that <i>I</i> am fixed, then; I can't very well see +myself changing."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but as I say, there are difficulties—religious ones."</p> + +<p>This was strange news for the Queen. Had Max a conscience then? It was a +portent for which she had not been prepared.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she said, "I don't want to ask questions."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you had better not."</p> + +<p>"But I do want you to settle."</p> + +<p>"I am settled," said Max.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Max, dear," she said, "I would much rather you didn't tell me."</p> + +<p>"I quite agree," he replied.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I should be delighted to see him," he said. "Indeed, I think he more +than any one might solve my difficulty."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>On the next day Max received a visit from his father.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I?" cried Max.</p> + +<p>"I hear that you assisted the police."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said Max, "I went to rescue a poor youth from their +clutches."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious me!" cried the King, horror-struck.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But I heard it was a beer-bottle thrown by one of the rioters!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Max, this is really too bad of you!" said his father.</p> + +<p>"It comes of trying to mix with the people."</p> + +<p>"Well, you shouldn't; for we can't do it."</p> + +<p>"Not without paying the price. I have, and it was worth it."</p> + +<p>"What good has it done you?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Max, I wish you would not talk like that," said the King. "I wanted to +speak seriously to you."</p> + +<p>"And I to you," answered Max. "But when I start I shall only shock you +more."</p> + +<p>"Well, we had better get it over, then. Say the most serious thing you +have to say, and be done with it!"</p> + +<p>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——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, go on!" groaned the King.</p> + +<p>"Conditionally, then, I am already engaged to be married."</p> + +<p>The King's mind went vacuously all round the Courts of Europe, and +returned to him again empty.</p> + +<p>"Whom to?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>Max made his announcement with stately formality.</p> + +<p>"The lady who honors me with her affection is the daughter of our +Primate Archbishop."</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!" cried the King. "Does <i>he</i> know of it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Impossible!" exclaimed the King.</p> + +<p>"I knew you would say that,—so did she. That I believe is why she gave +me her consent."</p> + +<p>"Then she does not really——"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You know, Max, that it is quite impossible."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"No, no, Max," said the King, "this won't do."</p> + +<p>"You know that it would greatly upset the Prime Minister."</p> + +<p>"I have other ways of doing that," said the King.</p> + +<p>"Without upsetting yourself?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"A vision of beauty that I had not believed to be possible."</p> + +<p>"Is she so very beautiful, then?"</p> + +<p>"You have seen her, sir, and you have not remembered her. I did not mean +that sort of beauty."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then, you are really in love."</p> + +<p>"Ludicrously," confessed Max.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, I am very sorry for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you need not be, sir; I am quite sure of myself at last; and by +refusing to marry anybody else I have only to wait and you will have to +yield to my request."</p> + +<p>"You may have to wait a long time," began the King, and then he stopped; +for looking into the future he saw Max in a new light, that same fierce +light which had beaten upon himself for the last twenty-five years, +preventing him from doing so many things he had wished to do. It would +prevent Max too.</p> + +<p>"But I want your consent now, father," said the young man; and there was +something of real affection in his voice.</p> + +<p>"Why can't you wait till I am dead?"</p> + +<p>"That would be selfish of me. Do you not want to see me happy first?"</p> + +<p>But to that the King only shook his head.</p> + +<p>"It won't do, Max, it won't do. The Archbishop wouldn't like it either," +he went on, trying to get back to the political aspect again. "It would +be terribly damaging to him. With a connection like that, leadership of +his party would become impossible."</p> + +<p>"Have we to consider the political ambitions of an archbishop?"</p> + +<p>"You would have to get his consent."</p> + +<p>"I don't think so. All she bargained for was yours. I told her I would +get it; and she did not believe me."</p> + +<p>"You make me wish that I were altogether out of the way."</p> + +<p>"Quite unnecessary, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but if you were in my position then you'd see—then you'd +understand. You couldn't do it; you simply couldn't do it."</p> + +<p>The King was now saying what he really believed, and at the sound of his +own voice telling him he realized that all he had to do was to temporize +and time would bring its own solution. If Max were King he could no more +do this thing than he could fly. Why, then, should he trouble himself?</p> + +<p>To cover his change of ground he continued the argument, and on every +point allowed Max to beat him (he could not probably have prevented it, +but that was the way he put it to himself), and finally, when he felt +that he could in decency throw up the sponge, he let Max have his +way—or the way to it, which was the same thing.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I can't give you my consent all at once. I must have +time to turn round and think about it; you must have time too. But +if——" here he paused and did a short sum of mental arithmetic. "Yes," +he went on, "if in two months from now you find me still upon the +throne—and I'm sure I don't know that you will with the way things are +going and all the worry I've had—but if you do, and are still of the +same mind about it, then you may come to me and I will give you my +consent."</p> + +<p>A quiet, rapturous smile passed over the face of Max. "May I have that +in writing, sir?" he said.</p> + +<p>The King was rather taken aback, and a little affronted. "Do you doubt +my word?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Not in the least, but it is your consent I have to get. You might have +a stroke, or lose your memory; you might even die, and there should I be +left stranded. My love is so great that I can let it run no risks. And +therefore, sir, if you will be so good, a promissory note to take effect +in two months' time."</p> + +<p>"You won't tell your mother?" said the King, halting, pen in hand.</p> + +<p>Max shook his head sagely. "Nobody shall know," said he. "No filter +could contain such news as this." He took the precious document from the +King's hand, folded it, and put it away.</p> + +<p>"By the way, sir," he said, "in a week or two I shall be sending you my +book."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid it is going to shock people," said his father.</p> + +<p>"Not nearly so much as this." Max touched his breast pocket and smiled. +"I will confess now, sir, that I really had hardly a hope: if I said so +just now, I lied. And if a son may ever tell his father that he is proud +of him, let that pleasure to-day be mine."</p> + +<p>They parted on the best of terms. "I wonder," thought the King to +himself, "whether he will be quite so pleased and proud two months +hence."</p> + +<p>His countenance saddened, and he sighed. "Poor boy," he said. He was +very fond of Max.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h2>HEADS OR TAILS</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It is no use pretending that all history is equally interesting, even +though the facts which it contains are necessary for an understanding of +what follows. And I am well aware that much of this history so far has +been very dull. We have been exploring interiors, moldy institutions, +cast-iron conventions, and one poor human mind,—with a tap on the back +of its head as an incentive—wriggling to find a way out. But from this +point on you see him wriggling no more; the slow wave of his resolve has +crept to its crest and now breaks into foam.</p> + +<p>A month has now passed by; and four weeks hence the enamored Max will be +coming for his answer—Max asking for the impossible thing. Like the man +who set fire to the tail of his night-shirt in order to stop the +hiccoughs, so now John of Jingalo had at his heels that terror of his +own planting driving him on. Perhaps nothing else would have given him +the courage.</p> + +<p>The day for the last Council meeting had arrived, the last before the +closing of that long session of Parliament which, beginning in February, +had run on at intervals into November. Then only a brief month, and the +winter session with the new Government program would open.</p> + +<p>It was to this Council that the Cabinet's latest scheme for squeezing +the Bishops out of the Constitution was to be presented; and for that to +be possible, since he was so great a stickler for constitutional +propriety, the King's consent had been necessary. A few days before, +therefore, the Prime Minister had once more formally submitted the +question; and the King had given his leave. "Produce what you like, Mr. +Premier; I will no longer stand in your way."</p> + +<p>The brief autumn session was closing with a clangor of agitation which +had not been heard in Jingalo for half a century at least. Everybody +outside the machinery of party was profoundly dissatisfied with the +parliamentary system and with all its doings and undoings; and this +general dissatisfaction was being quaintly expressed by a refusal to let +Parliament rise. The Women Chartists were battering at its closed doors; +and from peep-holes and other points of vantage within, smiling and +indifferent legislators saw those bruised bodies, those strangely +obsessed minds, those indomitable spirits carried off to magisterial +lack of judgment and to prison.</p> + +<p>With a good deal more concern they saw strikes breaking out in their own +constituencies, and riot becoming the normal accompaniment of the +industrial demand for better conditions. Three strike leaders were in +prison under sentence of death for having killed by purposeful accident +a few over-zealous policemen; and from great working centers over a +hundred miles away thousands of men were marching to demand remittance +of the death penalty.</p> + +<p>The Government was, in consequence, in a great hurry to get the session +closed. It was an undignified scramble of the red-tape worms of various +departments to be well out of the way before those slow, heavily shod +feet of labor arrived upon the scene. At every town they came to they +stopped, made inflammatory speeches, gathered funds and adherents, and +then, a swelled body of discontent, marched stolidly on toward the +capital; and this not from one point alone but from half-a-dozen at +once. If there was not to be conflict between the police and these +converging forces, appeasement of some sort must be devised, or official +vacuum must be there to meet them.</p> + +<p>And behind all this was the ministerial fear that, if they were not +quick about it, it would be impossible to close Parliament with due +ceremony. The Lord High Functionary had put it bluntly to the Prime +Minister. "If those men get here we can't have out the piebald ponies +and the state coach; they wouldn't stand it."</p> + +<p>And as the piebald ponies and the state coach were necessary for the +prestige of the Government and for proof that the King and his ministers +were working amicably together, therefore the red-tape worms were all +wriggling their level best under pressure from above, and in the small +hours every morning millions of public money were being voted into the +hands of the Government by an obedient majority of sleepy legislators, +bound by party loyalty neither to criticise nor to control.</p> + +<p>It was in the midst of affairs thus disarranged that on a morning three +days before the rising of Parliament the Royal Council met, and awaited +with official calm the advent of its titular head.</p> + +<p>Since his outbreak of a few months ago the King had once more become +amenable to that deferential guidance which was his due; and now word +had gone round that all further opposition was to be withdrawn, and the +Ministry to have its way.</p> + +<p>And so the <i>pièce de résistance</i> is at last in full brew and we see the +twenty cooks of the national broth waiting without any trepidation of +spirit for the royal flavoring to arrive. And they talk among themselves +in carefully modulated tones; for it is not etiquette, when the doors +are thrown open to the royal presence, that the King should hear +conversation going on.</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister enters a little later than the rest, carrying his +brief, and moves to his place near the head of the board through a +circle of congratulatory looks and smiles. For all know that in this +long bout with titular kingship, obstinate for the preservation of its +rights, the representative of Cabinet control has won, and that a new +and very comfortable stage in the subservience of monarchy to +ministerial ends has been attained.</p> + +<p>And how quietly this important little bit of constitutional revolution +has been carried through!—without any passing of laws or petition of +rights, merely by internal pressure judiciously applied. And Jingalo, +that well-represented State governed by the popular will, knows nothing +of what has been done; like a body in absolute health it is unconscious +of the working of those vital functions so necessary for its +constitutional development. Oh, admirable popular will! in searching for +your whereabouts and to come into touch with you, old monarchy has had +yet another tumble—and at the right and preconcerted time will reach +the ground without any outward revolution at all.</p> + +<p>If these or suchlike thoughts were in the mind of the Cabinet, just then +they were diverted by the sound of opening doors; and there entered, not +the King himself, but a Court functionary in full dress attended by two +others, and bearing before him on a crimson cushion a sealed document.</p> + +<p>A few eyebrows went up; what revival of old forms was this? The +functionary advanced and with a low bow presented the document not to +the Prime Minister, but to the Lord President of the Council. "By his +Majesty's gracious command," said he, "a message from his Majesty the +King to his faithful people."</p> + +<p>Then, with another bow, the Court functionary withdrew.</p> + +<p>The Lord President looked at the seal in some embarrassment, for he did +not quite know how to break it; it was very large, some three inches +across, and was composed of a wax of specially resistant quality.</p> + +<p>"Cut it!" said the Prime Minister, and to that end he presented his +pocket-knife.</p> + +<p>The document was opened; and the Lord President and Prime Minister, +glancing together at its contents, suddenly went white.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said the Lord President (his voice and hands trembled as he +spoke), "his Majesty the King abdicates!"</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Around that ministerial board it would have been amusing to an impartial +onlooker to see how many mouths of grave and reverend Councilors did +actually open and drop chins of dismay. A gust of horror and +astonishment blew round the assembly; it was a word unknown in the +Jingalese Constitution; no place had been there provided for it,—it had +never been done. Strictly speaking—legally speaking, that is to say—it +could not be done. Kings had been deposed, exiled, their heads cut +off—all without their own consent—but never without the consent of +Parliament, or of some portion of it at all events. Yet nothing whatever +could prevent it; for clearly on this point the King could insist; but, +if he did, the Constitution would be in the melting-pot, and the +consequences could not be foreseen. What right had this pelican in piety +to go pecking his own breast and shedding the blood of his ancestors? +Viewed in any constitutional light it was a revolutionary and bloody +deed.</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister was not slow to see its bearing on the whole +political situation and on the fortunes of his ministry.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said he, "if this abdication is allowed to take effect, our +plans are defeated and the Government must go."</p> + +<p>"You mean we shall have to resign?"</p> + +<p>"We cannot even do that; we are forestalled. Though not yet publicly +announced this is an absolute abdication here and now." And then that +all might hear, the Lord President proceeded to read out the terms.</p> + +<p>"WE, John, by the Grace of God, King of Jingalo, Suzerain of Rome, +Leader of the Forlorn Hope, and Crowned Head of Jerusalem, do hereby +solemnly declare, avow, render, and deliver by this as Our own act, +freely undertaken and accomplished for the good, welfare, comfort, and +succor of the Realm of Jingalo and of its People, that now and from this +day henceforward. <span class="smcap">We</span> do utterly renounce, relinquish, and +abjure all claim to rank, titles, honors, emoluments, and privileges +holden by <span class="smcap">Us</span> in virtue of <span class="smcap">Our</span> inheritance and +succession as true and rightful Sovereign Lord of the said Realm of +Jingalo. And for the satisfying of <span class="smcap">Our</span> Royal Conscience and the +better safety and security of those things aforetime committed to +<span class="smcap">Our</span> trust and keeping, under the Constitution of the said Realm +of Jingalo; to the preservation whereof <span class="smcap">We</span> are bound by oath, +therefore <span class="smcap">We</span> do now pronounce, publish, and set forth, that it +may be known to all, this <span class="smcap">Our Abdication</span>, made in the 25th year +of <span class="smcap">Our</span> reign and given under <span class="smcap">Our</span> hand and signet——"</p> + +<p>Then came date and signature; and following these the old form of mixed +German and Latin, without which no State document was complete—"Der Rex +das vult."</p> + +<p>When the reading ended there was a short pause. Here at all events, in +their very ears, history was being incredibly made.</p> + +<p>"Remarkably well drawn," observed Professor Teller, admiringly: "copied, +you may be interested to learn, from the actual instrument wrung by +Parliament out of King Oliver the Second under threat of torture four +hundred years ago. As legal and regular a form, therefore, as it would +be possible to devise."</p> + +<p>"You mean we shall have to recognize it?"</p> + +<p>"If we recognize anything at all."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said the Prime Minister, "it must not be recognized; it +would mean for us not merely defeat but disaster. As against the Bishops +we have a certain amount of popular opinion to back us; but if once it +appears that dislike for our policy has driven the King into abdication, +then our ruin will be immediate and irremediable. We have to recognize +that during the past year his popularity has greatly increased, while +our own, to say the most, is stationary."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he knows it!" said the Minister of the Interior, bitterly.</p> + +<p>"I call it a treacherous and a cowardly act!" exclaimed the Secretary +for War.</p> + +<p>"He is trying to bully us!" said the Commissioner-General.</p> + +<p>"I should say that he is succeeding," remarked Professor Teller in a dry +tone. "Had we not better recognize, gentlemen, that his Majesty has made +a very shrewd hit? Can we not—compromise?"</p> + +<p>"Impossible!" asseverated the Prime Minister. "It is too late."</p> + +<p>Professor Teller leaned back in his chair and let the discussion flow +on. His attitude was noticeable; he was the only minister who was taking +it sitting down.</p> + +<p>"When does this abdication take effect?" asked one. "I mean, how long +can it be kept from the press?"</p> + +<p>"Who knows? If his Majesty has done one mad thing he may have done +another."</p> + +<p>"I must see him at once," said the Premier, "this cannot be allowed to +go on."</p> + +<p>"You will have to take a very firm tone."</p> + +<p>"I would suggest that we all send in our portfolios."</p> + +<p>"We have tried that once; he would not accept them now, and we have no +power to make him."</p> + +<p>"No; that is the damnable thing! That is what makes his position so +strong."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he knows?"</p> + +<p>"Of course; why else has he done it? It's really clever; that's what I +can't get over, he has done a clever thing!"</p> + +<p>"Who can have put it into his head?"</p> + +<p>"It is the most unjustifiable stretch of the royal prerogative that ever +I heard of."</p> + +<p>"There's no prerogative about it; it's sheer revolution and rebellion."</p> + +<p>"An attack on the Constitution, I call it."</p> + +<p>Thus they talked.</p> + +<p>"Strange!" murmured Professor Teller, irritating them with his +philosophic tone and his detached air,—"strange that when it threatens +itself with extinction monarchy becomes powerful."</p> + +<p>"It is no question of extinction," said the Prime Minister tetchily; "we +should still have his successor to deal with; and Prince Max, I can tell +you, gentlemen, is a very dark horse. You all know what happened three +months ago; and now, within the last week, we have learned that he is +publishing a book—a revolutionary book with his own name to it. You may +take it from me that if he comes to the throne our present scheme for +the evolution of the Cabinet system will be over. Anything may happen! +Read his book and you will understand."</p> + +<p>"Has any one yet seen it?"</p> + +<p>"A privately procured copy has been shown me; it was by the merest +chance we heard of it. I could only read it very hurriedly in the small +hours; it had to go back where it came from."</p> + +<p>"Is it a serious matter?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly appalling."</p> + +<p>"And are you going to allow it to be published?"</p> + +<p>"How can we prevent? It is being printed abroad."</p> + +<p>And then spoke the Prefect of the Police, holding technical place upon +the Council as Minister of Secret Service.</p> + +<p>"Over the present edition, gentlemen, you may make your minds quite +easy. I have received intelligence that last night the establishment at +which it was being printed was burned to the ground."</p> + +<p>The Premier cast a keen and confidential glance at his colleague.</p> + +<p>"How much does that involve?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Only the insurance company, I should suppose."</p> + +<p>"I meant of the book?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! everything except the manuscript. There will be no publication this +year at any rate."</p> + +<p>"I make you my compliments," said the Prime Minister, "on the +particularity and speed with which your department has become informed. +That at all events gives us time."</p> + +<p>"And meanwhile?"</p> + +<p>"I must see the King immediately. It is no use our remaining here to +discuss a situation that is not yet explained. The first thing to find +out is whether this has gone any further; but I do not think his Majesty +really means it as anything more than a threat."</p> + +<p>"Had you no hint that it was coming?" inquired the Commissioner-General.</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister was on his way to the door. "No," he said; "not a +word." And then he paused, as the particular meaning of a certain +carefully chosen and repeated phrase flashed on him for the first time. +"He said to me yesterday—repeating what he said four months ago when we +tendered our resignations—'I will no longer stand in your way.' And now +I suppose we have it."</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!" cried the Minister of the Interior, "does he call this +not standing in our way?"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister cast an expressive glance at his chagrined and +embarrassed following—a glance of self-confidence and determination, +one which still said "Depend upon me!"</p> + +<p>But only from one of his colleagues was there any look of answering +confidence, or speech confirming it.</p> + +<p>"When you are disengaged, Chief, may I have a few moments?"</p> + +<p>It was the Prefect who spoke, a man of few words.</p> + +<p>Eye to eye they looked at each other for a brief spell.</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister nodded. "Come to me in two hours' time," he said. "We +shall know then where we are." And so saying he left the room.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>In the next two days a good many things happened; but carried through in +so underground and secret a fashion that it is only afterwards we shall +hear of them. And so we come to the last day of all; for on the morrow +Parliament closes and when that is done the King's abdication is to +become an acknowledged and an accomplished fact.</p> + +<p>It was evening. His Majesty had just given a final audience to the Prime +Minister; the interview had been a painful one, and still the ground of +contention remained the same. But the demeanor of the head of the +Government had altered; he had tried bullying and it had failed; now in +profound agitation he had implored the King for the last time to +withdraw his abdication, and his Majesty had refused.</p> + +<p>"I will close Parliament for you," he said, "since you wish it; it will +be a fitting act for the conclusion of my reign. But my conscience +forbids any furthering on my part of your present line of policy; and as +I cannot prevent that obstacle from existing, in accordance with my +promise I remove it altogether from the scene."</p> + +<p>"But your Majesty's abdication is the greatest obstacle of all, it is a +profound upheaval of the whole constitutional system; and its acceptance +will involve a far, far greater expenditure of time than we are able to +contemplate or to provide for. I am bound, therefore, to appeal from the +letter of your Majesty's promise (which no doubt you have observed) to +the spirit in which as I conceive it was made."</p> + +<p>"When I made it, Mr. Prime Minister, I had no spirit left. Nothing +remained to me but the letter of my authority, and even that was dead. I +told you that I would no longer stand in your way, and I will keep my +word."</p> + +<p>"By throwing us into revolution!"</p> + +<p>"By throwing you upon your own resources. You have been working very +assiduously for single chamber government, you may now secure it in your +own way."</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty takes a course entirely without precedent."</p> + +<p>"What?—Abdication?"</p> + +<p>"Against the wish or consent of Parliament."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," said the King, "that is precisely the difference. Abdications +have, like ministerial resignations, been forced upon us—I mean on +kings in the past—at very unseasonable times and in most inconsiderate +ways; and we kings have had to put up with it. Mr. Prime Minister, it is +your turn now; and I only hope that you may find as clean a way out of +your difficulty as I had to find when four months ago you threatened me +with a resignation which you knew I could not accept."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister's face became drawn with passion; but there was no +more to be said after that. "Is that your Majesty's final word?" he +inquired.</p> + +<p>"I hope so," said the King, rising and making a formal offer of his +hand.</p> + +<p>And so the interview ended.</p> + +<p>Left alone the King felt badly in need of comfort, for now in the hour +of triumph depression had begun to enter his soul. He did not like +hurting people even when he was not fond of them; and on the Prime +Minister's face as he went out he had seen something like tragedy. "Is +he going to cut his throat?" he wondered; but, no, it was not the look +of a beaten man—rather that of a gambler prepared to make his last +throw.</p> + +<p>The King had already made his own—he had nothing more to do; and now he +wanted companionship, some one to humor him with more understanding and +sympathy than his own wife could supply. And it so happened that just +then his only two possible comforters were away. Max had gone to the +Riviera to recruit before the regular sittings of the Commission began, +and Charlotte three days ago had taken that leave of absence which had +been promised her; for in less than a month's time the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser would be paying his promised visit.</p> + +<p>As he could not have the society he craved he chose solitude, and +wandered out into the deepening dusk of the November garden; and there, +gazing up through its now thinned foliage at the quiet and misty heavens +above him, thought of steeplejacks and the death of kings, and how at +the root of every great downfall in history there had probably been some +poor human heart like his own, conscious of failure, longing for the +kindred touch which pride of place makes so impossible. And yet he knew +that he had brought himself to a better end than, with all the defects +of his qualities, he could ordinarily have hoped to secure; perhaps this +dramatic taking of himself off (which he felt in a way to be so out of +character) would help Max to make something out of the situation +startling and unexpected. But Max would have to give up the idea of +marrying the Archbishop's daughter.</p> + +<p>The quiet, dusky paths had led him to a point where high walls carefully +shrouded in creepers shut off the royal stables from view. Through +circular barred grilles he could hear the noise of horses champing in +their stalls; and the comfortable sound drew him round to the entrance. +Opening a wicket, he stood in a dimly lighted court, but the buildings +surrounding it contained plenty of light, and in the harness rooms a +brisk sound of furbishing went on.</p> + +<p>Turning to the left he passed into the largest stable of all, a spacious +and well-aired chamber of corridor-like proportions divided up into +stalls. To right and left of him stood the famous piebald ponies, +lazily munching fodder and settling down to their last sleep before the +unusual exertions which would be required of them on the morrow.</p> + +<p>But these pampered minions did not know as he did what the morrow had in +store: how, for the sake of effect, they would be harnessed to a huge +obsolete coach weighing a couple of tons, each clad in an elaborate +costume of crimson and gold weighing by itself considerably more than a +full-grown rider. To the King this presumed ignorance of theirs was a +matter for envy; he knew his own part in the affair well enough; the +thought of it oppressed him.</p> + +<p>He walked down the double line—twelve in all—pausing now and then to +take a closer look and judge of their condition, but keeping always at a +respectful distance, for he was aware that almost without exception they +were an ill-tempered crew. Contemplating the astonishing rotundity of +their well-filled bodies, the spacious ease of their accommodation, the +outward dignity of circumstances, and the absolute lack of freedom which +conditioned their whole existence, he was struck with the resemblance +between himself and them; and recalling how, with a similar sense of +kinship, St. Francis had preached to the lower forms of life he too +became imbued with the spirit of homily and prophecy, though it did not +actually find its way into words.</p> + +<p>"You and I, little brothers"—so might we loosely interpret the +meditations of his heart—"you and I are much of a muchness, and can +sing our 'Te Deum' or our 'Nunc Dimittis' in almost the same words. We +are both of a carefully selected breed and of a diminished usefulness. +But because of our high position we are fed and housed not merely in +comfort but in luxury; and wherever we go crowds stand to gape at us and +applaud when we nod our heads at them. We live always in the purlieus of +palaces, and never have we known what it is to throw up our heels in a +green pasture, nor in our old age are we turned out comfortably to +grass—only to Nebuchadnezzar by accident came that thing, and he did +not appreciate it as he should have done. Never shall we go into battle +to prove that we are worth our salt, and to say 'Ha, Ha' to the fighting +and the captains; nor is it allowed to us to devour the ground with our +speed: whenever we attempt such a thing it is cut from under us. Little +brothers, it is before all things necessary that we should behave; for +being once harnessed to the royal coach, if any one of us struck work or +threw out our heels we should upset many apple-carts and the machinery +of the State would be dislocated. Let us thank God, therefore, that long +habit and training have made us docile, and that our backs are strong +enough to bear the load that is put upon them, and that if one of us +goes another immediately fills his place so that he is not missed."</p> + +<p>In a vague, unformulated way this was the homily which arose from his +meditations; and if he thought at all specially of himself and present +circumstances, it was merely as an insignificant exception which proved +the general rule.</p> + +<p>As he strolled back again he stopped at the door and spoke to the man in +charge.</p> + +<p>"They all seem very fit, Jacobs," said he. "They do you credit, I must +say."</p> + +<p>"Fit they are, your Majesty!" said the man, beaming with satisfied +pride; "and so they ought to be, considering the trouble we've took with +'em. We've been polishing them like old pewter for days. Ah! they know +what's coming; and you can see 'em just longing for it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they like it, do they?"</p> + +<p>"Believe me, your Majesty, they couldn't live without it. It's in the +blood—been in 'em from father to son. Why, if we didn't take 'em out to +help us open and shut Parliament and things of that sort, they'd think +we was mad."</p> + +<p>This was a new point of view; the King listened to it with respectful +interest, and then a fresh thought occurred to him.</p> + +<p>"Jacobs," he said, "did one of them ever refuse to go?—on a public +occasion, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, your Majesty, it did once happen; before my time, though. +One of 'em—ah, it was at a funeral, too—he stuck his heels into the +ground and couldn't be got to start, not for love or money."</p> + +<p>"Which did they offer him?"</p> + +<p>"Ask pardon, your Majesty?—Oh, just my manner of speaking, that was. +Wouldn't go except on his own terms."</p> + +<p>"And what were they?"</p> + +<p>"Well, your Majesty, he was a clever one, you see, he was; they aren't +generally. But he, he'd got a taste for his own set of harness—knew it +by the smell, I suppose, and when they come to put it on him a bit of it +broke, and he wouldn't wear anything else. That's how it all come +about."</p> + +<p>"They tried, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they got it on him; and they got him out, before all the crowd, +with the guns going and the handkerchiefs a-waving—Ah, no; but that was +a funeral though—there weren't no handkerchiefs that day. Well, there +he was; and when he felt they was all looking at him, and the +perishables kept waiting behind——"</p> + +<p>"The perishables?"</p> + +<p>"The corpse, sir;—then he wouldn't move."</p> + +<p>"Very embarrassing, I must say."</p> + +<p>"You see, your Majesty, they couldn't beat him in public—not as he +deserved; 'twouldn't have been respectful to what was there. They had to +do that afterwards. But, believe me, he stopped the whole show for +twenty minutes and more; and they never used <i>him</i> again."</p> + +<p>"What became of him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he was just kept, in case; but he weren't never used—he was +reckoned too risky after that. Oh, and he felt it too; I haven't a doubt +but he did. They don't like only to be one of the extras, they don't."</p> + +<p>"What does that mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you see, sir, there's always four extras here, in case of +accident; and believe me, your Majesty, when the four extras to-morrow +find 'emselves left out they'll squeal for hours, and it won't be safe +to go near 'em, not for days. Blood's a wonderful thing, sir, wonderful! +And they know, just as well as you or me."</p> + +<p>"And what becomes of them when they grow old?"</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, they make saddle-cloths of 'em for the band of the +forty-ninth Hussars. Your Majesty may have reckonized 'em; most people +think it's giraffe skin, but it's really our old ponies."</p> + +<p>"So they come in useful even at the last?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir, they ends well, one can't deny that; and they have to be +in pretty good condition too. So they aren't none of 'em what you might +call really old."</p> + +<p>"Very interesting," said the King. "What a great deal there is in the +world that one doesn't know till one comes to inquire."</p> + +<p>"About horses? Your Majesty's right there!" said the man; and his tone +spoke volumes of the things which would never be written, but which +those who had the care of horses knew.</p> + +<p>As the King moved away from that brief colloquy, one phrase in +particular stuck in his mind. "He was reckoned too risky after that." +Was that, he wondered, what the Prime Minister was thinking about him +now; had he, indeed, proved himself too risky for future use? If so +there would be no yielding at the eleventh hour; and perhaps it was as +well that to-morrow would see him harnessed to the royal coach for the +last time.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h2>A DEED WITHOUT A NAME</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The King and Queen sat in their state coach responding with low bows to +the plaudits of the crowd. Their velvets and ermines lay heavy upon +them, for although it was now November, the day was close and warm, and +there seemed to be thunder in the air.</p> + +<p>The King, in this his Jubilee year, had resumed wearing his crown on +great State occasions, for he found that the people liked it. He had +worn it at the Foot-washing; and every one then admitted that it gave +the true symbolic touch to the whole ceremony. And now for the last +time he was wearing it again.</p> + +<p>Artistically he was right; a cocked hat, of nineteenth-century pattern, +does not accord well with robes in the style of the sixteenth. In some +countries that mistake is made by royalty out of compliment to the army; +but if on these State occasions sartorial compliments are to be paid +irrespective of the general effect, then surely your monarch should wear +a wig as representative of the law, lawn-sleeves in honor of the Church, +and divide the rest of his person impartially between the army, the +navy, and the doctors. Thus all the great professions would receive +their due recognition, and we should presently find so symbolical a +combination just as harmonious and dignified, and as pregnant with +meaning, as we do the heraldic quarterings by which the mixed blood of +ancestry is so proudly displayed. We can get accustomed to anything if +there is a good reason for it; but when we cease to be reasonable, +beauty should be our only guide. In this case reason as well as beauty +had induced King John of Jingalo to reject the cocked hat and to resume +the crown.</p> + +<p>The royal coach had already borne its occupants along two miles of the +route; and continued exercise was making them warm.</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, "it's very stuffy in here; I feel as +if I were in a furnace. Why did you ask to have the windows closed, my +dear?"</p> + +<p>"It makes one feel so much safer," said the Queen, keeping her +stereotyped smile, and sweeping a bow as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Safer from what?" Here his Majesty responded to a fresh burst of +cheers.</p> + +<p>"Accidents," replied his consort; "one never knows."</p> + +<p>"Glass, my dear, does not protect one from the accidents of Kings. Glass +can't stop bullets, you know."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that sort of accident; and I wish you wouldn't talk +about them just now."</p> + +<p>"You always take out an umbrella when you don't want it to rain; and if +one talks about accidents then they don't happen. At least that has +always been my experience. What sort of accident do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Dust, and microbes, and infection, and all that sort of thing. There +must be a lot of it about in so large a crowd; I wonder how many people +with measles."</p> + +<p>"What an idea!" exclaimed the King: "people with measles don't come out +to see shows."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, they do,—nursemaids especially. They all catch it from each +other in the public parks; at least so I've been told. And whenever I +see a perambulator now, I think of it."</p> + +<p>"There are no perambulators here to-day," said the King, "so you needn't +think about measles. Smallpox if you like; though it strikes me that all +I have yet seen are remarkably healthy specimens—considering how many +of them there are." And he bowed to the healthy specimens as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Very enthusiastic," murmured the Queen appreciatively.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I wonder if presently they will be as enthusiastic about Max."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing. I was only thinking ahead, in quite a general sort of way. +We seem lately to have become quite popular."</p> + +<p>"I think we have always been."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you have, my dear; about myself I was not so sure. Well, it's very +gratifying to come upon it just now."</p> + +<p>His Majesty felt a little guilty, for he had not yet told the Queen of +what lay ahead; it was so much better that she should not know +beforehand what she would never be able to understand.</p> + +<p>Then for a while they relapsed into silence, each attending to what +Charlotte would have described as their "business"—a carefully +regulated succession of bows accompanied by a smile which never quite +left off.</p> + +<p>Presently the King spoke again. "By the way, where has Charlotte gone +to?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I hardly know," said the Queen. "She wrote to me from her first +address—that college place; but said she was going on elsewhere, and I +thought you settled that we were to leave her alone."</p> + +<p>"I think she ought to have waited till to-morrow. As Max is away, she at +least should have been here."</p> + +<p>"So I told her; but she said she had a very particular engagement which +she must keep; and I could see that, relying upon your promise, she +meant to have her own way, so I said nothing."</p> + +<p>"I hope they are going to like each other," said the King, his thoughts +carrying on to the meeting which was now near.</p> + +<p>"She and the Prince? Oh, yes, I think there's no doubt about it. +Strange, wasn't it, that her running away actually pleased him?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose it was so very unusual. We don't as a rule get people to run +away from us. It's generally all the other way. Look at this crowd! I +wonder how the police manage to keep them back."</p> + +<p>Smiling and bowing, the Queen replied: "They are so well behaved; and +see, how patient. Many, I daresay, have been here for hours. Doesn't +that show loyalty?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't all loyalty, my dear; they like the whole spectacle, the +troops, the coach, the piebald ponies. Last night I went to look at +them; four of them have been left out."</p> + +<p>"What a strange thing to do."</p> + +<p>"But some have to be."</p> + +<p>"No; going to see them, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know; they play a very important part in the proceedings, +and in a way they are heroes, for wherever they go with us they share +our danger. I heard quite a lot of interesting things about them."</p> + +<p>At this moment they were approaching a part of the route which separated +them for a while from the popular plaudits. In the forefront was a deep +archway, and beyond it was a brief stretch of road shut in by hoardings +and dominated by high masts of scaffolding, behind which new Government +buildings were in process of erection. Across each front to left and +right a few strings of bunting fluttered to give festive relief; for +here there were no stands filled with spectators, no pavements lined +with shouting crowds; and behind the palisades work had been knocked off +for the day. The cry of the populace lulled down to a mere murmur, and +the trampling of the hoofs echoed strangely as they passed under the +vaulted arch and along the walled-in track with its huge baulks of +timber on both sides supporting the growth of stone walls.</p> + +<p>Ahead stood a wide gateway opening by a sharp turn into Regency Row, +whose broad thoroughfare of cream-tinted façades, now bright with flags, +formed an ideal rallying-ground for the sightseeing multitude.</p> + +<p>"Now there," said the King, pointing ahead to a high triangular building +facing the gates through which they were about to emerge, "there is the +place that I always think a bomb might be thrown from with much +certainty and effect, plump into the middle of us, just as we are +turning the corner."</p> + +<p>"I do wish you would leave off talking about such things," said the +Queen reproachfully, "or wait till we are safe home again. How can I +keep on smiling, if you go putting bombs into my head?"</p> + +<p>"I was only saying, my dear——"</p> + +<p>Suddenly, from behind, an amazing detonation seemed to strike at the +smalls of their backs, throwing them half out of their seats. The glass +slide upon the Queen's side of the coach ran down with a crash, and one +of the large gilt baubles from its roof toppled and fell into the road. +At the same instant a great blast and swirl of smoke blew by, shutting +for a moment the outer world from view. Then loud cries, hullabalooings, +shoutings—a scramble and clatter of hoofs as though three or four +horses had gone down and were up again—a capering flash of pink silk +calves—as the six footmen exploded upon from the rear sought safety in +front where the eight piebald ponies were all standing on end with men +hanging on to their noses. And then further disorder of a less violent +kind, runnings to and fro, and from the crowd waiting ahead a vast and +tumultuous cry rather jovial in its sound.</p> + +<p>The King had risen from his seat, and trying to look out and see what +was going on behind had put his head through the glass, his crown acting +as a safe and effective battering ram.</p> + +<p>"I do believe there has been an attempt," he said, drawing his head in +again. "That certainly sounded like a bomb; not that I have had much +experience of such things."</p> + +<p>Then he did what he should have done at first, and let down the glass.</p> + +<p>"I am going to faint," sighed the Queen, sinking back in her seat.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" said the King sharply. "Pull yourself together, Alicia! You +are not hurt."</p> + +<p>"I think I am," she said. But the sharp tone acted as a tonic, and she +settled herself comfortably in her corner and began quietly to cry.</p> + +<p>There was still plenty of confusion going on. The piebald ponies had +been brought to a standstill, and some of them were now showing temper. +A voluble and excited crowd was trying to break through the police lines +and grasp the whole situation at a run. Troops were coming to the +rescue; horsemen from the rear dashed by. Then a staff officer galloped +up to the coach window, and reining a jiggetty steed saluted with +agitated air and a rather white face.</p> + +<p>"The danger is over, your Majesty," he gasped, a little out of breath, +"only a few horses are down; no one is killed."</p> + +<p>The King nodded acceptance of the news; and as he did so noticed a tiny +fleck of blood upon the officer's cheek—no more than if he had cut +himself in shaving. It seemed to give the correct measure of the +catastrophe, and to assure him more than words could have done that the +damage was really small.</p> + +<p>Except for that one moment when he had impulsively put his head through +glass, the King had kept his wits and remained calm; and now his royal +instinct told him the right thing to be done.</p> + +<p>"If you want to manage that crowd," he said, "we had much better drive +on. Until we do they may think that anything has happened. Tell them to +start, and not to drive fast."</p> + +<p>The officer went forward bearing the royal order.</p> + +<p>"Alicia," said the King, "there really is nothing to cry about; the most +important thing is to show the people that we are not hurt. Pull +yourself together, my dear. There! now we are starting again. And if you +think you can manage it, stand right up at your window and I will stand +at mine; then nobody can have any doubt at all."</p> + +<p>He removed some shattered glass from her lap as he spoke, and gave an +encouraging squeeze to her hand; and as the coach moved forward they +stood up and confidently presented themselves to the public gaze.</p> + +<p>Sure enough that sight had a magical effect equal to the controlling +force of a thousand police. The crowd recovered its wits and allowed +itself to be shoved back into place. Out through the gates sallied the +piebald ponies; and from end to end all Regency Row broke into a roar. +Ahead went the troops and the police, pressing back the once more +amenable crowd; men and women were weeping, moist handkerchiefs were +ecstatically waved, quite new and reputable hats were thrown up into +air, and allowed to fall unreclaimed and unregarded. And truly it was a +sight well calculated to stir the blood, for there, emerging unhurt from +dust and smoke, from rumor and sound of terror, came the monarch and his +Queen standing upon their feet and bowing undaunted to a furore of +cries.</p> + +<p>Through all that vast multitude word of the outrage had sped, like a +black raven flapping its wings, charged ominously with tidings of death; +and as confusion had spread wide nothing more could be heard, till once +more a resumption of the processional movement was seen. Then came +white-faced footmen quaking at the knees; after them eight piebald +ponies rather badly behaved and requiring a good deal of holding in; and +then Royalty, itself smiling and quite unharmed. And straightway the +ordinary loyalty of a sightseeing Jingalese crowd was merged in a +passionate and tumultuous cry of jubilant humanity; and the royal +procession became a triumphal progress.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The Queen was still crying a little when they reached their +destination; but she was very happy all the same, for she felt that +between them they had risen to the occasion and had passed exceedingly +well through an ordeal that falls only to few.</p> + +<p>And now at the House of Legislature itself a strangely informal +reception awaited them. Word of what had happened had gone in to the two +Chambers, and human nature proving too strong, rules and regulations of +ceremony had been dispensed with, and out had streamed judges, prelates, +and laity in full force, to attend upon their own front door-step the +belated arrival of their mercifully preserved Sovereign and his Queen.</p> + +<p>And when they did arrive, the whole House of Laity there assembled broke +into cheers; and not to be behindhand in demonstrations of loyalty, the +Judges and the Bishops cheered too—a thing that none of them had done +individually for years; and in their official and corporate capacity, +judicial and ecclesiastical, never in their lives before.</p> + +<p>Then as spokesmen for their respective parties, for Ministerialists and +for Opposition, came the Prime Minister and the Archbishop, giving voice +to the thankfulness that was felt by all.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop performed his part the better of the two; for between him +and his sovereign there were no strained relations; he was also on +closer terms of reference to the Powers above; and so, while giving +earthly circumstances their due, he rendered grateful thanks to a +Beneficence which had guided and directed all. The Prime Minister did +not.</p> + +<p>The King, in recalling afterwards the happy impromptus of that scene +when Prelates and Laity were vying with each other in the expression of +their relief, remembered how once or twice the Prime Minister had halted +and gone back to the repetition of a former phrase, like one who having +learned a lesson had momentarily lost the hang of it.</p> + +<p>The circumstance did not greatly impress him at the time, he was ready +to make allowances, for between him and his minister the situation was +somewhat embarrassing. They had parted with unreconciled views, and by +no stretch of terms could their relationship any longer be regarded as +friendly. All the same, on such an occasion it was incumbent upon the +Prime Minister to say the correct thing, and he had said it: he had +described the outrage as "a dastardly attempt," and the immunity of his +sovereign as "a happy and almost miraculous escape" for which none had +more reason to be thankful than himself and his colleagues; he had also +said that the passionate attachment of the people of Jingalo to the +person of their ruler had now been made abundantly evident, and he +trusted might ever so continue.</p> + +<p>Later in the day, when the short ceremony of Parliament's closing was +over (for it was impossible under the circumstances to return to stiff +formality, no one being in the mood for it), later in the day, he again +presented himself, and besought a private audience. And then—while once +more repeating what he had said previously, almost in the same +words,—he showed that he had something very serious of which to deliver +himself.</p> + +<p>He began with a great parade of leaving the matter to the King's +decision only; his duty was merely to state the case as it would strike +the world.</p> + +<p>"We are in your Majesty's hands," he said, "and I have no wish to revive +a discussion in which your Majesty has by right the last word. I have +only to ask whether the circumstances of the last few hours have in any +way affected your Majesty's decision."</p> + +<p>As usual this formal insistence upon his "majesty" aroused the King's +distrust; with his ministers in privacy he always disliked it. But all +he said was: "Why should it?"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister pursed his lips and elaborately paused, as though +finding it difficult to express himself. Then he said—</p> + +<p>"After an attempted assassination so nearly successful, abdication would +have a different effect to what your Majesty presumably intended."</p> + +<p>"How?" inquired the King. But though he asked he already knew; and +mentally his jaw dropped, as a new apparition of failure rose up and +confronted him.</p> + +<p>"It might seem to reflect upon your Majesty's personal courage: about +which, I need hardly say, I myself have no doubt whatever."</p> + +<p>"I see," said the King. His voice sounded the depression which had again +begun to overwhelm him.</p> + +<p>"I have no wish to press your Majesty," the Premier went on; "but at the +present moment we are still under orders that to-morrow the definite and +irrevocable announcement is to be made public."</p> + +<p>Again he paused; and the King did not answer him.</p> + +<p>"I wish to ask, therefore, whether it is your Majesty's wish that the +announcement of the abdication shall be postponed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the King, and his words came slow, "I suppose that it must +be—as you say—postponed."</p> + +<p>"Does your Majesty wish to suggest any later date?"</p> + +<p>The King thought for a while before answering.</p> + +<p>"Is there any reason that I should?" But though he thus spoke to +temporize over the position in which he now found himself, he knew that +his opportunity was gone never to recur.</p> + +<p>"Merely for our own guidance," explained the Prime Minister. "There is +to be a special Cabinet meeting to-night."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to discuss?"</p> + +<p>"Should your Majesty remain, it will be our duty to present an address +of loyal congratulation immediately on the reassembling of Parliament; +and that, under the new circumstances, must take place almost at once. +In any event some address will, of course, have to be moved; but if what +has happened to-day is followed by an abdication, then regrets and deep +gratitude for all the gracious benefits of the past would have to be +added, and the whole form of it most carefully weighed and considered. I +may say, therefore, that we are even now awaiting your Majesty's +instructions."</p> + +<p>"And you can do nothing till I decide?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing practical, sir."</p> + +<p>Their eyes met with a lurking watchfulness; and it was not difficult for +each to read something of the other's thought. The King knew that behind +all that aspect of deference and humility lay a sense of triumph, +almost malignant in its intensity. He knew that circumstances had beaten +him; and that the bomb of some wretched assassin had made his abdication +impossible. The Prime Minister had said that he had no wish to press +him; but what a pretense and hypocrisy that was, when that very night +the Cabinet would have to meet and register its decision in one of two +alternative forms totally distinct. Yes; the Ministry had him now in a +cleft stick; and no pressure was to be put upon him only because there +was no possibility for his decision to be delayed.</p> + +<p>Defeat, following upon the terrific events of the day, filled his brain +with weariness. At the moment when he had hoped to be free of his +persecutors he had come once again to a blank wall. Further progress was +barred, further thinking had become useless, events must take their +course; once more he felt himself the sport of fate—a mere chip +floating with the stream.</p> + +<p>"Very well, Mr. Prime Minister," he said with resignation, "the +Abdication is withdrawn."</p> + +<p>He sighed deeply; and then (when left alone to his cogitations), for +such weak comfort as the mere saving of his face could lend, this +thought occurred to him,—"What a good thing that I told nobody about +it." Even Max did not know.</p> + +<p>And so in the year of his Jubilee, and the plenitude of his popularity, +John of Jingalo continued to reign; and was, in consequence, the most +saddened and humiliated monarch who ever bowed his head under a crown +and resigned his freedom to a mixed sense of duty and a fear of what +people might say.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h2>CONCEALMENT AND DISCOVERY</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>There was plenty of hue and cry to discover the perpetrator of the +outrage, but nothing came of it. From somewhere in that labyrinth of +unfinished building and scaffolding fenced in by high hoardings a bomb +had been thrown of insufficient power to do much damage to anybody. The +Prefect of Police, riding in close attendance on the royal carriage, had +himself vaulted the barrier, on the side whence it had seemed to come, +and reported that he had found no trace of any one. Pieces of the shell +had been collected upon the spot, they had not flown very far, nor were +they much broken; and experts of the detective department had been busy +putting together the bits.</p> + +<p>The whole performance turned out on investigation to have been so feeble +and amateurish that suspicion rapidly descended from the more +experienced practitioners of anarchy, imported from other countries, to +home-products of later growth—strikers made desperate and savage by the +recent sentences upon their leaders, or, as some would have it, the +Women Chartists, hoping by an attack upon royalty to bring a neglectful +ministry to its senses. As there were no real clues except those which +industriously led nowhere and which the police seemed delightedly to +follow, everybody was free to lay the charge against any agitating +section of the community which they happened to regard with special +disfavor; and for that reason the Women Chartists did, in fact, get most +of the blame.</p> + +<p>But in the process they also reaped a certain advantage; the mere +suspicion, though malice directed it, was good for them. Had it been +possible to convict them, their cause would have gone down for another +generation; but there was really nothing to catch hold of, and the power +of any organization to commit such an outrage without being detected—to +break the glass of the King's coach and make the eight piebald ponies +rise up on end in horror—was a power which raised them greatly in the +eyes of all law-abiding people; it suggested an unknown potency for +mischief far more ominous than had discovery and conviction followed. +And so, while squibs and crackers were being thrown at them and sham +bombs hurled into their meetings to show how greatly the law-abiding +people of Jingalo disapproved of them for incurring such +suspicion—politically, the unjustly suspected ones moved a little +nearer to their goal.</p> + +<p>As for the King and Queen, they were simply inundated with telegrams and +letters of congratulation. In many instances the loyalty shown was +extraordinarily touching: one instance will suffice. Every schoolboy in +every public school in Jingalo contributed a penny from his pocket money +to a congratulatory telegram sent in the name of the school; and when, +as sometimes happened, the school numbered over six hundred boys the +telegram had necessarily to be lengthy, and proved a severe tax upon the +literary ability of its senders.</p> + +<p>Amid all this influx—this passionate outpouring of loyalty to a King +who had stood only a few days before within an ace of abdication, there +were of course messages of a more intimate and personal kind. Every +crowned head in Europe had written with that fellow-feeling which on +such occasions royalty is bound to express. "I know what it is like +myself," wrote one who had had six attempts made on him; "but I have +never had it done to me from behind. How very devastating to the nerves +that must be!" The Prince of Schnapps-Wasser wired that he could find no +language to express himself, but hoped in a few weeks' time to come and +show all that he felt. Max after a brief wire had flown back to town; +and his obvious perturbation and demonstrative affection had made it a +happy meeting.</p> + +<p>But, while all these messages flowed, there was one inexplicable +silence. Charlotte neither wrote nor telegraphed; nor did she return +home. That portent dawned upon their Majesties as they breakfasted late +the next morning with correspondence and telegrams piled up beside them.</p> + +<p>"What can have become of Charlotte?" cried the Queen. "She must <i>know</i>!"</p> + +<p>"If she knew, she would be here," said the King, confident in his +daughter's affection.</p> + +<p>They stared at each other in a surmise which turned gradually to dismay. +This unfilial silence upon their escape from the bomb of the assassin +told them with staggering certainty that Charlotte was missing.</p> + +<p>"She has run away!" cried the Queen.</p> + +<p>"But she must be somewhere," objected the King; "and wherever she is she +would surely have heard the news."</p> + +<p>"She may be quite out in the country," suggested the Queen, picking up +hope.</p> + +<p>"Still she has friends who must know where she has gone."</p> + +<p>"It's incredible!" cried her Majesty; "heartless, I call it."</p> + +<p>"No, no, she simply doesn't know!" said the King; of that he was quite +certain. "We are sure to hear from her in the course of the day," he +continued reassuringly, "meanwhile we shall have to make inquiries."</p> + +<p>But the day went on, and no sign from Charlotte; nor did inquiries bring +definite news up to date. She had arrived with her expectant hostess on +the day appointed; but after staying only one night had gone elsewhere, +and from that point in place and time no trace of her was to be found.</p> + +<p>Before the day was over the King and Queen had become terribly anxious, +and by the end of the week they were almost at their wits' end.</p> + +<p>And here we get yet another instance of the drawbacks and dangers which +attend upon royalty. Had Charlotte belonged to any ordinary rank of +life, it could have been announced that she was missing; her description +could have been issued to the press, and search for her made reasonably +effective. But, as things were, this could not be done, Charlotte was +impulsive and did indiscreet things; and until one knew exactly what it +portended, to publish her disappearance to all the world would have been +too rash and sudden a proceeding. Once that was done there could be no +hushing up of the matter; all Jingalo, nay, all Europe, would have to +hear of it, including, of course, the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser; and so, +at all costs of private strain and anxiety, it was necessary to conceal +as long as possible that the Princess was not where she ought to be, and +was perhaps where she ought not to be.</p> + +<p>Now please, do not let my readers at this point think that it was +Charlotte who had thrown the bomb. Even for the sake of literary effect, +I would not for one moment deceive them. It was not Charlotte; Charlotte +had nothing to do with it, and did not even know of it. And yet—I will +give them for a while this small problem to grapple with—Charlotte was +quite well, was in possession of all her senses, was thoroughly enjoying +herself, and was not outside the land of her inheritance. Most +emphatically she had not run away.</p> + +<p>And there for the moment we will leave the matter, and attend to things +more important.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The King had caught sight in the newspaper of something which annoyed +him very much; annoyed him all the more because it seemed to betoken +that the moment his abdication was withdrawn the old ministerial +encroachments on the royal prerogative had begun again.</p> + +<p>"We are officially informed," so ran the paragraph, "that the Minister +of the Interior has advised his Majesty to grant a reprieve to the three +strike leaders now lying under sentence of death for their part in the +recent riots and police murders. It is understood that the sentences +will be commuted to penal servitude for life."</p> + +<p>And this was the first the King had heard of it!</p> + +<p>He sent at once for the Home Minister; and within an hour that great +official stood before him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Secretary," said the King sharply, as he laid the offending +paragraph before him, "since when, may I ask, has the Crown's +prerogative of mercy become the perquisite of the Home Office?"</p> + +<p>"I do not think, sir," submitted the Secretary with all outward +humility, "that any such change has come about. In this case the +circumstances were special and very urgent."</p> + +<p>"Why, then, was I not consulted?"</p> + +<p>"There was hardly time, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"I was here."</p> + +<p>"I apprehended that the recent event—so very upsetting to your +Majesty——"</p> + +<p>"Come, come," interjected the King, "if I was able to read my speech +immediately after it—as I did—I was quite able to attend to other +business as well; and you ought to have known it."</p> + +<p>The King did not thus usually speak to one of his ministers; but, having +just had to face so heavy a defeat of his plans for honorable +retirement, he was the more bent on asserting himself.</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty will pardon me, it had to be issued to the press without a +moment's delay. We had received information which made the matter of +great urgency."</p> + +<p>"I will hear your explanation," said the King coldly; and the Secretary +went on.</p> + +<p>"You are doubtless aware, sir, that about these sentences there has been +a very considerable agitation among the workers; and the utter failure +of the strike has not improved matters."</p> + +<p>"I am aware of that," said the King.</p> + +<p>"It had always been my intention, as soon as the march of strikers had +been dispersed in an orderly manner, to recommend the exercise of the +royal clemency. It was in fact merely a matter of hours, when +circumstances forestalled us. The session closed before any of the +strike marchers could arrive upon the scene; and then came the event +which diverted popular attention. It was for that reason, I presume, +that only yesterday certain of the men's leaders made very inflammatory +speeches—of a kind which it would be extremely difficult for the +authorities to overlook or make any appearance of yielding to. One +speech in particular, calling upon the hangman to refuse to perform his +duty and threatening his life if he did so, was of a peculiarly +seditious character; for I need hardly point out that if that +functionary is not protected in the fulfilment of his official duties +the downfall of law and order has begun. It was absolutely necessary, +therefore, to forestall any reports of that speech in the metropolitan +press. For a few hours we were able to keep back the news; your +Majesty's clemency was announced in the late issues of all the evening +papers, and the 'Don't Hang' speech was not reported till this morning; +and thus, coming after the event, has fallen comparatively flat. I think +that now your Majesty will understand the position."</p> + +<p>The Secretary had finished.</p> + +<p>"And that is your explanation?" queried the King.</p> + +<p>The minister bowed.</p> + +<p>"I have to say that it does not satisfy me."</p> + +<p>The minister lifted sad eyebrows, but did not speak.</p> + +<p>"You tell me that for many days this recommendation of mercy has been +your fixed intention. Why, then, did you not consult me? Why did you +assume that, at a moment's notice, I should be able to fall in with your +suggestion; why, even, that I should think the dispersal of certain +riotous assemblies a convenient signal for the exercise of the royal +prerogative?"</p> + +<p>"I have merely followed, sir, the ordinary course of procedure observed +in my department."</p> + +<p>"Until, being unexpectedly pressed for time, you departed from it. After +all the telephone was between us; I was here. I might not have agreed: +but at least I should have been consulted!"</p> + +<p>The minister pursed his lips; to this sort of hectoring he had really +nothing to say. It did not comport with his official dignity.</p> + +<p>The King rose. "Mr. Secretary, as I have already said, your explanation +does not satisfy me. I shall communicate my sentiments to the Prime +Minister."</p> + +<p>His Majesty did not extend his hand; but by a motion of the head showed +that the interview was over; and there was nothing left for the Minister +of the Interior to do but retire from the room.</p> + +<p>And the next day he retired from office; for though the Prime Minister +urged many things in his defense, and more particularly the +misapprehension which his present retirement might cause, the King +remained obdurate; he was bent upon making an example. In the great +political game he had miscalculated and lamentably failed, but red-tape +was still his cherished possession; and you can do a good deal with +red-tape when you have an unquestioned authority to fall back upon. +Professor Teller's volumes of Constitutional History still lay upon a +retired shelf in the royal library (indeed it was from one of them that +he had extracted with slight changes his formal pronouncement of +abdication); and if he could not get anything else out of his ministers +he was determined to secure official correctness. Though they slighted +his opinion, they should recognize his authority; punctiliousness at +least they should render him as his one remaining due.</p> + +<p>And so when the Prime Minister urged how small and accidental was the +omission, his Majesty remarked that it was one of many; and when he +argued how any delay might have proved dangerous, the point at which +delay had begun was again icily indicated. More pressingly still did he +invite the King to consider in what light, if unexplained, this +resignation would be popularly regarded; would it not be taken as an +admission of blame by the head of the Home Department for the occurrence +of the late outrage?</p> + +<p>"Very likely," assented the King; "after all it took place on +Government premises." Whereat the Prime Minister, looking somewhat +startled and distressed, inquired whether any such imputation of blame +had been his Majesty's ulterior motive for his present action.</p> + +<p>"I have no motives left," said the King wearily; "I am merely doing my +duty."</p> + +<p>In which aspect he was proving himself a very difficult person to deal +with. "I am not arguing, I am only telling you," was an attitude which +put him in a much stronger position with his intellectual superiors than +any attempt at converting them to his views. From this day on he stood +forth to his ministers as a rigid constitutional reminder; and with six +volumes of the minutiæ of constitutional usage at his fingers' ends the +amount of time he was able to waste and the amount of trouble he was +able to give were simply amazing.</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister had been quite right; the resignation of the Home +Secretary caused just that flutter of unfavorable suspicion which he had +expected. For some reason or another he was extremely distressed by it, +and begged from his Majesty the grant of a full State pension to the +retired minister. But the King would not hear of it. "It is not my +duty," he said, "to grant full pensions to those who fail in their +official obligations. Where I am more personally concerned I have not +pressed you; I have not asked for the resignation of the Prefect of +Police, though I think I might have some reason to show for it. He +prevented nothing, and he has discovered nothing. Do you expect me to +open Parliament for you again next week, with the same ceremony, along +the same route, and at the same risk?"</p> + +<p>He was assured that every precaution would be taken.</p> + +<p>"I hope so," he said in the tone of one who very much doubted whether +the ministerial word was now worth anything.</p> + +<p>Under this harassing and unhandsome treatment the Prime Minister was +beginning to show age; and the coming session gave no promise that his +cares in other respects would be less heavy than before; the Women +Chartists were threatening a bigger outbreak in the near future, and +Labor was now claiming to be freely supported from the rates either when +out of work or when on strike. And when the Address to the Throne was +being moved Labor and the Women Chartists would be in renewed agitation, +asking for things which would make party politics quite impossible, and +which it was therefore quite impossible for party politics to grant. If +the Government had not still got that thoroughly unpopular House of +Bishops to sit upon and coerce, things would be looking very black +indeed.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>And meanwhile where was the Princess Charlotte? Seven horrible days had +gone by; and the inner circle of the detective force had been running +about in padded slippers, so to speak, giving an accurate description of +a lady whose name nobody knew, and who had been last seen in the +vicinity of a college for women. Very privately and confidentially the +titled lady who was the head of that institution had been interviewed; +but her information was limited.</p> + +<p>"She came to me only for one day," said the Principal, "though I thought +she was intending to stay a week. I hardly know when I missed her; she +had laid it down so very emphatically that she was to be left free and +treated without ceremony, that really I did not trouble to look after +her. Whenever she was here her Highness always mixed quite freely with +the students; I know that with some of them she had made friends. They +are far more likely to know what her plans were than I am."</p> + +<p>Further inquiry in the direction thus indicated had to be carried on +elsewhere, since the students had now separated for the vacation; and +wherever inquiry was made the same stealthy secrecy had to be adopted; +nobody must be allowed to suppose that the Princess Royal of Jingalo was +missing. And so—on a sort of all-fours not at all conducive to +speed—the quest went on.</p> + +<p>On the fifth day, however, some relief had arrived to reduce the +parental anxiety to bearable proportions. A letter, dropped from +nowhere, bearing the metropolitan postmark, came to the King's hands. It +gave only the barest, yet very essential information.</p> + +<p>"Dearest papa," it ran, "I am quite well, and enjoying myself. I shall +be back in a fortnight."</p> + +<p>News of the arrival of this letter was immediately conveyed to the +Constabulary Chief; and after three days of deep cogitation the absence +of all reference to the outrage and to the risk run by those near and +dear to her seemed to strike him as peculiar, and supplied him with what +hitherto the police had lacked—a clue. And after two more days of +strenuously directed search it bore fruit.</p> + +<p>Late one afternoon the King was sitting at work in his study when his +Comptroller-General entered hastily and in evident excitement; for +though the King was then busily engaged in writing he presumed to +interrupt, not waiting for the royal interrogating glance to give him +his permission.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, in a tone of very urgent apology.</p> + +<p>"Well, well?" said the King rather testily, for he did not like his +writing-hour to be thus disturbed, "what is it?"</p> + +<p>"The Prime Minister wishes to see you, sir, on a matter of extreme +urgency."</p> + +<p>The King had so long been pestered by ministers on matters which they +considered urgent and which he did not, that he had little patience for +such pleas, coming at the wrong time.</p> + +<p>"What about?" he inquired curtly.</p> + +<p>The Comptroller-General, who was supposed not to know, replied +discreetly but in a tone of veiled meaning, "Something in the Home +Department I believe, sir. Just now, while there is no chief secretary, +the Prime Minister himself is seeing to matters."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear!" sighed his Majesty, "I do wish he would manage to get his +urgent business done at the proper time!"</p> + +<p>"I think, sir," said the General, "that this matter is one of sufficient +importance to justify a suspension of the ordinary rules." He paused, as +though about to say more, but thought better of it; after all the matter +did not lie within his department.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said the King, "let him come in, then!" And in due course +the Premier entered.</p> + +<p>It was evident at a glance that he was the bearer of important, nay, +even alarming, intelligence; his eye was startled and anxious, his +manner full of discomposure, and without waste of a moment he opened +abruptly upon the business which had brought him.</p> + +<p>"I have come to inform your Majesty," said he, "that we have at last +discovered the Princess Charlotte's whereabouts."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said the King, excluding from his tone any indication of gratitude +over the too long delayed discovery. "And pray, where is she?"</p> + +<p>"I regret to say, sir, that her Royal Highness is at this moment in +Stonewall Jail."</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, startled out of his coldness. +"Whatever took her there?"</p> + +<p>"She was taken, sir, in a 'Molly Hold-all'<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> along with several others. +And she has been there for the last ten days."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes; but what I want to know is what has she been doing? In this +country one doesn't get put into prison for nothing, I should hope."</p> + +<p>"The charge, sir, was for assaulting the police. No doubt there has been +a very regrettable mistake; there was, unquestionably, in the +magistrate's court, some conflict of evidence."</p> + +<p>"Assaulting the police!" exclaimed the King petulantly.</p> + +<p>"But what else are the police there for?—when there's trouble, I mean. +And how many of them did she assault, pray?"</p> + +<p>"I believe only one, sir," replied the Prime Minister; "at least only +one of them gave any evidence against her, and there were five witnesses +to say that she did not assault him. The magistrate who convicted, +however, accepted the constable's evidence; he is, I believe, rather +hard of hearing; and I am told that he thought the witnesses in her +favor were all giving evidence against her. If that is so, it +sufficiently accounts for the conviction. On the other hand there can be +no doubt that the Princess did intend to get arrested."</p> + +<p>"When did all this take place?"</p> + +<p>"In the course of the last Chartist disturbances, three days before the +rising of Parliament. Some sixty or seventy women then caused themselves +to be arrested, and it seems that the Princess was one of them."</p> + +<p>"She must be mad!" exclaimed the King in bewilderment. "Whatever could +have induced her?"</p> + +<p>"Was your Majesty aware that she had any leanings towards politics?"</p> + +<p>"She has ideas," said the King, "like other young people; but she is +generally very busy changing them; and, beyond a notion that a woman +ought always to have her own way, and never be asked to do what she +doesn't want to do, she——" And then it began to dawn upon him—though +only darkly—what Charlotte was really after: she was demonstrating +madly, extravagantly, her claim to personal freedom. And to prove how +much she meant it she had gone to these wild lengths. Well might her +father, in his essentially middle-aged mind, wonder what the younger +generation was coming to.</p> + +<p>"Poor dear silly child!" he exclaimed in fond irritation. "Why ever +could she not have waited?"</p> + +<p>That was a question the Prime Minister could not answer.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," he went on, endeavoring to be philosophical over the +business, "she has had her lesson now; and after all there is no real +harm done."</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty must pardon me; it has become a very serious matter," said +the Prime Minister gravely.</p> + +<p>"Why? Who knows anything about it? Who need know? She wasn't sentenced +in her own name, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, sir; had she been recognized the thing could never have +happened. She must to some extent have altered her dress and her +appearance: as to that I have no particulars. The name she actually went +in under was Ann Juggins."</p> + +<p>"Preposterous!" exclaimed the King. "And supposing that were to come +out!"</p> + +<p>"That is the trouble, sir. Without the full and immediate exercise of +your authority, I fear it may. As a matter of fact, that is why she +still remains where we found her."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Stuff and nonsense!" cried the King. "You don't come for my +authority in cases of this kind. Let her out, let her out! and say +nothing more about it!"</p> + +<p>"The Prefect, sir, has already been to see her, and she refuses to be +let out; that is to say, declares that if she is not allowed to serve +her full sentence she will make the whole of the affair public."</p> + +<p>"Public?"</p> + +<p>"Name and all. There was her ultimatum; she made a special point of it. +Her Highness seems somehow to be aware that the name is an impossible +one, a weapon against which no Government department could stand. The +word 'Juggins,'—only think, sir, what it means! Here we have a +ridiculous, a most lamentable blunder committed by the police, +sufficient of itself to cause us the gravest embarrassment; and then to +have on the top of it all this name with its ridiculous association +rising up to confound us. We should go down as 'the Juggins Cabinet'; +the word would be cried after us by every errand-boy in the street—the +Government would become impossible."</p> + +<p>The King did his best to conceal his delight at the predicament in which +Charlotte's escapade had, by the confession of its Chief, placed the +Cabinet. This tyrannical Government, in spite of its large majority, its +strong party organization, and its bureaucratic powers, was unable to +stand up against ridicule; a mere breath, and all its false pretensions +to dignity would be exposed, and its dry bones, speciously clad in +strong armor, would rattle down into the dust.</p> + +<p>And if he chose to use this knowledge suddenly gained, what a power it +would give him! Yes; he had only to send for Charlotte and bid her cry +'Juggins,' and that which, with so many months of anxious toil and with +threat of abdication, he had failed to bring about, would immediately +accomplish itself in other ways. But unfortunately the King was a man of +scrupulous conscience, and was bound by his ideas of what became a +monarch and a gentleman. He may have been quite mistaken in regarding as +unclean the weapon with which Heaven had supplied him; but as he did so +regard it, one must reluctantly admit that he was right to throw it +aside.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, when the Prime Minister had finished, "she must be made +not to tell, that's all!"</p> + +<p>"I fear, sir, she is very determined."</p> + +<p>"Determined to do what?"</p> + +<p>"To serve out her sentence."</p> + +<p>The King sat and thought for a while. He knew his Charlotte better than +the police did; and, besides that, during the past week he had quite +made up his mind that the Prefect of Police was in some matters a +blunderer. "I wonder how he tried to get her out," he meditated aloud. +"Did she send me any message?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing direct, sir, that I know of; but I take it that her ultimatum +was also directed against any possible action on the part of your +Majesty. She was quite determined to do her full time; said indeed that +you had promised her a fortnight. What that may mean, I do not know."</p> + +<p>"Oh, really!" cried the King, "the folly of the official mind is past +all believing,—especially when it concentrates itself in the police +force! Let somebody go to that poor child and tell her that her father +and mother have had a bomb thrown at them, and are trying to recover +themselves in the grief caused by her absence! And then unchain her (you +keep them in chains, I suppose?), open the door of her prison, and see +how she'll run! And tell the Prefect," he added, "that I cannot present +him with my compliments."</p> + +<p>The King was quite right. In case Charlotte should refuse to believe the +official word, she was shown a newspaper with lurid illustrations; and +within an hour's time she was back at the palace, weeping, holding her +father and mother alternately in her arms, and scolding them for all the +world as though they had been guilty of outrageous behavior, and not +she.</p> + +<p>And, after all, it was a very good way of getting over the preliminaries +of a rather awkward meeting.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>But when the first transports of joy at that reunion were over, they had +to settle down to naughty facts and talk with serious disapproval to +Charlotte of her past doings. And as they did so, though she still wept +a little, the Princess observed with secret satisfaction that she had at +any rate cured her mother of one thing—of knitting, namely, while a +daughter's fate was being dangled in the parental balance.</p> + +<p>From that day on when Charlotte showed that she was really in earnest +the Queen put down her knitting; and those who have lived under certain +domestic conditions where tyranny is always, as though by divine right, +benevolent, wise, self-confident, and self-satisfied to the verge of +conceit, will recognize that this in itself was no inconsiderable +triumph.</p> + +<p>Charlotte was quite straightforward as to why she had done the thing; +she had done it partly out of generous enthusiasm for a cause which she +did not very well understand, but to which certain friends of hers had +attached themselves with a blind and dogged obstinacy (two of those +friends she had left in prison behind her); but more because she wished +to supply an object lesson of what she was really like to the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser.</p> + +<p>She insisted that he was to be told all about it. And the Queen was in +despair.</p> + +<p>"Tell him that you have been in jail like a common criminal for +assaulting the police? I couldn't, it would break my heart! I should die +of the shame of it."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Charlotte, "I will tell him myself, then; you can't +prevent me doing that! No, I'm not going to be headstrong, or foolish, +or obstinate, or any of the things you said I was: now I've made the +exhibition of myself that I intended making, I'll be a lamb. If I like +him enough, and if he likes me enough, I'll marry him. But I shall have +to like him a great deal more than I do at present; and he will have to +want me very much more than it's possible for him to do until he has +seen me——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be so conceited, my dear!" said the Queen, her good-humor and +confidence beginning to be restored as she watched the fair flushed +face, and those queer attractive little gestures which made her +daughter's charm so irresistible.</p> + +<p>"Before anything will induce me to say 'yes,'" concluded Charlotte.</p> + +<p>And then, as though that finished the matter, and as though her own +naughty doings were of no further interest, she cried: "And now tell me +about the bomb!" And the Queen, who still liked to dwell upon that +episode of sights, sounds, and sensations, strangely mingled and +triumphantly concluded by a popular ovation such as she had never met +with in her life before, started off at once on a detailed narrative, +corrected now and then by the King's more sober commentary, and aided by +the eager questions of her daughter, who sat in close and fond contact +with both of them, mopping her eyes alternately with her mother's +handkerchief and her own.</p> + +<p>"Oh! why wasn't I there?" she cried incautiously, when word came of the +great popular reception crowning all.</p> + +<p>"Ah! why weren't you?" inquired the King waggishly. And when he had made +that little joke at her, Charlotte knew that all her naughty goings off +and goings on were comfortably forgiven and done with.</p> + +<p>"But you know, papa," she said later, when for the first time they were +alone together, "I have found out quite a lot of things that <i>you</i> know +nothing about: quite dreadful things! And they are going on behind your +back, and women are being put into prison for it."</p> + +<p>All this was said very excitedly, and with great earnestness and +conviction.</p> + +<p>"My dear," said the King, "it's no use your talking about those Women +Chartists to me."</p> + +<p>"But I'm one of them," said Charlotte.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense; you are not."</p> + +<p>"I am. I signed on. I couldn't have gone to prison for them if I +hadn't."</p> + +<p>"Do any of them know who you are?" cried the King, aghast. It was a +disturbing thought, for what a power it would be in their hands, and he +had always heard how unscrupulous they were.</p> + +<p>"Only one or two," declared Charlotte, "and they won't tell unless I +tell them to. They are wonderful people, papa!"</p> + +<p>The King sighed; for the very name of them had become a weariness to +him. The whole agitation, with its dim confused scufflings against law +and order, and its demonstrations idiotically recurring at the most +inopportune moments, had profoundly vexed him. Years ago he had received +the bland assurance of his ministers that the whole thing would soon die +down and cease; but it was still going on, and was now taking to itself +worse forms than ever.</p> + +<p>"What is it that they want?" he exclaimed, not quite meaning it as a +question; rather as expressing the opinion that the subject was a +hopeless one.</p> + +<p>"They want a great many things," said his daughter; "they've got what +they call 'grievances'; I know very little about them; they may be right +or wrong—that isn't the point. The only thing that concerns you, papa, +is that they want to come and see you; and they are not allowed to."</p> + +<p>"Come and see me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; bring you a petition."</p> + +<p>"What about?"</p> + +<p>"To have their grievances looked into."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> can't look into their grievances."</p> + +<p>"No; but you can say that they shall be."</p> + +<p>The King shook his head. Charlotte did not know what she was talking +about.</p> + +<p>"Yes, papa, that is the position. Of course you haven't the right to +make laws or levy taxes, but you can send word to Parliament to say +something has got to be considered and decided. And about this, +Parliament won't consider and won't decide. And that is why they are +trying to get to you with a petition; so that you shall say that it is +to be looked into."</p> + +<p>"But I can't say that sort of thing, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you can, papa! It's an old right; the right of unrepresented +people to come direct to their sovereign and tell him that his ministers +are refusing to do things for them. And your ministers are trying to +keep you from knowing about it, to keep you from knowing even that you +have such a power; and by not knowing it they are making you break your +Coronation oath. Oh, papa, isn't that dreadful to think of?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, if that were true——"</p> + +<p>"But it is true, papa! These women are trying to bring you their +petition, and they are prevented. The ministers say that you have +nothing to do with it; so they go to the ministers—they take their +petition to the ministers, and ask them to bring it to you, so that you +may give them an answer. Have any of them brought you the petition, +papa?"</p> + +<p>The King shook his head.</p> + +<p>"You see, they do nothing! And so the women go again, and again, and +again, taking their petition with them; and because they are trying to +get to you—to say that their grievances shall be looked into, and +something done about them—because of that they are being beaten and +bruised in the streets; and when they won't turn back then they are +arrested and sent to prison."</p> + +<p>By this time Charlotte was weeping.</p> + +<p>"They may be quite wrong," she cried, "foolish and impossible in their +demands; they may have no grievances worth troubling about—though if +so, why are they troubling as they do?—but they have the right, under +the old law, for those grievances to be inquired into and considered and +decided about. And Parliament won't do it; it is too busy about other +things, grievances that aren't a bit more real, and about which people +haven't been petitioning at all. But you, papa (if that petition came to +you), would have the right to make them attend to it. And they know it; +and that's why they won't let you hear anything about it."</p> + +<p>The King's conscience was beginning to be troubled. He had no confidence +either in the good sense or the uprightness of his ministers to fall +back upon; and he saw that his daughter, though she knew so little about +the merits of the case, was very much in earnest. She had caught his +hand and was holding it; she kissed it, and he could feel the dropping +of warm tears.</p> + +<p>"Very well, my dear," he said, "very well; I promise that this shall be +looked into."</p> + +<p>"Oh, papa!" she cried joyfully. "It was partly for that—just a little, +not all, of course—that I went to prison."</p> + +<p>"Then you ought not to have been so foolish. Why could you not have come +to me?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think you would have attended; not so much as you do now."</p> + +<p>And the King had to admit how, perhaps, that was true.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," he said again, "I promise that it shall be seen to. No, +I shan't forget."</p> + +<p>And then she kissed him and thanked him, and went away comforted. And +when he was alone he got down the index volume of Professor Teller's +<i>Constitutional History</i>, and after some search under the heading of +"Petitions" found indeed that Charlotte was right, and that the power to +send messages to Parliament for the remedying of abuses was still his +own.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h2>THE INCREDIBLE THING HAPPENS</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Since the break-up of his plans the King had been finding consolation in +his son's book, an advance copy of which had reached him while Max was +still abroad. Consolation is, perhaps, hardly the right word; it had +distracted him in more ways than one; partly, and in a good sense, from +his own personal depression over things gone wrong, but more with a +scared apprehension of the terrible hubbub that would arise when its +contents became known. The title, <i>Government and the Governed</i>, was +sober enough, and the post-diluvian motto once threatened by Max had +been omitted; but the contents were of a highly revolutionary character, +and the bland "take-or-leave me" attitude of the author toward the +public he would some day be called upon to rule was on a par with that +statement of her prison doings which Charlotte was preparing for the +delectation of Hans Fritz Otto, Prince of Schnapps-Wasser. In neither +case did it seem likely that such a confession would draw parties +together.</p> + +<p>And so before the King had even finished reading he felt it his duty to +write imploring his son not to publish.</p> + +<p>Before an answer could reach him important events supervened. The +reverberations of the bomb brought Max flying back to the bosom of his +family; and then the Charlotte episode had followed, over which Max had +not been at all sympathetic, for in spite of his emancipated views about +things in general, he had still the particular notion that revolution +belonged only to men, and that women, incapable of conducting it +efficiently, had far better leave it alone.</p> + +<p>And so it was that only when things had begun to resettle themselves was +any fresh reference made to the book's forthcoming publication.</p> + +<p>As soon as the subject was broached Max presented a face of polite +astonishment.</p> + +<p>"I thought you knew, sir," he said.</p> + +<p>"Knew what?"</p> + +<p>"The most important event in recent history; I even thought you might +have instigated it."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you are talking about."</p> + +<p>"Then I must break the news. My book has been burned to the ground." He +spoke as though it had been an edifice. "I am told, for my consolation, +that it burned extremely well—'fiercely,' the papers said—and gave the +firemen a lot of trouble. Your letter and the news reached me almost +simultaneously; I knew, therefore, that you would be glad."</p> + +<p>"No, no, don't say 'glad,'" protested the King; "in a way I am sorry, +even. I only wanted it to be anonymous. One can do things anonymously. +How did it come about?"</p> + +<p>"It was the work of an incendiary."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"There was absolute proof,—something which refused to burn,—a box of +matches made in Jingalo, or some other fire-resistant of a similar kind. +The perpetrator got off. Yes—the House of Ganz-Wurst certainly seems at +the present moment particularly to attract the attentions of these +obscurantists in politics. Who knows whether the hand which threw the +bomb at you had not already been dipped in the petrol which had given so +flaming an account of my claims to authorship?"</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do about it?"</p> + +<p>"Reprint, I suppose, as soon as I can afford it, or do you still wish me +not to? You hold almost the only copy that is left."</p> + +<p>The King shook his head. "As I told you, Max, I think publication would +be very unwise; you would be sure to regret it afterwards. Remember +that some day you will come to the throne; and what you think you can do +now you can't do then. All at once it becomes impossible."</p> + +<p>And then the King gave a queer consternated gasp, for he himself +remembered something—something he had conditionally promised, believing +that the conditions would never be fulfilled; and now fate had brought +them about; and if Max so willed it a thing would presently be taking +place much more disturbing to the institution of royalty than the +publication of a mere book.</p> + +<p>To the King's last remark Max merely replied: "At present, sir, it is +you who are upon the throne and not I—a circumstance over which I have +very particular reasons for being glad. And now, sir, something has just +occurred to me: do not think that I am going to anticipate the date you +fixed, that is not till next week, but when all is settled, as it so +soon will be if I remain of sane mind, then I will present all the +preserved copies of my book to the lady whom you so disapprove of, and +she shall do with them exactly as she wishes—order a new edition, or +put them on the fire to help her make soup for the poor. That is a +little device of mine, sir, for bringing her into your good graces; for +if I know anything of her mind she will maintain that to publish such a +book without a full intention of putting its principles into practice is +a mere parade of insincerity and foolishness. And so—from your point of +view—she will be saving the monarchy from a danger which no one else +can avert; for I am not prepared to surrender my power to do mischief +into any hands but hers. A copy of the book, you may be interested to +hear, has already gone to her; and her silence about it warns me that +the epoch it so strenuously makes for is not the one that she desires."</p> + +<p>"You are still talking like a book, Max," said the King sarcastically, +wishing to divert discussion for the time being from that which he was +referring to.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," said Max; "as a bird who mourns his mate. Why, for a while, +should I not indulge my grief? I shall never write another; all I had it +in me to say was said there. In future—though you may hear in my voice +an echo of that lost romance—I am going to be a man not of words but of +deeds."</p> + +<p>The King smiled.</p> + +<p>"You look incredulous, sir; but I have already startled that Commission +you put me on, and compelled it to include in the scope of its inquiry +things which it did not want to inquire into at all. Believe me, sir; if +we get before us all the evidence that I intend we shall find ourselves +forced into making a very unpopular report—far more unpopular than my +book would have been, and far more subversive of the established order +of things than at present you can have any idea. Even your coats, +sir—exorbitant though their price now is—are going to cost you more as +a result of this Commission, unless we can so arrange that in future a +little less shall be paid for the 'cut' and a little more for the needle +and thread that join the cuttings together. I am going to have it said +in this report of ours—for I have discovered it to be a fact—that the +very clothes which are your daily wear (and mine) are put together by +men and women paid at something less than twopence-half-penny an hour. +And I am going to get it put in that scandalously personal way (your +clothes and mine—the clothes we go to open Parliament in, and set the +fashions in, and when we have worn them some half-dozen times hand on to +charity), I am going to have it thus put that all may be conscious and +ashamed when they see us so exhibiting ourselves, and no longer think a +well-cut coat under modern commercial conditions a fit adjunct for +royalty. That, sir, will do a great deal more harm to 'trade' than my +book would have done. The public conscience does not like to have these +things brought home to royalty itself; we and the 'social evil' are in +no way to be connected with each other, lest it should be seen that we +help to make its ways easy. Only the other day I was credibly informed +that a man who headed with twenty thousand pounds the list of a charity +bearing my mother's name, has been allowed by the police to get out of +this country scot free—though guilty of infamous conduct,—merely +because the contribution of that tainted donation to a royal fund would +not have 'looked well.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh, stop talking to me, Max!" cried the King, made irritable by his +increased sense of helplessness. "Go and do what you like, say what you +like, report what you like; you've got the Commission to play with; run +it for all it is worth; but for Heaven's sake let me have peace for a +while! Why should you trouble me? You know that I can do nothing."</p> + +<p>"You have done a great deal," said Max, whose admiration for his father +had grown very considerably during the past year.</p> + +<p>"I have missed doing a great deal; but of that you know nothing, and I'm +not going to tell you." And then he could stand it no more. "Do you +imagine I should have made you that idiotic promise," he cried, "if I +had supposed for a moment that I should still be here when you came to +claim it?" And so saying he got up and, diplomatic in retreat, hurried +out of the room.</p> + +<p>Max, left to his own surmisings, opened wide and wondering eyes. "Did he +throw that bomb at himself?" he murmured in astonishment. "It looks very +much as if he did."</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Parliament opened again without any difficulty in the middle of +December; and the enormous popularity of the King and Queen was greatly +enhanced by the circumstance of their reappearance within so short a +time for an occasion so closely similar. Only another bomb could have +increased the favorable impression made upon the populace by their +affable return to the charge—if a slow walking-pace may be so +described—within three weeks of the attempted outrage.</p> + +<p>As the Prime Minister had promised the police spared no pains to insure +their safety, and behind the hoardings of the new Government offices +detectives were packed like herrings in a barrel, with special eye-holes +bored through so that they might note the actual passing of the royal +carriage, and have it well under observation at the point of danger +which was, presumably, that at which the last explosion had occurred. +Then the whole police force held its breath, and the coach got past +without any difficulty; and immediately the waiting multitude in Regency +Row became violently demonstrative as though some great acrobatic feat +had been achieved. And the piebald ponies came stepping like +rope-dancers each held by a groom; and everything—except the fresh bomb +for which so many stage preparations had been made—went off with all +the success imaginable.</p> + +<p>The King did not read his own speech: he had a sore throat for the +occasion, and only with his ears did he swallow the bitter pill of that +foreshadowed scheme which he had so long and vainly resisted; for now he +was bound by his own promise, and could no longer "stand in the way."</p> + +<p>And so, by the mouth of the Lord High Commissioner, the Bishops heard +under its smooth-sounding title the plan for their approaching doom read +out from the steps of the Throne, and as soon as the King and the Queen +had retired, budding members on the ministerial side in both Houses +rose up to congratulate the Cabinet and the country on those wise and +statesmanlike proposals, and hardened veterans upon the other, the +Archbishop included, rose up to condemn them. And after that, for three +or four days a general wrangling—all leading to nothing—went on.</p> + +<p>But while Parliament talked vacuously within, outside came rumblings of +storm; the discontent of certain sections of the community with +conditions unsettled or unattended to was gathering to a head. And on +the third day after the session had opened, Charlotte said to her father +with rather a tragic look, "Papa, do you know what is going to happen +to-night?" And then she told him.</p> + +<p>It was those Women Chartists again.</p> + +<p>The King had been true to his word, he had made inquiries; in a way he +had even "looked into the matter," and had received from the right and +official quarter bland assurances that there was nothing in it—merely a +general obstreperousness and a wish to cause trouble to the police. But +his conscience, which so often ran away with him, was still troubled; +and so when the evening came he sent once again for the newly appointed +Home Minister; and in reply to rather anxious questions was given +confidently to understand that the police arrangements were quite +adequate for the occasion, that everything would be done as quietly and +as leniently as possible; and that no edge of the disturbance would in +any case be allowed to overflow in the direction of the royal palace. As +he listened to the cocksure tone of this new minister, and the almost +patronizing air with which he exposed his official fitness for the post +so recently conferred on him, the King ceased to ask questions—let the +man talk himself out,—and then, when silence seemed to give consent, +got rid of him.</p> + +<p>It was now time that he should go to dress for dinner, but the motive +force was absent. He stood for a while considering, then went to the +window, and opening it let in the distant hum of the city traffic.</p> + +<p>All sounded as usual, pleasant, busy, peaceable. Yet if what his +daughter told him was true, within half-an-hour those quietly-sounding +streets would be thronged with thousands upon thousands waiting for the +arrival of the women to claim their old historical right of petition; +and serried lines of police—thousands of them also—would be standing +to bar their way, whatever direction they might go in quest of the +governing authority. And in the hands of these women would be petitions +personally addressed to himself; yet never had any minister put to him +the question whether he would be willing to receive them and hear what +they had to say; such an idea seemed not to have entered their heads—or +was it the fear lest such a reception might give the cause too great an +importance in the public eye? Here, once again, then, proof met him of +the conspiracy of modern government constantly going on to bring about +disconnection between the Crown and the real life-needs and aspirations +of the people. Suffocating traditions closed him round making a cypher +of him—to himself a scorn and a derision, and a monster unto many—just +as much, by this denial of petition, a breaker of his Crown oath as +those who in the past had paid penalty for it with their lives!</p> + +<p>There outside, in the nipping wintry air, he could hear the sounds of a +liberty he no longer shared: the trotting of cab-horses, the cry of +newsboys, the whiffle and hoot of motor-cars. Up through the bare trees +of the park swam a soft radiance of light from the lamps below, and +emergent like a full moon on a misty sky the face of the great +Parliament clock dawned luminous to his gaze.</p> + +<p>So long he stood, and listened, and waited, that before he closed the +window again the clock had told the three-quarters to eight. Then he +hesitated no more; passing out of his study and down to a lower corridor +he came presently to the cloak lobby, and selecting a rough full-length +overcoat, a motor cap, and from a drawer a pair of clouded snow-glasses, +arrayed himself in these, and with flaps drawn down and coat collar +turned high, passed out by a small side-entrance which led on to the +terrace.</p> + +<p>Chill air and a bosom of darkness received him; through the thick +barrier of trees skirting the walled precincts scarcely a light winked; +only the large domed conservatory behind him threw a pale radiance +before his feet as he crossed the terrace and moved off by a winding +path in the direction of a small postern concealed in shrubbery.</p> + +<p>As he quitted the grass, the sound of his own footfalls upon firm gravel +made him guiltily afraid; and it was not without some moral effort that +he, a king in his own domain, kept himself from stepping back +secretively to the turfed edge. Suppressing the inclination, he +proceeded at a smart pace, and coming presently to the door with a +slip-latch on its inner side he opened it and passed through.</p> + +<p>At the sound of opening a policeman stationed outside turned and stood +passively regarding him; his muffled appearance seemed sufficiently in +keeping with the uses to which this particular exit was put by others to +awaken neither suspicion nor surprise. With a half-waggish air of +respect the man touched his helmet. "Good-evening, sir," said he, as +though there subsisted between the habitués of that door and himself a +sort of understanding.</p> + +<p>To make a quicker escape from the man's scrutiny and the glare of the +lamp commanding the entrance, the King crossed the road, and took up his +course along the more dimly lighted footway on the further side. At this +hour the park row in which he found himself was almost deserted; now and +again single pedestrians went by, and as he received from none of these +more than a cursory and inattentive glance, his sense of incognito +increased, and he stepped out more confidently to the task that lay +ahead.</p> + +<p>Presently he was passing along the palace front and under the +eyes of sentries standing motionless at their posts; and again +he had satisfaction in perceiving that as he went by there was no +inclination on the part of any one of them to present arms. He +glanced up at the palace façade, with its windows softly lighted +through blinds. He could pick out his own sitting-room, and the +Queen's, where probably she was now reading the note he had sent to +inform her that urgent business called him away. There were the +lights of the smaller dining-hall, within which a table richly adorned +with gold and silver plate stood even now waiting its twenty accustomed +guests—the minister-in-attendance and the higher permanent officials of +the Court. No one else from outside was coming to-night except Prince +Max. That was fortunate, Max would take his place.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was outside the borders of the park the King quitted the +main thoroughfare for narrow and dimly lit alleys, avoiding the streets +of wide pavements and shops which had scarcely yet begun to close; and +before long found that he had lost his way.</p> + +<p>The fact was sufficiently absurd; here within a stone's throw of his own +palace, and stretching almost to the doors of the House of Legislature +whereto he went in so much state every year, lay an unknown territory +which he had never thought to explore. The intricacy of back streets was +quite unknown to him, and he seemed at almost every corner to be +stepping into yards and cul-de-sacs, from which he had perforce to turn +back again. In a short time all sense of the points of the compass was +gone.</p> + +<p>A small ragged urchin asked him the time, and that casual touch of +communalism made him feel more at home. He took out his watch—it was +already five minutes past eight: over those high narrow streets, with +their thin strip of sky, the big clock of Parliament had boomed the hour +and he had not heard it. Away scurried the urchin as though already late +for something, excitedly calling on others to follow; and the King, with +the presumption that these running feet would be sure to lead him in the +direction where he wished to go, followed them round two corners. After +that all trace of them was gone.</p> + +<p>A sound of shrill singing now struck his ear. He was in a narrow +asphalted way surrounded by workmen's tenements. Right in the middle, +occupying the place of the non-existent traffic, ten or a dozen children +were dancing a sort of figure, and singing the while. As he drew near he +caught snatches of the words.</p> + +<p>Of an elder child, who stood looking on, he stopped and asked the way. +She told him, gesticulating as to which corners he was to pass, pointing +all the time to the promised goal. Incautiously he dropped a coin into +her hand; and, as kings do not carry coppers, immediately there was a +cry. The singers stopped and surrounded him, stretching up clamorous +palms; a whole dozen were now feverishly anxious to show him every step +of the way.</p> + +<p>"It's the 'Chartises' as you want to see, arn't it, mister?" inquired +one. "I'll show you where they go; I know all of 'em."</p> + +<p>The King pressed hurriedly on, hoping to get rid of them; but his +flustered air appealed to the tormenting instincts of youth, and told +them that here they had got some one capable of being worried into +surrender. Still clamoring and thrusting up hands for backsheesh they +kept pace with him. A few of them started singing again, and the rest +joined in: perhaps singing was what the gentleman liked best—and so a +better way for gaining their end. The shrill voices fell into chorus; +and to a queer lilting tune the words rang clear.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Come to me<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Quietlee,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Do not do me an injuree!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Gently, Johnnie of Jingalo."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"What's that?" cried the King, stopping short in his amazement; "what's +that you say?" A new bewilderment seized on him. It was +impossible—quite impossible that the children should know who he really +was, yet there were the words with their implied accusation, as though +personally directed at him, and at him alone.</p> + +<p>The small street singers, taking the inquiry for an encore, sang it +again; and this time the words had a curious flirtatious meaning which +made them even worse. What was he being charged with?</p> + +<p>"Where did you get that from?" he inquired, hot of face.</p> + +<p>"One of the Chartises taught it us," said a child more ready of speech +than the rest. "They all sings it now. It's one of their songs, that +is!" So with reduplicating speech she conveyed intelligence to his mind.</p> + +<p>Never before had any word of poetry struck him a blow like this. He had +said that he did not understand poetry, but here was meaning only too +clear; in this song—so gentle, pleading, and pathetic in character, he, +John of Jingalo, stood publicly accused of all the injuries that were +being done to women in that necessary defense of law and order against +which, petition in hand, they were so obstinately setting themselves. +What was all his popularity worth, if by the mouths of little children +his name was to be thus cried in the streets? It was scandalous, +indecent; and yet—was it altogether without justification?</p> + +<p>To be rid of his small tormentors and free for his own meditations, he +took the most practical means that suggested itself.</p> + +<p>"There, there!" he cried. "Run away, run away, all of you!" and throwing +a random coin into their midst moved hastily away. Behind him as he went +he heard battle royal being waged; liberal though the donation, and +sufficient to distribute sustenance to all, each was now claiming it as +her own perquisite.</p> + +<p>And so at his back the shrill sounds of wrath and contention went on +till they became merged in a louder roar, the origin of which was +presently made apparent.</p> + +<p>He turned a corner and saw before him a huge crowd, and Regency Row +packed with seething humanity from end to end.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>For the first time in his life the King formed part of a crowd, and knew +what it was like to feel his body and limbs packed in by the bodies and +limbs of others and to have the breath squeezed out of him. In this +crowd the proportion of men to women was as ten to one; from the +physical point of view, therefore, the chances for these conflicting +women were nil. All the same they were there in large numbers, and not +for the first time; many of them were already sufficiently well known to +the police.</p> + +<p>A curiously corporate movement possessed this crowd; when it shifted at +all it shifted in large sections—three or four hundred at once; a whole +street-width of men driving forward at a lunge, before which the +strongest barrier of police momentarily gave way. And wherever this kind +of movement went on a few women formed the center of it.</p> + +<p>Small bundles of humanity, they shot by in the grip of that huge force, +mischievous and uncontrolled; tossed, tousled, and squeezed, shedding as +they went small fragments of their outer raiment, lost momentarily to +view in the surging mass of men, cornered, crushed back, held down as +within a vise—emerging again like popped corks followed by a foaming +rush of shouting youths, jeering or cheering them on; and still through +all that pressure obstinately retaining their human form, and enduring +with a strange silence what was being done to them by this great roaring +mob which had come out "for fun."</p> + +<p>Some went their way wide-eyed, with terror in their looks, yet still set +to their end; some with rigid faces and eyes shut fast, as though +scarcely conscious—their souls elsewhere, submitting passively to the +buffetings of fate; and a few—strangest sight of all—smiling to +themselves, almost with a look of peace, as though in the very violence +by which they were assailed they discerned a triumph for their cause.</p> + +<p>And with all the screwing, pushing, and wrenching, the driving forward +and the hurling back, scarcely one woman's arm was raised, except now +and again to protect her breast from the lewd or wanton assaults of the +crowd. Some held, tight clasped in their hands, crumpled bits of +paper—the petition, presumably, over which all this trouble +arose—stained, torn, almost illegible now, useless, yet still a symbol +of the fight that was being waged. Now and then above the turmoil, in +the dimness that lay between the lighted streets and the crowning +darkness of night, went sudden flashes like sheet-lightning in storm; +and at the stroke horses plunged, and youths screamed, facetiously +imitating the voice of women. It was the work of photographers, +securing, from some point of vantage overhead, flashlight records for +the delectation of the music halls. Again and again, with pistol-like +report, the monstrous dose was administered, the night took it at a +gulp, and the rabble responded with noise and shoutings.</p> + +<p>The genial voice of a mounted policeman working his way through the +crowd sounded humanly above the din.</p> + +<p>"I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" There was a touch of +humor in the cry; for it was like the voice of a showman advertising his +wares to a pack of holiday-makers anxious to buy; and wherever he went +pleasantness reigned, and an element of good temper and considerateness +mingled itself with the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" Away he went on his +disciplined errand of mercy, a man of kindliness, good counsel, and +understanding, carrying out his orders in as human a way as was +possible.</p> + +<p>"Now then! Now then! Now then! I'm coming. Oh, I'm coming!"</p> + +<p>The roaring multitude swallowed him; his cry grew faint, merged in the +general din.</p> + +<p>By the gradual compression and movement of the multitude toward some +fancied center the King had been borne a good many hundred yards from +his original point. Presently he found himself in a large open space, +with its low-railed inclosure guarded by police. Here the crowd was +denser than ever and its sway harder to withstand. A woman's form was +driven sharply against him. To avoid elbowing her off he offered the +shelter of his arm; and she, finding herself up against something not +immediately repellent, stayed to breathe. He saw the sweat pour from her +skin, and as she panted in his arms she had the rank scent of a creature +when it is hunted. Yet in her face there was no fear at all, only the +white strain of physical exhaustion nearing its last point.</p> + +<p>"Are you hurt?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"The police; are they treating you properly?"</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to complain of," she said.</p> + +<p>"Won't you go home? You must see it is no use."</p> + +<p>She turned away as though she had not heard him, and threw herself once +more against the barrier she was unable to overcome. Into the shock of +it she went, with "nothing to complain of," forgetful of self, forgetful +of all but her blind unreasoning determination to gain her end. Her +passive yet battling form was borne away from him in the huge eddies of +the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Hot work!" said a voice at his side; a little man, with keen, appetized +face, ferreting this way and that, was hurriedly taking notes as though +his life depended on it. The King looked at him in surprise, and +wondered what it meant.</p> + +<p>"Got any news?" inquired the man, still scribbling at his notebook.</p> + +<p>"What kind of news?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not particular; anything suits me. I'm the Press."</p> + +<p>"The Press?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, reporter." And, as one proud of his great connection, he named the +King's favorite journal.</p> + +<p>Never it is to be hoped to his dying day did that poor penny-a-liner +know what a piece of news he allowed in that moment to slip by—news +which to him would have meant almost a fortune; and here he was actually +rubbing shoulders with it; and making no profit.</p> + +<p>"How many arrested?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Any of the leaders yet?"</p> + +<p>"I have not heard."</p> + +<p>Unprofitable company; the man moved away. They were separated by a +fresh movement of the crowd.</p> + +<p>A royal mail-van drove through the square, the police with difficulty +making way for it. And the crowd, mistaking it for something else, +rushed off to gaze and cheer excitedly at the prisoners within. The +postman who sat mounting guard over the netted window at the rear smiled +wittily at the popular error which made him for a few brief moments so +conspicuous a figure. No doubt the incident gave the newspaper-man some +copy, and the van, having contributed its share to the general +amusement, rolled on its way.</p> + +<p>Again the crowd made a rush; on the other side of the square a woman had +managed to get arrested, and a strong body of constables was escorting +her across to the police-station. Captors and captive walked quickly, +anxious to get the thing through. The woman had a scared yet triumphant +look in her eyes: she had succeeded in making the police do what they +did not want to do; and now for a fortnight, or a month, or for two +months—according to what these men might swear to, or the magistrate +think—she and a few score of others would find in a criminal cell that +temporary goal at which they had aimed; and the press would quiet the +public conscience by saying that they had done it "for notoriety."</p> + +<p>Always friendliest when it saw a woman actually under arrest, the crowd +broke into applause—dividing its cheers impartially between prisoner +and police. For this was what it had come out to see: this was why it +had paid tram-fares from distant slums, sacrificing its evening at the +"pub" and its pot of beer. These men of hard toiling lives and dull +imagination were there to see women of a class and education superior to +their own break the law and get "copped" for it, just like one of +themselves.</p> + +<p>"Quite right too! teach them to be'ave as they ought to," was the +comment passed here and there—though as a matter of fact it had already +been abundantly proved that it taught them nothing of the kind. But +that, after all, is "Government" as understood by the man in the street; +he is still the intellectual equal of the rustic, or of the child, who, +smiting the reptile upon the head, "learns him to be a toad"; and it is +down to his imagination that modern government has to play. And so, to +ambiguous cheers uttered by rival factions, the triumphal procession of +prisoner and escort passed on its way.</p> + +<p>"Three cheers for the Women's Charter!" cried a voice somewhere in the +crowd; and there went up in response a genial roar, half of derision, +half of sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Give 'em hell!" cried a wild little man, his face contorted with rage +and the lust which finds satisfaction in a blow. He went fiercely on, +butting his shoulder against every woman he met. Nobody arrested him; +nobody cried "shame." "Give 'em hell!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"They're getting it!" laughed a pale youth with an underhung jaw.</p> + +<p>Wherever the eye turned hell could be seen having its will, and deriving +a curious satisfaction from its momentary power to do foul things under +the public eye.</p> + +<p>"Oh, save me! save me! save me!" whimpered a woman's voice. Down in the +gulf below, buried under the shoulders of men, a small elderly figure +was clinging to the King's arm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, can't you do anything for me?" wailed the poor little Chartist, +with nerve utterly gone.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go home?" inquired the King kindly.</p> + +<p>"I want to go home!" she said. "Take me!"</p> + +<p>"The first thing, then, is to get out of this crowd. Keep hold of my +arm."</p> + +<p>"No!" A perverse tag of conscience held her back. "I don't want to! I've +got a petition; it has to go to the King. Oh, if he only knew!"</p> + +<p>"Give it to me! I will see that he gets it."</p> + +<p>"You? You'd only throw it away when my back was turned."</p> + +<p>"No; I promise you I would not. Give it me! It shall really go to him."</p> + +<p>"You are not making fun of me?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed I am not. Here, where is it? Give it to me, quick!"</p> + +<p>She put the precious crumpled document into his hand. Poor nameless +soul, unconscious of what she had achieved—"I hope I've done right," +she said.</p> + +<p>A fresh movement of the crowd drove them against the railings. The +elderly little woman cried out like a frightened child.</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh! They are killing me!"</p> + +<p>The King lifted her up and put her over into free space on the other +side.</p> + +<p>"Here! none of that!" cried a big voice beside him. A rough hand seized +hold of him and wrenched him back; he turned round and found himself in +a policeman's charge. Then another came and took hold of him on the +other side.</p> + +<p>Incredibly the thing had happened: he was arrested. Triumphantly, +through a roaring, eddying crowd, the strong arm of the law bore him +away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h2>THE KING'S NIGHT OUT</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The King sat in a large square chamber with barred windows, awaiting his +turn to be attended to.</p> + +<p>The crowd of prisoners seated on benches round the walls had become +attenuated; only about a score of them now remained. Women had been +dealt with first, the residuum were men; the general charge against +these was pocket-picking.</p> + +<p>He had been sitting there for hours. It was now one o'clock.</p> + +<p>"Now then, you!" said the voice of the sergeant in charge. His turn had +come.</p> + +<p>In an adjoining room he found his two accusers awaiting him. He was led +up to a table where sat an official in uniform making entry of the +names. A charge-sheet, nearly full, was spread on the table before him.</p> + +<p>The policeman who had made the arrest gave in the charge.</p> + +<p>"Name?" said the sergeant-clerk sharply, suspending the motion of his +pen.</p> + +<p>The King, still wearing his cap, took off his snow-glasses and turned +down the collar of his coat.</p> + +<p>It was no use. The officer looked at him without recognition.</p> + +<p>"Name?" he said again; and the policeman upon his right, giving the King +a rough jog, said, "Tell the sergeant your name!" And so, it appeared, +the useless formality must go on.</p> + +<p>The King gave the two essentials—first-christian and surname—out of a +long string of appendices for which half the sovereigns of Europe had +stood as godfathers.</p> + +<p>But the three words "John Ganz-Wurst" meant nothing to the official ear. +Over the patronymic he paused in doubt when only halfway through. "Spell +it!" he said, and, at the King's dictation, altered his V into a W.</p> + +<p>"Foreigner?" he grunted; Jingalese names he could spell properly.</p> + +<p>"Of foreign extraction," said the King, "my great-grandfather came over +to this country and was naturalized."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we don't want to hear about your great-grandfather!" said the +sergeant, cutting him short.</p> + +<p>At this moment one of the higher inspectors came into the room.</p> + +<p>"Address—occupation?" went on his interlocutor, busy with his form.</p> + +<p>The King named the dwelling from which he emanated.</p> + +<p>"Come, come!" said the official voice, "no nonsense here! What address?"</p> + +<p>The inspector was now looking at the prisoner. He touched the sergeant +upon the shoulder, and made a gesture for the two constables to stand +back.</p> + +<p>"Will you please to come this way, sir?" he said, in a tone of very +marked respect.</p> + +<p>The King followed him to an inner room.</p> + +<p>The inspector closed the door. "I beg your Majesty's pardon," he said. +"This is a most regrettable occurrence. Fortunately, none of those men +know."</p> + +<p>The King smiled. "I tried not to give myself away before I was obliged +to," he said.</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty must think we are all quite mad."</p> + +<p>"Not at all. So far as I know, every man I have encountered has merely +done his duty. Your methods of arrest are a little—arbitrary, shall I +say?"</p> + +<p>"That is unavoidable, sir, when we have large crowds to deal with."</p> + +<p>"I can understand that. A woman was being crushed; I helped her to get +over the railings. I suppose that was wrong?"</p> + +<p>The inspector smiled apologetically. "Men have been fined for it, before +now, sir," said he.</p> + +<p>"Very well, I will pay my fine," smiled the King. "And then, if you +don't mind, I will go home."</p> + +<p>His Majesty's kindly humor won the inspector's gratitude. "I'm sure it's +very good of your Majesty to treat the matter so lightly."</p> + +<p>"It was entirely my own fault," said the King. "How was I to be +recognized?"</p> + +<p>"You took us off guard, sir. We were not informed that your Majesty +would be going anywhere to-night."</p> + +<p>"Is that the rule?"</p> + +<p>"It is always our business to inquire."</p> + +<p>"I should not have told any one."</p> + +<p>"It would still, sir, have been our business to find out."</p> + +<p>"You surprise me!" said the King. It had never dawned upon him that he +was so watched. "And so to-night, for the first time, I gave you the +slip?"</p> + +<p>"I take the blame, sir," said the inspector; his voice was grave.</p> + +<p>"Why should you? No harm has been done. The only question now is how am +I to get back?"</p> + +<p>"I can get you a cab, sir, at once. Or would your Majesty rather I sent +word to the palace?"</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not. If I have not been missed, nobody need know."</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty was missed by us four hours ago. That is what brought me +here."</p> + +<p>"You come from the palace?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. As head of the special department, I have to be there every +night."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all, sir."</p> + +<p>And then, a cab having been summoned, he led the way out.</p> + +<p>No one was by; the street had not a soul in it, and the King knew that +once more foresight and care were watching over him.</p> + +<p>"I have paid the cabman, sir," said the inspector, as he closed the +door. "And, sir, would you kindly say where he is to go?"</p> + +<p>There was a hint of discretion in the man's tone.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," said the King, "to be sure—yes. Tell him to stop at the park +gates."</p> + +<p>The inspector, saluting, gave the required direction, and the cab drove +off. Arriving a few minutes later at his destination, the King got out, +and passed in through the gates.</p> + +<p>The palace was now shrouded in gloom; only in the guard-room, within the +high-railed quadrangle, a light still burned. Dimly through the night a +sentry could be seen pacing up and down.</p> + +<p>By a subconscious instinct the King was returning along the same route +that he had come. Only as he approached the postern in the wall did it +occur to him that it would almost certainly be locked; and yet for no +other door had he a key. Attended constantly by servants, and leading a +scrupulously regular life, requiring neither secret passages nor late +hours, he had never possessed a latch-key of his own.</p> + +<p>How, then, was he to get in now without attracting attention?</p> + +<p>Having come so far, however, he went forward on chance and tested the +door. The attendant policeman was no longer there, the road-lamp had +been turned low, giving only a glimmer.</p> + +<p>He tried the handle, but found that it would not respond. A figure +glided forward and inserted a key. "Allow me, sir," came the inspector's +voice.</p> + +<p>"You?" exclaimed the King, surprised.</p> + +<p>"It was my duty to see your Majesty safe home."</p> + +<p>"Very kind of you, I'm sure." He passed in, and the inspector followed.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me for asking, sir. Was this the way your Majesty came out?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that accounts for it! We never thought of your Majesty coming this +way, and the man put here was only on beat, not on point duty."</p> + +<p>"He was here when I came out," said the King.</p> + +<p>"He did not report, sir."</p> + +<p>"Are they all bound to?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir, of course we have to know."</p> + +<p>The King smiled. "I suppose he did not recognize me. Remember, I was not +quite myself."</p> + +<p>"All the same, sir, he should have known. It's what he is trained for."</p> + +<p>The King's surprise grew. "I never guessed that I had to be guarded like +this."</p> + +<p>"Of course, sir, we try to keep it out of sight as much as possible. It +isn't pleasant always to feel yourself watched."</p> + +<p>"I make you my compliments," said the King; "I had not the remotest +idea. Whereabouts are we now?"</p> + +<p>The walls of the palace loomed black above them; the night was dark.</p> + +<p>"Small stair entrance on the north side, sir. If your Majesty is without +a key——"</p> + +<p>"I have no key at all."</p> + +<p>"Then kindly allow me, sir." And again to the inspector's pass-key a +door opened.</p> + +<p>The King entered, and the inspector still accompanied him. "There may be +others locked inside," he said, by way of explanation.</p> + +<p>They passed through a short corridor and ascended stairs; a small +electric pocket-lamp of the inspector's showing them the way. Three +doors he unfastened in turn. Having opened the last he switched on the +light, then respectfully drew back, presuming to come no further. "This +is where your Majesty's private apartments begin," said he; an +indication that his task as conductor was over.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," replied the King, "now at last I know where I am. Till this +moment I felt myself a stranger. I have to thank you, Mr. Inspector, for +the kind way in which you have done me the honors of my own house; and," +he added, "of the police-station."</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry, sir, that any such thing should have happened. I can +promise it won't occur again."</p> + +<p>"No," said the King, smiling, "I suppose not. But pray do not be sorry! +I have seldom spent a more interesting time; or—thanks to you and +others—had more things given me to think about."</p> + +<p>The inspector did not reply; he stood looking down, pensive and +resigned—tired, perhaps, now that the anxieties of the last few hours +were over.</p> + +<p>"Good-night," said the King.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, sir," replied the inspector. He withdrew and the King heard +him locking the door after him.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The King went into his study, turned on a light, and sat down. He had, +as he had told his guide, many things to think about. It was no use +going to bed, for he knew that he could not sleep.</p> + +<p>These last few hours had been the most wonderful, and the most +crowded—yes, quite literally the most crowded—that he had ever +experienced. At last he had really taken part in the life of his people, +and had come into direct contact with things very diverse and +contradictory, representing the popular will. He had talked with street +urchins, and visionaries, had rubbed shoulders with men of brutal habit +and vile character,—with knaves, cowards, fools; he had been shut up +with drunkards and pickpockets, policemen's thumbs had left bruises upon +his arms, and all his mind was one great bruise from the bureaucratic +police system which had him fast within its grip.</p> + +<p>Now at last he knew that he knew nothing; for only now did he realize +it. To what was going on outside his ears had been stopped with official +lies; morally, intellectually, and physically he was a prisoner, just as +much as when, to the cry of "Old Goggles," from a jeering crowd, he had +marched captive to the police-station. He knew now that even his private +life was watched and spied on—always, of course, with the most +benevolent intentions. This was the price he paid for modern kingship; +and what was it all worth?</p> + +<p>Out of his pocket he drew a small sheet of crumpled paper. In order to +get this to him, a poor, timid woman had gone out into a raging crowd, +had borne its brutality for hours, and then, a piteous bundle of broken +nerves, had by sheer accident accomplished that which hundreds of +others, braver, abler, more confident, and more deserving, had tried to +do and failed. Morally this small slip of paper had upon it the blood, +and the tears, the sweat, the agony, and the despair of all the rest; +and only by accident had he ever come to know of it!</p> + +<p>Here, almost within a stone's throw of his palace, he had seen something +taking place which to-morrow the papers would deride, and of which the +official world would deny him all cognizance. Whether these women had +truly a grievance, any just and reasonable cause for complaint, he did +not know. But he knew now that, with the most desperate earnestness and +conviction, that was their belief, and that in getting their petition to +his hands they saw the beginning of a remedy.</p> + +<p>He spread out the paper before him, and for the first time read the +words—</p> + +<p>"Humbly showeth that by your Majesty's Ministers law and justice are +delayed, and prayeth that your Gracious Majesty will so order and govern +that your faithful subjects' grievances may forthwith be sought and +inquired into, and remedy granted thereto by Act of Parliament. And your +petitioners will ever pray."</p> + +<p>That was all. What the grievances might be was not stated. He knew that +to hear argument for or against a given case was outside the functions +of the Crown; but he knew equally well that to order inquiry to be made +lay still within his right, though every minister in the Cabinet except +one would seek to deny it to him. And so he sat looking at the crumpled +sheet which meant so much to so many thousands of lives; and slowly the +night went by.</p> + +<p>Long before the first chitter of awakening birds, and before the first +hint of light had crept into the east, he heard outside the slow stir of +the city's life breaking back from short uneasy slumber. With stiffened +limbs he got up from his chair, for the room had grown cold and his body +ached with all the strain and exertion it had so recently undergone. +Slowly he moved off towards his own sleeping apartment, in case the +Queen, when she awoke, should send to inquire after him. And on his way, +as a short cut, he crossed the minstrel gallery, which divided one from +the other the two state drawing-rooms,—a broad half-story colonnade, +with central opening and corners draped into shade.</p> + +<p>Halfway across this elevation he paused to look down into the vast +chamber below. At some point among its chandeliers burned a small +pinhole of light that revealed in a strange dimness various forms of +furniture, showing monstrous and uncouth in their night attire. +Night-gowns rather than pajamas seemed the general wear; only a few legs +were to be seen. In this, its sleeping aspect, the place was certainly +more harmonious and more chaste than by day; mirrors and pictures loomed +from the white walls with a mystery that would disappear when the +lusters contained their light; and the King lingered to take in the +pleasant strangeness of it all, and to wonder what was this new quality +which so attracted him.</p> + +<p>As he did so his ear caught from without a faint reverberation of +muffled sound; even and regular in its beat, it drew near.</p> + +<p>At the far end a door was thrown open; a flush of light entered the +chamber, and there came following it a troop of men wearing felt +slippers and long linen aprons, and bearing upon their shoulders brooms, +feather-heads, wash-leathers, brushes, dusters, steps, vacuum-cleaners, +and other mysterious instruments of an uninterpretable form.</p> + +<p>With the regularity and precision of a drilled army, and with no word +spoken, they moved forward to the attack. Curtains were drawn, cords +pulled, blinds raised, steps mounted. Lusters jingled to the touch of +feathers, cornices shed down their minute particles of dust to the +Charybdian maw of traveling gramophone. Over the carpet metallic +cow-catchers wheezed and groaned with a loud trundling of wheels, and +departed processionally to the chamber beyond. Then by a triple process, +simultaneously conducted, the furniture-sheets were lifted, drawn off, +and folded; a large wicker-table on wheels received and bore them away. +A cloud of light skirmishers followed after; and over every cushion and +seat and polished surface plied their manicurist skill. Then a +storming-party escaladed the gallery from below and the King, to avoid +the embarrassment of an encounter with a body of servitors who had not +the pleasure of his acquaintance, was at last obliged to retire.</p> + +<p>But what a wonderful machine had been here revealed to his +gaze—manipulated without a word, marshaled by signs, and composed +entirely of strangers! And to think that all this insect-like marvel of +industry, so expeditious, and done on so huge a scale, had been going on +daily under his own roof, and he had known nothing of it! So this was +how his palace was cleaned for him, and why it never showed a sign of +wear or the marks of muddy boots? Yet never before had any thought on +the matter occurred to him. And what if some fine day those insects, +fired by revolutionary zeal, had taken it to heart to rise up in their +dozens by those escalading ladders to the first story and rush the +private apartments, and murder him in his morning bath or in his bed! +What a surprising and unexplained apparition it would have been! But +now, and for the future, he would know that daily about this time a +large ant-like colony was running about under him, very strong of arm, +very active of leg; and what protection, he wondered, from peril of +sudden inroad was that search under his bed on the ninth day of every +November? Did that really meet and counter modern methods of conspiracy +and assassination, or the growing dangers of labor unrest? He very much +doubted it.</p> + +<p>And so, with his head very full of the wonder, the order, and the +underlying disturbance of it all, he passed on to his own inner chamber, +and had now something to tell the Queen as to how their immediate +domestic affairs were conducted which should entirely put aside all +awkward questions as to what he had been doing the evening before and +where he had spent the night.</p> + +<p>But, as a matter of fact, sleek officialdom had sheltered the Queen from +all anxiety, and she had not a notion that the King had been anywhere +except to some consultation with ministers, and thence late to bed.</p> + +<p>In order that his valet might find him there he got into it, and when, a +couple of hours later, he greeted her Majesty he found that sanguine +mind looking eagerly ahead and concerning itself very little over things +which were past.</p> + +<p>"Remember, my dear," she said, looking up from her letters, "that in +three days' time the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser comes. I do hope, while +he is here, that you will be fairly free."</p> + +<p>"Not so free as I thought I should be," said the King, and he sighed +heavily.</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>His Majesty had a good many things that day to discuss with the Prime +Minister when at a later hour they met. He began on the matter which was +most regular and formal; had he been at all likely to forget it the +Queen's observation would have reminded him.</p> + +<p>"By the way, Mr. Premier," he said, "as you already know, the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser arrives in a day or two; and there are certain possible +eventualities arising out of his visit which we must be prepared for. +Hitherto the Princess Charlotte has had no definite grant made to her. +While she was still living with us, without an establishment of her own, +I preferred to let the matter stand over. But now—well, now a change +may be necessary."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister's face beamed with congratulatory smiles. "Your +Majesty may be sure that the matter shall have immediate attention."</p> + +<p>"There will be no difficulty?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, none whatever."</p> + +<p>"I will leave all question of the amount to be discussed later. I +believe that it is etiquette, in the case of a reigning Prince, for him +also to be consulted."</p> + +<p>"That is so, sir."</p> + +<p>"The Prince himself is very wealthy; and I think that you will find him +disinterested. Still there is, of course, a certain balance to be +observed."</p> + +<p>"Oh, quite."</p> + +<p>"I leave the matter, then, entirely in your hands."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister bowed.</p> + +<p>And then the conversation changed.</p> + +<p>"You know what happened to me last night, I suppose," said the King.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, indeed, sir! You will pardon my silence; I was most horrified. +But I thought that perhaps your Majesty did not wish to speak of it."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," replied the King, "I have got a great deal to say." +And then, with much detail and particularity, he narrated his +experience—all those hours which he had spent in the crowd; and the +Prime Minister listened, saying nothing.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the King, when he had done, "that is what I have seen; and +you cannot tell me it is something that does not matter."</p> + +<p>"By no means, sir; I admit that it is very serious."</p> + +<p>"I was never told so before."</p> + +<p>"We did not wish unnecessarily to trouble your Majesty. This is hardly a +case for Cabinet intervention; the Home Office does its duty, takes +preventive measures as far as is possible, and puts down the +disturbances when they arise."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said the King, "but is nothing going to be done?"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister raised his eyebrows, as though asked to reply once +more to a question already answered.</p> + +<p>"Everything possible is being done, sir."</p> + +<p>"Legislatively, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir," exclaimed the head of Government in a tone of the most +deferential protest, "that surely is a matter for the Cabinet."</p> + +<p>"Quite so," said the King. "That is why I ask."</p> + +<p>So then the Premier explained circumstantially and at great length why, +in that sense, nothing whatever could be done. We need not go into it +here—those who read Jingalese history will find the Prime Minister's +reasons published elsewhere; and it all really came only to this: "It is +the duty of a government to keep in power; and if it cannot do justice +without endangering its party majority, then justice cannot be done."</p> + +<p>You could not have a more satisfactory, a more logical, or a more +unanswerable argument than that. And at all events—whether you agree +with it or not—it is the argument that all ministers act upon +now-a-days, even when, in the House of Legislature which sits +subservient to their will, there is a majority ready and waiting which +thinks differently of the matter, but fears to act lest it should lose +touch with the loaves and fishes. For now it is on the life not of a +Parliament but of a Cabinet that losses are counted. And the reason is +plain; for every member of a Cabinet has to think of saving for himself +some £5,000 a year together with an enormous amount of departmental +power and patronage; while an ordinary private member of Parliament has +only his few hundreds to think about and his rapidly diminishing right +to any independence at all. The life and death struggles of a ministry +are bound, therefore, to be more desperate, more unscrupulous, and more +pecuniarily corrupt than those of any other branch of the legislature. +And, of course, when we put all the leading strings into fingers so +buttered with gold, political corruption is the necessary and inevitable +result, and such incidental things as mere justice must wait.</p> + +<p>But the Prime Minister did not explain matters to the King in such +plain and understandable terms as these; and, as a consequence, his +explanation being incomplete, his Majesty's mind remained unsatisfied.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said he, when the ministerial apologia was concluded; "I +will consider what you say, and when I have quite made up my mind I will +send a message to Council with recommendations; I still have that right +under the Constitution."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister stiffened. Here was conflict in Council cropping up +again; it must be put down.</p> + +<p>"That right, sir," said he, "has not been exercised for nearly a hundred +years."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said the King, "I exercised it only two months ago, +when I sent in the message of my abdication."</p> + +<p>"Which your Majesty has been wise enough not to act upon."</p> + +<p>"Which, nevertheless, you were forced to accept, and would have had to +give effect to, ultimately, by Act of Parliament."</p> + +<p>That was true.</p> + +<p>"By the way," went on the King, "arising out of that withdrawal of my +abdication which you say was so wise, there has come a difficulty I had +not foreseen. Believing that by now my son would be upon the throne +instead of me, I gave my consent to his marriage with the daughter of +the Archbishop. Yes, Mr. Premier, you may well start: I am just as much +perturbed about it as you; for the Prince now comes to me and claims the +fulfilment of my promise."</p> + +<p>"Impossible, sir!" exclaimed the Prime Minister.</p> + +<p>"That is what I tell him. He does not think so."</p> + +<p>"But, your Majesty, this is absolutely unheard of. The whole position +would be intolerable!"</p> + +<p>"I indorse all your adjectives and your statements," said the King +coldly; "but the fact remains."</p> + +<p>"Then, sir, I must see the Prince, immediately."</p> + +<p>"It is no use, no use whatever," replied his Majesty. "Besides—the +matter is still rather at a private stage. You had much better wait till +the Prince comes to you; otherwise he may accuse me of having been +premature."</p> + +<p>"But what does the Archbishop say?" cried the Premier, aghast.</p> + +<p>"That is the point; I believe he does not yet know. Technically +speaking, the engagement is scarcely a day old. The Prince's note +claiming my promise reached me only this morning, and I imagine it is +only now that the Archbishop will have to be informed. Hitherto the +matter has been in suspension. You will understand it was dependent—on +my abdication, I might say."</p> + +<p>"In that case, sir, the conditions are not fulfilled."</p> + +<p>"I fear they are," said the King; "the Prince has my promise in writing; +and abdication is not mentioned. You see, it was the bomb that made all +the difference. Very provoking that it should have happened just then; +it upset all my plans!"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister began to look very uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," went on the King, observing his change of countenance, "don't +think that I am blaming you. What you said was quite true; abdication +after that became impossible; I am only saying it as an excuse for the +position in which I now find myself. It was not I who made the mistake, +it was that poor misguided person who threw the bomb; he ought to have +killed me. I am confident that, had the Prince been actually on the +throne, the situation would have been radically altered, that he would +not have persisted—that he would have seen, as you say, how impossible +the position would be. Very unfortunate—very—but there we are!"</p> + +<p>"But again I say, sir, that even now, though the Prince is not on the +throne—and long may your Majesty be spared!—the whole thing is +absolutely and utterly impossible."</p> + +<p>"I quite agree," said the King; "but that is the situation. Before now I +have found myself in similar ones, and have tried to get out of them; +yet I have seldom succeeded."</p> + +<p>"But this, sir," persisted the Prime Minister, "is politically +impossible. Things could not go on."</p> + +<p>"And yet, Mr. Premier, you know that they will have to; that is the very +essence of politics."</p> + +<p>"I tell your Majesty that rather than admit such a possibility the +Ministry would resign."</p> + +<p>"Very well—then it must," said the King. "But you will find that the +Prince will not regard my inability to secure an alternative Government +as any reason why he should not marry the lady of his choice. I may as +well tell you, for your information, that he has revolutionary ideas, +and this is one of them."</p> + +<p>"I am confident," exclaimed the Prime Minister, with a gleam of hope, +"that the Archbishop himself will forbid it."</p> + +<p>"Very likely," replied his Majesty; "but I am not sure that he will +succeed. I wish he could; but from all I hear the lady herself is of a +rather determined character. Women are very determined now-a-days."</p> + +<p>He thought of Charlotte and sighed; and yet, in his heart, he could not +help admiring and envying her.</p> + +<p>"We will talk of this all again some other time," he went on, tired of +the profitless discussion. "After all the marriage is not going to take +place the day after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Sir," said the Premier, "over a matter of this sort any delay is +impossible—the risk is too great. I must see the Prince myself."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said the King, "do as you like. After all I ought to be +glad that it is with the Prince you will have to discuss the matter, and +not with me."</p> + +<p>And he smiled to himself, for he very much liked the thought of the +Prime Minister tackling Max.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h2>THE SPIRITUAL POWER</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>But the Prime Minister, though he lost no time, was unable to catch his +quarry. Prince Max had gone out; and his secretary could give no +information as to his whereabouts. "His Highness told me that he had a +very important engagement; he did not say with whom." To apprehensive +ears that phrase sounded ominous; and fearing what risks delay might +entail the Premier drove down to Sheepcote Precincts, the archiepiscopal +residence; and there for three mortal hours he and the Archbishop sat +with heads together (yet intellectually very much apart) discussing what +was to be done.</p> + +<p>It was during those three hours that his Grace of Ebury performed his +most brilliant feat of statesmanship, and redeemed that local off-shoot +of the Church of Christ over which he ruled from the political slough +whereinto it had fallen. To him solely—by means of his daughter, that +is to say (but in politics women do not count)—is due the fact that the +Church of Jingalo still stands on its old established footing, and that +her Bishops have a decisive modicum of political power left to them.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop was, in his heart of hearts—that last infirmity of his +noble mind—quite as much horrified at the news as the Premier had been. +But scarcely were the dread tidings out of the minister's mouth when, +perceiving his opportunity, he rose to it as a fish rises to a fly, and +pretended with all due solemnity to be rather pleased than otherwise. +Though his daughter's elevation to princely rank and to the prospect of +future sovereignty would assuredly seal his political doom, he professed +presently to see in it a fresh stepping-stone to influence and power, +or, as he conscientiously phrased it, to "opportunities for good." His +approach to this point, however, was gradual and circuitous.</p> + +<p>"Of course it is a great honor," he began, deliberately weighing the +proposition in earthly scales, and seeming not wholly to reject it.</p> + +<p>"That goes without saying," replied the Prime Minister, "and hardly +needs to be discussed. Our sure point of agreement is that it must not +be."</p> + +<p>His Grace lifted his grizzled eyebrows in courteous interrogation, and +beginning delicately to disentangle the gold strings of his pince-nez +from the pectoral cross to which like a penitent it clung, said, "Of +course I perfectly understand how great a shock this has been to you. To +me also it comes as an entire surprise: my daughter has told me nothing, +and therefore—in a sense—I can say nothing till I have seen her."</p> + +<p>"You have influence with her, I suppose?" said the Premier.</p> + +<p>"Oh, undoubtedly."</p> + +<p>"I am confident, then, that your Grace will use it to the right end."</p> + +<p>"It has never been my habit, I trust, to neglect my parental +responsibilities," replied his Grace.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking, rather, of your responsibilities to the State."</p> + +<p>"Those, too, I shall have in mind. There is also the Church."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister was puzzled.</p> + +<p>"This matter does not seem to impress your Grace quite as it does me. I +should have thought there could be no two opinions about it."</p> + +<p>"That was too much to hope, surely? Our points of view are so very +different."</p> + +<p>The Premier felt that plain dealing had become necessary. "It would make +quite untenable your position as leader of a party," he remarked grimly.</p> + +<p>"I was not concerned about myself," replied his Grace with wonderful +sweetness. "As for that, I am growing old."</p> + +<p>"But surely you agree that the thing is wholly impossible?"</p> + +<p>"Impossible is a strong word."</p> + +<p>"That it would profoundly alter the constitutional status of the Crown?"</p> + +<p>"Possibly. I think not."</p> + +<p>This slow weighing of cons in the balance was having a devastating +effect upon the minister's nerves; he got upon his feet.</p> + +<p>"Does your Grace mean to tell me that this thing is even conceivable?"</p> + +<p>"Conceivable? I wish you would state to me, without any fear of offense, +the whole body of your objection. I recognize, of course, that the Royal +House, in the direct line, has made no such alliance for over two +hundred years,—never, in fact, since it ceased to be of pure native +extraction. I also admit that for myself as a party politician (if you +impose upon me that term) it is inconvenient, destructive even to +certain plans which I had formed. But putting myself altogether aside, +and allowing that for a precedent we have to go very far back into the +past, what real objections have you to urge?"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister was beginning to get thoroughly uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>"It is a breach—a fatal breach to my mind," said he, "in that caste +distinction which alone makes monarchy possible under modern conditions. +I mean no personal disrespect to your Grace: were it a question of my +own daughter, I should take the same view. It disturbs a tradition which +has worked well and for safety, and has not been broken for hundreds of +years. But most destructively of all it threatens that aloofness from +all political entanglements—that absolute impartiality between party +and party—which to-day constitutes the strength of the Crown."</p> + +<p>"I might be quite prepared," said the Archbishop slowly, "in such an +event, to withdraw myself from all political action of a party +character."</p> + +<p>"You cannot so separate yourself from the past," objected the Prime +Minister.</p> + +<p>"I do not see the difficulty. You yourself, in a long and varied career, +have twice changed your party, or deserted it. If that can be done with +sincerity, it is equally possible to become of no party at all."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister flushed at this attack on his past record, and struck +back—</p> + +<p>"Not for an Archbishop," he said, a little sneeringly. "The Church +now-a-days has become not merely a part of our political system, but a +stereotyped adjunct of party, and a very one-sided one at that."</p> + +<p>"To answer such a charge adequately," replied his Grace, "I should be +forced into political debate foreign to our present discussion. What +concerns me here and now is that something has taken place—pregnant for +good or ill—which you regard as impossible, and which I do not. In +either case—whatever conclusion is reached—I am called upon to make a +sacrifice. Of that I do not complain, but what I am bound to consider, +even before the interests of the State (upon which we take different +views), are the interests of the Church. When we last met you were +preparing to do those interests something of an injustice: and your more +recent proposals do not induce me to think that you have changed your +mind. If the Church is to lose the ground she now holds in the State she +must seek to recover it elsewhere. I cannot blind my eyes to the fact +that, in the high position now offered to her, my daughter will be able +to do a great work—for the Church."</p> + +<p>"I believed that you had no sympathy with the intrusion of women into +the domain of politics."</p> + +<p>"Not into politics, no; but the Church is different. We have in our +Saints' Calendar women—queens some of them—who were ready to lay down +their lives for the Church, and to secure her recognition by heathen +peoples and kings. Why should not my daughter be one?"</p> + +<p>He spoke with an exalted air, his hand resting upon his cross.</p> + +<p>"Your Grace," said the Prime Minister in a changed tone, "may I put one +very crucial question? Have you a complete influence over your +daughter?"</p> + +<p>"That I can hardly answer; I will only say that she is dutiful. Never, +so far as I am aware, has she questioned my authority, nor has she +combated my judgment in any matter where it was my duty to decide for +her what was right."</p> + +<p>On this showing she seemed a very estimable and trustworthy young +person; and with a sense of encouragement the Prime Minister went on—</p> + +<p>"Then upon this question of her marriage with the Prince, would she, do +you think, be guided by you?"</p> + +<p>"She would not marry him without my consent."</p> + +<p>"And your consent might be forthcoming?"</p> + +<p>"Under certain circumstances, I think—yes."</p> + +<p>"And as the circumstances stand now at this moment?"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop paused, and looked long at the Prime Minister before +answering.</p> + +<p>"How do they stand?" he inquired.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>That evening when Jenifer returned home the Archbishop was waiting her +arrival. The door of his private library stood ajar. "Come in, my dear," +he called, hearing her step in the corridor, "come in; I wish to speak +to you."</p> + +<p>She entered with a flushed face. "<i>I</i> wanted to speak to you, father," +she said.</p> + +<p>He saw that she was come charged for the delivery of her soul, and +perceiving what a strategic advantage it would give him to hear the +story first from her own lips, he waived his prior claim. "Very well, my +dear," he replied, "for the next hour I am free, and at your disposal."</p> + +<p>"It may take longer than that," she warned him; "I have something to +tell you that seems to me almost terrible."</p> + +<p>"Anything wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, but so tremendous I hardly know how to begin." Her breast +labored with the burden of its message, but in her face was a look of +dawn.</p> + +<p>"Has it to do with yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, papa. I am engaged to marry Prince Max."</p> + +<p>The Archbishop paused for a moment, thinking how best to avoid any +appearance of foreknowledge.</p> + +<p>"My child," he said, "what Prince Max do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"The only one that I know of," she answered.</p> + +<p>"You mean the heir to the throne?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, papa."</p> + +<p>"You say you are engaged to him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"With whose knowledge, may I ask?"</p> + +<p>"The King knows; he has just given his consent. That is why I am telling +you now."</p> + +<p>"Why only now?" There was reproach in his tone.</p> + +<p>"Until we had his consent we were not engaged."</p> + +<p>"And now—being engaged—you come for mine?"</p> + +<p>"No, papa; only to let you know." She paused. "Of course I should be +glad of your approval."</p> + +<p>The Archbishop sat silent for a while. "How long have you known Prince +Max?" he inquired at last.</p> + +<p>"About six months."</p> + +<p>"Is not that rather a short time?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"For so important a decision, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Yes; it is, I know."</p> + +<p>"For learning a man's character, shall I say?"</p> + +<p>"Some characters one learns more quickly than others. I know him, papa, +better than I do you."</p> + +<p>"That may well be, youth does not easily understand age. And so my +question remains: Do you know him well enough to marry him?"</p> + +<p>"I want to marry him," she said.</p> + +<p>"You know there are objections?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"Very serious ones."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I told him; I said it was quite impossible. He said he could get +the King's consent. I did not think so: I felt sure, indeed, that he +could not. But to-day he came and showed it to me in writing—a promise +made conditionally more than two months ago."</p> + +<p>"Conditionally?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; it named a date. That is why until to-day there was nothing that I +could tell you."</p> + +<p>"Not even the fact that he had asked you to marry him?"</p> + +<p>"I could not wish that to be known, if nothing was to come if it—not by +any one."</p> + +<p>"It would have been better, my child."</p> + +<p>"No, papa; why should you, or any one, know what I had had to give up?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, it would have been painful; that I can understand."</p> + +<p>"I can smile at it now," she said; "but at the time it was terrible! For +I found, then, how much I loved him."</p> + +<p>The Archbishop withheld all speech for a moment, then said tenderly—</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry for you, my child."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but there is no need to be now!" she cried joyfully.</p> + +<p>Once more he paused; then he repeated the words.</p> + +<p>There was quick attention then in her look, but she showed no fear; and +he shifted to easier ground.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," he said gently, "how all this came about. How did you come to +know the Prince?"</p> + +<p>"Only by seeing him at the Court; then I recognized that we had met +often before, when I had not known who he was."</p> + +<p>"Why should he have concealed it?"</p> + +<p>"He did not; one day he told me, and I would not believe him, it seemed +so unlikely. Neither did he believe me when I told him who I was; he +said that the facts were incompatible, and that mine was the more +unlikely story of the two."</p> + +<p>"Did you—did you begin liking him very soon?"</p> + +<p>"I began by almost hating him. He used to scoff at everything, he seemed +not to believe in anything that was good. Almost the first time that we +met he told me that the dress I wore was 'provocative'—'a lure of +Satan's devising' he called it, and said that nothing tempted men more +than for women to wear what he described as 'the uniform of virginity.' +He declared that it was because of my dress that he got lost following +me through the slums."</p> + +<p>"Did not that warn you what sort of man he was?"</p> + +<p>"No; for it was not true. We just happened to meet, and he helped me +when I was single-handed. He confessed afterwards that he had said +everything he could to shock me—to put me to the test. He has grown up +distrusting all religious professions."</p> + +<p>"A scoffer? Did not even that warn you?"</p> + +<p>"No; under the circumstances it seemed the most natural thing; it showed +me that he was honest."</p> + +<p>These sounded dreadful words to the Archbishop, coming from his +daughter's lips; he felt that, in passing from theory to practice she +had become shockingly latitudinarian in her views; and again, cautious +and circumspect, he shifted his ground.</p> + +<p>"My dear," he said, "you do realize, I suppose, that from a worldly +point of view the Prince has committed a very grave indiscretion."</p> + +<p>She smiled. "He tells me so himself; it rather pleases him. But now the +King has given his consent."</p> + +<p>"Yes, nominally he has," replied the Archbishop. "But in that there is a +good deal more than meets the eye. When his Majesty first gave that +promise he never intended that it should take effect."</p> + +<p>She paled slightly at his words, and he saw that only now had he scored +a point.</p> + +<p>"Why do you think that?"</p> + +<p>"I do not think it, I know; but I am not at liberty to reveal secrets of +State. Let us put that aside, I cannot give you proof; if you wish to +disbelieve it, do. But now I come to my main point. There is a side to +this question about which you know nothing, but you know that in the +State to-day the Church has her enemies. This indiscretion on the part +of the Prince, supported by a promise from which the King cannot in +honor withdraw, has suddenly put into my hands a great opportunity which +must not be missed."</p> + +<p>"Into <i>your</i> hands, papa?"</p> + +<p>"Under Providence, yes; I say it reverently. You are my daughter, and +in service and loyalty to the Church you and I are as one."</p> + +<p>She looked at him steadfastly, but did not respond in words.</p> + +<p>"A great opportunity," he said again; "a great power for righteousness, +to save the Church in her dire need. That is a great thing to be able to +do—worth more than anything else that life can offer. To you, my +daughter, that call has come; how will you answer it?"</p> + +<p>Her face had grown white, but was still hard to his appeal; he had not +won her yet.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "I do partly understand. I will do all for you that I +can."</p> + +<p>"Then you will release the Prince from his bond."</p> + +<p>"He does not ask to be released."</p> + +<p>"That may be."</p> + +<p>Then there was silence.</p> + +<p>"My dear child," murmured the Archbishop; there was emotion in his +voice, and putting out his hand he laid it upon hers.</p> + +<p>She drew herself gently from the contact.</p> + +<p>"Only if he wishes it," she said.</p> + +<p>"He will not wish it."</p> + +<p>"Then he has my word."</p> + +<p>"Your life contains other and holier vows than that, my child."</p> + +<p>She did not seem to think so. "Father," she said, "this is the man I +love!"</p> + +<p>"That I realize," he replied gravely. "The question is which do you love +best,—him or the Church?"</p> + +<p>Jenifer opened her eyes in a limpid and childlike wonderment. How could +he ask a question the answer to which was so obvious? "Why, him!" she +cried; "there is no possible comparison!"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop was deeply shocked as well as nonplussed at such an +answer coming from his daughter; and meanwhile with clear sincerity of +speech she went on—</p> + +<p>"You mean the Church of Jingalo—do you not, papa?"</p> + +<p>Of course it was the Church of Jingalo that he meant, but it would not +do at this juncture to say so. His daughter might be one of those +dreadful people who believed that the Church would get value out of +disestablishment.</p> + +<p>"I meant the Church of our fathers," said he, "the faith into which you +were baptized,—the spiritual health and welfare of the whole nation."</p> + +<p>"I do not think that by marrying the Prince I shall do it any harm. I am +sure that he means none."</p> + +<p>Her idea of the power of Princes struck him as curiously feminine; how +little she understood of politics!</p> + +<p>"It is rather a case," said he, "of harm that you cannot prevent, except +in one way. What have you in your mind? Is it the wish to sit upon a +throne?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" she said; "I shall never like being queen." Then, after a +pause, she added honestly, "All the same, I could do things, +then—things which I have longed to do; and I know that he would let +me."</p> + +<p>Her face glowed at the prospect; and suddenly she turned upon him a full +look of self-confidence and courage, and there was challenge in her +tone.</p> + +<p>"I know far more about the poor than you do, father," she said, "and +much more of their needs. If I were queen I would have a house down +among the slums; and I would never spend Christmas, or Easter, or Good +Friday in any other place." Her voice broke. "I would try—I would try," +she said, "to set up Christianity in high places. That has been my +dream."</p> + +<p>"Have you told your dream to the Prince?"</p> + +<p>She smiled tenderly, and with confidence. "He is already helping to +make it come true. I asked him to be upon the Commission. That is why he +is there."</p> + +<p>"You?"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop was now realizing that he knew very little about his +daughter, and she not only amazed him, she frightened him. For the first +time he feared that he might lose the great stakes for which he was +playing; and one thing was essential—this woman, this domestic pawn +which he held in his hand, must never be allowed to become queen.</p> + +<p>And so with great pain he forced himself, and spoke on. How right he had +been when he told the Prime Minister that in one way or another +sacrifice would be required of him! For now he was going to sacrifice +his most sacred conventions, his ideal of how an unmarried woman should +be trained.</p> + +<p>"My child," he said, "do you think that you know this man?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I know him better than any one else in the world."</p> + +<p>"Do you also know his life?"</p> + +<p>Jenifer's look turned on him a little curiously.</p> + +<p>"I know," she said, "that he is not really a Christian."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he exclaimed, in a sort of joy, decorously flavored with grief, +"that I did not know! Of course that explains everything. The rest +inevitably follows."</p> + +<p>"What follows?"</p> + +<p>"No man who is not a Christian leads a life that will stand looking +into." And then, avoiding her eyes, he spoke of things which he knew; +some of them in certain quarters were almost common property; of others +he had only recently become informed.</p> + +<p>And as he spoke he felt, with a strange oppression, the heart beside him +grow dumb. For this woman, with her clear and gracious understanding of +so many human ills and weaknesses, had been kept in one matter, the most +important of all, with the mind of an undeveloped child. Evil things she +knew of—they had an existence, a place, and a name—but for her no +reality except in their awful results. All that she had hitherto seen of +"irregular living" bore the stamp of betrayal and disease, a thing more +grossly criminal than anything else in the social body. She did not know +how that body was permeated, and how no class and no ordinary standard +of morality was free from the taint.</p> + +<p>And now she heard that the man she loved had been keeping that thing +called "a mistress"—housing her in luxury, visiting her day after day, +not very greatly troubling himself whether the fact remained secret or +became known. Then dates were mentioned; and she was given to know how +those visits had still gone on while her lover had been offering her the +devotion of his heart. It was there, after his recent accident, that he +had gone to be nursed.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop was extremely well informed, and he told nothing which +he did not absolutely believe to be true. And now at last all the +advantage was on his side, for ignorance left her almost without +defense; with no sense of proportion she stood looking out into a +non-dimensional world.</p> + +<p>Dimly her mind made a struggle to escape.</p> + +<p>"But what, what does it mean?" she asked. "There must be some reason for +it. Is it a kind of disease?"</p> + +<p>"A corrupt nature," said her father solemnly; "these are what the Church +calls in her teaching 'the sins of the flesh.'"</p> + +<p>She shuddered, for to her by religious training "flesh" had come to have +a dreadful sound. In her spiritual world she pictured it as a shop hung +with butcher's meat; yet why it was dreadful she did not know.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," she murmured with pained speech, still trying for a way out, +"it isn't—natural, is it?"</p> + +<p>"That doctrine is preached by some," said her father; "Christianity +forbids any such view."</p> + +<p>"He said," she went on, "he said this, when he first asked me to marry +him: 'I have done some natural things which you would hold to be wrong. +I have loved,' he said, 'for mere comfort, not for honor or life.' He +asked me if I understood; I said 'Yes.' 'That is my confession,' he +said. 'I have been,' he said, 'no better than others; I hope not worse.' +And that was all. I thought he meant that he had been selfish and +worldly. Is that other thing what he really meant?"</p> + +<p>"No doubt."</p> + +<p>"But he <i>told</i> me," she said, and looked at him with a forlorn hope.</p> + +<p>"It was the best thing that he could do for himself; no doubt he guessed +that eventually you would come to know."</p> + +<p>She stood thinking back into the past.</p> + +<p>"After he had told, he kissed me," she said; "he had never done that +before." Her lips trembled and the tears ran down her face.</p> + +<p>"You know enough now, my dear. That will not happen again."</p> + +<p>"I still love him," she said, as though confessing to shame.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop had sufficient wisdom to accept the statement without +protest. "It would be hard for you to do otherwise," he said. "The heart +cannot change all at once."</p> + +<p>"I believed that with him I could do good."</p> + +<p>"Can you believe that now?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"That sort of life enters the blood," said her father, "taints it, makes +evil that which would otherwise be holy."</p> + +<p>"You mean——?"</p> + +<p>"I speak of marriage; the drawing together of two into one."</p> + +<p>"It still is marriage."</p> + +<p>"Its mystery has been profaned. Marriage then, coming after, may be only +a reminiscence of sin."</p> + +<p>She stood looking at him, her face very pale.</p> + +<p>"I shall still have to ask him if it is true."</p> + +<p>The Archbishop resigned himself to what he could not avoid. "If you +must," he said. And then, thinking forward to what might possibly +happen, he added: "It was my duty to tell you everything."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied, "but you did not mean to tell me at first."</p> + +<p>"I hoped that I might spare you," he explained. "These are not things +that one speaks of willingly; if they can be avoided it is better that +they should not be known."</p> + +<p>She gave a gesture of impatience, pressing her hands against her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Do not say anything more to me," she said, and her voice sounded +hopeless and dead. "Not now."</p> + +<p>And then, very slowly, she turned and went out of the room.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop told himself that he had done his duty. Personal +aggrandizement, great opportunities of power and social position he had +put away, he had done a true and holy thing. And so he sat down and +wrote to the Prime Minister.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h2>THE THORN AND THE FLESH</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The next day Prince Max received a letter written by the hand which had +become for him the dearest in the world. It was very simple and +straightforward and methodical: it began with the word "Beloved" and +asked whether certain things were true. It seemed, then, that for the +first time his confession was understood. Not a single one of the +questions put to him contained anything that was untrue, but they did +not go much into detail, and no commentary was made upon the facts +indicated.</p> + +<p>Max sat down and wrote a very beautiful letter in reply, and got no +answer.</p> + +<p>For three days he put up with this rebuff to his honesty of character +and his literary ability; then not finding his lady where he expected +her to be, he went and called upon her father.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop was out; but Max, not to be denied, sat down and waited +for his return. He waited for over two hours. It was getting towards +dusk when his Grace entered, a reverend, high-shouldered figure, showing +a stoop and beginning now to look old.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop's very formal greeting told Max that here was the enemy. +This did not at all dismay him; at that time, indeed, he was full of +confidence. The temporary separation between himself and his beloved, +brought about in a conventional way which he thoroughly despised, was +for the moment a hindrance; but it had not yet taken to itself the +colors of doom. He knew that Jenifer's heart was entirely his, and that +they, with their common honesty, had only to meet again to be made one. +What he wanted to know, therefore, was not so much the opinion of +Jenifer's father about himself and the engagement, as to find out her +present whereabouts. From the first moment of their meeting he knew that +he did not stand in the Archbishop's good graces; but that hardly +concerned him; and so it was almost without circumlocution that he asked +for Jenifer's address.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop, by a simultaneous depression of the head and raising of +the eyebrows, managed to convey his just sense of the honor which was +being done him and the liberty that was being taken.</p> + +<p>"I wrote the other day," explained Max, "asking her to arrange a time +when I might come and see you. In strict etiquette I believe that your +Grace ought first to call upon me; but we have so few precedents to go +by. She has, I trust, done me the honor to tell you that we are +engaged?"</p> + +<p>"I have been informed of the circumstance," replied the Archbishop with +stately formality.</p> + +<p>The Prince took the matter boldly in hand. "From your manner I have to +presume that we have not the happiness of your consent?"</p> + +<p>"My consent was not asked."</p> + +<p>"Had it been?"</p> + +<p>"I could not have given it."</p> + +<p>"That I think," said the Prince, "would have been the perfectly correct +attitude until such time as the King gave his. It is for that we have +been waiting; had it not been so I should have come to you earlier."</p> + +<p>"Early or late, my answer to your Highness would always be the same."</p> + +<p>"May I ask upon what grounds?"</p> + +<p>"I would ask, sir, in return, upon what grounds is it suitable that you +should marry my daughter?"</p> + +<p>"It so happens," replied Max, "that I am in love with her."</p> + +<p>"What precisely, sir, to your mind does the phrase 'being in love' +convey?"</p> + +<p>The Prince saw that the tussle was coming; he gathered his thoughts +together, then said, "An intense personal desire to endow a certain +woman with motherhood."</p> + +<p>The Archbishop flushed: sharp enmity showed itself in his eyes; he made +a gesture of repulsion.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" cried Max, "does that shock the Church?"</p> + +<p>The challenge went unanswered; instead came question.</p> + +<p>"Have you not had this desire before—in other directions?"</p> + +<p>"Never!" exclaimed Max. "No, never!"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop eyed him keenly. "You have had experience."</p> + +<p>"I have lived my life openly," said the Prince.</p> + +<p>"I was aware of that," returned his Grace. "Need I trouble your Highness +with any further grounds for my refusal? Not with my consent shall my +daughter marry a libertine."</p> + +<p>"Great Judge of Heaven!" cried Max, springing to his feet. "Hark to this +old man!"</p> + +<p>"Don't shout," said the Archbishop; "He hears you."</p> + +<p>Max's scorn dropped back like a rocket to earth.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he retorted, "no doubt! The question is, are you capable of +hearing Him?"</p> + +<p>"I am always ready to be instructed," replied his Grace sarcastically.</p> + +<p>"I must remind you," said the Prince, "that as a Doctor of Divinity I +have some claim. Yes," he went on in answer to the Archbishop's look of +astonishment, "though you have forgotten the circumstance, you yourself +dubbed me Theologian by hitting me over the head with a Greek +Testament."</p> + +<p>The Archbishop accepted the reminiscence.</p> + +<p>"In that case," said he, "I bow to your Highness's authority."</p> + +<p>"Yes: you were a shepherd of that fold, yet you let me in? I was the +clever one of my family; and the title was given me when, with three +lives standing between, there was little likelihood of my becoming Head +of the Church. Was I to wear it, then, as an ornament, or as an amulet +to guide me into right doctrine? Whatever faith I still hold, I fear me +that miracle has not been wrought."</p> + +<p>"In these days," said the Archbishop, "faith itself is the great +miracle."</p> + +<p>"That people should have any faith in the Church is indeed a miracle," +said Max. "Yet I suppose it is but another instance of how easily the +world accepts what it finds. I myself remain outwardly a Churchman; +merely because it seems to me hardly to matter, and because any overt +act on my part would hurt those whom I love. And what spiritual +experience have I acquired as the result of my outward conformity? I +have found the pulpit the most polished of all social institutions: and +never once have I heard from it any word troublesome to a conscience +which has still, I can assure you, its waking moments. The eloquence +that flows from it never trespasses beyond the bounds of polite +conversation; and as regards 'unpleasant subjects' it deals faithfully +only with the lives of those who do not form the bulk of its +congregations. If it dealt faithfully with them, those polite +congregations would get up and walk out."</p> + +<p>"I do not think, sir, that your experience puts you in a position to +know how the Church deals with the consciences of the faithful."</p> + +<p>"You mean," said Max, "that in the ears of royalty uncomfortable +subjects are avoided? That merely indicates the system. As the snail +withdraws first his horns into his head, then his body into his shell, +so your Church adapts itself to its surroundings. Let me give you a case +in point—it touches on our present discussion. I have heard often +enough the cheaper forms of prostitution decorously alluded to; but when +did I ever hear dealt with, either for approval or reprobation, the +established practice among the unmarried youth of our aristocracy of +keeping mistresses?"</p> + +<p>"I think, sir, that you must have been often inattentive. The virtue of +purity is, I am sure, constantly inculcated by our clergy."</p> + +<p>"In such a form," replied the Prince, "that we need not apply it to +ourselves. The betrayal of innocency, yes, I have heard of that, for +that only touches a small minority. But these mistresses whom most of us +keep are no more innocent than ourselves, nor are we more innocent than +they. And yet, while to them all social entrances are barred, we men are +allowed to go in free."</p> + +<p>"Society cannot act on mere rumor and suspicion," said the Archbishop.</p> + +<p>"In the woman's case it does," replied the Prince. "And I wonder whether +it has ever occurred to any one to connect that fact with the +cheapening of our modern definition of chivalry. Are you ever +chivalrous; am I?"</p> + +<p>"Charity is a greater thing than chivalry."</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure of that," said the Prince. "You had forgotten just now +that I was a Doctor of Divinity; have you also forgotten that we share +the honors of one of the most ancient knighthoods in the world?"</p> + +<p>"Will your Highness be so good as to explain?"</p> + +<p>"Your Grace will perhaps remember—since you officiated upon the +occasion as prelate of the Order—my investiture rather more than two +years ago as a Knight of the Holy Thorn?"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop bowed assent.</p> + +<p>"Your discourse upon that occasion was both learned and eloquent; but it +did not really touch the subject that had brought us together."</p> + +<p>"How would you define the subject?" inquired his Grace.</p> + +<p>"The subject on which I hoped to be instructed," said the Prince, "was +the real meaning of Chivalry as expressed in the Order of the Thorn, and +the reason why I was deemed worthy to be made a knight of it. There had +already been some comment owing to the fact that the honor was not +conferred immediately on the attainment of my majority. Perhaps my +shortened career at college had something to do with it—perhaps the +fact that I had brothers who were older and worthier than myself. I am +not in the least blaming my father for the delay; rather am I now +inclined to be grateful. But that year the death of my two brothers +created more than a vacancy: and any further postponement would, I +suppose, have made the omission too pointed. I stepped into those dead +shoes."</p> + +<p>"What a talker the man is!" said the Archbishop to himself. But +etiquette held him bound, and there he was obliged to sit, looking +interested and attentive, while Max went on.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>"For some reason or another—perhaps because it was the one thing for +which, in spite of legitimate expectations, I had been kept waiting—I +conceived for the honor, when it was bestowed on me, a sentimental +regard which I did not experience toward my other titles. They had all +dropped upon me without any merit on my part; for this one honor I felt +in some curious way that I was not worthy. It may have been that feeling +of unworthiness which made me, before the date of my investiture, study +the history of the Order and the legend of its origin. I had hoped that +you would touch upon that legend, and give it some modern application. I +wonder now whether your Grace is aware of the legend; or whether I, +indeed, am not the only Knight of the Order who has troubled to think +anything about it."</p> + +<p>"I fancy," said the Archbishop, "that the legend you refer to has a +flavor of medieval Romanism that would hardly commend itself to modern +ears."</p> + +<p>The Prince smiled bitterly. "Your Grace persuades me," he said, "to tell +the story myself. At the point where it does not commend itself I shall +be glad to hear your criticism.</p> + +<p>"The Founder—or ought I not rather to say the first Knight?—of the +Order was (if the story be true) a certain ancestor of our royal house +who had spent the greater part of his life in wars of unjust aggression. +To atone for them—or for other things which weighed more heavily on his +conscience—he went late in life on a crusade to the Holy Land; and +after being there handsomely trounced by the infidel, was returning in +dejection to the sea-coast with the mutinous remnant of his following, +when the founding of the Order of the Thorn occurred to him.</p> + +<p>"It occurred to him thus: this at all events was his own account of it. +He had become separated from his company of knights, darkness was coming +on—when, as he spurred his tired steed with little mercy for its +exhausted condition, he passed by the roadside a beggar who cried out to +him for charity. But the charity asked for was not alms, but only the +withdrawal from the mendicant's foot of a thorn which troubled him.</p> + +<p>"My ancestor, softened by some accent of gentleness or patience in the +suppliant's voice, dismounted to do the service required of him, and in +the growing darkness drew out the thorn. But when he had got it free +from the flesh it seemed no more a thorn but an iron nail; and the wound +out of which he had drawn it shone with celestial radiance. Then was +founded the Order. The Mendicant bade him bind the Thorn upon his heel +in the place of his spur, so that whenever thereafter he should be +tempted to goad or oppress whether man or beast the Thorn should remind +him of pity and mercy. I wait for your Grace's criticism of that +legend?"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop made no reply: with a courteous gesture of the hand he +invited the Prince to continue.</p> + +<p>"I hoped," said the young man, "to be instructed in the connection +between that Founding and the continuance of the Order. You spoke of +chivalry and loyalty; but the chivalry which you invited us to emulate +was merely the physical daring of our ancestors as proved in war +(wherein I am no longer allowed to take part); and the loyalty was to a +form of monarchy which modern conditions now threaten with change. And +I, looking at all my brother Knights around me, and at myself, wondered +by what right we wore that iron thorn upon our heels.</p> + +<p>"Among us—I need not mention names—were men whose lives were far more +notoriously evil than mine—men whose wealth had been gained for them by +the grinding of sweated humanity; men who received enormous rents from +houses not fit for human habitation—men who opposed every act of +remedial legislation which disturbed their own vested interests, and who +did these things with an untroubled conscience because the conditions +they fought for were all the outcome of custom or of law.</p> + +<p>"And I remembered that some day I should be required to become their +Grand Master—the titular head of that dead Order of Chivalry; and I +wondered what would happen if I acted honestly upon my conscience and +refused."</p> + +<p>"Yet you say, sir, that for this Order, of which you now speak so +slightingly, you had sentiments of reverence?"</p> + +<p>"For the Order—yes; but none for the men—including myself—who make up +its membership."</p> + +<p>"Surely," said the Archbishop, "your Highness must admit that they are +all men of mark; many of them have spent their lives in the public +service—leaders of the people in peace and war. You cannot regard these +things as nothing."</p> + +<p>"For these things they already have their titles," said the Prince, +"their state-pensions, or the wealth personally acquired on which their +power and influence are based. Has the Order of the Thorn ever once in +its history been given to a man because he was conspicuously good, or +gentle, or forbearing, or unselfishly thoughtful for others? Has it ever +once been given to a successful philanthropist who was not also of high +lineage and title? I have looked through the lists; I can find none. +Your Grace is the only one among us whose profession is to serve God +rather than to be served by men."</p> + +<p>The Archbishop glanced uneasily at the Prince; but there was no sarcasm +in his look or tone. Max was never more of an artist than in his +adaption of manner to theme. Sadly, almost dejectedly he went on.</p> + +<p>"And now let us come to myself. It seems that I am not accounted worthy +to receive your daughter's hand in marriage. In a certain sense I admit +it. That he is unworthy seems true to every man who ever loved a woman +well; and perhaps the woman feels the same of herself. But I do not +admit that the reasons for your judgment are just. You deny me my claim +because, during my early manhood, I have had illicit connection with one +woman. Tell me—do you propose that your daughter shall ever marry at +all?"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop looked at the Prince with a half-pitying surmise and drew +himself up as though he had some statement to make. Then putting the +inclination aside he said: "That is for her to choose."</p> + +<p>"From her own rank in life?" persisted Max,—"not limited, I mean, to +the clerical profession?"</p> + +<p>"I impose no limits on my daughter's freedom," said the Archbishop.</p> + +<p>"And do you mean to tell me," inquired the Prince, "that of every +suitor for your daughter's hand—lawyer, soldier, politician, man of +letters—you will make it your business to inquire—and will expect to +be told the truth—whether they have not at some period of their career +had illicit connection with women?"</p> + +<p>"I could recommend no suitor," said the Archbishop, "who had been at so +little pains as your Highness to avoid the setting of a bad example to +others."</p> + +<p>"Is it, then, merely secrecy that you advocate?"</p> + +<p>"A respect for moral observances is in itself a ground of +recommendation," answered his Grace; "though at times a man may fall +short of what he knows to be right."</p> + +<p>"You mean," said the Prince, "that I have flagrantly committed myself in +the upkeep of an establishment, where others have only paid an +extravagant price for a night's lodging?"</p> + +<p>"Your Highness puts the matter in a way that makes it impossible for me +to discuss."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon; I really was trying to be delicately indirect. But +that you should beg off discussion because my way of putting things +seems to you indelicate is yet another count in my quarrel with your +established ministry. You seem to me to be amateurs where you ought to +be professionals. How can you possibly deal with poor weak humanity in +kid gloves? Like the surgeon before he can hope to bring healing in his +wings, you too must be anatomical in your researches. It is the +anatomical your civil churchmen fight shy of. Well, I will endeavor to +get at the matter from another and a more accessible side. Your Grace +is, I take it, a man of the world?"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop was inclined to demur; humbly but firmly he deprecated +the imputation.</p> + +<p>"But surely!" protested the Prince, "had you not been, you would not now +be in the place which you occupy; every one knows that an Archbishop's +appointment is political. I ask you then, as a man of the world, +how—short of a miracle—could you expect a man in my position and +circumstances to have kept a technically unblemished record? Surrounded +with luxuries from my birth, disciplined by no real hardship, having to +make no struggle for my existence; brought up to eat meat and drink +wine; athletic, but without any reason or opportunity for leading a +strenuously athletic life; with brains, but with no compulsion to use +them; passed, for the perfecting of my education, from one privileged +grade to another; from the University to the Army, and from thence to +sport and the race-course; from where on God's earth, in this modern +curriculum for kings, was the idea to have occurred to me that I should +do this thing, in attempting to do which your early hermits went +hullabalooing to the desert?</p> + +<p>"I am now nearly twenty-six. My father, for reasons of State, married at +twenty-one: I, for similar reasons, have been kept unmarried, no +sufficiently eligible partner could be found for me. And I solved the +time of waiting by contracting a non-legal conjugal relationship with a +woman for whom I had a very real affection, who was considerably my +senior in years, and who knew quite well that the arrangement could only +be temporary. My Lord Archbishop, I ask you—could you in my +circumstances have shown a better, a more blameless record? I was even +punctilious enough to tell your daughter—an excessive scruple, I +think,—she did not understand."</p> + +<p>"She understands now," said the Archbishop.</p> + +<p>"And who is it," inquired the Prince sharply, "who has thus played +bo-peep with her intelligence—first shutting and now opening her eyes?"</p> + +<p>"When evil is encountered," said his Grace, "instruction has to be +extended."</p> + +<p>"And still you have stopped halfway, just at the point where it serves +you best. What does her pure soul know of these problems which to her +are only a few hours old?"</p> + +<p>"She is a daughter of the Church; and she knows what the Church's answer +has always been."</p> + +<p>"She knows, then," said Max, "what no school of historians has yet been +able to decide! See over in England to-day how the Church, clinging to +its establishment, has to dodge and shuffle over the changes in the +moral law arising out of national habit. Is the Church of Jingalo so +greatly superior, think you, that it can boast?"</p> + +<p>At that moment a clock upon the chimney-piece intoned the hour; and the +Archbishop, reduced to extremity in order to get rid of his +distinguished but unwelcome visitor, permitted himself to throw an +involuntary glance in the direction of the sound.</p> + +<p>The Prince, perceiving the indication, rose at once to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me," he said, "for having kept you so long."</p> + +<p>"Pardon <i>me</i>," returned his Grace; "unfortunately I have to dine."</p> + +<p>"Of course. I ought not to have forgotten."</p> + +<p>"I mean that I have guests."</p> + +<p>"They shall not be kept waiting by me," said the Prince. He moved to the +door. Then he stopped.</p> + +<p>"Your Grace," he said, "I know that we cannot be friends, still——"</p> + +<p>He paused; and there was silence.</p> + +<p>"I greatly wish to see your daughter. Surely you cannot deny me that +right."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> cannot," said the Archbishop. "She does."</p> + +<p>This pulled Max up with a jerk: not that he yet believed it, however.</p> + +<p>"Where is she now?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"She has joined the Sisterhood of Poverty. To-day she entered her +profession."</p> + +<p>The Prince choked.</p> + +<p>"That is horrible!" he said. "You mean she has taken vows?"</p> + +<p>The Archbishop of Ebury bowed his head. "For the remainder of <i>my</i> life +at all events," he said in a stricken tone. "She will not return here. +My house is left desolate to me—because of you."</p> + +<p>"You still have guests," said the Prince.</p> + +<p>"That is an unworthy gibe," retorted his Grace. "My work has still to go +on."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said Max.</p> + +<p>"I have written to her," he added after a pause; "and she has not +answered. Will your Grace be good enough——"</p> + +<p>"I do not think she will. She prays for you. If you came, I was to tell +you that."</p> + +<p>Again there was silence for a time.</p> + +<p>"When I was a child," said the Prince, "I had an old nurse, who whenever +I did anything wrong—as whipping was not allowed—used to go down on +her knees and pray for me; and she always did it against a blank wall. I +suppose it helped her. That has always remained my vision of prayer. And +now I shall always think of your daughter with her dear face turned to a +blank wall, praying for you and me—her murderers."</p> + +<p>He went out.</p> + +<p>"Upon my word!" thought the Archbishop, "that is a dangerous man to be +heir to a throne."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h2>NIGHT-LIGHT</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>And meanwhile the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser had arrived; and Max, +instead of pursuing his own love-affair, ought to have been busy +entertaining him.</p> + +<p>The first meeting between Charlotte and her suitor had been tactfully +arranged; they had met riding to a review of troops in the great Field +of Mars which occupied a central space in the largest of the royal +parks. The Princess had a healthy taste for riding in thoroughly cold +weather; she also particularly disliked to be in a carriage when those +round her were on horseback; and so, by following her own taste, when +the Prince met her she was looking her very best. Down a white-frosted +avenue of lindens she and her escort came trotting to the +saluting-point; and there, once more in his sky-blue with its sable and +silver trimmings, the Prince was presented, and opening upon her mild +blue eyes that looked curiously light in his bronzed and ruddy +countenance, with dutiful promptness he fell in love with her.</p> + +<p>By a little quiet maneuvering and attendance to other matters the +King left them side by side for a while. Troops stood massed in the +distance waiting the signal to advance.</p> + +<p>"Do you like soldiers?" inquired the Prince.</p> + +<p>"It rather depends upon the uniform," replied Charlotte.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Do you like mine?"</p> + +<p>She looked at it, and smiled; for there were no sky-blue tunics in +Jingalo; and such cerulean tones on a man were to her eyes a little +incongruous.</p> + +<p>"It would be rather trying to some complexions," she observed. "But you +look very well in it."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I have been abroad," he explained. "That has given me the colors of +a Red Indian."</p> + +<p>"You look just as if you had dropped from the sky," she said, smiling +still at him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, not this sky!" and he cast up a grudging glance at the opaque +grayness overhead. "Here you seem to have a sun that looks only the +other way."</p> + +<p>She threw back a light remark, while her eye strayed over the field. +Presently he returned to the subject.</p> + +<p>"So you only like soldiers because of their uniforms?"</p> + +<p>"And when they ride well. I like drums too," she added.</p> + +<p>"Ah! good! I can play on the drum. It is my one instrument."</p> + +<p>"Does it require much practice?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; it is very difficult—to play well. But it has been very +useful to me. I took a drum with me to South America. That is music that +the natives can understand, it can make them afraid; and when one is all +by oneself in the forest, then it helps that one shall not feel lonely. +One night when I had no fire left, I was saved my life from wild beasts +just by beating at them with my drum. It is funny that you should like +drums."</p> + +<p>"I like something with them as well," said Charlotte.</p> + +<p>"Ah," grunted the Prince, "that depends. There is some music in the +world that ought never to be allowed."</p> + +<p>"Well, there is some of ours," said the Princess, as the massed bands of +three regiments sent forth their blast. "How does that strike you?"</p> + +<p>The Prince listened with the ear of a connoisseur. "For you here, that +is good," he said judicially; "but you are not a musical nation. And +there is a man there that is playing his drum as it ought not to be +played."</p> + +<p>And then his formal duties called him away. This was their first +exchange of compliments. Old Uncle Nostrum, who had kept within ear-shot, +reported to the King that things had gone sufficiently well. There was +no secrecy about the intended affair in the royal circle now; everybody +knew of it.</p> + +<p>And that evening, at a State ball given in the Prince's honor, the +destined pair met again.</p> + +<p>Nothing very much happened at the ball. The Prince danced once with +Charlotte and once with the Queen, and with nobody else; while Charlotte +danced nearly the whole evening; and Max, moving about with a pensive +and preoccupied air, danced with nobody. But the only reason why this +ball has to be mentioned is because of something that happened +immediately after, quite unconnected either with the about-to-be-linked +or the about-to-be-separated lovers—something which takes us back to +those underground workings of the body politic which his Majesty was +only now beginning fully to apprehend.</p> + +<p>State balls end punctually, and as it were upon the stroke; as soon as +the royal countenance is withdrawn they come to an end. And so within +half-an-hour of the retirement of the royal party all the great suite of +chambers was empty, and in less than an hour light and movement had +ceased in all that part of the palace wherein the royal family resided.</p> + +<p>But the King, hindered during the day by constant attendance upon his +guest, had some papers to look through before his next meeting with the +Prime Minister. He went into his study, switched on the light, and for +an hour sat at work. Outside traffic died away; the sense of silence +grew deep; the whole palace became permeated by it. Wearying for bed, +having got through his last batch of papers, the King looked at the +clock; it was half-past one.</p> + +<p>Just as he was getting up from his seat the mere ghost of a sound caught +his ear. The door, silent on its hinges, had softly opened; and within +its frame stood a figure in dark civil uniform who gave the military +salute.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>"Mr. Inspector!" cried the King in surprise, recognizing the face.</p> + +<p>"I beg your Majesty's pardon."</p> + +<p>"Ah! You came to see that everything was safe? This time you were a +little too early. Still, as you are here, I should rather like to know +how far those keys do allow you to penetrate?"</p> + +<p>"Everywhere, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"You mean, even to the private apartments?"</p> + +<p>Apparently he did.</p> + +<p>"Do you often have occasion to use them?"</p> + +<p>"Not after to-night, your Majesty—never again."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do not suppose that I am objecting, if it is really necessary."</p> + +<p>"I give these keys up to-morrow, sir," said the man. "I ought to have +given them up to-day; but I wanted to see your Majesty."</p> + +<p>The King drew himself up; this seemed an intrusion.</p> + +<p>"You could have asked for an interview," he said.</p> + +<p>"I could have asked to the day of my death, sir; you would never have +heard of it."</p> + +<p>"You could have written."</p> + +<p>"Does your Majesty think that all letters personally addressed are even +reported to your Majesty?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose not all of them," said the King after considering the matter.</p> + +<p>"Not one in a hundred, sir."</p> + +<p>"Still, any that are important I hear of."</p> + +<p>"Mine, sir, would not have been reckoned important," said the man +bitterly.</p> + +<p>The King looked hard at him, not with any real suspicion, for his +straightforward bearing inspired liking as well as confidence. But here +was a man whose measure must be carefully taken, for he was certainly +doing a very extraordinary thing.</p> + +<p>"And have you something really important to tell me?"</p> + +<p>Their eyes met on a pause that spoke better than words.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the man. Quietly he shut the door.</p> + +<p>"Won't you come nearer?" said the King, for the depth of a large chamber +divided them. But the disciplined figure kept its place. Slowly but +without hesitation he gave what he had to say.</p> + +<p>"I am dismissed the force," he began; "but that's not important—at +least only to me—though I suppose that's partly why I'm here, for a man +must fight when his living is taken from him. I am dismissed because +your Majesty got out of the palace the other night without my hearing of +it."</p> + +<p>The King breathed his astonishment, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>"I admit I ought to have known, but the man we had on duty at that door +didn't know your Majesty—at least not so as to be sure. I asked him +yesterday who it was went out, and he said—well, sir, he thought it was +one of the palace stewards. They use that door a good deal at night, so +I'm told."</p> + +<p>"That he did not recognize me was, of course, my own doing," said the +King.</p> + +<p>"I know that, sir," replied the man, "but in the detective force we +can't afford to make those sort of allowances. The consequence is—I'm +out of it."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Inspector. What do you want me to do?"</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, I'm here because I know something that I can't tell to +another soul on earth. If I could have gone to them with it, I needn't +have troubled your Majesty. But, so happens, I haven't got the proof."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to ask me to believe you without proof?"</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty can get the proof—or see it anyway. It's there at Dean's +Court."</p> + +<p>"Dean's Court? What is that?"</p> + +<p>"Where the police museum is, sir. The proof of what I'm going to tell +your Majesty lies there."</p> + +<p>This was getting interesting. "Pray go on," said the King.</p> + +<p>"That bomb," said the man, "the one that was thrown at your Majesty the +other day—all the pieces of it are in the museum now."</p> + +<p>He paused, then added—</p> + +<p>"They have gone back to the place they came from."</p> + +<p>It was evident then, from the man's tone, that to his own mind he had +stated the essential part of his case.</p> + +<p>But the King, his brain working on unfamiliar ground, missed the +connection.</p> + +<p>"I do not quite understand," he said.</p> + +<p>"No, sir? Well, then, it's like this. After the bomb was thrown, we were +put on to the ground, and the public were kept off. All the pieces +picked up were brought to me. It must have been a very mild sort of +charge, sir, nothing much besides gunpowder I should say; no slugs nor +anything. Most of the shell I was able to put together again. It was +blackened all over, partly by fire, partly new painted I think, but, +under the black, I found lettering and numbers, all quite faint. I've +got them here." (He drew out a pocket-book as he spoke.) "D.C.M. 5537."</p> + +<p>He closed the book with a snap as though clinching an argument.</p> + +<p>"The bomb that had that number on it," said he, "came from Dean's Court +Museum; it's been there fifteen years. I've been in to look; that number +is missing now. You'd have thought, sir, they might have been more +careful than that!" He spoke with professional contempt for a job that +had been bungled.</p> + +<p>The solemnity of the man's manner, and the queer mystery of it all sent +a cold sensation through the King's blood; he felt now that he was up +against something dangerous and sinister.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean me to understand from all this?" he asked?</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," said the man, "it doesn't need me to tell your Majesty +that when anarchists or any of that sort want to do a bit of +bomb-throwing they don't go to our police museum for their materials. +But that's not all. They found out, down at head office—after it was +over, only then—that the local authorities had given permit for a +cinematograph record to be taken from a stand just opposite, overlooking +the new buildings, so as to get the procession as it came along under +the arch. And so, as it happened, those films had got the whole thing +recorded. We only heard of it when they were announced to be shown at +the theater that night. I was sent down to get hold of them, and I +brought them back with me.</p> + +<p>"I've been through every one; most people wouldn't see anything. The +point where the bomb went off was about fifty yards away; and those +films give a view that just takes in a bit of the palisade. At number +139 you see an arm come up, and a face just behind it, very small, under +the scaffolding; you'd hardly know it was there. But if that were put +under a good microscope I shouldn't be surprised but what it could be +recognized."</p> + +<p>By this time the King's understanding had become clear; he saw where the +argument was leading.</p> + +<p>"Before I could do that," the man went on, "they were locked away. I +didn't say anything about it—didn't point it out to them, I mean—for +I'd begun to have a feeling that things weren't all right; and I daresay +they haven't noticed what <i>I</i> noticed. If they have, number 139 and the +ten plates following will be gone. Whether they have or not—that's my +proof."</p> + +<p>The King was now following the man's narrative with tense interest; +every moment its import grew more clear; yes, clearer than day, sharp +and bright as a rocket shot up against the blackness of a midnight sky.</p> + +<p>The inspector paused for a moment and wiped his hand over dry lips; in +the telling of that tale his face had grown white.</p> + +<p>"Whom do you mean by 'they'?" inquired the King.</p> + +<p>The man hesitated. "Well, your Majesty, I'd rather not say."</p> + +<p>"I ought to know."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir, I can't deny that! But, there, I've got no proof—so it's +not the same thing. But I do say this, your Majesty, that to be able to +lay hands on those things in the first place, and now to keep them +locked away, needs somebody higher up in the department than I'd like to +name. If I may leave it at that?"</p> + +<p>"That will do," said the King.</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty sees I couldn't safely go to anybody else with that proof; +either it would be somebody who couldn't get at it before it was +destroyed, or it would be those who had the whole thing in their own +hands."</p> + +<p>"I quite see that," said the King.</p> + +<p>"That's all I had to say, then, sir."</p> + +<p>"I am very much in your debt; I shall not forget what I owe you. There +is one question I want to ask—you say that the charge must have been a +very feeble one?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, much less than an ordinary shell."</p> + +<p>"What do you deduce from that fact?"</p> + +<p>"Well, your Majesty, I should say that killing had never been intended."</p> + +<p>"That it was only done to frighten some one?"</p> + +<p>"That is about it, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"Thank you; that is what I wanted to know. And if you will leave me your +name, I think I can promise that you shall be at no disadvantage after I +have gone into the matter."</p> + +<p>"I am much obliged, your Majesty." The inspector came forward, drew out +a card, and respectfully presenting it, retired again.</p> + +<p>"Then, for the present, that is all," said the King. "It is now nearly +two o'clock. You can, I believe, let yourself out?"</p> + +<p>And in the light of a gentle, half-quizzical smile from the royal +countenance, the inspector withdrew.</p> + +<p>"What an amazing thing!" said the King to himself. "And oh! if it is +true!"</p> + + +<p>III</p> + +<p>He knew that it was true; for in a flash he had seen the meaning of it. +And instead of angering him, it filled him with an almost intoxicating +sense of power. For it meant that the Prime Minister, or the +Government, could not do without him, he had been necessary to their +plans.</p> + +<p>He could not distinctly see why, whether it were a fear of Max +succeeding to the throne at such a juncture or of popular resentment at +the sovereign being driven to so desperate a remedy for his griefs, or +fear merely of the damage that might be done to the monarchical system +while bureaucracy was still depending upon it as a cloak for +constitutional encroachments—whether one or all of these fears impelled +his minister, the King did not know; but he saw clearly enough that to +force him into withdrawal of his abdication the Prime Minister had +adopted a desperate and almost heroical remedy.</p> + +<p>He bore the man no grudge; the more he envisaged the risks, the more he +admired and respected him. Feebly though the bomb had been charged, +carefully though directed by slow underhand bowling only at the legs of +horses, at a moment when the royal carriage had actually passed, still a +bomb is an incalculable weapon—pieces of it fly in the most unexpected +directions; and it was evident that for the execution of this +ministerial veto on the Crown's action it had been necessary to risk the +lives not merely of a picked body of troops, but of several high court +officials and staff-officers riding in close attendance upon the royal +coach. And a child in politics could see that if all this risk had been +run to make abdication impossible, then abdication had been the right +card to play.</p> + +<p>And now that game was over, and another had begun, and if, in a certain +sense, the leading cards had reverted to the ministerial hand, the King +had the advantage of knowing what they were; and by leading off in +another suit he might prevent the Ministry from playing them till too +late for effect.</p> + +<p>It was necessary, however, first to get his proofs. They lay at Dean's +Court under official lock and key; and the hand which held that key was, +for all he knew, the same which had thrown the bomb in order to +frighten him. How, then, was he to get at it?</p> + +<p>A brilliant idea occurred to him; so simple and easy that without +worrying himself further he went to bed and slept upon it. And next +morning, at their first meeting, he said to the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser, "Would you not like to come and see our police museum? +Just now it contains some rather interesting exhibits—especially for us +personally—that bomb, you know." And he proceeded to give details. "The +actual pieces are all there, and a whole set of photographs, showing how +the explosion took place."</p> + +<p>Her Majesty, hearing of the project, backed it warmly.</p> + +<p>"You will find it quite an intellectual treat," said she, "our police +are such intelligent creatures. I went all over the museum myself once; +and it felt exactly like being in a kaleidoscope—everything so +wonderfully arranged."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," said the Prince, "that should be very interesting."</p> + +<p>And so, though it was not in the day's program, quite at an early hour +the King and his guest drove down together to the Prefecture.</p> + +<p>The Prefect himself had not arrived, but they saw one of the high +permanent officials; and stating the purpose of their visit were +formally handed over to the Superintendent of detectives. The department +was his.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Superintendent," said the King, "we come upon you by surprise; are +you sufficiently prepared for us?"</p> + +<p>The Superintendent declared that his department was ready at all hours.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to show the Prince some of your relics," his Majesty went on, +"particularly those connected with the recent outrage."</p> + +<p>Of course the Superintendent was delighted; he led the way into the +museum; and before long the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser became very much +interested in all the things that were shown him.</p> + +<p>Case after case was opened; and the King, seeing how smoothly matters +were shaping, made no hurry toward the attainment of his goal.</p> + +<p>Presently, pointing toward a case that stood in a window recess, the +official remarked with a smile, "There lies your Majesty's +death-warrant—what is left of it."</p> + +<p>The case was opened; the King took up the fragments.</p> + +<p>"Very interesting," he said. "There are also some photographs showing +the actual event, are there not?"</p> + +<p>"They are here, your Majesty." The Superintendent produced a small box +with numbered slides.</p> + +<p>"Very interesting," murmured the King again as he continued to handle +the shards.</p> + +<p>Presently he detected in one of these a faint trace of figures and +lettering; he laid it to one side, took up the films, and began to +examine them. Film after film he held up to the light; the scale was +very small. Unable to decipher them in detail he sought only for the +identifying numbers under which they stood catalogued.</p> + +<p>After a while he came to the one he was in search of; that and the other +two or three which immediately followed it he selected for closer +scrutiny. Two of them he handed to the Prince. "This is just before," he +said by way of explanation. "It was from behind those palisades that the +bomb was thrown after our coach had passed."</p> + +<p>"Here your Highness can see the actual explosion taking place," said +their guide.</p> + +<p>"Ah, very good! Very interesting!" murmured the Prince, with cordial +appreciation. "That seems to have gone off quite well."</p> + +<p>The King meanwhile had re-collected the four innocuous-looking films and +set them apart from the rest. "And have you been quite unable," he +inquired, "to trace the bomb to its origin, or to discover anything as +to who threw it?"</p> + +<p>"No trace at all, sir. The whole thing is a perfect mystery."</p> + +<p>"Remarkable!" said the King.</p> + +<p>And then with the leisurely air of a collector of curios he took up +again the four films and the shard bearing the faint trace of figures, +and before the astonished eyes of the Superintendent put them into his +breast-pocket.</p> + +<p>"I will keep these as a souvenir," he observed. "They will always be of +great interest to me."</p> + +<p>"I ask pardon, your Majesty," replied the official a little stiffly, +"but it is against all regulations for anything to go out of this museum +when it has once been catalogued."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," retorted the King, smiling pleasantly, "but then it is +against all regulations for bombs to be thrown at the royal coach when I +am in it; so you must allow, for once, this small breach that I make in +your chain of evidence. There is plenty of material for conviction still +left, should you ever discover the criminal."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid, sir," said the Superintendent, speaking gravely, "that +this will get me into trouble with the Prefect. May I express a hope +that your Majesty will reconsider the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, not at all!" said the King. "Tell the Prefect that the +responsibility rests with me. The Prince here is witness that I robbed +you and that you were helpless. Lay all the blame upon me without any +scruple! And if it is a very grave breach of the regulations—well—you +can inform the Prime Minister; and then, no doubt I shall hear of it."</p> + +<p>The Superintendent stood mute; he had made his protest, and he could not +pretend that he was satisfied.</p> + +<p>"By the way," went on the King, "I have a very particular request to +make which I think concerns your department. In connection with a +certain incident that took place the other night—and which shall be +nameless—one of your special inspectors has been dismissed, I hear?"</p> + +<p>"That is so, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"Well, I do not wish to interfere in anything that makes for efficiency; +but I have to request—will you please to make a particular note of +it—that he shall be retired on a full pension."</p> + +<p>For a moment the official hesitated. "May I ask why, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Because practically I have promised it. It is either that or I +re-engage him for my own personal service. He is a man whom I have +trusted in matters of an exceedingly confidential character. Pray see to +it."</p> + +<p>The head of the department could hold out no longer. "It shall be as +your Majesty wishes," said he.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said the King. "Please report when you have seen the matter +through. And now, Prince, I think that we have exhausted +everything—including, I fear, your patience, Mr. Superintendent. What a +very criminal part of society you have to deal with! I hope that the +influences of the place are not catching."</p> + +<p>"As to that, sir, I can hardly say," replied the other with a wry smile. +"Your Majesty has just committed a robbery which I shall have to report; +the first that has ever taken place in this department."</p> + +<p>"Oh, surely not quite the first!" protested the King.</p> + +<p>Then he checked himself. "Well, if that is so, you can but take out an +order for my arrest. And you will find," he added slyly, "that I am +already well known to the police."</p> + +<p>And so saying, he and the Prince took their departure.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>But if the King was satisfied with his morning's exploit—a raid so +successfully conducted—he had harassment to face before the day was +over. His message to Council, on the matter of the Women Chartists and +their grievances, was received by the Prime Minister not only with +disfavor but with a clear though respectful intimation that it would not +be allowed to effect the ministerial program.</p> + +<p>"I must remind you, Mr. Prime Minister," said his Majesty, "that the +Constitution gives me this right."</p> + +<p>"That, sir, I do not question. But it gives to us also a discretion as +to when time can be found for attending to it."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the King, "you may fix your own date within reason."</p> + +<p>"I can fix no date, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>That was flat, and the monarch could not help showing his annoyance.</p> + +<p>"If you think that that answer satisfies me," he said, "you are +mistaken."</p> + +<p>"I fear," replied the Prime Minister, "that it is often my duty to give +your Majesty dissatisfaction."</p> + +<p>"Well, well," said the King, "we shall see!"</p> + +<p>He had drawn out of his pocket a small shard and was toying with it as +he spoke.</p> + +<p>"By the way," he said, considerately changing the subject, "I was at the +Prefecture this morning; I took the Prince to see the museum."</p> + +<p>"So I was informed, sir."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister showed no discomposure; his demeanor was wholly +urbane and conciliatory.</p> + +<p>"I brought away with me a small memento," went on the King.</p> + +<p>"I was told of that too, sir," replied the Premier, smiling. "It was a +little irregular; but if your Majesty wishes for it I do not think there +can be any real objection."</p> + +<p>"Really," thought the King to himself, "is he going to pretend that he +knows nothing about it?" Yet the good face which his minister put upon +the matter did not fail to win the King's admiration; he respected the +man's courage and ability to brazen the thing out. The Superintendent, +he judged, was not actually in the secret; but of the Premier he was now +quite sure. That air of calm was just a little bit overdone. "I suppose +he thinks that I can't do anything," mused the King. "Well, well, we +shall see."</p> + +<p>And then he inquired whether the Prime Minister had interviewed Prince +Max.</p> + +<p>"I have not, sir; but I have seen the Archbishop."</p> + +<p>"You have been talking to the Archbishop about it?" cried the King +sharply.</p> + +<p>"At great length, sir," replied the Prime Minister.</p> + +<p>"Then I must say that you have taken a most unwarranted liberty! You +have gone entirely beyond and behind my authority. No, it is no use for +you to protest, Mr. Premier; I did consent that you should speak to the +Prince; but beyond that—until it had been thoroughly discussed with +him—what I communicated to you was entirely confidential and private."</p> + +<p>"An affair of such importance, sir, cannot possibly be private."</p> + +<p>"It can have its private preliminaries—otherwise where would be +diplomacy?"</p> + +<p>"The Prince might any day have taken overt action—he might even have +announced the engagement."</p> + +<p>"He might, but he did not! And without even seeing him you have been +behind his back and discussed it with the Archbishop! And pray, with +what result?"</p> + +<p>"At present, sir, I am not in a position to say, but I have good hopes. +We are still in correspondence. I assure your Majesty that my conscience +is clear in the matter."</p> + +<p>"Your conscience, Mr. Prime Minister, has an easy way of clearing +itself; you lay the burden of it on me! Yes, this is the second bomb +that has been dropped upon me from Government back premises, and I am +tired of it; I am not going to stand it any longer! In this matter of +the Prince's engagement you and I were in entire agreement; but now you +have so acted that you have endangered the relations—the very friendly +and affectionate relations—between the Prince and myself. I hardly know +how I shall be able to look him in the face. I give him my consent; and +then I suddenly turn round and I work against him; I go behind his back, +yes, I steal a march upon him—that is how it will appear. And if he so +accuses me, what am I to say?"</p> + +<p>"I appreciate your Majesty's feelings; but I say, sir, that any +sacrifice was necessary to prevent so dangerous a proposal from going +further."</p> + +<p>"No!" cried the King, "no! not of straightforward dealing and of honor! +That is what comes of being mixed up in politics. People forget what +honor means, their sense of it becomes blunted. Unfortunately mine does +not! Mr. Premier, you have profoundly distressed me; you have made my +position extremely difficult. And I do not think that you had any excuse +for it."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister had never seen the King so disturbed and agitated. He +moved quickly up and down the room beating the air with his hands; and +when his minister endeavored to put in a word he threw him off +impatiently, almost refusing to hear him.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "no, you had better leave me! With the Prince I must make +my peace as best I can. With you I no longer intend peace; it has become +impossible! I have my material; and now my mind is made up, and I mean +to use it! Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, you can go!"</p> + +<p>And thereupon they parted.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Max was far gentler to his father than the King could have hoped. They +did not meet till the next day; and for the first time in his life the +King found him utterly cast down and dejected.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do not blame yourself," he said in answer to his parent's +explanations and apologies; "I do not suppose that what you have done +makes any real difference. I have spent my life despising convention, +occasionally defying it, and now it has overthrown me. Yes, sir, that is +the true solvent of the situation; my morals have been weighed in the +balance and found wanting."</p> + +<p>"Dear me," said his father, "is that so? Well, well!" and he sighed.</p> + +<p>"Of course, sir, I cannot expect you to be sorry about it."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, my dear boy—very sorry. Don't think because I have still +to be King that I have not the feelings of a father. Ah, if you only +knew how hard I have tried to get out of it all, you would believe what +I say."</p> + +<p>"Out of what?"</p> + +<p>"Being King at all. Yes, Max, I have yet another confession to make; I +meant to conceal it from you, but now I would rather that you knew. +Perhaps you will think it wasn't quite fair; I intended to leave the +responsibility of all this to you; and—well, it so happens that when +you asked me I had determined to abdicate."</p> + +<p>Max opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I actually did abdicate. And then the bomb came, and that made it +impossible. And so—here I still am; and that is how you got my +consent!"</p> + +<p>"You abdicated?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my boy, I really did. And if that bomb had not happened I should +have been off the throne and you would have been on it. So now, Max, I +am going to tell you everything." And he did, from beginning to end.</p> + +<p>And when it came to giving Max the actual proof, he got up and unlocked +a drawer, and handed out of it the shard and the four films for him to +look at.</p> + +<p>"Take a magnifying-glass," said the King. "The face and the raised arm +are behind the palisade to the right."</p> + +<p>"I can't see them," said Max.</p> + +<p>"Very small," said the King; "a man with a dark beard."</p> + +<p>Max continued to look without result. "I can't find it," he said.</p> + +<p>"Well, look at the figures and lettering on the shard; you can see +those."</p> + +<p>"No," said Max, "I can't."</p> + +<p>The King came impatiently across and took them off him. Then, as he +examined them, he saw that the shard and the four films had been +changed.</p> + +<p>He had his souvenir; but the incriminating evidence was gone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h2>A MAN OF BUSINESS</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>While these events of political moment were going on, Prince Hans Fritz +Otto of Schnapps-Wasser had been busy planting himself in the good +graces of the Princess Charlotte. They rode, they skated, they lunched, +they played billiards together; and so easy did their relations to each +other become that the Queen ceased to have any anxiety as to the future, +and left the entire conduct of the affair to Providence.</p> + +<p>Charlotte all her life had been quick and impulsive in her decisions; +her hatreds and her affections had always been precipitately bestowed, +and while her conduct was seldom reasonable, her instincts were +generally right. So now—when a most crucial question was coming to her +for decision—for she no longer needed to be informed of the Prince's +mind in the matter—she did not allow its serious character to weigh +upon her spirits or make her less ready and spontaneous in the bestowal +of her liking. On the contrary, if anything, it hastened her verdict of +approval. "I do believe that I am going to fall in love with him!" she +said to herself after an acquaintance of only twenty-four hours; and +having so determined, she set forth with all speed to study +"philosophically," as she phrased it, this huge healthy natural specimen +which fortune had thrown in her way. "For if I don't take a +philosophical view of him now," she said to herself, "I shall never be +able to do it afterwards."</p> + +<p>The effort to do so rather amused her; she was not in love with him but +she liked him more than a little. She had not yet, however, put him to +the test by revealing the awful fact that she had been in prison as a +common criminal; and before doing so (a little nervous as to the result) +she took such opportunity of survey as was left to her, studied him up +and down, noticed his ways, demeanor, habits, and wondered to herself +whether in three weeks' time she would be so infatuated with this great +creature as not to know where divinity ended and mere earthly clay +began.</p> + +<p>She had plenty of material to go upon: he was as naïve in the +revelations of his own character as in his half-bewildered admiration +for the swift mercurial motions of her livelier temperament.</p> + +<p>For a while, at the beginning of their acquaintance, some question as to +the degree of her sincerity seemed to trouble him.</p> + +<p>"How much of what you say do you really mean?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it varies!" she answered. "I talk so as to find out what I think. +Don't you? Some things one can't judge of till one hears them spoken."</p> + +<p>"That seems funny to me."</p> + +<p>"Why? You are fond of music: don't you find that sound is very +important? Can you <i>think</i> music without ever hearing it?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," he said.</p> + +<p>"But only the airs."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; sometimes I can think like an orchestra, when I know all what +is in it."</p> + +<p>"You must be very musical."</p> + +<p>"Yes; that is my misfortune sometimes. The world has so much ugly sound +already; and then some people go out of their ways to make more."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," she smiled, "I remember you were a musical critic once."</p> + +<p>He let that go; and turning the conversation abruptly, as was his wont, +to more personal ends, said—</p> + +<p>"Tell me, do you like my name?"</p> + +<p>"Schnapps-Wasser?" Shaping the word elaborately, she made a wry face +over it.</p> + +<p>"No—not that; my own name."</p> + +<p>"But you have three."</p> + +<p>"Yes; Hans, Fritz, Otto. Which of them you like best?"</p> + +<p>"Fritz suits you best."</p> + +<p>"Then will you always call me it?"</p> + +<p>"Prince Fritz, Prince Fritz?—sounds like a robin," she said, trying it +in musical tones.</p> + +<p>"No, just Fritz; no more, only that."</p> + +<p>"Wait till I have known you a few more days; then we will see."</p> + +<p>"But I shall already be nearly gone by then," he protested. "I am only +here such a short time."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps some day you will come again."</p> + +<p>"Ah! Again!" He sounded unutterable things, as though upon that word +hung his whole fate. Anything might happen to him before they met again.</p> + +<p>"I have a secret," he said; "I want to tell it you."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure you can trust me?"</p> + +<p>"When I have told you it, you can tell anybody."</p> + +<p>"Then it can't be much of a secret."</p> + +<p>"Oh! You think?" He opened his big childish eyes at her and nodded his +head solemnly. "This secret has been with me thousands and thousands of +miles. Every time I shot off my gun, every day I went 'tramp, tramp' +through the forest walking on snakes, every time I fought for my life I +had this secret of mine to live with."</p> + +<p>"You had better not tell it then; it may lose its interest."</p> + +<p>"I want it to interest you."</p> + +<p>"It does," said Charlotte, "very much."</p> + +<p>"Huh! You do not know what it is."</p> + +<p>"That is why; it is much more interesting not to know."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you are playing at me! But what I go to tell you is no joke."</p> + +<p>"I was not laughing," she said.</p> + +<p>"No; only 'chatter, chatter'!"</p> + +<p>"You know where I have been?" he continued.</p> + +<p>"I know the continent."</p> + +<p>"Yes;—you are right; that is all anybody knows about it. Well, inside +of it there is a country as big as this Jingalo of yours; and it +belongs really to nobody. I have been all over it."</p> + +<p>"The people are very savage, are they not?"</p> + +<p>"Savage?—oh, no. They are very fierce and proud, and strong; they are +also the most wonderful artists. You call that to be a savage?"</p> + +<p>"Artists?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; look at that."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he drew up his sleeve almost to the elbow, exposing a +sunburnt arm, smooth, fine of texture, and enormously muscular. Over its +brawny mold, with scaly convolutions elaborately tattooed, writhed a +dragon in bright indigo.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how beautiful!" exclaimed the Princess. Marveling at the clear +intricacy of its detail, she stooped to examine it more closely.</p> + +<p>Prince Fritz turned his arm this way and that, displaying it. He snapped +his fingers: flick went each separate muscle, the dragon became alive.</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" he inquired, smiling with childish vanity and the +delight of feeling upon his skin the warmth of her breath.</p> + +<p>"It is very beautiful," she murmured again, her admiration divided +between the scaly dragon's wings and the splendidly molded limb.</p> + +<p>"I have them far more beautiful upon my legs," said the Prince.</p> + +<p>"Dragons?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but oh! quite different; more—how do you say?—'bloodthirsty' you +call it? Here and here"—he went on, indicating the locality—"I have +two. One of them is climbing up and the other is climbing down; and they +are both biting on my knee-cap with their teeth—like mad."</p> + +<p>"They must be quite wonderful."</p> + +<p>"They are all that! When I look at them I am lost with admiration of +myself." Then he gazed speculatively into her eyes and speaking in +dull, soft tones of Teutonic sentiment, said confidentially, "If you +will marry me, you shall see them some day."</p> + +<p>Charlotte's laughter rang loud. "Do you think I should marry you for +that?"</p> + +<p>A wistful, rather nonplussed expression came into the Prince's face.</p> + +<p>"I do not know," said he, "why women marry at all; they are so +wonderful, so beautiful, so good all by themselves; we men are not +beautiful at all—not our bodies nor our hearts. And I—oh, well!"—he +drew down his sleeve as he spoke,—"I have nothing more beautiful to +offer you than those—my dragons. If you do not want them, why should +you want me?"</p> + +<p>"But women don't marry dragons!" objected Charlotte, scarcely less +puzzled than amused.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Do they not? I think you are wrong. Many of them marry only because +the man they marry makes them afraid. I have seen it done in the country +where I come from;—Germany I mean—and everywhere here it is the same. +I am not a dragon myself; but if you are that sort of woman, these might +help you to pretend. Do you not think you could be afraid of me enough +to marry me?"</p> + +<p>This was strange wooing.</p> + +<p>"I am not afraid of you at all," said Charlotte; "but I like you—very +much."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then you want me to be quite another person? Very well, that make +it so much easier. Then now I will tell you what I am really like; and +you will try not to laugh, will you not?"</p> + +<p>Charlotte composed her countenance to as near gravity as was possible, +and the Prince went on.</p> + +<p>"I am just one little child that has lost its way through having grown +so big and strong. And I want some nice, kind woman, that is more +sensible than I, to be a mother to me—to take me in her arms and let me +cry to her when I am afraid. Herr Gott! I am so frightened +sometimes—how I have cried! Of the dark night, of loneliness, of the +stillness when there is no noise near, but only <i>that</i>, something far, +far away, that comes! Everything frightens me when I am alone. Fighting? +No, I am not afraid of that; it is this wait, wait, wait—for what? And +I want to have one woman just at my heart, and her voice at my ear, and +children—yes, plenty of them; and when I have plenty children, then I +shall not be afraid of loneliness any more."</p> + +<p>"But if you so dislike it, why did you go away into the wilds?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! I had to run away from the music. That was awful! And then—have +you lived in a German town?—that is awful too. Do not think that I am +asking you to live in a German town? No: I could not be so cruel. So now +I tell you my secret."</p> + +<p>"You mean the dragons?"</p> + +<p>"The dragons? No, no! They go with me,—they are part of me, they are +'in the know': but they themselves are not the secret. That is much, +much bigger thing still!"</p> + +<p>He paused, and she saw his blue eyes looking far away, as though he had +forgotten her presence.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she said encouragingly, "you are going to tell me, are you not?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! That is what I am come for." His tone was quite business-like +now.</p> + +<p>"That big country I told you of—it belongs to nobody. You know that +those North Americans say that nobody from Europe is to have it, though +they do not use it themselves. Well, I am going to have it."</p> + +<p>"You?"</p> + +<p>"Schnapps-Wasser,—me, with my water-bottles. I have turned them into a +company; and they are going to give for it—well, never mind how much. +But with what my bottles bring me I can make that country so that no +power in the world can prevent it from being a great country to itself."</p> + +<p>"But you say it has no coast?"</p> + +<p>"No—just like Jingalo; that is what makes it strong. If I were foolish, +if I were only going there to make money, I should try to get some +treaty, some concession, some sort of trade-monopoly—rubber, or gum, or +niggers' blood, it is all the same thing—I should try to get that from +the Brazils or the Bolivias or whoever thinks that it is theirs to sell. +I am not such a fool: I do not want to trade, if I have got the people. +They are strong, they can run, they live clean lives—nobody has spoiled +them; they do not want to be rich; they are still a wonderful people; +they know a leader when they have found him. And when they gave me these +dragons that I have on me, then I became their King. That is my secret. +Now!"</p> + +<p>"But if I were to tell people <i>that</i>——"</p> + +<p>"Pooh! They would not believe you. 'Mad,' that is what they would say. +'Don't marry that man, he is mad!' And besides I am not King as we talk +of kings here in Europe; they would not pay taxes to me or anybody, but +I can show them what to do. That country on the map may 'belong' to +anybody—the United States may write 'Monroe'—one of their big +'bow-wows' that was—they may write 'Monroe' all round the coasts of +South America and at every port that they like to stick in their noses; +but they cannot get there to say that the people living on that land +shall not become great and strong in their own way, without any one else +to say about it. To those men outside I shall only look like a trader +what is too stupid to trade with them; but all my trade will be among my +own people. That country can live on itself; there, that is my secret! +It wants nothing, nothing from outside at all; and the people want +nothing either. They have great high plateaux where they can live cool; +and they have all the brains and the blood that they want to make +themselves a great nation. I have drilled them; ah, but not German +fashion, no! They are much too splendid for that. Every man is an army +to himself. They do not fear, for in their religion it is forbidden +them. But if you can think of Bersaglieri—which are the best troops in +Europe—able to climb like monkeys, to swim like fish, to go along the +ground like snakes, and to get all by different ways to the same place +in the dark with their eyes shut, though they have never been there +before—for that is how it seems—well, that is what my army is going to +be like. I have ten thousand of them drilled already; in a year I shall +have them armed; and I tell you that at six hundred miles from the +nearest coast nobody will be able to beat them."</p> + +<p>"No, perhaps not with armies," said Charlotte; "but what about +civilization itself—all the evil part of it, I mean? How are you going +to keep that out?"</p> + +<p>"Civilization will find us a bad bargain," said the Prince, "we shall +not trade: that is to be our law. I have told them how dreadful +civilization has become, and they are afraid of it; they will not touch +it with a pair of tongs. Traders may come to us; they shall get nothing, +and we shall get nothing from them. Only the King, with those that he +has for his Council, shall choose what is to bring in from outside; and +that will not be for trade at all.</p> + +<p>"Well, now you know! And it is to be Queen of that country, but never to +wear any crown, that I ask if you are going to marry me?"</p> + +<p>"It would be rather a big adventure, would it not?" said Charlotte.</p> + +<p>"Of course! I thought that is what you like."</p> + +<p>"Yes, so it is. But what about papa? I don't know what he would say if +he knew."</p> + +<p>"Do you always tell him what you do, beforehand, to see if he shall +approve?"</p> + +<p>"I've not done lately," said Charlotte. And then she saw that a suitable +moment for her own confession had arrived. She had very small hope of +shocking him now; but she did her best.</p> + +<p>"Do you know that I have been in prison?" she said.</p> + +<p>"No. Who was it that put you there—your papa?"</p> + +<p>"I put myself."</p> + +<p>"Did you get the keys?"</p> + +<p>"I made them arrest me."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"I took a policeman's helmet from him, and ran away with it. At least +that is what he said afterwards: I don't know whether it was true."</p> + +<p>"Beautiful!" exclaimed the Prince in ravished tone. He did not turn a +hair; it was merely as though he were listening to some fairy tale.</p> + +<p>"But very likely it was!" persisted Charlotte, anxious for the worst to +be believed; and then she gave him a full account of the whole thing.</p> + +<p>"And what for did you do it?" he inquired when she had finished.</p> + +<p>"Because they had told me that you were coming, and I had promised not +to run away."</p> + +<p>"I do not understand?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I didn't know what you were like; and I didn't want you to think +I was a bit anxious to meet you.—That was all!"</p> + +<p>"That was all, was it?" Enlightenment dawned on him; he beamed at her +benevolently.</p> + +<p>"And I wanted to see," she continued, "whether you would be shocked: at +least, I wanted to give you the chance of being."</p> + +<p>"Well, you have given it me, and I am not; I am delighted. The more +women can do that sort of thing the better—pull men's heads off, I +mean."</p> + +<p>"Goodness me!" exclaimed Charlotte, "but I'm not going on doing it."</p> + +<p>"Why not? A good thing done twice is better."</p> + +<p>The simplicity of his approval left her without words.</p> + +<p>"In that country where you and I are going to," went on the Prince, +imperturbably, "the women can fight just as well as the men. They are +trained to wrestle; and before they allow to marry they must have +wrestled off on to his back a man as old as themselves."</p> + +<p>"But the men?" cried Charlotte, astonished. "How can they stand being +beaten by women?"</p> + +<p>"Pooh, that is nonsense!" said Fritz; "men do not mind being beaten by +women unless it is that they despise them. In that country the woman +that has thrown most men is the one that they are most anxious to +marry."</p> + +<p>"I have never thrown any one yet," said Charlotte reflectively.</p> + +<p>"You!" Peaceful of look he eyed her wonderingly. "You have thrown +something much stronger than a man," he said—"you, a princess, that has +gone to prison!—and for that silly notion of yours that you could shock +me. Ha!"</p> + +<p>"I did it for other reasons, too."</p> + +<p>"Quite like; people may have a lot of reasons they can make up +afterwards for doing wise, brave, foolish things like that!"</p> + +<p>"But I did think," insisted Charlotte, "that those Women Chartists were +right."</p> + +<p>"I do not care whether they are right or wrong;—that is not my concern. +They may be just as foolish as you, or just as wise—what difference to +me? But when I go to think of you sitting there in that common prison +all those ten days with everybody looking for you—looking, looking, and +not daring to say one word—so afraid at what you had done—oh, that is +marvelous! That is to be a King! That is power!"</p> + +<p>Charlotte had become very attentive to her lover's praise. "You think +they were really afraid, then?" she inquired, "afraid that it should be +known."</p> + +<p>"You ask them!" replied Fritz, "and see if they do not all cry 'Hush'!"</p> + +<p>And then in his usual abrupt way he returned to matters more personal to +himself.</p> + +<p>"Well, what are you going to say to me? For the last hour I have been +asking you to marry me, and you have said nothing; only just 'wriggle, +wriggle,' talking off on to something else."</p> + +<p>"Wriggling is one way of wrestling," said Charlotte. Her eye played +mischief as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Just waggling the tongue!" retorted Fritz with genial scorn. "Throw a +man with that?—you cannot throw me!"</p> + +<p>"But I must throw somebody, or else I shall not be qualified. The women +of that wonderful country of yours would look down on me."</p> + +<p>"Throw me!" The Prince opened his arms, smiling. "I will let you!" he +said.</p> + +<p>"And despise me afterwards! No, Mr. Schnapp-dragon, I shall choose my +own man, and throw him in my own way."</p> + +<p>"And if you succeed?"</p> + +<p>"Then—yes, then I will marry you."</p> + +<p>"And if you fail?"</p> + +<p>"Then I won't."</p> + +<p>"H'm!" observed the Prince in easy-going tones, "you must have been very +sure of him before you would say that!"</p> + +<p>Charlotte opened her mouth to rebuke that brazen remark; and then shut +it again.</p> + +<p>"When do you do it?" went on Fritz, equable as ever. "Before I go?"</p> + +<p>Charlotte pretended to temporize. "Well, perhaps to-morrow," said she.</p> + +<p>And sure enough, to-morrow it was.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Nobody in Jingalo knows to this day what finally induced the Prime +Minister to concede so unexpectedly that preliminary point of vantage—a +mere foothold among the interstices of the ministerial program—which +the Women Chartists had so long and vainly striven for. What use they +made of the opportunity thus accorded has now become a matter of +history: we need not go into it here.</p> + +<p>No royal message to ministers in Council assembled worked that miracle; +for, as we shall see in another chapter, the King's mind was destined at +this point to be suddenly distracted in quite other ways; and when he +was again able to turn his attention anywhere but to himself he found +that and other matters which had disturbed his conscience tending with +comparative smoothness toward a solution in which he personally had had +little share.</p> + +<p>But though Jingalo knows nothing of these inner workings of history, we +peering behind the scenes may note how, when bureaucracy is bent on +keeping up appearances, fear of scandal can become more potent to +constitutional ends than love of justice.</p> + +<p>Never in his long career had the Prime Minister known so flagrant an +instance of blackmail unpunishable by law as that which the Princess +Charlotte sprung on him when, in brief interview, she dictated the terms +on which alone the Ann Juggins episode was to be allowed to sink into +oblivion. And perhaps one can hardly wonder, under the circumstances, +that even then he did not feel secure, and was anxious to see so +incalculable a "sport" or variant of the royal breed removed to a safe +distance. For even though he might rely on her word as to the past, +where was his guarantee that she might not do the same thing again?</p> + +<p>"That Prime Minister is very anxious to get rid of you," said Prince +Fritz when at a later date he and the Princess began once more to +compare notes as to future plans, when in fact the joyful news of their +engagement was about to be publicly announced in a general uproar of +thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," went on Fritz, enjoying the retrospect, "one could see that +quite well. He was putting on my boots for me all the time, and was +willing to pay a good deal more for the accommodation than he had +expected me to ask."</p> + +<p>"Pay?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dearest; but it all goes into your pocket, not mine. It is the +price he pays for your character; that is all."</p> + +<p>"But what has my character to do with him?"</p> + +<p>"Your character, beloved," said the Prince, turning upon her an adoring +gaze, "leaves him with no moment in which he can feel safe. He thinks +that you have 'a great vitality,' but here not enough scope. And he +seems that he cannot govern this country so long as you stay in it. I +think him very wise. Shall I tell you what I did?"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I made a bargain."</p> + +<p>"About me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course about you, beloved—for you; who else except would I bargain +for? Besides was it about anything but your business that he and I were +having to seek each other? Well, because you so frighten him now he pays +rather more to get rid of you; and you, oh my dear heart's beloved, you +will get more. That is all that your Fritz had to do yesterday—and he +has done it. So now!"</p> + +<p>And then, well pleased with himself, the practical Fritz let his +romantic side appear again, and for two minutes or so he lived up to the +sky-like blueness of his eyes and the childlike gentleness of his face, +and because his heart was very full of love he talked his own native +German, and not Jingalese any more.</p> + +<p>And these two sides of him are here given so that the reader, if kindly +anxious about Charlotte's future, may trouble about her no more; for +when your idealist is also a very practical man of business he can, up +to the capacity of his brain-power, go anywhere and do anything, and +even in a land that is outside Baedeker will assuredly find his feet. +Not for nothing had Prince Hans Fritz Otto of Schnapps-Wasser turned his +bottled industry of home-waters into a company.</p> + +<p>In tentative motherings of her gigantic babe, Charlotte had forgotten +all about money and business affairs when once more the practical man in +him came out of childish disguise to make an inquiry.</p> + +<p>"Beloved," said he, "tell me—was he that man?"</p> + +<p>"Which man?" inquired Charlotte innocently.</p> + +<p>"The one that you wrestled with?"</p> + +<p>Charlotte nodded; a smile flickered over her face.</p> + +<p>"And you got him down?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Quite down?"</p> + +<p>"As flat as he could go."</p> + +<p>"And that is why you marry me?"</p> + +<p>The two lovers exchanged sweet looks of candor and honesty.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Charlotte, smiling, "that is why."</p> + +<p>"O Beloved," murmured the infatuated Fritz, "how beautifully you do tell +lies."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h2>"CALL ME JACK!"</h2> + + + +<p>It was noticed when the King came down to the first Council of the new +session that his face was flushed and his manner strangely discomposed. He barely +returned the respectful greetings of his ministers, and by +postponement of the customary invitation to be seated, kept them out of +their chairs for quite an appreciable time. Standing awkwardly about +the board they looked like a group of carrion crows awaiting the +symptoms of death before descending to their meal. To none did he accord +any word of personal recognition.</p> + +<p>Even when proceedings had commenced it was evident that his attention +constantly wandered, only returning by fits and starts at the call of +some chance phrase on which now and again he would seize, remarking in a +tone of irritation, "And what does this mean, please?" And thereafter he +would require to be instructed at some length, as though he had +forgotten all current or preceding events.</p> + +<p>In consequence of this the formal reports of the various departments +became a lengthy business; and the really important matters, to discuss +which the Council had been specially called, were proportionally +delayed.</p> + +<p>Presently the word "strikes" caught his ear.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, what about those strikes?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"They are still going on, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>I</i> know that! Why are they going on—that's what I want to know? +The strike you are talking about was practically over more than a month +ago; why has it begun again?"</p> + +<p>"They have secured fresh funds, sir, and other trades have joined in."</p> + +<p>"Is it the other trades that are finding the funds?"</p> + +<p>"Not entirely, sir; large contributions are now coming in from abroad."</p> + +<p>"From abroad?" interjected the King irritably, "where are they getting +funds from abroad?"</p> + +<p>"From England, sir."</p> + +<p>"From the Government, do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not from the Government, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, explain yourself, then! Don't call it England if it isn't +England."</p> + +<p>"I might almost say that it is England, sir, since a judicial decision +is the immediate cause of it. Labor in that country has just won a very +important action for damages arising out of a Crown prosecution. It has +now been decided that the Crown is responsible for the torts of its +civil and military agents. The unions in consequence are flush with +funds, and a portion of the Court's award, amounting to £50,000, has +been handed over to the strike fund in this country."</p> + +<p>"And this subsidy from a foreign and a so-called friendly Power is +having the effect of prolonging our industrial conflicts, and is doing +damage to our trade?"</p> + +<p>"Undoubtedly, sir, it has that effect."</p> + +<p>"Well, and has nothing been said about it—to the English Government, I +mean?"</p> + +<p>"It is not a direct act of the Government, sir."</p> + +<p>"I don't need to be told that," said the King. "Neither was it a direct +act of the Government when a party of English undergraduates climbed to +the top of our embassy and hauled down the national flag because +Jingalese had been made a compulsory substitute for Greek at their +universities. But for that the English Government apologized, publicly +and privately, and all round. Do they apologize for this? Do they offer +to compensate us for the loss it is to our trade and the corresponding +gain to theirs? Have they been asked to apologize?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, sir."</p> + +<p>"And pray, why not?"</p> + +<p>By this time, around the ministerial board, much open-eyed interrogation +was going on. Where, they seemed to be asking, was this glut of foolish +interrogations going to end? But still the minister under examination +endeavored to answer as though the questions were reasonable.</p> + +<p>"There would be no chance, sir, of obtaining any redress."</p> + +<p>"Yet this is doing us infinitely more harm?"</p> + +<p>"It is merely a development, sir, of that new thing called +'syndicalism.' It is cropping up everywhere now."</p> + +<p>"It may be new as it likes," protested the King. "All I say is that as +it stands it is a casus belli. You say it is cropping up; all the more +reason why it should be put down! What else is government for? Take +cattle disease; you put that down, you do not allow that to be imported. +Why should you allow syndicalism to be imported either?"</p> + +<p>The Council sought resignation of spirit in sighs and looked to its +Chief in mute appeal.</p> + +<p>"How would your Majesty propose to prevent the importation of ideas?" +inquired the Prime Minister dryly, in a tone that tried to be patient.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me," said the King, "that a syndicalist subsidy to Labor of +£50,000 is only an idea. But you are quite right, Mr. Prime Minister; in +the past countries have gone to war largely over the importation of +ideas, as you call them, either religious or social; that is why they +failed. England went to war with France at the end of the eighteenth +century merely because France was importing revolutionary ideas into +England. Was she able to prevent it? No; she only got the disease in a +much more virulent form herself, and has been running tandem to it ever +since. It is no use going to war for sentimental reasons; you must do it +for business reasons, and you must do it in a business-like way."</p> + +<p>"Merely as a matter of business, sir," said the Prime Minister, his +hopefulness now on a descending scale, "war with England would cost us +considerably more than the loss of trade occasioned by this subsidy +which you complain of."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it!" retorted the King, "not if you went the right way to +work. The Chancellor was saying just now that we should have to devise +some fresh taxes. Well, put a tax on Englishmen; quite enough of them +come here to make it worth while. Every summer the place is alive with +them!"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid, sir," said the Prime Minister, sighing wearily, "that the +most favored nation clause stands in the way of your Majesty's brilliant +suggestion."</p> + +<p>"Not if we do it openly as an act of war," explained the King; "then it +becomes a war tax. That's what I mean when I say conduct your wars on +business lines. Don't tax yourself, tax your enemy! England is the one +country we can fight on our own terms. She can't get at us. We are an +inland power; there isn't a coast within three hundred miles of us; and +Dreadnoughts can't walk on land, you know. They really can't!" he added, +as though there might be some doubt among those who had not yet given +the matter their consideration.</p> + +<p>"I assure you, gentlemen, that war on England, if scientifically +conducted, would be a profitable thing. I've been reading a book by a +man named Norman Angell, who says that war doesn't pay. Well, the reason +for that is we don't conduct our wars on the proper lines. Now if we +made war on England——"</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty," entreated the Prime Minister, "may we proceed to +business?"</p> + +<p>"If we made war on England," persisted the King, "we should not have to +send out a single regiment, or impose any extra taxation on ourselves; +in fact we should save. We should simply raise our railway and hotel +tariffs fifteen or twenty per cent. to all Englishmen, except children +in arms; children up to thirteen half price. There's the whole thing in +a nutshell; no difficulty, no difficulty whatever."</p> + +<p>At this point, to the Premier's annoyance, Professor Teller took up the +question with a humorous appreciation of its possibilities.</p> + +<p>"But, sir," he inquired, "how should we know that they were Englishmen? +They might disguise themselves as Americans."</p> + +<p>"They couldn't!" said the King. "An Englishman trying to talk American +makes as poor an exhibition of himself as an American trying to talk +English; and besides, you don't know the British character! Penalize +them in the way I am suggesting and they would flaunt their nationality +in our faces; they would wear Union-jack waistcoats and carry in their +pockets gramophones which played 'God save the King' when you touched +them. They would make a point of showing us that they didn't care +twopence for our fifteen per cent.; in fact, their Tariff Reformers +would applaud us—they would put it in large headlines in all their +newspapers, and call it an object lesson and would demand a general +election on the strength of it."</p> + +<p>"But supposing, sir," inquired the Professor, "that they did not come at +all? We have to remember that we live largely by our tourists; and if we +eliminate the English tourist——"</p> + +<p>"Better and better," said the King. "Think how popular we should be with +the rest of Europe! No English? The Germans would simply flock to us; +our hotels would be crammed; we should be turning away money at the +door."</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister tapped wearily upon the table; all this was such +utter waste of time; and he began to think that the King was so +intending it, and was bent upon making a royal Council a constitutional +impossibility.</p> + +<p>But in some curious magnetic way other members of the Cabinet were now +beginning to be infected. The idea tickled their national vanity; and +though it was all put in a very amateurish way, many of them saw well +enough that for war to be retained as a solution of international +problems something on these lines would have to be done for it. +Syndicalism was merely a showing of the way.</p> + +<p>"But, your Majesty," inquired the President of the Board of Ways and +Means, "might not England retaliate by declaring a Tariff war on us?"</p> + +<p>"She might," said the King; "but not with the Liberals still in power; +they couldn't reduce themselves to absurdity in that way. Still, +supposing our declaration of war threw the Liberals out, what could the +others do? Our trade in English goods comes to us mainly through France +or Germany; and our own return trade is chiefly limited to our native +crockery, toys, wood-carving, and needlework, supposed survivals of our +peasant industries, which, as a matter of fact, are nearly all of them +manufactured for us in Birmingham, the home of Tariff Reform. In that +matter, by the taxing of articles which are only nominally made in +Jingalo, English trade would suffer more than ours; and there might, in +consequence, come about a real revival of our native crafts (an +advantage which I had not previously thought of)—lacking our usual +supply of the bogus article we should at last become honest in our +professions and truthful in our trademarks. Let the Minister for Home +Industries make a note of it."</p> + +<p>"The prospect your Majesty holds out is certainly alluring," replied the +minister thus appealed to; "but if war is to teach us moral lessons, +surely we ought to have moral reasons for engaging in it as well as +business ones."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you want them, you've got them!" said the King. "If moral +reasons were to count we ought to have been at war with England any day +for the last fifty years. England has become—if she has not always +been—a center of infection to the whole of Europe. Every disastrous +experiment on which we have embarked has come from her. By her gross +mismanagement of established institutions—the Church, the Peerage, the +Army, Land, Labor, Capital—the whole system of voluntary service and +voluntary education—she has driven the rest of Europe into +revolutionary changes for which there was no necessity whatever. In +avoiding the woeful example she has set us, of always standing still on +the wrong leg, we have run ourselves off both our own. And now she is +nourishing syndicalism like a bed of weeds, and sowing the seeds of it +into her neighbors' territories. If you are looking for moral excuse +there is no end to it; I preferred, however, to put it to you as a +business proposition."</p> + +<p>"I must assure your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, "that your +Majesty's present advisers have no intention whatever of making +themselves responsible for a war on England, however advantageous the +circumstances may seem."</p> + +<p>He might as well have spoken to the wind; with an increasing volubility +of utterance the King went on—</p> + +<p>"If it were decided," said he, "that an actual invasion of England were +advisable, I have three separate plans now forming in my head, all +equally feasible and promising, and all capable of being put into +operation at one and the same time. Each one, in fact, would serve to +divert attention from the others."</p> + +<p>It may be noted that at this point Professor Teller suddenly ceased to +be amused; his look of half-quizzical detachment becoming changed to one +of gravity, almost of distress; his Majesty's "pace" had apparently +become too much for him.</p> + +<p>"We know, for instance," pursued the King, "that if we succeeded in +effecting a landing the German waiters would rise as one man and join us +as volunteers. Germany would, of course, officially disown them, while +for the purposes of the war we should give them letters of Jingalese +naturalization on their enlistment; these, which they would carry in +their knapsacks, would prevent them from being shot in the event of +their being taken prisoners. Our own army of twenty thousand picked +Jingalese sharp-shooters would go to England disguised as tourists. Each +in his bag would carry a complete military outfit; our new uniforms are +so like those of the English territorials that they would arouse no +suspicion at the Customs House, and even when worn only experts would +know the difference. At a given signal——"</p> + +<p>There the Prime Minister, having extracted a look of despairing +encouragement from the Council, got upon his feet.</p> + +<p>"I have to ask your Majesty," he said very resolutely, "that we may now +be allowed to proceed to the business for which we have been called +together."</p> + +<p>"At a given signal——" went on the King.</p> + +<p>"I must protest, your Majesty."</p> + +<p>It was quite useless.</p> + +<p>"At a given signal—I will give you your signal, Mr. Prime Minister, +when you may throw your bomb; yes, for I have seen you preparing it!—at +a given signal when the King and his Parliament were assembled together +in one place, some of our forces would mingle with the crowd; others +emerging from places of concealment would form into ranks and advance +from various quarters upon Westminster. Then, before any one was aware, +we would cable our declaration of war, rush the House, seize the heads +of the Government, carry them off to the topmost story of the clock +tower, garrison it from basement to roof, and there, with the King and +his whole Cabinet in our hands, stand siege till the rest of the nation +sued for peace."</p> + +<p>Once more the Prime Minister endeavored to interpose; he was borne down.</p> + +<p>"They could not blow us up," went on the King, "without blowing our +prisoners up also; they could not starve us out, for the King and his +Cabinet would perforce have to share our privations. We should have in +our possession not only the whole personnel of the Government, but that +supreme symbol and safeguard of the popular will which crowns their +constitutional edifice. And, gentlemen, you may think me as mad as you +like—you may arrest me, you may take me to the police-station, you may +rob me of all the evidence of conspiracy I have against you, and you may +call me Jack—jack-of-all-trades, master of none—Jack, plain Jack——"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister and Council sprang to their feet. Consternation was +upon the faces of all.</p> + +<p>"But nothing! nothing!" he went on, "no power on earth—except it were a +whole army of steeplejacks——"</p> + +<p>At that word the flow of his eloquence ceased; his mouth remained open +but no sound came from it. Suddenly his staring eyes puckered and +closed, wincing as from a blow; and his face flushed to a fiery red, +then paled.</p> + +<p>He gave a short cry, threw out an arm feebly; wavered, toppled, crumpled +like a thing without bone, and fell back into his chair.</p> + +<p>"My God!" muttered the Prime Minister. "Oh, great Heaven!"</p> + +<p>Some one, more nimble of wit than the rest, dashed out of the room to +seek aid. All the others, impressed with a true sense of incompetence, +stood looking at their fallen King. Not one of them knew how to handle +him, whether it were best to lay him down or leave him alone. First +aid—even to their sovereign lord—had formed no part in the education +of these his counselors.</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister did the one thing which he knew to be correct—and +which could not possibly do harm; he felt the King's heart. But nobody +for a moment supposed him to be dead; unconscious though he lay, his +heavy breathings could be seen and heard.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h2>THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING</h2> + + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>For three whole weeks thereafter—if the papers were to be believed—the +entire nation hung upon the bulletins which were issued hourly from the +royal palace. The King's illness gave the finishing touch to his +popularity; devotion to affairs of State had brought on brain-fever, and +the more desperate the symptoms of the illness could be made to appear, +the more sublime became the moral character of its august victim, and +the more deeply-rooted the affection of his people.</p> + +<p>Professional vanity had also to be flattered; and during those fierce +fluctuations of hope and despair, Jingalo's topmost place in the world +of medical science became vindicated to the meanest intelligence. If by +a scientific miracle the King's life was to be saved, Jingalese +doctoring, and no other doctoring in the world would do it.</p> + +<p>Nobly the press performed its task of giving to every factor in the +situation its due prominence; even the Church got its share; and when +favorable bulletins became the order of the day, their origin was +generously ascribed, even by the ministerial press, almost as much to +the prayers of the people publicly offered as to the skill of the six +best medical authorities. But when all was said and done it was to the +King's marvelous constitution, his patient courage, and his quiet +submission to the hands of his nurses (foremost of whom was her Majesty +the Queen), that the praise was chiefly due; for it was necessary, in +order to complete the situation, that the loyalty so nobly tendered +should be nobly earned.</p> + +<p>And nobly tendered it certainly was. Never could the nation have had so +good an opinion of itself as during those dark weeks when, taught by +its press the meanings of the various symptoms, it sat by the King's bed +feeling his pulse, holding his breath, and scarcely daring to raise any +voice above a whisper. Various sections of the public were informed in +their daily journals how they and other sections were behaving +themselves; how business men went to office almost apologetically, and +only because they could not help themselves; how nursemaids hushed the +voices of their charges as they wheeled them past the precincts of the +palace for their morning's airing in the royal park; and how Jingalo +only consented to its accustomed portion of beer in order that it might +drink to the King's health and his quick recovery.</p> + +<p>Every week in the streets at the back of the palace fresh straw was laid +down, not so much for the benefit of the sufferer (whose room was too +far away for any sound of traffic to disturb him), but as a stimulus to +popular imagination. The men who laid it down performed their task as +though the eye of the whole nation were upon them; and even upon the +Stock Exchange one learned that the rise and fall of prices were but the +harmonious accompaniment of a stupendous national anxiety.</p> + +<p>All these things Jingalo was told by its newspapers, and some of them +were true; and in the reading and the doing of them how Jingalo enjoyed +itself! It had never had such a time of feeling good, unselfish, and +thoughtful on a large and homogeneous scale, without having to do +anything particularly unpleasant in return. The theaters suffered, but +not nearly so much as the charities; for though Jingalo was still able +decorously to amuse itself—and did so at her Majesty's special request, +for the sake of trade—it could not have its heart successfully wrung by +human compassion in more than one direction at a time—at least, not to +the same extent. And so, charitable appeals had to wait till a livelier +sense of gratitude prompted by the King's recovery should revive them.</p> + +<p>In the conduct of human affairs association plays a very curious part. +When a man is shouting for joy he can scatter largesse with a free hand, +but he cannot loosen his purse-strings while he is holding his breath; +and even when it is only being held for him by a sort of hypnotic +suggestion, his nature is still undergoing a certain impedimental +strain.</p> + +<p>And as a visible embodiment to all this strain of calculation and +suspense, small crowds could be seen standing constantly at the gates of +the palace, waiting for bulletins and watching with a curious +fascination the flag that so obstinately continued to float mast high. +They watched it as a crowd watches for a similar sign outside the walls +of a jail: not that they wanted it to fall—but still, if it had to, +they dearly wished that they might be there to see. Thus, even in their +griefs, did the sporting instincts of the Jingalese people rise to the +surface and bring them a consolation which nothing else could afford.</p> + +<p>My readers will give me credit, I trust, for not having sought to impose +on them that fear of impending doom, that apprehension of what the next +hour might bring forth, on the strength of which the Jingalese press so +sedulously ran its extra editions from day to day. I have never for a +moment pretended that the King was going to die, seeing, on the +contrary, that he was destined to make a complete recovery. But he was +not to be quite the same man again—not at least that man whom we have +seen in these pages bumping his way conscientiously through a period of +constitutional crisis. For when the six Jingalese medicos came to put +their heads together over him, they found in the back of his head a +small dislodgment of bone, rather less than the size of a florin, and +protruding almost an eighth of an inch from the surface of the skull. +Great was their speculation as to how such a thing could have come about +without their knowing it—for here, of course, was the root of the whole +mischief. This fracture, brought about perhaps by some flying fragment +of bomb, unnoticed in the excitement of the moment and afterwards +ignored, had evidently been the cause of the brain-fever; and when a +cause of this sort is discovered nothing is easier for medical science +than to put it right again.</p> + +<p>And so, seeing that the bone was out of place, they put it back just +where it ought to be, that is to say, where it had been. And as soon as +that was done, and the right pressure once more restored to the King's +brain, then his temperature went down, his delirium abated, and his +mind, as it gradually came back to him, recovered the dull, safe, and +retiring qualities which had belonged to it a year ago; and with its old +constitutional balance restored to it, it became once more contented +with its limitations and surroundings, and made a very quiet, happy, and +peaceful convalescence. And though on his recovery the King still +remembered the events of the past months they appeared to him rather in +the light of a bad dream than as a slice of real life.</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister came to see him on the very first day when he was +allowed to sit up and receive visitors, and they met without any sign of +constraint or enmity.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Prime Minister, how are things going?" inquired the King.</p> + +<p>"Very well, indeed, sir," replied the minister, "now that your Majesty +has taken the necessary step to relieve us of all anxiety. And, though I +have not come on this occasion to intrude politics, it may interest you, +sir, to hear that on the question of the Spiritual Chamber, the +Archbishop and I have come to an arrangement, and the necessary +legislation is to be carried through by the consent of both parties."</p> + +<p>"Very gratifying, I am sure," said the King. "How did it come about?"</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister hesitated. "Well, sir," he said, "there were several +contributing causes: I need not go into them all. The one thing, +however, which made some modification of our plans clearly necessary was +the death of the Archimandrite of Cappadocia. After that our proposed +consecration of Free Churchmen to the new bishoprics ceased to be +possible. No doubt your Majesty will feel relieved."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am," murmured the King mildly.</p> + +<p>And so was the Prime Minister; for that event, happening so fortuitously +at the right moment, had saved his face; his political retreat was +covered, partly at any rate, by the death—in a queer odor of sanctity +all his own—of that exiled patriarch of the Eastern Church.</p> + +<p>His exit, though opportune, had not been dramatic; attention being at +the moment otherwise directed. His two wives nursed him devotedly to the +end, and wrapped him for burial in the magnificent cape which in his +brief day of political importance the Prime Minister had given him. Very +quietly and unostentatiously he was laid to rest under the rites of an +alien Church—for his own would have none of him; nor was there any one +left to say of him now, in the land of his exile and temporary +adoption, "Ah, Lord," or "Ah, his glory!" Only in his duplicated +domestic circle was he in anywise missed; polities had shifted the +ground from under him, and he had become negligible.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The King's recovery was the event of the new year, not only giving it an +auspicious send-off, but lending thereafter a peculiar flavor to the +whole social calendar. For months, addresses of congratulation kept +coming in from all the societies and public bodies in the kingdom, and +at every philanthropic function in which any member of royalty took part +during the next twelve-month it gave pith to all the speeches and +focussed the applause. Its influences extended to every department of +public life; it affected politics, trade, public holiday, art, science; +it invaded literature, increased the circulation of the newspapers, and +lent inspiration even to poetry.</p> + +<p>And those being the facts, how useless for satirists and cynics to +pretend any longer that monarchy as an institution was not firmly and +inextricably imbedded in the very life and habits of the Jingalese +people?</p> + +<p>Even at the universities the theme chosen for the prize poem that year +was the King's recovery from sickness; and though the prizes were few an +unusually large number of the rejected poems, owing to the popularity of +their subject, were published in the local newspapers. Perhaps only a +few of them were good, but one at least achieved success, and was +recited at all charity bazaars, concerts, and theatrical entertainments +given in the ensuing year. One couplet alone shall be here quoted, +portraying as it does in graphic phrase the national suspense during +those weeks of prolonged crisis when telegram after telegram continued +to pour monotonous negation on the hopes of an expectant people—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Swift o'er the wires the electric message came,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">He is no better: he is much the same!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Even amateur reciters could make an effect out of lines like that. Many +of them did, and on one occasion the Princess Charlotte was a +conspicuous member of the touched and attentive audience. It was a +difficult moment for her, but with the help of a handkerchief she +concealed her emotion, and the papers referred to it appreciatively as a +touching incident.</p> + +<p>The joy-bells that rang for a King's recovery, rang also for the public +announcement of a royal betrothal. Prince Fritz had returned to the +enchantment of his Charlotte's society at the earliest possible moment, +and was in consequence one of the royal family group which went in state +to the Cathedral to return thanks for the sovereign's restoration to +health.</p> + +<p>Across that bright scene we have to note the passing of one shadow +which, though not of impenetrable gloom, should not fail to enlist the +equable sympathy of kindly hearts. Max still moved upon the public stage +with a pensive and a chastened air. In the last month he had matured +visibly, yet he did not mourn as one without hope, for he remembered +that in the Church of Jingalo virginity could only vow itself for a +limited number of years, and he knew that time could bring wisdom to +inexperience, and make conspicuous the virtue of a heart that would not +take "no." Also he had certain fireworks up his sleeve whose brightness, +when they were let off, would penetrate even to the most cloistral +abode—he had, that is to say, his Royal Commission to work on, and the +preparation of a minority report which could not fail, when it was +divulged, to startle the world. He was even beginning to have hopes that +three or four others would sign it; for to be in a minority with royalty +has its charm.</p> + +<p>But though he still believed in the future he was for the moment in very +solitary plight. His Countess, to whom alone he could go for comfort in +his grief, had cried over him and kissed him with all the motherly +kindness imaginable; and then, disturbed by the very depth of her pity +and afraid of what might come of it—her heart being but tender +clay—had suddenly packed up her traps and flown, leaving, if you would +like to know, most of her jewels behind her. And Max, sending after her +with his own hands those souvenirs of the past, had added a few tender +words of regret and thanks which to her dying day that good woman +cherished and said her prayers over.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The Thanksgiving was a very splendid affair; but the people who liked it +least were the piebald ponies. Never in their lives did they so narrowly +escape a hugging at the hands of the great unwashed; and this unwelcome +demonstration as directed against them was quite without reason or +excuse. They had not had brain-fever, or bones put back into place, or +made miraculous recoveries from anything; and they practically said as +much when resenting the liberties that were taken with them. All they +knew was that they were doing rather more than their usual tale of work; +and in consequence they were a little cross. Nothing serious happened, +however, and while waiting at the Cathedral doors they were given sugar +which quieted them down wonderfully.</p> + +<p>Inside the Cathedral all that was great and good and noble in Jingalo +had assembled to celebrate the occasion; and in its midst, still looking +rather frail and delicate after his illness, sat the King with the Royal +Family. To right and left of him sat judges, bishops, lords, ladies, +members of the House of Laity, staff officers, diplomatists, mayors, and +corporations, heads of public departments, all very gorgeously arrayed +in their official uniforms; and there amongst the rest sat a compact +bunch of prominent Free Churchmen in black gowns—their chances of +episcopal preferment flown.</p> + +<p>With triumphant suavity the Archbishop of Ebury conducted the service, +assisted by deans, chapters, bishops, and a dozen cathedral choirs. +Something in G was being intoned; the Archbishop was in splendid voice.</p> + +<p>He asked that the King might be saved; and, man and boy, the twelve +choirs were with him.</p> + +<p>He asked a blessing on the Church; and his prayer was seconded.</p> + +<p>He implored wisdom for Cabinet ministers; that, it was agreed, would add +to the national satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"In our time, O Lord, give peace!"</p> + +<p>Peace: the echoes of that blessed word thrilled down the vaulted aisles +of the Cathedral.</p> + +<p>Put into another form that might mean, "After our time, the deluge." But +the better word had been chosen: "Peace."</p> + +<p>To the King's ear it came with all the softness of a caress; he welcomed +it, for it meant much to him. And thinking of all that was now happily +past he rubbed his hands.</p> + +<p>The watchful reporters in the press-gallery above took notes of that; to +them, whose duty that day was to interpret all things on a high and +spiritual plane, it betokened the stress of a fine emotion, and in their +grandiloquent reports of that solemn ceremony they set it down so and +published it.</p> + +<p>Yet as a matter of fact, the King had only rubbed his hands. And, truly +interpreted, his thoughts ran thus—"Peace? Well, yes, I think that now +I have earned it! Here am I, still King of Jingalo, alive and in my +right mind. During the last few months I have abdicated—put myself off +the throne, and been blown on to it again by a bomb engineered by my own +Prime Minister; I have been arrested, I have been locked up in a police +cell, I have committed robbery, and in my own palace been robbed again. +My daughter has been in prison for ten days as a common criminal; my son +seriously assaulted by the police, and for about four months +surreptitiously engaged to the daughter of an Archbishop; while a +revolutionary and seditious book written by him as a direct attack on +the Constitution and on society has been providentially burned to the +ground—that also, probably, at the instigation of my ministers. And +though all this has been going on in their midst, making history, +bringing changes to pass or preventing them, the people of Jingalo know +nothing whatever about it. What a wonderful country is the country of +Jingalo!"</p> + +<p>And at that happy conclusion of the whole matter the King had rubbed his +hands.</p> + + +<p>THE END</p> + + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Jingalese equivalent for "Black Maria."</p></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's King John of Jingalo, by Laurence Housman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING JOHN OF JINGALO *** + +***** This file should be named 18498-h.htm or 18498-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/9/18498/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: King John of Jingalo + The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties + +Author: Laurence Housman + +Release Date: June 4, 2006 [EBook #18498] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING JOHN OF JINGALO *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + KING JOHN OF JINGALO + + THE STORY OF A MONARCH IN DIFFICULTIES + + BY LAURENCE HOUSMAN + + + NEW YORK + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + 1912 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. A Domestic Interior + + II. Accidents Will Happen + + III. Wild Oats and Widows' Weeds + + IV. Popular Monarchy + + V. Church and State + + VI. Of Things not Expected + + VII. The Old Order + + VIII. Pace-making in Politics + + IX. The New Endymion + + X. King and Council + + XI. A Royal Commission + + XII. An Arrival and a Departure + + XIII. A Promissory Note + + XIV. Heads or Tails + + XV. A Deed Without a Name + + XVI. Concealment and Discovery + + XVII. The Incredible Thing Happens + + XVIII. The King's Night Out + + XIX. The Spiritual Power + + XX. The Thorn and the Flesh + + XXI. Night-light + + XXII. A Man of Business + + XXIII. "Call Me Jack" + + XXIV. The Voice of Thanksgiving + + + + +KING JOHN OF JINGALO + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A DOMESTIC INTERIOR + + + + +I + +The King of Jingalo had just finished breakfast in the seclusion of the +royal private apartments. Turning away from the pleasantly deranged +board he took up one of the morning newspapers which lay neatly folded +upon a small gilt-legged table beside him. Then he looked at his watch. + +This action was characteristic of his Majesty: doing one thing always +reminded him that presently he would have to be doing another. +Conscientious to a fault, he led a harassed and over-occupied life, +which was not the less wearisome in its routine because no clear results +ever presented themselves within his own range of vision. By an unkind +stroke of fortune he had been called to the rule of a kingdom that had +grown restive under the weight of too much tradition; and +constitutionally he was unable to let it alone. So must he now remind +himself in the hour of his privacy how all too fleeting were its +moments, and how soon he would have to project himself elsewhere. + +Glancing across the table towards his consort he saw that she was still +engrossed in the opening of her letters--large stiff envelopes, +conspicuously crested, containing squarish sheets of unfolded +note-paper; for it was a rule of the Court that no creased +correspondence should ever solicit the attention of the royal eye, and +that all letters should be written upon one side only. The Queen was +very fond of receiving these spacious missives; though they contained +little of importance they came to her from half the crowned heads of +Europe, as well as from the most select circle of Jingalese aristocracy. +They gave occupation to two secretaries, and were a daily reminder to +her Majesty that, in her own country at any rate, she was the +acknowledged leader of society. + +Having looked at his watch the King said: "My dear, what are you going +to do to-day?" + +"Really," replied the Queen, "I don't quite know; I have not yet looked +at my diary." + +Her Majesty seldom did know anything of the day's program until she had +consulted her secretaries, who, with dovetailing ingenuity, arranged her +hours and booked to each day--often many months in advance--the +engagements which lay ahead. Therein she showed a calmer and more +philosophic temperament than her consort. The King always knew; every +day of his life with anxious forecast he consulted his diary while +shaving, and breakfasted with its troubling details fresh upon his +recollection. + +Having answered his inquiry the Queen relapsed into her correspondence, +while the King resumed his newspaper; and the moment may be regarded as +propitious for presenting the reader with a portrait of these two august +personages, since so good an opportunity may not occur again. The kind +of portrait we offer is, of course, of an up-to-date and biographical +character, and does not limit itself to those circumstances of time and +space in which the commencement of this history has landed us. + +So, first, we take the King,--not as we have just found him, seated at a +table with chair turned sideways and features sharply illuminated by the +reflected lights of the journal he holds in his hands--for thus we do +not see him to advantage, and it is to advantage that we would exhibit +in its externals a character of which, before we have done with it, we +intend to grow fond. Time and space must provide us with a broader view +of him than that. + +This King had been upon the throne for twenty-five years; and during +that period, like a rich wine in the wood, monarchy had mellowed within +him, permeating his system with its mild and slightly dry flavor; it had +become as it were a habit, and he carried it quite naturally, almost +unconsciously, though with just a suspicion of weight, much as a scholar +carries his learning or a workman his bag of tools. + +A pleasantly florid face, quaintly expressive of an importance about +which its owner was undecided, imposed above a fullish waistcoat a chin +which was now tending toward the slopes of middle age. The eyes were +mild and vaguely speculative, the lips full and loosely formed, and when +they smiled they began tentatively in a tremulous lift showing only the +two upper front teeth--the smile of a woman rather than of a man. This +smile--when it made, as it so often had to make, its appearance in +public--was curiously suggestive of interrogation. "Am I now meant to +smile?" it seemed to say. "Very good, then I will." This tentatively +advanced smile of a countenance so highly exalted for others to gaze on, +was peculiarly winning to those who were its recipients; it suggested a +gentle character, indicating through its shyness both the giving and the +receiving of a favor; and among those in personal attendance on him the +King was--perhaps on account of that smile--more liked than he knew. +Servants whom the vastness of his establishments did not convert into +total strangers found him a considerate master, full of a personal +interest in their snug lives, and with a carefully practised memory for +the numbers and names of their children; and the only complaint that +even his valets had against him was that he remained his own barber and +evinced a certain reluctance in casting his suits until they had begun +to show a suspicion of wear. In outward relations he was a kind, touchy, +companionable soul; inwardly he was one who suffered acutely from lack +of companionship and conversation, not because he had not plenty of +people to talk to, but because so many things came into his head that he +must not say, while the correct substitutes for them only occurred to +him later. And thus it came about that a good deal of his intercourse +with humanity was limited to a pleasant expression of face, wearing +generally, especially when it smiled, a wistful note of interrogation. + +To present this face to the public in the regulation doses which were +considered inducive to loyalty, he had sat thirty-nine times for his +portrait to popular rather than famous painters, and to commercially +successful photographers more times than any one could count. And +painters and photographers alike had agreed that he was a steady and a +patient sitter. They all liked him. He himself preferred the +photographers; they came more often but they took less time and did not +require the give-and-take of artificially made conversation. They were +also more amenable to criticism, and kept behind the scenes for +"touching-up" purposes wonderful anonymous artists who gave no trouble +whatever, requiring no sittings and yet producing results that for tact +and skill combined with accuracy could not be beaten. Occasionally, +after having sat for his portrait to one of the painters, the King was +advised to bestow on him a knighthood or an order. In his heart of +hearts he would have much preferred knighting a photographer; but for +some reason which was beyond him to discover this was not considered the +correct thing, and the knighthoods went accordingly to the people who +gave him the most trouble and the least satisfactory results. + +It had never been the King's lot to be handsome; but now the approaches +of age were giving to his countenance a dignity which in youth it had +lacked. This was part and parcel of a certain mental obtuseness or +obstinacy: when his Majesty did not understand, majesty became sedentary +in his face. Often when it was the duty, or the device, of his +ministerial advisers to confuse his mind with explanatory details about +things which lay far beyond it, they would presently become aware that +he did not in the least understand what they were saying, or that such +understanding as he possessed at the beginning had become darkened by +judicious counsel. This stage of the reasoning process was marked by a +gentle access of majesty to the royal countenance; and when it appeared +ministers were informed that, for the time being, their object was +attained. When, however, the King did understand, or thought that he +did, he was less majestic and more troublesome, and had to be +circumvented in other ways; and a good deal of this history will be +taken up with the circumventions practised by an astute Cabinet upon a +monarch who was brought by accident to imagine that he really did +understand the position of ignominy combined with responsibility in +which the Constitution had placed him. + + +II + +John of Jingalo had been in harness all his life: he had never known +freedom, never been left to find his own feet, never been taught to +think for himself except upon conventional lines; and these had kept him +from ever putting into practice the rudimental self-promptings which +sometimes troubled him. He had been elaborately instructed, but not +educated; his own individual character, that is to say, had not been +allowed to open out; but a sort of traditional character had been slowly +squeezed into him in order to fit him for that conventional acceptance +of a variety of ancient institutions (some moldering, some still +vigorous) which, by a certain official and ruling class of monetarily +interested persons, was considered to be the correct constitutional +attitude. Monarchy, that is to say, had been interpreted to him by those +who sucked the greatest amount of social prestige and material benefit +from its present conditions as a "going concern"; and in that imposed +interpretation deportment came first, initiative last, and originality +nowhere at all. + +In many respects, indeed, his training had been like that of a young +girl whose parents have determined, without leaving her any choice in +the matter, that matrimony is to be her single aim and the sphere of the +home her outward circumference. Like a young girl whose future is thus +controlled he had acquired a pleasant smattering of several social +accomplishments; he had learned to speak three languages with fluency, +to draw, to dance, to ride, to behave under all likely circumstances +with perfect correctness, and to walk down the center of a large room +with apparent ease. He had been trained, for review purposes and for the +final privilege of carrying a cocked hat as well as a crown upon his +coffin, in a profession which he would never be allowed to practise; +and, having been "brought out" with much show and parade at an early +age, had been introduced to a vast number of very important people, and +dragged through a long series of social functions, which, however +crowded, gave always a free floor for his feet to walk on and never +presented a single back to his view. But as a result of all these +crowds, with their bewildering blend of glittering toilet, deferential +movement, and flattering speech, he knew no more of the inner realities +of life than the young girl knows of it from a series of dances, +flirtations, and afternoon teas. This polite and decorous, yet dazzling +mask had been drawn between him and the actualities of existence, +presenting itself to view again and again, and concealing its essential +sameness in the pomp and circumstance with which it was attended. At +these functions thousands of brilliant and distinguished people had +bowed their well-stored brains within a few inches of his face, had +exchanged with their monarch a few words of studied politeness and +compliment, now and then had even laid themselves out to amuse him, but +never once had they imparted to his mind an arresting or a commanding +thought, never once endeavored to change any single judgment that had +ever been formed for him. Not once in all the years since he came to +man's estate--except occasionally with his wife and on one isolated +occasion with his father--had he ever found himself involved so deeply +in argument, or in any difference of opinion, as to be forced to feel +himself beaten. That single discussion with his father had been closed +peremptorily--parental and regal authority combining had cut it short; +and as for his wife--well, she was dear, amiable, and, within her +limits, sensible; but intellectually she was not his superior. Thus +there had come to him a good deal of social discipline, experience of a +kind, but of education in the higher intellectual sense scarcely any. He +had merely been taught carefully and elaborately to take up a certain +position, and in a vast number of minutely differing circumstances +(mainly of social formality) to fill it or seem to fill it "as one to +the manner born." + +In addition he had been trained, on strictly impartial and noncommittal +lines, to take an interest in politics; to have within certain narrow +and prescribed limits an open mind--one, that is to say, with its +orifice comfortably adapted to the stuffing process practised on kings +by the great ones of the official world; and when his mind would not +open in certain required directions, well, after all, it did not much +matter, since in the end it made no practical difference. + +Under these circumstances he would have been a mere social and official +automaton had not certain defects of his character saved him. Though +timid he was impulsive; he was also a little irritable, rather +suspicious, and indomitably fussy in response to the call of duty. +Temper, fuss, and curiosity saved him from boredom; he was +conscientiously industrious, and though there was much that he did not +understand he managed to be interested in nearly everything. + +In the fiftieth year of his age, this monarch, amiable, affable, and of +a thoroughly deserving domestic character, was destined to be thrust +into a seething whirlpool of political intrigue in which, for the first +time, his conscience was to be seriously troubled over the part he was +asked to play. And while that wakening of his conscience was to cause +him a vast amount of trouble, it was to have as enlarging and educative +an effect upon his character as her first love affair has upon a young +girl. From this moment, in fact, you are to see a shell-bound tortoise +blossom into a species of fretful porcupine, his shell splintering +itself into points and erecting them with blundering effectiveness +against his enemies. And you shall see by what unconscious and +subterranean ways history gets made and written. + + +III + +And now let us turn to the Queen. In her case less analysis is needed: +one had only to look at her, at the genial and comfortable expression of +her face, at the ample, but not too ample, lines of her person, to see +that in her present high situation she both gave and found satisfaction. +She did, with ease and even with appetite, that which the King, with so +much anxious expenditure of nervous energy, was always trying to do--her +duty. She had a position and she filled it. She was not clever, but her +imperturbable common-sense made up for what she lacked intellectually. +No one, except the newspapers, would call her beautiful; but she was +comely and enjoyed good health, and she had what one may describe as a +good surface--nothing that she wore was thrown away on her, and any +chair that she occupied, however large, she never failed to adorn. There +you have her picture: you may imagine her as plump, as blonde, as +good-tempered, and as well-preserved for her age as suits your +individual taste--no qualifying word of the chronicler of this history +shall obstruct the view; and you may be as fond of her as you like. + +The Queen was the head of Jingalese society, and of its charities as +well. Her influence was enormous: at a mere word from her organizations +sprang into being. Without any Acts of Parliament to control or guide +them--merely at the delicately expressed wish of her Majesty--thousands +of charming, wealthy, and influential women would waste spare hour upon +hour and expend small fortunes of pocket-money in keeping uncomfortable +things comfortably going in their accustomed grooves. It was calculated +that the Queen's patronage had the immediate effect of trebling the +subscription list of any charity, while the mere withdrawal of her name +spelt bankruptcy. Her Majesty was patron to forty-nine charities and +subscribed to all of them. For the five largest she appeared annually on +a crimson-covered platform, insuring thereby a large supply of silk +purses containing contributions, and a full report in the press of all +the speeches. It was her rule to open two bazaars regularly each summer, +to lay the foundation-stones of three churches, orphanages, or hospitals +(whichever happened to require the greatest amount of money for their +completion), to attend the prize-giving at the most ancient of the +national charity schools, and every winter, when distress and +unemployment were at their worst, to go down to the Humanitarian Army's +soup-kitchen, and there taste, from a tin mug with a common pewter +spoon, the soup which was made for the poor and destitute. This last +performance, which took so much less time and trouble than all the rest, +proved each year the most popular incident of her Majesty's useful and +variegated public life, for every one felt that it provided in the +nicest possible way an antidote to the advance of socialistic theories. +The papers dealt with it in leading articles; and the lucky casuals who +happened to drop in on the day when her Majesty paid the surprise visit +arranged for her by her secretaries would report that they had never +tasted such good soup in all their born days. + +It may truthfully be said that the Queen never spent an idle day, and +never came to the end of one without the consciousness of having done +good. All the more, therefore, is it remarkable that, as the outcome of +so much benevolence and charity, the Queen knew absolutely nothing of +the real needs and conditions of the people, and that she knew still +less how any alterations in the laws, manners, or customs of the country +could better or worsen the conditions of unemployment, sweated labor, or +public morality. Her whole idea of political economy was summed up in +the proposition that anything must be good for the country which was +good for trade; and it may certainly be said that for the majority of +trade interests she was as good as gold. Without caring too much for +dress (being herself wholly devoid of personal vanity) she ordered +dresses in abundance, and constantly varied the fashion, the color, and +the material, because she was given to understand that change and +variety stimulated trade. Her most revolutionary act had been to +readopt, one fine spring morning, the ample skirt of the crinoline +period in order to counteract the distress and shortage of work caused +in the textile trade by the introduction and persistence of the "hobble +skirt." As a consequence of this sudden disturbance of the evolutionary +law governing creation in the modiste's sense of the word, there was a +sharp reaction a year later, which--after the artificial stimulus of the +previous season--threw more women out of employment than ever; new +fancy-trades had to be learned in apprenticeships at starvation +wages--with the result that wages had to be eked out in other ways. But +of all this her Majesty heard nothing. It never occurred to anybody that +these ultimate consequences of her amiable incentive to industry could +possibly concern her; and the Queen, finding that people no longer knew +how to adapt themselves to the long, full skirts of their grandmothers, +accepted without demur the next wave of fashion that swept over Europe +from London _via_ Paris. + +The Queen never herself opened a paper. Extracts were read out to her +each day by one of her ladies; these being selected by another lady +appointed for the purpose as those most likely to interest the royal +mind. It was made known in the press that her Majesty never read the +divorce cases; neither did she read politics or the police news. No +controversial side of the national life ever entered her brain--until +somehow or another it was reached by the dim uproar of the Women +Chartists' movement. She expressed her disapproval, and the page was +turned. + +Her instinctive tastes stood always as a guide for what she should be +told; and experience limited her inquiry. In all her life her influence +had never been used for the release of an unjustly convicted prisoner, +the abatement of an inhuman sentence, or the abolition of any abuse +established by law. Queens who had done these things in the past were +medieval figures, and such interference was quite unsuitable for a royal +consort under modern conditions. Had Philippa of Hainault lived in these +more enlightened times she would have been forced to let the Burghers of +Calais go hang and restrict herself to making provision for their widows +and orphans; for to arrest any act of government had long since ceased +to be within the functions of a queen. + +Like her husband, this royal lady was surrounded by officialdom, or, +rather, by its complementary and feminine appendices--the wives and +daughters of the aristocracy, of politicians, of ecclesiastical and +military dignitaries: these to her represented the sphere, activity, and +capacity of her own sex. Other women--pioneers of education and of +reform, rescue-workers, organizers, writers, orators, had--the majority +of them--lived and died without once coming in contact with the official +leader of Jingalese womanhood; for they and their like were outside the +official ranks, and stood for things combative and controversial and +dangerously alive, and only a few of them had been brought to Court in +their venerable old age, to be looked at as curiosities when their +fighting days were over and their work done. + +On the governing boards of the hospitals to which the Queen gave her +patronage there was not a single woman--or a married one either; but +when her Majesty visited the wards she was very nice to the nurses. She +was, in fact, very nice to everybody, and everybody was very nice to +her. + + +IV + +A king and a queen take so long to describe that the reader will have +almost forgotten how we left them at the breakfast table. But the Queen +had her letters and the King his newspapers, and there, when we return +to them in the historic present, they still are. + +Yes, there they sit, an institutional expression of the nation's general +complacence with the state of civilization at which it has arrived, +interpreting in decorous form the voice of the articulate majority--the +inarticulate not being interpreted at all. There they sit, he with his +newspapers, she with her letters: the King a little anxious and +perturbed, the Queen not anxious or perturbed about anything. + +She was still enjoying her superfluous correspondence, he studying in a +vague distrustfulness the various organs of public opinion which lay +around him, doubtful of them all, yet wishing to find one he could rely +on. For now they were all very full of the approaching constitutional +crisis, and were adumbrating in respectful, yet slightly menacing terms, +what the King himself would do in the matter. Whereas what he actually +would do he had not himself the ghost of a notion,--did not yet know, in +fact, what legs he had to stand on, having no information upon that +point beyond what the Prime Minister had chosen to tell him. + +And being puzzled he wanted to talk, yet not directly of the matter +which perturbed his mind; but somehow by hearing his own voice he hoped +to arrive at the popular sentiment. It was a way he had; and the Queen, +who was often his audience, knew the preliminary symptoms by heart. So +when presently he began crackling his newspaper and drawing a series of +audible half breaths as though about to begin reading, his wife +recognized the sign that here was something she must listen to. She put +down her letters and attended. + +"I see," said his Majesty, culling his information from the opening +paragraph of a leading article, "I see that the Government is losing +popularity every day. That Act they passed last year for the +reinstitution of turnpikes to regulate the speed of motor-traffic is +proving unpopular." + +"Is it a failure, then?" inquired the Queen. + +"On the contrary, it is a success. But the system was expected to pay +for its upkeep by the amount of fines it brought in, whereas the result +has been to make the conduct of motorists so exemplary that the measure +has ceased to pay. Unable to escape detection, 'joy-riding' has become +practically non-existent, motor-cars are ceasing to be used for breaches +of the peace, and the trade is going down in consequence by leaps and +bounds. The fact is you cannot now-a-days put a stop to any grave abuse +without seriously damaging some trade-interest. If 'trade' is to decide +matters it would be much better not to legislate at all." + +"My dear! wouldn't that be revolutionary?" inquired the Queen. + +"Keeping things as they are is not revolutionary," replied his Majesty, +"though it's a hard enough thing to do now-a-days." + +"But," objected his wife, "they must pass something, or else how would +they earn their salaries?" + +"That's it!" said the King,--"payment of members; another of those +unnecessary reforms thrust on us by the example of England." + +"Ah, yes!" answered his wife, feeling about for an intelligent ground of +agreement, "England is so rich; she can afford it." + +"It isn't that at all," retorted his Majesty; "plenty of other countries +have had to afford it before now. But it was only when England did it +that we took up with the notion. We are always imitating England: the +attraction of contraries, I suppose, because we are surrounded by land +as they are by water. Why else did they start turning me into a +commercial traveler, sending me all over Europe and round the world to +visit colonies that no longer really belong to us? Only because they are +doing the same thing over in England." + +"They saw that you wanted change of air," said the Queen. + +"Change of fiddlesticks!" answered the King; "I consider it a most +dangerous precedent to let a sovereign be too long out of his own +country. It makes people imagine they can do just as well without him!" + +The Queen looked at her husband with shrewd and kindly furtiveness. She +had a funny little suspicion that the ministry did at times greatly +prefer his absence to his presence: and that "change of fiddlesticks" +was really their underlying motive. About this monarch she herself had +no illusions: he was a dear, but he fussed; and when once he began +fussing he required an enormous amount of explanation and persuasion. +Even she, therefore, was not at all averse to letting him go on these +State outings in which she need not always accompany him. They gave him +something fresh to think about, and to her a time of leisure when she +need not pretend to think about anything she did not understand. + +"Of course," went on the King, "it makes good copy for the newspapers. +The press is powerful, and governments are obliged now-a-days to throw +in a certain amount of spectacle to keep it in a good temper. We are +sent off to perform somewhere, and after us come the penny-a-liner and +the cinematograph." + +"Oh! my dear, much more than a penny-a-liner," corrected the Queen; "I +heard of one correspondent who makes L5,000 a year. And think how good +for trade! Besides, do not we get the benefit of it?" + +"Benefit!" exclaimed the King irritably, "where is the benefit to us of +journalists who describe State functions as though they were jewelers' +touts and dressmakers rolled into one? The vulgarity of people's present +notion of what makes monarchy impressive is appalling. Listen to this, +my dear! This is you and me at the Opening of Parliament yesterday." He +unfolded his paper and read-- + +"'The regal purple flowed proudly from the King's shoulders; above their +three ribbons of red, green, and gold, the Orders of his ancestors +burned confidingly on the royal breast. The Queen's diamonds were +supreme; upon the silken fabric of her corsage they flashed incredibly; +one watched them, fire-color infinitely varied, infinitely intensified, +like nothing else seen on earth. As she advanced, deeply bowing to right +and left, parabolas of light exhaled from her coronet like falling +stars. When King and Queen were seated, their State robes flowing in +purple waves and ripples of ermine to the very steps of the dais, the +picture was complete. Single gems of the first water glistened like +dewdrops in the Queen's ears, while upon her bosom as she breathed the +three great Turgeneff diamonds caught and defiantly threw back the +light. They became the center of all eyes.' + +"I call that disgusting!" said the King. "Why diamonds should burn +confidingly on my breast, and flash incredibly on yours, I'm sure I +don't know. But there we are: a couple of clothes'-pegs for journalists +to hang words on." + +The Queen had rather enjoyed the description, it enabled her to see +herself as she appeared to others. + +"I don't see the harm," she said; "we have to wear these things, so they +may as well be described." + +"I wish some day you wouldn't wear them!" said the King. "Then, instead +of talking of your trinkets and your clothes, they would begin to pay +attention to what royalty really stands for." + +The Queen was gathering up her letters from the table: she smiled +indulgently upon her spouse. + +"Jack," said she, "you are jealous!" + +"I wish, Alicia," said the King testily, "that you would not call me +'Jack'; at least, not after--not where any of the servants may come in +and overhear us. It would not sound seemly." + +"My dear John," said the Queen, "don't be so absurd. You know perfectly +well that it's just that which makes us most popular. People are always +telling little anecdotes of that kind about us; and then, think of all +the photographs! If people were to talk of you as 'King Jack,' it would +mean you were the most popular person in the country." + +"I wonder if they do?" murmured the King. "I wonder!" He felt remote +from his people, for he did not know. + +The Queen noticed his depression; something was troubling him, and being +a lady of infinite tact, she abruptly turned the conversation. "What are +you doing to-day, dear?" she inquired brightly. + +"I have a Council at eleven," moaned the King, "and I really must get +through a few of these papers first. It gives me a great advantage when +Brasshay begins talking--a great advantage if I know what the papers +have been saying about him. To-day it's the Finance Act. By the way, +Charlotte was asking me yesterday to raise her allowance. Is there any +reason for it?" + +"A little more for dress would now be advisable," said the Queen. "She +has lately begun to open Church bazaars: I thought they would do for her +to begin upon. And the other day she laid the foundation-stone of a +dogs' orphanage--very nicely, I'm told." + +"Of course," said the King, "she's old enough, and it is quite time I +asked for a definite grant from Parliament. But if one did that now they +would probably not raise it afterwards. Very much better to wait, I +think, till we have made a really brilliant match for her; then, for the +sake of its financial prestige, the nation will do the thing +handsomely." + +"She has got an idea she doesn't like foreigners," said the Queen +reflectively. + +"She will have to like some foreigner!" said the King. "As the only +daughter of a reigning monarch she must marry royalty, and we haven't +any one left among ourselves who is eligible. Charlotte must get to like +foreigners. Max has no objection to foreigners, I hope?" + +The Queen gave her husband a curious look. + +"From what I hear," she murmured, "I should say none: but it is not for +me to make any inquiries." + +"Dear me! is that so?" said the King. "Well, well! When did you hear +about it?" + +"Only yesterday; but it has been going on a long time." + +"I suppose," sighed his Majesty, "I suppose one couldn't expect it to be +otherwise. Well, I must speak to him, then; and we shall really have to +get him married to somebody. The religious difficulty, of course, +narrows our choice most unfortunately; and when we happen to be on bad +terms both with Germany and England, through trying to be friendly to +both, why, really there is hardly anybody left." + +"I hear," remarked the Queen, "that the Hereditary Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser is returning from his three years' exploration of +central South America this autumn. Wouldn't he be worth thinking about?" + +"You mean for Charlotte? But I expect he will be wanted at the Prussian +Court." + +The Queen shook her head. "Oh, no! He is out of favor there. They have +never forgiven him his description of the Kaiser's oratorio as 'Moses +Among the Crocodiles.' That is why I thought he might not be averse to +looking in our direction. He used to be a nice boy; he is handsome +according to his portraits, and Charlotte is not without her taste for +adventure." + +"That doesn't solve the problem about Max," said his Majesty +discontentedly. "And, by the way, where is Charlotte?" + +"She has gone to stay with Lady--oh, I have forgotten her name--the one +who had a fancy for history and took a diploma in it. They are opening +that new college for women, with a Greek play all about the Trojans, and +Charlotte particularly wanted to go." + +"H'm?" queried the King; "rather an advanced set for Charlotte to +consort with--just now, I mean,--don't you think? There might be some of +those Women Chartists among them." + +"Oh, no!" replied her Majesty; "they are all quite respectable,--ladies +every one of them. I took care to make inquiries about that." + +And then, quite contentedly, she made a final gathering of her +correspondence, and sailed off for a preliminary interview with her two +indispensable secretaries; while the King, selecting three out of the +pile of newspapers, carried them away with him to his study. There was a +sentence in one of them which he particularly wanted to read again. And +with this vacating of the breakfast-chamber we may as well close the +chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN + + + + +I + +The sentence which had attracted the King's attention, coming as it did +from the newspaper on whose opinions he most frequently relied, ran +thus-- + +"In this developing crisis the Nation looks with complete and loyal +assurance to him who alone stands high and independent above all +parties, confident that when the time for a final decision has arrived +he will so act, within the recognized limits of the Royal Prerogative, +as to add a fresh luster and a renewed significance to that supreme +symbol and safeguard of the popular will which, under Divine Providence, +still crowns our constitutional edifice." + +The King read it three times over. He read it both standing and sitting: +and read in whatever attitude it certainly sounded well. As a peroration +its rhythm and flow were admirable, as a means of keeping up the courage +and confidence of readers who placed their reliance mainly upon literary +style nothing could be better; but what, by all that was constitutional, +did it mean?--or rather, how did it mean that he, the high and +independent one, was to do it? Point by point its sentiments were +unexceptionable; but what it actually pointed to he did not know. "Add +luster?" Why, yes, certainly. But was not that what he was already doing +day by day on the continuous deposit system, even as the oyster within +its shell deposits luster upon the pearls which a sort of hereditary +disease has placed within its keeping? "Renewed significance?" But in +what respect had the significance of the royal office become obscured? +Was anything that he did insignificant? "Symbol and safeguard of the +popular will?" Yes: if his Coronation oath meant anything. But how was +he, symbol and safeguard and all the rest of it, to find out what the +popular will really was? No man in all the Kingdom was so much cut off +from living contact with the popular will as was he! + +The King was in his study, the room in which most of the routine work +of his daily life was accomplished--a large square chamber with three +windows to one side looking out across a well-timbered park toward a +distant group of towers. But for those towers, so civic in their +character, it might well have been taken for a country view; scarcely a +roof was visible. + +Upon a large desk in the center of the chamber lay a pile of official +letters and documents awaiting his perusal; and he knew that in the +adjoining room one of his private secretaries was even now attending his +call. But from none of his secretaries could he learn anything about the +popular will. + +He walked to a window and stood looking out into the soft sunlit air, +slightly misty in quality, which lay over the distances of his capital. +Away behind those trees, beneath those towers, sending toward him a +ceaseless reverberation of bells, wheels, street cries, and all the +countless noises of city life, went a vast and teeming population of men +and women, already far advanced on the round of their daily toil. He was +in their midst, but not one of them could he see; and not one of them +did he really know as man to man. Everything that he learned about their +lives came to him at second or at third hand; nor did actual contact +bring him any closer, for wherever he moved among them they knew who he +was and behaved accordingly. For twenty-five years he had not walked in +a single one of those streets the nearest of which lay within a stone's +throw of his palace. As a youth, before his father came to the throne, +he had sometimes gone about, with or without companions, just like an +ordinary person, taking his chance of being recognized: it had not +mattered then. But now it could not be done: people did not expect it of +him; his ministers would have regarded it as a dangerous and expensive +habit, requiring at least a trebling of the detective service, and even +then there would always have been apprehension and uncertainty. He was +King; and though, whatever might happen to him, his place would be +automatically filled, and government go on just as before, yet, as a +national symbol, his life was too valuable to be risked; and so on +ascending the throne he had been forced, as his father before him, to +resign his personal liberty and cease to go out in the happy, +unpremeditated fashion of earlier days. + +He had long since got over the curious home-sickness which this +separation had at first caused him, and as an opening to personal +enjoyment the impulse for freedom had long since died within him; but +his heart still vaguely hungered for the people who called him their +King; and looking out into the pale sunshine that was now thinly +buttering the surface of his prosperous capital, and listening to the +perpetual tick and hum of its busy life, he knew that for him it was and +must remain, except in an official sense, an unknown territory. And yet +out there, in that territory which he was unable to explore, the thing +that is called "the popular will" lived and moved and had its being! +Dimly he dreamed of what it might be--a thing of substance and form; but +there was none to interpret to him his dream--except upon official +lines. + +Before his eyes, a salient object in the heavens surpassing the stony +eminences which surrounded it, rose the tall spire of the twin Houses of +Parliament. Upon its top swung a gilded weathercock; while about a +portion of its base stood a maze of scaffolding, the facade of the +building having during the last few months been under repair. There +seemed, however, for the moment, to be no workmen upon it. Presently, as +he gazed vacantly and without intent, something that moved upon the +upper masonry engaged his attention. Slowly along its profile, out of +all those hidden millions below, one of his subjects, a single and +minute representative of the popular will, emerged cautiously into view. + +The King was gifted with good sight; and though the figure appeared but +as a tiny speck, it was unmistakably that of a man bearing a burden upon +his back and ascending steadily toward the highest point of all. In a +word it was a steeplejack. As the name passed through the King's mind it +evoked recollection; and he said to himself again, "I wonder whether +they call _me_ Jack,--I wonder." + +With a curious increase of interest and fellow-feeling he watched the +distant figure mounting to its airy perch. And as he did so a yet +further similitude and parable flashed through his mind. For the man's +presence at that dizzy height he knew that the Board of Public Works was +responsible: as a single item in the general expenditure the weathercock +of the Palace of Legislature had had voted to it a new coat of gilt, and +this steeplejack was now engaged in putting it on. He was there in the +words of a certain morning journal, "to add fresh luster to that supreme +symbol of the popular will which crowned the constitutional edifice." + +As the words with their caressing rhythm flowed across the King's brain +he discerned the full significance of the scene which was being enacted +before him. This weathercock--the highest point of the constitutional +edifice--requiring to be touched up afresh for the public eyes--was +truly symbolical of the crown in its relation to the popular will; +twisting this way and that responsive to and interpretative of outside +forces, it had no will of its own at all, and yet to do its work it must +blaze resplendently and be lifted high, and to be put in working trim +and kept with luster untarnished it required at certain intervals the +attentions of a steeplejack--one accustomed to being in high places, +accustomed to isolation and loneliness, accustomed to bearing a burden +upon his back before the eyes of all: one whose functions were rather +like his own. + +He saw that the steeplejack had now reached the point where his work was +waiting for him, work that required nerve and courage. He wondered +whether it were highly paid; he wondered also by what means the man +slung himself into position, and by what process the new gold had to be +applied so that it would stick. Perhaps he only polished up what was +already there, coated and covered from view by the grime of modern +industry. If so, how did he scrape off the dirt without also scraping +off the gold? Perhaps, on the other hand, all the old gold had to come +off before new gold could be put on. He wondered whether the man ever +forgot his perilous position, whether habit did not make him sometimes +careless, whether he ever felt giddy, and how far the exploit was really +attended by danger to one possessed of skill and a cool head; and as he +thought, putting himself in the man's place, his hands grew +sympathetically moist. + +Well, he was wasting time, he must really get to his own work now; that +secretary would be wondering what had become of him. He glanced away +over the distant roofs that here and there emerged above the trees, and +then for a last look back again. And as he did so all at once he started +and uttered an acute exclamation of distress. A dark speck had suddenly +detached itself from the ball upon which the vane stood, and could now +be seen glissading with horrible swiftness down the slope of the spire. +It fell into the scaffolding, zigzagged from point to point, and +disappeared. There could be no mistake about it, it was the man himself +who had fallen: that single and minute expression of the popular will +had passed for ever from view; and the smooth and equable hum of the +unseen millions below went steadily on. + + +II + +Fleeing from the sight still registered upon his brain the King rang for +his secretary. A figure of correctitude entered. + +"There has been an accident," said his Majesty. "Over there!" He +pointed. "A steeplejack has fallen." + +The secretary slid respectfully to the window and looked out. To that +polite official gaze of inquiry the scene of the tragedy returned a +blank and uncommunicative stare. + +"Poor wretch!" murmured the King. "I actually saw him go! Ring up, and +inquire at the Police Center; though, of course, the poor fellow must be +dead!" + +The secretary sped away on his errand, and the King, moving back to the +window, gazed fixedly at the spire, as though it could still in some way +inform him of the tragedy consummated below. Then he returned to his +desk and looked distractedly at his papers, but it was no use--back he +went to the window again. + +Presently the secretary returned and stood drooping for permission to +speak. Permission came. "The man is dead, your Majesty. He was killed +instantly." + +The King gave a sigh of relief. "Of course," he murmured, "from such a +height as that!" He stood for a while still cogitating on the sad event: +then he said, with that considerate thoughtfulness which habit had made +a second nature, "Be good enough to find out whether the poor fellow was +married. If so let a donation be sent to his widow,--whatever the case +seems to warrant--more if there should happen to be children." + +Over his tablets the secretary bowed the beauty of his person like a +recording angel. Then he paused that the heavenly measure might be taken +with accuracy. + +"Shall it be five pounds, sir?" he inquired. + +"Better make it ten," said the King; "I believe that pays for a funeral. +In sending it, you might explain that I had the misfortune to be an +eye-witness." + +The secretary cooed like a brooding dove. Of course everybody would +understand and appreciate. He made a memorandum of the ten pounds and +closed up his tablets. + +Meanwhile the King went on thinking aloud. "I wonder," he said, "whether +they take proper precautions in a trade like that? I would like to look +it up. Find me the 'ST' volume of the _Encyclopedia Appendica_." + +And when the volume was brought to him the King sat down and read all +about steeplejacks and climbing irons, and cranks, and pulleys, and all +the other various appliances requisite for the driving of that dreadful +trade; read also how the men were inclined to prime themselves for the +task in ever-increasing measure, and so one day having over-primed to be +found at the bottom instead of at the top, knowing nothing themselves of +how they got there. It was all very interesting and very apposite, and +rather pathetic; and when he had done he turned over the pages backward +till he came from steeplejacks to "Statesmen" and "Statecraft" and +"Statutes" and the affairs of State in general (it was from the +_Encyclopedia Appendica_--a presentation copy--that he got most of his +information upon practical things); and in these articles he became so +absorbed that he quite forgot how time flew, until his chief secretary +came formally to announce to him that the hour for appearing in Council +had arrived. + +This announcement, be it observed, was made by no ordinary working +secretary, but by the chief of them all, the Comptroller of his +Majesty's household, a retired general who had passed from the military +to the civil service with a record brilliantly made for him by other +men--adjutants and attaches and all those indefatigable right-hand +assistants of whom your true diplomatist forms his stepping-stones to +power. General Poast and the Prime Minister shared between them the +ordering and disposal of the King's public services to the Nation, while +over other departments impenetrable to the Premier the hand of the +Comptroller was still extended. Though personally the King rather +disliked him, he had become an absolutely indispensable adjunct to the +daily life--so smooth in its workings, yet so easily dislocated--of the +Royal Household; also, as a go-between for ministers whose intercourse +with the Crown was purely formal, he had proved himself a very efficient +implement when on occasion it became necessary to circumvent or reduce +to reason the King's characteristic obstinacy in small matters of +detail. He might, in fact, be regarded as the keeper not so much of the +King's conscience, as of his savoir faire, and of that tact for which +Royalty in all countries is conspicuous. Everything that related to the +remembering of names and faces, of dates, anniversaries and historical +associations, all those small considerate actions of royal charity which +robbed of their due privacy have now become the perquisite of the press; +all these things stood ranged under minutely tabulated heads within the +Comptroller-General's department. He was, literally, the King's +Remembrancer; and so, on this occasion also, he had come as intermediary +to remind his Majesty that the hour for the Council was at hand. + +But the Council was one of those functions in which it was held +necessary that the part played by the King (albeit no more than a silent +presidency at a Board where others spoke) should wear an appearance of +importance. And so the announcement made by the Comptroller was merely +preliminary to another and more flourishing announcement by an usher of +the Court. Two lackeys threw open a door--other than that through which +the General had just entered, and a bowing official, beautifully dressed +and waving a fairy-like wand, announced from the threshold, "Your +Majesty's Council, now in attendance, humbly begs audience of your +Majesty." + + +III + +Then followed a pause. The Comptroller-General with head deferentially +bent waited to catch the royal eye. The King graciously allowed his +royal eye to be caught; and the Comptroller-General, interpreting the +silent consent of that glance, uttered with due solemnity the +traditional form of words indicative of the royal pleasure. "His Majesty +hears," he lowed in the correct "palace accent": and the usher bowed and +retired. + +All this helped, of course, to make the act of presiding in Council seem +highly important and consequential to any monarch susceptible to +ceremonial flattery. Whether it had originally been so devised may be +questioned, for monarchs of old had needed no such ceremonial backing to +their very practical incursions into ministerial debate. What we have to +notice is that the ceremony had survived, while the other thing--the +practice of substantial interference--had become obsolete. + +The King passed from his private apartments to broad corridors and +portals where resplendent footmen stood in waiting, where everything +worked with silent and automatic precision to prepare the way for his +feet, signaling him on from point to point as though he were a sort of +special train for which the line had been expressly cleared and all +other traffic shunted. And yet when he came to the small anteroom which +opened directly into the Council Chamber he felt for all the world like +a timid bather about to unbutton the door of his bathing-machine and +step forth into a strange and hostile element. That moment of +trepidation was one he never could get over,--to face his Council of +Ministers was always a plunge; for here truly he felt out of his depth, +aware that politically he was no swimmer. And now for a couple of hours +he would have to endure while, thoroughly at home in their own element, +twenty stout aquatic athletes tumbled around him. + +The door was thrown open; and with an air of calm self-possession he +walked to the head of the table about which his ministers stood waiting. +"Be seated, gentlemen," he said, embracing in a single bow the +obeisances of all; and like slow waves they closed in on him, subsiding +in large curves and soft fawning ripples of hand-rubbing around the +empurpled board at which nominally he was to preside. + +When all were seated in order, he signed for the Prime Minister to open +the proceedings, and thereafter had scarcely to speak; for at a King's +Council only general reports were presented, no discussions took place, +no fresh proposals were mooted; and so he sat and heard how this +department or that was extending its beneficent operations, how +statistics were completing to their last decimal places the +prognostications of experts, and how along with these things imports and +exports were balancing, trade declining, education advancing, and +strikes growing every day more formidable and more popular. + +It was only this last point that really interested him; for here he +seemed to get a dim rumor of something that was part at least of that +popular will which it was his duty to symbolize and to safeguard. But +these official advisers of his were all for putting strikes down, and +yet while putting them down they seemed to wish to curry favor with the +strikers themselves. For on the one hand there was trade declining, if +the strikes were not put down, to support fresh taxation, on the other +the Labor Party, eighty strong, declining, if the strikes were put down, +to support the Government. And with the Finance Act coming on the +question was whether to accept an increasing deficit in the revenue or a +declining majority in the Legislature. This could be read vaguely +between the lines of the report presented by the Minister of the +Interior. But all this time not one word was said about the coming +constitutional crisis which was in everybody's mind. That had been +thoroughly discussed by ministers sitting in real Council elsewhere, a +Council at which the Head of the Constitution had not been present, and +about which he would hear no more than the Prime Minister chose to tell +him. + +And so, smoothly, equably, and uneventfully the Council reached its +conclusion; ministers one after another closed up their portfolios, and +sitting mute in their places respectfully waited the royal word of +dismissal. + +Then the King rose: and all around the board the fawning ripples of +hand-rubbing ceased, and the slow curving wave of the ministerial body +receded to a respectful distance; while his Majesty passed forth to the +adjoining chamber, there to give, as was customary, separate audience to +those ministers who had any special memoranda to submit requiring the +royal endorsement. + +On this occasion he found his Comptroller already awaiting him, +apologetic for what might seem intrusion on territory belonging more +properly to the Prime Minister. Under the correctness of his deportment +it was clear that urgency impelled. + +"I have come, sir," he said, "to submit to your Majesty, before the +matter goes further, a certain difficulty which has arisen in connection +with your Majesty's gracious donation to the widow of the unfortunate +workman who----" He paused. + +"You mean the steeplejack?" queried the King. + +The Comptroller-General bowed assent. "Your Majesty ordered inquiry to +be made." + +"I did. Has it been found whether he had a family?" + +"A large family, sir: a wife and seven children." + +"Ah," said the King, "then you would suggest that ten pounds is not +quite----? Well, make it twenty." + +"That, sir, is not the difficulty. The fact is we have discovered that +the man was what in the industrial world is known as a 'blackleg.' As +your Majesty may be aware there is at this moment a strike in the +building trade: and this man was working against the orders of his +Union. Under those circumstances a donation from your Majesty becomes +pointed." + +"Pointed at what?" + +"At the Trades Unions, sir." + +"But what," cried the King, astonished, "have a widow and children to do +with the Trades Unions?" + +"The man was working against orders, your Majesty." + +"But at somebody's orders, I suppose? Anyway, it was for the +Government." + +"Oh no, sir!" Correctitude protested against so dangerous an +implication. + +"But surely! Wasn't he there at the orders of the Board of Works?" + +"At the orders of the contractor, your Majesty." + +"Who was under contract with the Board to complete by a certain date." + +"That, sir, cannot be denied." + +"Well, really then," said the King, "from what department does this +objection to the donation emanate?" + +"From no department, your Majesty. The objection is on general grounds +of policy." + +The King's pride and modesty were becoming a little hurt; he was annoyed +that so small a matter of private charity should be thus canvassed and +brought within the range of politics. Subconsciously he had also another +and a more symbolic reason which helped him to show fight. + +"Really, my dear General," he said, "I think we are discussing this +matter very unnecessarily. The widow is still a widow, and the children, +who you tell me number seven, are orphans; and surely at his death a man +ceases to be either a blackleg or a trades unionist. He is not working +against orders now, at any rate. Make it twenty! make it twenty." (His +utterance grew hurried; a way he had when crossed and anxious not to +have to give way.) "I can't hear anything more about it now: I have +Brasshay waiting to see me." And as at that moment the Prime Minister +was announced, the Comptroller-General, for the present at any rate, +"made it twenty" and retired. But he did so with a wry and a determined +face. + +As for the King he was thoroughly put out; the steeplejack was by +association beginning to assume in his mind a very particular +importance; he had become a symbol not merely of the sovereign himself, +but of that act of statesmanship which he had been adjured to undertake +by his favorite newspaper. This man, his prototype, had failed to add in +completeness that luster which he had set out to add; had even died in +the attempt; and here, in seeking with all his sympathies aroused to +provide for the widow and children, the King was finding himself +thwarted, and thwarted, too, on purely political grounds. Well, it +should be a test: he would not be thwarted. The Cabinet couldn't resign +on this; so he would do as he liked! And under the table, on a soft deep +carpet of velvet-pile he stuck his heels into the ground and felt very +determined. + +And then he found that he must attend to something else, for the Prime +Minister was speaking, and now at last was speaking on a very important +matter. + + +IV + +"Your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, "the Bishops are blocking all +our bills; the business of the country is at a standstill." + +"Blocking?" queried the King; for he did know a little of contemporary +history at all events. + +"Amending," corrected the Minister. "Amending on lines which we cannot +possibly accept." + +"Some of them seemed to me quite excellent amendments," said the King. +"But, of course, I don't know." + +"They express, sir, no doubt, a point of view--quite an estimable point +of view, if it were not a question of politics: they reflect, that is to +say, the mind of the ecclesiastical side of the Spiritual and Judicial +Chamber. Your Majesty's House of Laity sees things differently: I am +bound, therefore, to submit to your Majesty certain important proposals +for the relief of the impasse at which we have now arrived. As no doubt, +sir, you are aware, we have the Judges, the Juridical half of the +Chamber, for the most part with us, since for the last few years their +appointment has been entirely in our hands. But the Bishops, with the +exception of one or two, are obdurate and immovable. We select the most +liberal Churchmen we can find: but it is no use; each new Bishop, +adopted by Dean and Chapter, becomes when once seated in the Upper +Chamber, merely a reflection of those who have gone before him: the +Juridical minority is swamped, the Spiritual element remains supreme, +and we have no chance of obtaining a majority." + +"It is only because you will try to do things too fast!" said the King; +but the Prime Minister continued-- + +"And now, sir, our one opportunity has come. The Bill for dividing the +dioceses and doubling the number of the Bishoprics has just passed into +law. I flatter myself that when the Prelates assented to that Bill they +did not realize how its powers might be directed. It is the proposal of +your Majesty's advisers to nominate to those Bishoprics only Free +Churchmen, men whose political views coincide with our own." + +"Free Churchmen!" cried the King, startled; "but they are outside the +Establishment altogether." + +"Merely on a point of Church discipline," answered the Prime Minister. +"They are ministers properly ordained. When they seceded over the +'Church Government Act' they carried their full Canonical Orders with +them: only as they had no Bishops they have become a diminishing body. +Their beliefs, or their disbeliefs (for on many points the churches are +merely maintaining an observance of definitions which their intellects +no longer really accept)--their professed beliefs, then, shall I +say?--in all matters of doctrine are not more heterogeneous than those +which distract the councils and the congregations of the Establishment. +It is only on matters of administration and Church discipline that they +fundamentally differ. We count upon the Free Church Bishops to give us a +majority both on the secularization of charities and the opening of the +theological chairs and divinity degrees of our Universities to all sects +and communities alike. After that we shall be in a position to deal +with State Endowment and with Education generally." + +"But will the Chapters, under such circumstances, accept the Crown's +nominees?" inquired the King. "And even if they do, may not the Bishops +refuse to consecrate them?" + +"The right in law of a Dean and Chapter to reject the Crown's nominee +and to substitute one of their own has already been decided against +them," said the Prime Minister. "As for the consecration, if the Bishops +refuse their services we have an understanding with the exiled +Archimandrite of Cappadocia to see the whole thing through for us." + +"Good Heavens!" cried the King, "a black man with two wives." + +"His orders," said the Prime Minister, "are perfectly valid, and are +recognized not only by us but by Rome. Only last year the Bishops were +making quite a stir about him; there was even a proposal that he should +assist at the next consecration so as to clear away all doubts in the +eyes of Romanists as to the validity of our own orders. It would, +therefore, be a measure of poetic justice if now----" + +"I don't think we ought to do it," interrupted the King. + +"If the Bishops give way in time, sir, it will be unnecessary." + +"Will you consent to my seeing the Archbishop about it?" inquired the +King, much perturbed. + +"Sir, I have already seen him." + +"Well, what did he say?" + +"He said a good many things, and said them very well. His general +impression seemed to be that we should not dare to do it. That is where +he is mistaken." + +"You have to consult me also," remarked the King. + +"Sir, that is what I am now doing." The Prime Minister bowed with the +utmost deference. + +"You put me in a great difficulty!" + +"I am sorry that your Majesty should make difficulty," retorted the +Premier dryly. + +"You seem to forget," pursued the King, "that I am sworn to maintain +both Church and Constitution as established by law." + +"Sir, we propose nothing unconstitutional." + +"Free Churchmen are not constitutional, they have no standing." + +"They have a right to their opinions like all the rest of your Majesty's +subjects." + +"Not to be made Bishops." + +"That merely legalizes their position." + +The King shook his head. "I don't like it," he said; "I don't like it! +And if you won't let me consult the Archbishop how am I to know what I +ought to do?" + +"If as advisers to the Crown we have had the misfortune to lose your +Majesty's confidence," said the Prime Minister suavely, "I hope your +Majesty will not hesitate to say so. But I am bound to inform you, sir, +that should your Majesty be unable to accept the advice now offered, it +will be the most painful duty of your Majesty's ministers to tender +their resignation." + +"I observe," retorted the King tartly, "that whenever you begin +reminding me of my 'Majesty' you have always something unpleasant to +spring on me! You are treating me now just as you have been treating the +Bishops; you will not listen to advice; no, you will not accept +amendments, you behave as though you were already a single Chamber +Government. You ought to accept amendments! I don't like Free Church +Bishops. If they want to become Bishops they can go to the Archimandrite +for themselves. I suppose you are making it worth his while?" he added +suspiciously. + +"Doubtless there will be an arrangement," answered the Premier smoothly. +"There again the Archbishop has already helped us. Less than a year ago +he made representations to us on the subject, recommending the +Archimandrite for a State pension." + +"And pray, will that appear in the estimates?" + +"There is no reason why it should not appear." + +"I have noticed," commented the King, "that if people do an unscrupulous +thing in the full light of day, it takes a certain appearance of +honesty." + +"A very statesmanlike observation, your Majesty," smiled the Prime +Minister. "In this matter I may say we are without scruple because our +case is unanswerable." + +"You shall have my answer," said the King, "when I have had more time to +think about it." + +With which oblique retort to the Prime Minister's assertion he rose, and +the interview terminated. + + +V + +By this time he was thoroughly tired: he had done a hard morning's work; +not only had he been harassed and annoyed, but he had been thinking a +great deal more than he usually thought, and his brain ached. But even +now his troubles were not ended; just as he turned to go the Minister of +the Interior craved audience; and at his first word the King's +irritation grew afresh, for here was dismissed controversy cropping up +again. + +While the King was receiving the Prime Minister his Comptroller-General +had not been idle: indeed he never was idle. He had gone straight to the +Minister of the Interior and had reported to him the failure of his +efforts, for it was this minister who had in the first place come to +him. The steeplejack had fallen, so to speak, right into the middle of +his department; and with the King's donation coming on the top the +catastrophe bulked large. For, be it known, on the order of the day for +the morrow's sitting of Parliament was a motion of the Labor Party, +directing censure on the Government for having brought pressure to bear +on contractors and caused work to be continued upon Government buildings +when Labor and Capital were at war. It was nothing to Labor that the +hire of the scaffolding used in the repairs was costing the country a +considerable sum of money while it stood uselessly waiting about the +walls of the Legislature; blacklegs had gone up on it and blacklegs had +been pulled down from it; and one particular blackleg had gone up on it +and had come down without any pulling whatever--an accident over which +Labor was savagely ready to exult and say, "Serve him right!" And how +would it be if they saw in their morning papers, on the very day when +the motion was down for debate, that the King had gone out of his way to +make a handsome donation to the widow? The Minister of the Interior +simply could not allow it; yet now word had come to him that his Majesty +persisted in his intention. So when the Prime Minister came out the +Minister of the Interior went in and put his case to the King, as I have +put it here to the reader--only far more persuasively, and ornately, and +at very much greater length. He also added to what has already been set +forth, as a point making the man a less worthy object of compassion, +that according to latest accounts he had gone to his work under the +influence of drink. + +"So do all steeplejacks," said the King, and quoted the _Encyclopedia_: +"It is only when they are drunk that they can do it. _I_ know." He spoke +as though he had tried it. + +Before the minister had done the King was really angry. "Mr. Secretary," +said he, "I don't care how many strikes there are, or how many Trades +Unions, or how many motions of censure from the gentlemen of the Labor +Party: they may motion to censure _me_ if they like! The man is dead, +and I was unfortunate enough to be a witness of his death. He died in an +attempt to do a laudable action." (Here the King was tempted to quote +the peroration from his favorite newspaper, but he checked himself: the +minister would not have understood.) "His wife," he went on, "is now a +widow, and his children are orphans; and if that twenty pounds may not +go to them, then I am not master of my own purse-strings, or"--he added +by way of finish--"of my own natural feelings and emotions as an +ordinary human being." + +And before that burst of eloquence the Minister of the Interior was +abashed into silence, and retired from the royal presence discomfited. + +The King's argument had heated him, like the royal furnace of +Nebuchadnezzar, seven times more than he was wont to be heated. He so +seldom argued with anybody, still less with his ministers: and here he +had been arguing with one or another of them for half the morning. He +almost felt as if something had happened to him; a touch of giddiness +seized him as he turned to retire to his private apartments; and the +thought struck him--if he was as much upset as this over a small +side-issue, what would he be like when he had done adding that luster to +the constitutional edifice which the nation in its crisis would +presently be demanding of him? The wear and tear were going to be +considerable. + +Circumstance had departed as he retraced his steps to the domestic wing. +The lackeys, having done their ceremonial duty, had disappeared: he was +free to go unobserved. As he ascended the marble staircase which led +from the great hall toward the private apartments he was still thinking +of the steeplejack, the man who somehow seemed now to be an emblem of +himself. This man, set to the superfluous task of regilding the +weathercock of the Legislature, doing it in defiance of master craftsmen +and fellow-workmen, lured to do it because the cost of the hiring of the +scaffolding had become an expensive charge on the Board of Works, and +then, after the custom of the Trade, primed, emboldened, and made drunk +to do it, drunk to a point which had brought him to destruction--yes, he +was like that man; his temptations, his perils, his essential +superfluity were all the same. As he went up the stair he tried to +imagine he was the man himself, going up and up, a solitary and uplifted +figure, fixing his thoughts on things above in order that he might +forget the gulf which yawned below. He took his hand from the +balustrade, and gazing upward at the gilt and crystal chandelier +suspended from the dome above, so entirely forgot his surroundings for +one moment that, missing a step, he lost balance backwards and fell with +amazing thoroughness down the full flight of steps till he reached the +bottom. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WILD OATS AND WIDOWS' WEEDS + + + + +I + +Bump! bump! bump! went his head. Through a confused vision of stars, +veined marble, stained glass, and flying stair-rails he saw his legs +trail helplessly after, close in above, fling violently across him feet +foremost, and dash out of view. In other words, having reached the +bottom of the grand staircase he had turned a complete and homely +somersault. + +For awhile he lay half stunned, unable to move. Something had +undoubtedly happened to his head, but he was still conscious. Cautiously +he turned himself over and looked round. No one was about; no one had +seen this ignominious downfall of Jingalo's topmost symbol on the too +highly polished floors of its own abode; and nobody must know. It was +not the right and dignified way for a royal accident to happen: falling +down-stairs suggested the same failing as that to which steeplejacks +were prone. + +He picked himself up, and aware now of a sharp pain in the middle of his +spine as well as at the back of his head, crawled slowly and in a +rather doubled-up attitude toward the royal apartments. + +As he moved cautiously along the private corridor, he met the Queen +coming from her room, dressed for going out. She detected at once his +painful and decrepit attitude. "What is the matter, dear?" she inquired. + +"Nothing, nothing," mumbled the King, "only a touch of sciatica." And as +he did not encourage her impulse to pause and make further inquiries, +she let him go past. + +He went into his room, and sat very carefully down, for he was still +uncertain whether some vertebral bit of him was not broken. Then he put +his hand to the back of his head and felt it. Yes, undoubtedly something +had happened; at contact with his finger it made a sound curiously like +the ticking of a clock, and under the scalp a portion of bone seemed to +move. And yet he was not threatened with unconsciousness; on the +contrary he felt very wide awake: shaken though he was, ideas positively +bubbled in his brain, his whole being effervesced. For a moment a fear +flickered across his mind that he was going mad. But if so it was a +wholly pleasurable sensation, for though his fancy went at a gallop, it +was orderly, logical, and consecutive, not like madness at all. He +dismissed the notion; but further reflection confirmed him in his +determination not to tell anybody; he did not want to explain how he had +walked upstairs fancying himself a steeplejack. It would have sounded +stupid. + +Then all at once he felt very sick and giddy, and going to the couch he +lay down on it, and there, finding relief in the horizontal position, he +fell fast asleep. + +When he awoke an hour later his head, except for an extreme local +tenderness, felt all right again; but when he tested it the faint +ticking sound was still there. His mind was now calm; his thoughts no +longer went at a gallop, but they seemed--what was the word?--freer, +more articulate, more at his beck and call; and in spirit he was far +less harassed and anxious. Altogether he felt that he possessed himself +more than he had ever done before: his mental views had become more +open. + +Then he remembered that he wanted to see his son Max, and talk to him +about certain matters; and so, after a few more tentative touches to the +back of his head to find if it was still ticking--which it was--he went +into his study, and sending for one of his secretaries, got a message +despatched. And only when he was well on in the routine of his +afternoon's labors did he recollect that he had not lunched. + +That break in the regularity of his habits seemed almost an adventure; +but as he did not now feel hungry he plodded on, for this was his day of +the week for signing accumulated arrears of documents, and several +hundreds awaited him. So for a couple of hours he worked as regularly +and monotonously as a bank-clerk, and while he was signing the less +important papers, and passing them to one of his secretaries to be +blotted and sorted, another read out to him those of which he wished to +learn the contents. + +This duty was generally performed by the Comptroller-General himself; +but to-day he was missing, and the King, left to make his own selection, +was rather startled to find what a number of really important documents +had been left over for this day, devoted to what may be described as +routine signatures. As a rule it was the Comptroller who, out of his +long experience, selected those documents which must be read and, only +after due consideration, signed. Now, by some accident, he had been +prevented from attending, and here was a crowd of important documents, +the terms of which the King had never heard. He began to wonder. At +least ten or a dozen were strange to him: he ordered them to be set +aside. And now very dimly, very gradually, he began to suspect his +position, and to perceive that without watchfulness he might very easily +become less a conscious instrument of Government than a mere mechanism. +What if he had become that already? + + +II + +And then it grew dusk. The King dismissed his secretaries, and without +turning on the light sat and thought alone. The effervescence had all +gone from his brain, melancholy ruled him; and as he sat ruminating upon +the past and his own present position his mind became obsessed by all +the historical characters who had preceded him in the exercise of those +royal functions now grown so exiguous in his hands, who had sat and +labored at Statecraft in that very room, some of them, perhaps, in the +very chair in which he was now seated. + +They became almost present to his consciousness. How would they have +behaved in the present situation? How would they have set to work to add +luster to that supreme symbol which still crowned the constitutional +edifice? + +He could imagine his own father opposing over a considerable period the +weight of his personal prestige to the importunacy of ministers, saying +with stately ease: "We will speak of that, gentlemen, some other day," +and so calmly turning from the subject in dispute--not solving it, but +at least imposing delay as the penalty which ministers must pay for a +difference of opinion. That policy of quiet procrastination no minister +of his time would have dared to withstand without first making for it a +certain time-allowance. So much at least would have been secured, not of +right, but through the weight of a stronger personality. + +And what about others before him? Slowly there dawned upon the King's +vision--clear as though he had seen her but yesterday, the regal +presence of a certain ancestress who more than any other had made the +monarchy what it now was--an almost miraculous survival from the past. +It was the old Queen Regent, the lady who for the last twenty years of +her consort's reign, when his wavering mind had failed him, had ruled +her ministers with a rod which was not of iron, but which, none the +less, they had feared, and sought by many devious ways to evade. Out of +some book of memoirs a vision of something that had taken place in that +very room rose up before him. Around her a ring of Bishops, crowding the +royal hearth-rug, each standing defenseless with deferential stoop, +tea-cup in hand; and she, seated before them with plump hands folded in +her lap upon a lace kerchief, or tapping now and again upon the arms of +her chair to give emphasis, was laying down her word of law, and putting +an end to revolt in the Church. + +"I won't have it!" she cried. "I won't have it! This nonsense has got to +be put down!" + +And what could a Bishop do with a tea-cup in his hand? There she had got +them, six or eight chosen Prelates, every one of them in a defenseless +position; how could they argue an affair of State so? What could they do +but assent to the incontrovertible statement that "nonsense" must and +certainly should be put down--though knowing all the time that the +particular "nonsense" in question, being a thing inbred in the minds of +men, could not be put down by any act of Parliament and would persist +even to the breaking-up of Church unity? And so a perfectly ineffective +Church Government Act had passed into law, causing its honest opponents +to secede, while its far more numerous dishonest opponents had remained; +and the Queen Regent, having for the time being asserted her authority +in the Church, had passed on the actual solution of the problem to later +times. + +Later times: the King's brain ceased to visualize, he came back to +himself and to the accumulated problems now pressing for solution. Yes; +for the monarchy, not only as she had made it, but as it had now become, +that great little lady was almost equally responsible. Her genius had +only arrested its decay by bottling it up in the clear preservative of +her own virtues. It now stood out more conspicuously than ever, a +survival from the past: it had not really moved on. Had it, under that +preserving process, become more brittle? With a more open mind he was +beginning to suspect that the ancient institution was crumbling in his +hands; that a creeping paralysis had seized hold of it. Why? What had he +done? Was simple honesty the last and fatal touch that had called these +symptoms of death to light? Had he been too human for an office with +which humanity was no longer compatible? It seemed a confounding charge +to one whose soul was filled with a social hunger which ever went +unsatisfied, whose official isolation from his people was a daily +obsession. His doubt was whether he had been human enough? As he +cogitated on the matter the suspicion grew in him that he had only been +human domestically; outside his domesticity he had resigned his humanity +and become an automaton, a thing in leading-strings. He had allowed +constitutional usage, aye, and constitutional encroachments also, to +crush him down. In constitutional usage he was as harnessed and +bedizened as the piebald ponies who drew his state-coach when he went +each year to open or shut the flood-gates of legislative eloquence. +Constitutional usage, determined for him by others, was the bearing-rein +that had bowed his neck to that decorative arch of mingled condescension +and pride with which he received deputations, addresses, ambassadors. +Constitutional usage had put a bit in his mouth and blinkers upon his +eyes, so that now, even in his own Council Chamber, he was not expected +to speak, was not expected to see unless his attention were specially +invited. More and more the critical and suspensory powers of the Crown +were coming to be regarded as out of place, a straining of the Royal +Prerogative. The growth of the ministerial system had gone on; and he, +shut off from growth in its midst, was being robbed of strength day by +day. And all this was being done, not in the eyes of his people, but +secretly, under smooth and respectful formalities, by a Cabinet +insidiously bent on acquiring as its own that of which it robbed him. In +this unwritten and unnoticed readjustment of the Constitution nothing +was being passed on to the people's representatives. They knew nothing +about it; keeping all that to itself, the Cabinet, like the grim wolf +with privy paw, "daily devoured apace, and nothing said." + +So far (barring the quotation from Milton, a purely literary adornment +on the author's part), so far he had got with drifting and despondent +thought, when again that small regal presence, of low statute but ample +form, became clearly defined, and he heard the soft staccato voice +saying sharply: "I won't have it! I won't have it!" + +The blood of his ancestors thrilled in his veins. There and then he +formed a resolution--neither would he! He moved to his desk and sat down +to write; and even as he did so material for the breaking of that +resolve presented itself,--the Comptroller-General, calm and +self-possessed, glided into the room. + +He had a communication to make: the story did not take long to tell. He +had been extending his inquiries--further and more particular inquiries +into the life and domestic relations of the unfortunate steeplejack; and +he had discovered, oh, horror! but just in time, that the woman who had +lived with him was not his wife. + +"But you told me they had seven children," said the King. + +"That is so, Sir," replied the Comptroller-General; "it has been a +relationship of long standing. Morally, of course, that only makes the +matter worse." + +The King did not know why morally the permanence of that arrangement +should make it worse. It was a statement which he accepted without +question; it came to him with authority from one whose guidance in such +matters he had ever been accustomed to follow and find correct. Before +the weight of the moral law, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost of +the dead steeplejack. The widow and the seven orphans passed out of +existence; they ceased any longer to be mouths and hearts of flesh, and +became instead abstractions to be set in a class apart--one not eligible +for rewards. To such as these no public declaration of the royal bounty +could be made. + +"Very well," said the King despondently, "strike off the memorandum! The +twenty pounds need not go." + +An hour later the Queen came in and found him sitting alone and +miserable in his chair. She spoke to him, but he did not answer. Then as +she drew nearer, to find out if anything were really the matter, his +misery found voice. + +"I can't move! I am unable to move!" he moaned. + +"What is it, dear?" she inquired, "sciatica?" + +His answer came from a source she could not fathom. + +"No one," he murmured in a tone of deep discouragement, "no one will +ever call _me_ 'Jack.'" + + +III + +Three hours later, after dinner, the King and his son, Prince Max, were +sitting together in the same room. The King, feeling considerably better +for a good meal, had given Max one of his best cigars, and having gone +so far to establish confidential relations, was now trying to summon up +courage to speak to the young man as a father should. + +But here, as elsewhere, he was met by the old difficulty--he and his son +were not intimates. They had drifted apart, not for any lack of filial +or paternal affection, but simply because in the round of their official +lives they so seldom met privately; and since the Prince had acquired an +establishment of his own the King knew little of what he did with his +daily life beyond the records of the Court Circular. + +Max was now twenty-five; he was taller and darker than his father, more +handsome and more self-possessed. In his appearance he combined the +polish of a military training with the quiet air of an amateur scholar; +his forehead was prematurely, but quite becomingly, bald, his mustache +well groomed, his figure slight but athletic. He had inherited his +father's full lips, but the glance of his eye was of a keener and +shrewder quality, and it might be suspected that the eye-glasses +which he occasionally put on were assumed more for effect than for +necessity. Above all, he possessed what the King conspicuously +lacked--self-assurance, and with it a sort of moral ease as though any +error he might fall into would be taken rather as an experience to +profit by than as an occasion for self-reproach. His face showed as he +talked that quality of humor which enables a man to laugh at his own +enthusiasms, and one could not always be sure whether he were serious or +merely indulging in dialectics. To any one out of touch with his +intellectual origins, he was a man difficult to know; and the King, +being in that matter altogether at sea, knew really very little about +him, and was in consequence a little afraid of him. + +That fact made a frontal attack difficult; nevertheless, having screwed +himself up to speak, he began abruptly. + +"Max," said his father, "have you ever thought about marrying?" + +Max smiled a little bitterly. "I started thinking about it," he said, +"when I was seventeen; and off and on I have thought about it ever +since." Then he added rather coldly, as though to warn off mere +curiosity, "Why do you ask, sir? Has any proposal been made?" + +"Well," said his father, "we might certainly arrange something. I feel, +indeed, that we ought to--at your age. I only wanted first to know how +you felt upon the matter. You see," he added, hesitating, "people are +beginning to talk; and it won't do." + +This oblique and cautious reference to his son's private life marked a +new stage in their relations: it was actually the first occasion, in all +their intercourse as father and son, upon which the sex-question had +ever been broached between them. It was no wonder, therefore, that so +far they had been rather strangers to each other. Now, however, having +decided to speak, the King also decided that he must go on and +interfere. It required some moral courage; for he had never failed to +recognize his son as the stronger character, and, especially in +intellectual matters, his superior. + +"I have been told that you have been keeping a mistress," he said, +avoiding the young man's eye. + +"That," answered Max, "would, I suppose, be the generally received +phrase for it." + +"Who is she?" queried the King, pushing hazardously on, now that the +danger-point had been reached. + +"Do you wish to meet her?" + +Parental dignity was offended. + +"That is a suggestion you ought not to make." + +"Then, my dear father, why inquire after her? She and I suit each other: +to you she is nothing." + +"How long has this been going on?" + +"We have lived together for five years." + +The King recalled a phrase that he had recently heard authoritatively +spoken--"a relationship of long standing. Morally, of course, that only +makes the matter worse." + +"H'm!" he said aloud. "You started early, I must say!" + +"You, sir, at that age were already a father," said Max correctively. + +The King made an interjectory movement, but the Prince went on. "I was +twenty, and I was still virginal. To speak frankly, I was amazed at +myself, perhaps even amused. Yes, even now I am inclined to think that, +among princes, my record must have been exceptional. This lady, to whom +I owe nearly the whole of my domestic experience, saved me from an +adventuress----" + +The King lifted his eyebrows. + +"One," went on the Prince, "who would have wrung from me in a single +year far more, from a merely monetary point of view, than the whole +experience has yet cost me." + +The King was slightly bewildered. "This person," he said tentatively, +"is not, then, of the adventuress class?" + +"Nor was that other: by class she was one of the highest of our +aristocracy. I believe that when she is received at Court it is correct +etiquette for you to kiss her upon the cheek. The lady who did actually +befriend me was her companion and secretary, an Austrian by birth. She +had divorced her husband and possessed only a small annuity on which she +was unable to live independently in the style to which she had become +accustomed. Yet for the first year of our liaison she would accept from +me no provision, and we saw each other but seldom. Strange as it may +seem she taught me the value and the charm of conjugal moderation and +fidelity. Just now she is receiving a visit from her son, on leave from +his military services abroad; and respecting the ordinary moral +conventions, which happen also to be hers, I do not go to see her while +the son's visit is being paid. Yet I apprehend that he cannot be in +ignorance of the facts." + +"She has a grown-up son?" queried the King, still a little puzzled; and +Max smiled. + +"A polite way," said he, "of inquiring as to her age. Yes: she is on the +verge of forty, and assures me that she will soon be showing it. You may +be interested also to hear that she is a Roman Catholic, has attacks of +devoutness which occasionally prescribe separation, and has twice +threatened, not in anger but with a most sincere reluctance, to break up +our peaceful establishment. I recognize that in the end her love for her +Church will probably prove stronger than her love for me--at all events +in practice. I have, indeed, some apprehension that her son's visit may +result in a turning of the balance, since he has now inherited his +father's property and can give his mother the position she has a right +to expect. If that should be so, you will find me very attentive to any +offer of marriage that any Court of western civilization (which now +includes Japan) may have to make. Have I said, sir, all that you wish to +know about my feelings in the matter?" + +"What I don't understand," said the King, "is your idea about the +morality of all this." + +"Really," replied the Prince, "I hardly know that I have any. It has +gone on so long; and anything that is regular and of long standing tends +to produce a moral feeling." + +This arrested the King's attention. "You think so?" he interrogated; but +Max waived any decisive pronouncement. + +"Perhaps," said he, "I do not quite know what morality means. I fancy +sometimes that its full meaning may be sprung upon me when I find myself +in love; or, if I am not destined to undergo that experience, on the day +when I learn that I am to become a father without having intended it. +Morality arises out of the proper or improper performance of social +obligations; and I have sometimes wondered whether society's most insane +treatment of illegitimacy would not have compelled me into a misalliance +with my 'mistress,' as you call her, had she ever----" + +"Max!" cried the King, "you are outrageous!" + +"Is that really how it strikes you?" inquired his son. "I feared, +rather, that it was an inexpugnable remnant of my religious training. If +the notion is anarchic I can feel more at home with it. But do not +forget that I am a doctor of divinity." + +"You!" exclaimed the King. + +"Had it escaped your recollection, sir? I confess that sometimes it +escapes mine. Yes: I became a D.D. before I was sent down from College." + +"You were not 'sent down'!" + +"Not ostensibly, sir; I should have been. I left to take up my +military--accomplishments, for I may not call them 'duties.' But you can +hardly forget that I am the only man who ever dared to screw up the +Master of Pentecost in his own rooms. While my associates were screwing +up the Dean, I was screwing up the Master; it was one of my earliest +attempts to be companionable with my fellow-men." + +The King sympathized, but was puzzled. "Do you mean--with the Master?" + +"No, sir, with my fellow-students, those of my own years, amongst whom I +had been placed. But I found that it was impossible. They, for the +lesser offense, were actually 'sent down'; I, having finished my thesis +and obtained my doctor's degree, was merely passed on at a slightly +accelerated pace to receive fresh honors. That gave me a lesson which I +have never forgotten; no honor that has come to me have I ever fully +earned; and no disgrace that I have earned has ever been visited upon me +for the public to know. There in a nutshell you have the moral training +of the heir to a modern throne. What chance, then, have I to know +anything about morality?" + +"My dear son," said the King, "don't say these dreadful things. Even if +they are true, don't say them. They do no good." + +But though he deprecated having to meet such thoughts clothed in the +flesh of speech, he was really very much interested to find that Max had +them; he was seeing his son in a new light. And meanwhile the Prince +went on-- + + +IV + +"I often think, sir, of those two medieval institutions which we have +now lost--I suppose irrevocably--the whipping boy and the court jester. +What a pity that they cannot be revived! The whipping boy, a device to +put princes on their honor to be neither negligent nor wanton in the +fulfilment of their duties; and the jester to break us of our too +self-conscious airs and exhibit to us our follies. See what we have done +instead! When our growing sense of priggish decorum and our dishonest +ceremoniousness of speech made the jester a figure no longer possible, +we substituted for him the poet-laureate!--not to persuade us of our +follies, but to chant our undeserved praises. And alas, how much more +ridiculous, at certain times, he has made us appear--nay, be! With what +lecherous sweetness or ponderous grief he has put us to bed with our +wives or our ancestors, with what maudlin sentiment he has crooned over +us in our cradles! And how poor a show we present when poetry thus tries +to make our ordinary human doings appear so different from those of +other men! England set us that bad example; and, as usual, we followed +her. Only think how far more resplendent might have been her history had +the Court of St. James's continued and developed the institution of the +jester and let the laureateship go. If Pope could only have had the +teasing of Queen Anne, and Swift the goading of the earlier Georges; if +Johnson could have bumbled gruff wisdom into the ears of number three; +and, following upon these, could Sheridan, and Hook, and Carlyle, and +Sidney Smith (I pick up names almost at random) have had a really +assured position and full plenary indulgence as commentators on the +Court and aristocracy of the Regency, and of the early Victorian period +which culminated in that middleman's millennium, the Great Exhibition, +with its Crystal Palace so shoddily furnished to celebrate the +expurgation of art from industry. If only that could have been allowed, +think how England might have been standing now--honest in her faults as +in her virtues, a beacon light to the whole world. But there! it is no +use wishing such saving grace to a rival nation, when we are so out of +grace ourselves." + +Prince Max paused for breath. "And then the whipping boy," he went on, +"think of him!" + +"Yes, Max. I am thinking of him a good deal!" said the King, in a tone +wherein sarcasm and indulgence were pleasantly blended. + +"You mean that I myself need the discipline?" smiled Max, "that my +political ideas are even worse than my morals? Well, here is what you +should do. Choose for me an exemplary young priest of the Established +Church, let him be gentle and comely to attract the hearts of women, +athletic and erudite to command the respect of men; and when I become a +cause of scandal or forget what is due to my position, let him be set to +stand in the old stocks at the doors of the Cathedral on a given day, +for a given number of hours; let it be announced in the Court Circular +that he is there to do penance for my sins, and let it be my privilege, +if penitent, to come in person after the first hour and release him +before the eyes of all. What more effective form of control could you +devise for me than this? How could I remain impenitent and unsubmissive +when for my faults an innocent man stood exposed in contumely to the +public gaze? Sir, you would have me exemplary in a week, or a fugitive +from that country which set so high a standard of honor for its princes. +As it is, our whipping boys go unlabeled with our names; and our +offenses are expiated by countless thousands who know not for whose sins +they suffer." + +"Max," said his father, "you sound as if you were quoting from some +book." + +"I am," answered the Prince; "it is one that I am writing myself, that +being the only form of free action that is left to me. At the threshold +of manhood I recognized what my fate was to be, and that I was not +really intended to do anything. That is why I talk. Activity is +necessary to me. To keep myself in physical vigor I run about and play; +to keep myself in mental vigor I read, I examine life, and I propound +theories. This book which I am now writing would probably excite no +comment if published anonymously, but will be regarded as revolutionary +when it is known to have been written by the heir to a crown." + +"Do you mean to publish it, then?" cried the King in awestruck tone. + +"Certainly," answered the Prince. "Has not the nation every right to +know the opinions of its possible future King? Never shall it be said +that Jingalo accepted me blindly under the dark cover of heredity." + +At this news the King looked really aghast. "And you propose, while I am +spending myself in trying to add luster----" he began, then checked +himself; "you propose to publish a work which may destroy the confidence +at present subsisting between the sovereign and the people?" + +"Would not false confidence be a worse alternative, sir?" inquired Max. + +"But you are doing it in my time," said the King plaintively; "it is my +reign you are disturbing, not your own. I don't think you have any +right." + +"My dear father," answered the Prince, "the more impossible I prove +myself to be, the more popular you will become." + +But the King was not to be consoled by that prospect; he was working not +for himself alone--not for himself, indeed, at all. + +"Max," he said earnestly, "believe me, monarchy, even at the present +day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the +public mind, and you unsettle the basis of government and the sacredness +of property; everything else goes with it. The hereditary principle has +in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; +nothing can adequately take its place." + +"Do not forget, sir," said his son, "that if we follow our heredity back +far enough, ours is an elected monarchy. And if once you admit election +you must admit also the right of the to-be-elected one to offer or +refuse his candidature. The nation cannot play fast and loose, as it has +done, with the principle of male primogeniture, and at the same time +impose upon us, its candidates for election, an unavoidable obligation +to accept the burden of heredity. No; let us have the matter quite +clear. If the people--as they have done by others in the past--claim the +right to reject me, should I prove myself an outrageous and impossible +character, I equally claim the right to reject them; and I must see them +capable of making a reasonable use of my services before I will consent +to be made use of." + +"Well," said the King, breathing in resignation, "I suppose I ought not +to mind too much. 'After me the Deluge,' is a wise enough saying when +one has no power to prevent it." + +"'After me the Deluge,'" said Max, "has come down to us with a muddled +application. If monarchy would only adopt it as its motto, monarchy +would be good for another thousand years. Louis XV said it; and Louis +XVI failed to give it effect. Had he but placed himself at the head of +the Deluge, in the very forefront of its rush and roar, waved his hat to +it and cried: 'After me!' like a captain to his company, and started off +at a gallop, it would have obeyed and followed him. 'After me the +Deluge!' should be the rallying cry of the monarchy for the renewal of +its youth, not the quavering note of its dotage. That is the motto I am +going to put on the title-page of my book." + +"Good gracious!" cried the King. + +Max was pleased to see what an impression he had made: he did not +usually get so good a listener. "And to think," said he, "that all this +talk came of your having asked me a question on a matter that is already +five years old. I am sorry to have taken up so much time explaining +myself." + +"On the contrary," said the King, "I am glad. Five years? Yes, I am very +glad to know that." He got up and moving to the table made a call on his +private telephone. "Would you mind waiting a few minutes," he went on, +"perhaps I shall need your countenance." + +A secretary answered the call; and presently the Comptroller-General +himself appeared to learn the royal pleasure. + +"I am sorry, my dear General," said the King, "to trouble you at so late +an hour. But about that matter of the widow--who is not a widow. I wish +fifty pounds to be sent to her--anonymously. Yes, fifty pounds. Will you +see that it is done to-night?" + +Turning to Max he said, as though referring to conversation already +passed, "You have effectually interested me in her case." + +Max saw that he was being used as a pawn in a game he did not +understand, and held his tongue; and the Comptroller-General, finding +himself dismissed, retired to do for once as he was told. + +And so, by the inglorious device of anonymity and lavishness combined +the King maintained his point, and sent his gift to the relief of one +who was, as a matter of fact, just as legally a widow as any other you +or I may like to name. + +John of Jingalo had not yet broken the official leading-strings, but on +this occasion he had circumvented them. Flushed with his triumph, he +bade his son an affectionate good-night. "Come and talk to me again," he +said. "I don't agree with anything you say, but you help me to think." + +It was a sign of progress. Hitherto he had relied, with a far greater +sense of security and comfort, on those who had enabled him not to +think. Consultation with Max, insidious as the drug-habit, and as +secretively employed, was henceforth to count for much in the +development of the Constitutional Crisis. Hereditary monarchy had +conceived the idea of turning its hereditary material to account. No +doubt the Cabinet would have objected, preferring to keep its victim in +complete mental isolation; but at present, the Cabinet did not know. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +POPULAR MONARCHY + + + + +I + +That talk with Max formed the preliminary to a month of the most +strenuous verbal and intellectual conflict that the King had ever known. +Outside all was calm: the Constitutional Crisis was in suspension; by +agreement on both sides hostilities had been deferred till trade should +have reaped its full profit out of the Silver Jubilee celebrations. The +papers spoke admiringly of this truce to party warfare as "instinctive +loyalty" on the part of the people, "expressive of their desire to do +honor to a beloved sovereign in a spirit undisturbed by the contending +voices of faction." + +There was no "instinctive loyalty," however, within the Cabinet! While +streets were decorating and illuminations preparing, ministers were +giving his Majesty a thoroughly bad time. + +In a way, of course, he brought it upon himself, for at the very next +Council meeting after his conversation with Max he did a thing which, so +far as his own reign was concerned, was absolutely without precedent: he +opened his mouth and spoke;--objected, contended, argued. And at the +sound of his voice uttering something more than mere formalities, +ministers sat up amazed, most of them very angry and scandalized at so +unexpected a reversion to the constitutional usages of a previous +generation. + +Not a word of all this leaked out. The whole thing was an admirable +example of that keeping-up of appearances on which bureaucratic +government so largely depends. And it was, if you come to think of it, a +very deftly arranged affair. There was the whole country bobbing with +loyalty, enthusiasm, and commercial opportunism; the Cabinet +unencumbered for a while by any parliamentary situation that could cause +anxiety, and correspondingly free to direct its energies elsewhere; and +there within the Council, and without a soul to advise him, was the +King, scuffling confusedly against the predatory devices of his +ministers. The poor man's knowledge of the Constitution was but scanty, +and his powers of argument were feeble, for from the day of his +accession the word "precedent" had governed him. Yet he had an idea, a +feeling, that he was now being forced into a wrong position; the +constitutional breath was being beaten out of his body, and he would +pass from his levees, from his receptions of foreign embassies and +addresses of loyalty and congratulation, to a conflict in Council which +reminded him of nothing so much as a "scrum" upon the football field. +Through one goal or another he was to be kicked--the exercise of the +Crown's prerogative to nominate Free Church Bishops, or the refusal to +exercise it. And whichever expedient he was driven to in the end, he +knew that on one side grandiloquent words would be written about his +fine instinct for the constitutional limitations or powers of monarchy, +and on the other, pained, but deeply respectful words of regret that he +had been so ill-advised by his ministers--or by others. Whichever side +loses, it is the football which wins the game. That, however, is merely +the spectator's point of view. The football only knows that it has been +kicked. Yet the King was well aware that in Parliament at any rate +appearances would be kept up; and that whatever corner of the field he +got kicked to, the blame for it would be laid, ostensibly, on others; +though, as a result, the monarchy to which it was his bounden duty to +"add luster" would be either strengthened or weakened: and what course +to take he really did not know. + +His mind, in consequence, was greatly troubled. Being of conservative +instincts he believed that, in the main, the Bishops were right and the +Prime Minister wrong. The Prime Minister had been harassing the country +with general elections; and the country had had about as many as it +could stand: yet without a fresh election no other ministry was +possible. And now, at a moment when the country was bent on profiting by +the revival in trade which the approaching celebrations had stimulated, +nothing would be so unpopular as a fresh ministerial crisis; and he +could have no doubt that, whatever the papers might pretend to say, the +odium of that crisis, if due to his own action, would fall eventually +upon himself. + +And the Prime Minister knew it! Yes, just at that juncture, resignation, +or the threat of it, had become an absolutely compelling card; and he +was playing it for all it was worth. Free Church Bishops were to be +promised for the ensuing year, or the Ministry would be bound to feel, +here and now, that his Majesty's confidence in it had been withdrawn. + +Resignation, aimed not against any opposing majority in Parliament, but +against the demur and opposition of the Crown itself--that fact in all +its political significance, with all its possible developments of danger +for the State and of humiliation for the monarchy, was daily pressing +its relentless weight against the King's scruples. The more unanswerable +it seemed the more angry he became, the more keenly did he feel that he +was being unfairly used. And then, one day, as he sat thinking at his +desk, all at once a new thought occurred to him, throwing a queer +radiance into his face, of joy mixed with cunning. And then, gradually, +it faded out and left a blank; the old expression of anxiety and +distrustfulness returned. He shook his head at himself, scared that such +a thought should ever have come into it. "No, no, it wouldn't do!" he +muttered. "Impossible." + +All the same he got up from his desk, and in deep cogitation began +walking about the room. The carpet with its rich variegated pattern, +like Max's conversation, helped him to think; until certain deliveries +of a royal courier from abroad came to divert his attention to more +particular and family affairs. + +Nevertheless his mind had again reverted to its vetoed notion when, an +hour later, on his way to the Queen's apartments he met the Princess +Charlotte tripping gaily along the corridor. She stopped to give him her +"return home" embrace. "How well you are looking, papa!" cried she, +admiring his flushed countenance. But the King, though he smiled, +remained preoccupied with the embryos of statecraft. + +"My dear," he said abruptly, "do you think that I am popular?" + +"Why, yes, papa, of course!" she said, opening sweet eyes at him. +"Doesn't everybody cheer you when you go anywhere?" + +"I think," said her father dubiously, lending his ears in fancy to the +sound, "I think that crowds get into the habit of cheering,--not because +they care for me, but just because there are a lot of them, and they +like to hear the sound of their own voices." + +"But sometimes you have quite small crowds," said his daughter, "and +still they cheer." + +"Yes, yes," he allowed, "so they do. Yes, even the nursemaids, I notice, +wave their handkerchiefs when I ride by them in the park. And I daresay +some of them do it because they are sorry for me." + +"Sorry for you, papa?" + +"My dear, wouldn't you be sorry to have to be King now-a-days? It's no +fun, I can assure you." + +"I wouldn't like to be King always," said Charlotte, with honesty; "but +you know, papa, with all the Silver Jubilee celebrations coming on you +are quite immensely popular." + +"Ah!" said the King. "Thank you, my dear, that is what I wanted to +know." + +He went on to the Queen's apartments, and Princess Charlotte stood +looking after him. "Poor dear!" she said to herself. She was sorry for +him too--very sorry just now; for she had a secret growing within her +somewhere between heart and head which, if he knew of it--and some day +he would have to know of it--would cause him a great deal of worry. + +This young woman with her growing secret was at that time twenty-three. + + +II + +The Princess Charlotte had a way of drawing in a breath as if to speak, +and then bottling it. This little performance was at times very telling +in its effect--it spoke volumes: it told of a long training in +self-repression which still did not come quite naturally: it told of +inward combustion, of a tightly cornered but still independent mind. +Ladies-in-waiting had seen the Princess run out of her mother's presence +to tabber her feet on the inlaid floor of the corridor, thence to return +smooth, sweet-tempered, and amiable; for between Charlotte and the Queen +there were temperamental differences which had to declare themselves or +find safety through emergency exits. + +The Princess had no such difficulties with her father, for +imperturbability was not one of his characteristics, and +imperturbability was the one quality in a parent which the Princess +simply could not stand; it made her feel powerless; and to feel +powerless toward one's intellectual inferiors is, to certain +temperaments, maddening. Charlotte had long since been brought to +recognize that her mother, in her own dear way, was quite hopeless: but +she was able with astonishing ease to get upon her father's nerves and +to trouble his conscience; for while the Queen remained impervious to +all influences outside the conventions of her training and her habits, +the King was as open to new scruples of conscience as a sieve is to the +wind--fresh ideas rattled in his head like green peas in a +cullender--when he shook his head it seemed to shake them about, and all +the larger ones came uppermost; and the Princess Charlotte had in recent +years acquired a habit of entangling her father, with the most engaging +simplicity, in moral problems for which constitutional monarchy could +find no answer. + +She was evidently interested in politics, and when of late the King, +wishing to check so dangerous a tendency, had sought to know the reason +why, she had answered with perfect frankness: "Max says" (for to her, +also, Max, the man born to inaction, had been talking), "Max says he is +not sure if he means to come to the throne. If he doesn't, it is just as +well I should know something of the business." + +The young lady had a most disrespectful way of talking about the +monarchy as "the business," and did not say it as if in joke. + +"Are you going to business to-day, papa?" was actually the phrase +uttered in all seriousness, which had met him one of the days when he +went down to open Parliament. But though she spoke thus gracelessly of +an important State function she attended it herself with grace, and +behaved well. + +The Princess Charlotte had learned many things alien to her nature; but +she had never learned that correctitude of deportment which is supposed +to accompany all those born in the regal purple from the cradle to the +grave. She substituted for it, however, something much more individual +and charming. Tall and abundantly alive, she moved in soft rushes +rather quicker than a walk; and her manner of swimming down a room, with +swift invisible run of feet, and just three long undulating bows on the +top of all--those three doing duty for so many--was a sight on the +decorum of which Court opinion was sharply divided. Yet every one +admitted that though she might lack convention or anything in the least +resembling "the grand manner"--she had a style of her own; many +also--even those who disapproved--admitted her charm. As she talked to +her chosen intimates, her two hands would go out in quick bird-like +gestures of momentary contact, while her brightly moving face gave a +constant invitation to the free entry of her thoughts. Barriers she had +none. A dangerous young person for getting her own way; for in the +process she often got not only her own but other people's as well. + +At the moment when she makes her introductory bow from the pages of this +history her main and consuming desire was to secure the ordering of her +own dresses; and to obtain that preliminary measure of independence for +the expression of her own character she was prepared, in the face of +maternal opposition, to go to considerable lengths. + +The King when he met her in the corridor was, as we have said, +preoccupied with affairs of State. But his preoccupation was partly put +on with intent for the concealment of other thoughts. The sight of his +daughter at that moment, embarrassed him--gave him, indeed, almost a +sense of guilt, for he held in his hand a letter from the Hereditary +Prince of Schnapps-Wasser accepting the circuitously worded proposal, +with all its delicate adumbrations of yet other proposals to follow, +that he should visit the Jingalese Court early in the ensuing +year--immediately, that is to say, upon his return from South America; +and though in his reply the veiled object of that visit was not +mentioned there was a touch here and there of compliment, of warmth, of +a wish that the date were not so far off, which indicated "a coming on +disposition." + +And so, under the bright eyes of his daughter, the King was conscious of +a sense of guilt, in that he was concealing from her something in which +her future was very greatly concerned. It seemed hardly fair thus to be +pushing matters on without letting her know: and yet--what else could he +do? So, covering his affectionate embarrassment in inquiries about +himself, he shuffled past; and when he had gone a little further, turned +to take another look at her, and found, startled, that she too was +looking at him. There, at opposite ends of the long corridor, father and +daughter stood interrogatively at gaze, each feeling a little guilty, +each wondering what, at the denouement, the other would say. Then the +charming Charlotte blew him a kiss from her hand, and his Majesty did +likewise; and, off to the fulfilment of her destiny went the Princess; +and off to his fulfilment of her destiny went he; each quite sure in +their two different ways that they knew what was best for her. + + +III + +The King found the Queen at her knitting, very placid and contented and +well pleased with herself, for she had just been giving Charlotte a mild +talking to. Charlotte had come home with adjectives in her mouth of +which the Queen did not approve, and with enthusiasms that went +riotously beyond bounds. She had talked of some Professor's translation +of a Greek play as "glorious"; and of the play itself--a play all about +expatriated women who, their proper husbands having been killed in a +siege, were forced to accept at the hands of their enemies husbands of a +less proper kind--she had talked of that play as "the most immense, +immortal, and modern thing in all drama." + +"I told her," said the Queen, "that she was talking about what she +didn't understand; but she answered that she had seen it three times. +_I_ said, that to go and see the same play three times--especially a +play with murders in it--showed a morbid taste. She didn't seem to mind: +'Then I _am_ morbid,' was her reply. And when I said, 'That comes of +making friends with these intellectual women,' she only laughed at me. I +shan't let her go again, it is doing her harm; she has far too many +ideas, far too many: and where she picks them all up I'm sure I don't +know; she doesn't get them from me!" + +And then the conversation--though Charlotte remained its subject--took +another turn, for the King put into his wife's hand the letter he had +received from the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser, and immediately her +comments began. + +"He writes a nice hand," she said, "and expresses himself very well. +Speaks of writing a book on his travels; he must be clever. Well, at all +events, it's very evident that he means to come, and wants to. We must +ask him to send his photograph. I think, my dear, we have made a very +good choice, and Charlotte may consider herself very fortunate. But what +a pity he's not coming sooner. Well, Charlotte must wait, that's all!" + +And so in her own mind the matter was settled, and only the usual +details waited to be arranged. She handed the letter back to him. + +"Of course," she said, "before he comes Charlotte must have a bigger +allowance." She became meditative. "By the way, you had better leave it +in my hands; don't give it to Charlotte herself. She wheedles you, I +know; but she has ideas about dress which I am not going to encourage; +she makes herself far too noticeable as it is. Somebody has been talking +to her about 'national costume' and the folly of fashions; and she +actually said just now that she wanted to have some kind of dress that +she could wear three years running! I told her that fashions were made +to be followed, and that it was her duty to follow them. Oh, she was +quite sweet about it, and said she supposed I knew best, which of course +is true. But she had a sort of 'I'll ask papa' look in her eyes that +made me suspicious. She went out just before you came." + +"I met her," observed the King. + +"And she said nothing?" + +"Not a word about her dress allowance." + +"Ah, that's all right, then: she takes what I tell her sometimes." Then +with a quick glance the Queen asked abruptly: "Have you seen Max?" + +"I fancy I may be seeing him this evening," returned the King casually, +for he wished to conceal even from his wife the importance he had begun +to attach to his son's visits. + +"Something is happening," said the Queen pointedly; "at least, so I am +informed. That--that person I told you about--she isn't there now." + +"However do you come to know that?" inquired the King, surprised; but +his question was ignored. + +"She has gone abroad," went on his informant. "Had you said anything to +Max?" + +"I did speak to him." + +"Then it seems to have had its effect." + +The King very much doubted whether the effect was any of his doing; but +he held his peace. + +"Now we must find somebody for him," continued the dear lady, covering +the past in a tone of charitable allowance. + +"I think that Max will find somebody for himself." + +But this was not to her taste at all. "How can he," she objected, +"unless we send him abroad? I'm sure there's nobody here." + +But the King had come recently to know more about Max than his wife did. +"Max will find somebody for himself," he repeated; "and if he thinks it +worth while, he will go all round the world on a wild goose chase to +look for her." + + +IV + +Could the King only have known it, Max had already found his choice +nearer home. His domestic arrangements having been temporarily disturbed +by a certain lady's departure to visit her son on his estates, he had +gone off on a spurt of social curiosity to inspect the slums of his +father's capital, and on the third day of his investigation had spied, +under a nursing sister's habit, and above a gentle breast bearing an +ivory cross, the face of his dreams. Having taken scientific steps to +discover whether that particular garb entailed celibate vows, and +learning that it did not, he had industriously run its wearer to sainted +earth--had, that is to say, pursued her to a top-floor tenement and +there found her upon her knees with sanitary zeal scrubbing dirt from +the boards of poverty; and poverty upon its bed whimpering with rage and +feebly cursing her for thus coming to disturb its peace. Thus they had +met, and very promptly and practically had the wearer of the habit made +him pay the price for his intrusion by setting him there and then to +work of a kind he had never tackled before. + +Who she was, and all the sacred dance that she led him on holy feet, +before she gave him that reward which was his due, will be told in the +later pages of this history. For the present Max had hardly any idea how +pure and deep a Jordan he was about to be dipped in, or how thorough a +scrubbing he himself was to receive. His voice was still like the +rollings of Abana and Pharpar, when he came on this next evening to +discourse up-to-date wisdom in his father's ears; not a hair of his +well-groomed head showed the ruffling of perturbed thoughts within, nor +were his self-confidence and easy satisfaction in the moral and mental +liberties wherein he ranged at large in any way diminished or disturbed. + +When they had settled down to their talk, the King confidentially +broached the proposed visit of the Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wasser +and its intended significance. Max did not seem particularly impressed. +"What does Charlotte say about it?" he inquired casually. + +"Charlotte does not say anything. How should she? She does not yet +know." + +Max smiled. "It will be time, then, to talk about it when she does." + +"But there is really nobody else; and Charlotte must marry somebody." + +"Has she said so?" inquired Max. "My own impression is that she will +have to get through at least one good healthy love affair of her own +before she settles down to anything you or the Courts of Europe can +provide. After that--if you let her plunge deep enough--you won't have +any trouble; she will marry anything you offer. Of course, if you really +believed in monarchy as a principle, and not as a mere expedient--a +divine institution, and not as the last ditch in which the old +class-barriers have to be maintained--you would let her marry any one +she chose. It would do the monarchy no harm, and might do it good." + +The King shook his head. "It's no use talking like that," said he. "We +are not free, any of us. The more other ranks of society have become +mixed, commercially mixed--for you know it is money that has done +it--the more we must maintain ours. Royalty must not barter itself +away." + +"But you _do_ barter it," said Max, "for rank if not for gold. And the +one is really as base as the other. The great game for royalty to play +now-a-days is courageous domesticity." + +"There are limits," replied his father. "We must maintain our position." + +"That is just where you make the mistake," retorted Max. "You and my +dear mother are always ready to play the domestic game where it is not +important. You allow photographs of your private life to be on sale in +shop-windows; charming private details slip out in newspaper paragraphs; +one of you behaves with natural and decent civility to some ordinary +poor person, and news of it is immediately flashed to all the press. Two +years ago, for instance, when you were triumphantly touring the United +States you arrived by some accident at a place called New York; and +there, early one morning, having evaded the reporters, you stood looking +up at the sky-scrapers when you trod on an errand-boy's toe, or knocked +his basket out of his hand; and having done so you touched your hat and +apologized--you a King to an errand-boy! And immediately all America, +which yawps of equality and of one man being the equal of any other, +fell rapturously in love with you! You, I daresay, have forgotten the +incident?" + +"Quite," said the King. + +"But America remembers it. When you left, with all the locusts of the +press clinging to the wheels of your chariot, they dubbed you 'conqueror +of hearts'; and it was mainly because you had knocked over an errand-boy +and apologized to him. Now you do these things naturally; but they are +all really part of the business: your secretaries report them to the +press." + +"What?" exclaimed the King, startled. + +"Why, of course! The errand-boy didn't know you from Adam, and no one +but your private secretary was with you at the time; at least, so I +gathered: it was before breakfast and you had given the detectives the +slip. Well, then, merely by letting your human nature and your sense of +decency have free play you help to run the monarchic system--you almost +make a success of it. But you stop just where you ought to go on. You +are natural--you are yourself--where there is no opposition to your +being so. If you would go on being natural where there _is_ +opposition--where all sorts of high social and political reasons step in +and forbid--you would find yourself far more powerful than the +Constitution intended you to be, for you would have the people with you. +There is a mountain of sentiment ready to rush to your side if you only +had the faith to call it to you. Have you not noticed, whenever a royal +engagement is announced, how every paper in the land declares it to be a +real genuine love-match? And you know--well, you know. I myself can +remember Aunt Sophie crying her eyes out for love of the Bishop of +Bogaboo whom she fell in love with at a missionary meeting and wasn't +allowed to marry; and six weeks later her engagement to Prince +Wolf-im-Schafs-Kleider was announced as a sudden and romantic +love-match! Why, he had only been sent for to be looked at when the +Bogaboo affair became dangerous; and so Aunt Sophie was coerced into +that melancholy mold of a jelly which she has retained ever since. + +"Now that is where my grandfather showed himself out of touch with the +spirit of the age. Had he allowed Aunt Sophie to marry the Bishop and go +out during the cool months of the year to teach Bogaboo ladies the use +of the crinoline--it was just when crinolines were going out of fashion +here, and they could have got them cheap--he would have done a most +popular stroke for the monarchy." + +"But you forget, my dear boy," said the King, "the Bogaboos were at that +time a really dangerous tribe--they still practised cannibalism." + +"Yes, they still had their natural instincts unimpaired; the Christian +substitute of gin had not yet taken hold on them, and their national +institution still provided the one form of useful martyrdom that was +left to us. Had Aunt Sophie, or her husband, been eaten by savages there +would have been a boom in missions, and both the Church and the monarchy +would have benefited enormously. Royalty must take its risks. Kings no +longer ride into battle at the head of their armies: even the cadets of +royalty, when they get leave to go, are kept as much out of danger as +possible. But if royalty cannot lead in something more serious than the +trooping of colors and the laying of foundation-stones, then royalty is +no longer in the running. + +"Now what you ought to do is--find out at what point it would break with +all tradition for you to be really natural and think and act as an +ordinary gentleman of sense and honor, and then--go and do it! The +Government would roll its eyes in horror; the whole Court would be in +commotion; but with the people generally you would win hands down!" + +"Max, you are tempting me!" said the King. + +"Sir," said his son, "I cannot express to you how great is my wish to be +proud of your shoes if hereafter I have to step into them. Could you not +just once, for my sake, do something that no Government would +expect--just to disturb that general smugness of things which is to-day +using the monarchy as its decoy?" + +The King gazed upon the handsome youth with eyes of hunger and +affection. "What is it that you want me to do?" he inquired. + +Max held out his cigar at arm's length, looked at it reflectively, and +flicked off the ash. + +"Don't do that on the carpet!" said his father. + +Max smiled. "That is so like you, father," he said; "yes, that is you +all over. You don't like to give trouble even to the housemaid. Now when +you see things going wrong you ought to give trouble--serious trouble, I +mean. You ought, in vulgar phrase, to 'do a bust.' + +"When I was a small boy," he went on, "I used to read fairy stories and +look at pictures. And there was one that I have always remembered of a +swan with a crown round its neck floating along a stream with its beak +wide open, singing its last song. To me that picture has ever since +represented the institution of monarchy going to its death. The crown, +too large and heavy to remain in place, has slipped down from its head +and settled like a collar or yoke about its neck. Its head, in +consequence, is free, and it begins to sing its 'Nunc dimittis.' The +question to me is--what 'Nunc dimittis' are we going to sing? I do not +know whether you ever read English poetry; but some lines of Tennyson +run in my head; let me, if I can remember, repeat them now-- + + "'The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul + Of that waste place with joy + Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear + The warble was low, and full, and clear; + And floating about the under-sky, + Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole + Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear; + But anon her awful jubilant voice, + With a music strange and manifold, + Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold; + As when a mighty people rejoice + With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold!' + +"That, my dear father, is the song I wish to hear you singing--that I +want to take up, I in my turn after you. I want your voice now to be +awful and jubilant, and your carol to be 'free and bold' like the carol +of that dying bird; and the sound of it to be like the rejoicing of a +mighty people on a day of festival." + +The King shook his head. "My dear boy," he said, "I don't understand +poetry; I never did." + +"Well," said the son, "let me interpret it then into prose. Monarchy as +an institution is dying, and it can either die in foolish decrepitude, +or it can die mightily, merging itself in democracy for a final blow +against bureaucratic government. All that is written in my book. That is +why I am now able to express myself so well: these periods are largely a +matter of quotation. The right role for monarchy to-day is, believe me, +to be above all things democratic--not by truckling to the ideas of the +people in power--the 'ruling classes' as they still call themselves--but +by daring to be human and natural, and to refuse absolutely to be +dehumanized on the score of its high dignity and calling. + +"If, for instance, I came to you to-day and said I wanted to marry one +of my own nation--say even a commoner--in preference to the daughter of +some foreign princeling, let me do it! It breaks with a foolish +tradition--largely our own importation when, as foreigners, we were +seeking to keep up our prestige--it may annoy or even embarrass the +Government. Well! have they not annoyed and embarrassed you?" + +The King nodded sympathetically, but in words hastened to correct +himself. "One has often to make sacrifices in defense of an +institution," he said. "That is a duty we both owe." + +"Why," inquired the Prince, "should I make sacrifices to an institution +I do not really approve? Why should I pretend to love some foreign +princess if I have given my heart to one--I cannot say of my own +race--for I remember that we are an importation--but of the country of +my adoption? Do you really suppose that because it annoys the Prime +Minister and disturbs his political calculations, an alliance within +those artificially prohibited degrees imposed on royalty will lessen the +influence of the Crown by a straw's weight, or quicken its demise by an +hour? This country, like all civilized countries, is moving towards some +form of republican government. If we are sufficiently human, if we show +ourselves determined to call our souls our own--it is not merely +possible, it is probable, that when the change comes we shall be called +on by popular acclaim to provide the country with its first President. +If we did we could secure for that presidency a greater power and +prestige than any bureaucratic government would willingly concede. It +may be that the real counter-stroke to the present increase of Cabinet +control can most effectively be administered by a monarch who is not too +careful to preserve the outward forms of monarchy. When that is done, by +you, or by me, or by one who comes after us, I am confident that there +will be the sound of a people's rejoicing." + +"You have strange ideas," said the King, "for one who calls himself a +monarchist." + +"I am a republican," said the young man. + +The King stared at him as though at some strange animal. "You don't say +so!" he murmured half aghast. "Supposing the Prime Minister were to find +out." + +"He will soon," said the Prince. "I shall be sending him a copy of my +book on the day of publication." + +The King shook his head warningly. Then he smiled, a shy nervous smile. +"It would be very awkward," he said slowly, "very awkward indeed, if you +happened to come to the throne just now. I really don't know what +Brasshay would do. But it's too late for me to begin that sort of +thing--far too late now." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CHURCH AND STATE + + + + +I + +All this while other swan-songs were in preparation to be forced down +other throats (and thence presently to be rejected); forced with that +gentle air of persuasion which rears its lying front over all forms of +"peaceful picketing." Starvation and stuffing were the two methods to be +employed. + +While the Government was picketing the King with threats of withdrawal +from office, and the Labor Party the Government with threats of a +national strike, the Government was preparing to picket the Bishops by a +process of forcible feeding--a plethora of their own kind be thrust upon +them--of their own kind but of a very different persuasion. And now at +last the Bishops understood that the doubling of their dioceses was but +a device of Machiavellian subtlety for the halving of their +temporalities. + +The Bishops had just opened their holy mouths to protest when the +approach of the Jubilee festivities shut them up. The Church of Jingalo +was on a tight and established footing, and had to conform to the +commercial, conventional, and constitutional requirements of its day; +for you cannot, if you are by law established, play fast and loose with +those institutions on which a nation bases its prosperity. So even when +the Government proposed the creation of demi-mondain bishops, and the +setting up of what amounted to a second establishment in the upper +chamber of its spiritual spouse, the outward proprieties were still +observed, and the sanctities of national interests respected. It is true +that the Bishop of Olde, lifting from his bed a burden of ninety years, +climbed up into the central pulpit of his diocese to preach a sermon +which was ecstatically applauded by all Churchmen, and committed +thereafter to the keeping of a carefully selected few. It won for him +the affectionate nickname of "Never-say-die" and put his followers into +a hole from which they never afterwards emerged. And so the Bishops +entered into the loyal silence of the Jubilee truce with a flush of +conscious rectitude upon their faces; while behind closed doors the +Prime Minister and the Primate Archbishop of Ebury had met to talk +business, to drive conditional bargains, and to kill time till such +other time as seemed good to them. + +They met at the town-residence of the one Bishop of the Establishment +who had lent a favorable ear to the Prime Minister's proposals. +Boycotted by his brother Bishops this solitary pelican in piety was +still on terms of official acquaintance with his titular head. Placing +his well-stored nest at the disposal of the two combatants, he retired +for a discreet week-end into the wilderness; and the Prime Minister and +the Archbishop, after announcing in the press that they also had gone +elsewhere, came together by appointment for the indication of ultimatums +and the fixing of dates when ju-jitsu was to commence. + +When the Prime Minister arrived his Grace the Primate, attended by his +chaplain, was already in the house. An ecclesiastical butler carried +word to the chaplain, and the chaplain carried it to the oratory. + +The Archbishop finished his prayer; it served the double purpose of +strengthening him in his resolve to present a firm front that for the +time being could do no harm, and of keeping his opponent waiting. The +effect did not quite come off. Under that enforced attendance, the Prime +Minister had turned his back on the door, and wrapt in contemplation of +the book-shelves stood as though unaware that the Primate had made his +state entry. It was a pity that he should have missed it. + +The Archbishop came into the room bearing in his hands a large Bible, +subscribed for and presented to him by a general assembly of Church +clergy and laity when the constitutional crisis first began to loom +large. It was fitting, therefore, that it should now accompany him to +the field of battle. Corners of silver scrollwork, linked together by +bands and clasps of the same metal, adorned its surface, and over the +glowing red of its Venetian leather binding, lambs, lions, eagles, +doves, and pelicans stood lucently embossed, bearing upon their +well-drilled shoulders the sacred emblems and mottoes of the +ecclesiastical party. More important and more central than these showed +the proud heraldic bearings of the metropolitan see of Ebury, crowned +with a miter which its occupant never wore, and a Cardinal's hat for +which he was no longer qualified. + +All these collective sources of inspiration the Archbishop bore in +monstrant fashion with hands raised and crossed, and, moving to the +strategic position he had previously selected, set down upon the table +before him. While thus designing his way he exchanged formal salutation +with his antagonist. + +"And now, sir," said he, bowing himself to a seat, "now I am entirely at +your disposal." + +"And I at yours," said the Prime Minister. + +But the Archbishop corrected him. "I am here, I take it, rather to be +informed of the latest novelties in statecraft than to admit that any +fresh standpoint upon our side has become possible." Slowly and solemnly +he rested his hands upon the presentation volume as he spoke; across +that barrier, representative of the spiritual forces at his back, his +small diplomatic eyes twinkled with holy zeal. He was an impressive +figure to look at, and also to hear: over six feet in height, with dark +hair turned silver, of a ruddy complexion, portly without protuberance, +and with a voice of modulated thunder that could fill with ease, twice +in one day, even the largest of his cathedrals. As a concession to the +world he wore flat side-whiskers, as a concession to the priestly office +he shaved his lip. By this compromise he was able to wear a cope without +offense to the Evangelicals,--his whiskers saving him from the charge of +extreme views. Under his rule, largely perhaps because of those +whiskers, peace had settled upon the Church; and in consequence it now +presented an almost united front to its political opponents. + +All his life he had been accustomed to command. Even in the nursery, as +the eldest child and only son of his parents, he had ruled his five +sisters with that prescriptive mastery which sex and primogeniture +confer. At school he had pursued his career of disciplinarian first as +"dowl-master," then as captain of teams, then as prefect with powers of +the rod over senior boys his superiors in weight. Continuing at the +University to excel in games, he became at twenty-four a class-master in +Jingalo's most famous public school. Marrying at thirty a lady of title, +he acquired the social touch necessary for his completion, and five +years later was appointed Head. Left a disconsolate widower at the age +of forty-seven, he drew dignity from his domestic affliction, received a +belated call to the ministry, took orders, and became Master of +Pentecost, only on the distinct understanding that a bishopric of +peculiar importance as a stepping-stone to higher things should be his +at the next vacancy. The vacancy occurred without any undue delay; and +from that bishopric, after three years of successful practice, he passed +at the age of fifty-five to the crowning grace of his present position. +Thence he was able to look back over a long vista of things successfully +done and heads deferentially bowed to his sway--deans, canons, priests, +sisters--a pattern training for a humble servant of that Master whose +Cross, as by law established, he was now helping to bear. Even the Prime +Minister, facing him with all his parliamentary majority at his back, +knew him for a redoubtable opponent. This fight had long ago been +foreseen by the Church party, and it was for the fighting policy he now +embodied that Dr. Chantry had received nine years previously his "call" +from collegiate to sacerdotal office. A large jeweled cross gleamed upon +his breast, and a violet waistcoat that buttoned out of sight betokened +the impenetrable resolution of his priestly character. + +"And now, sir, I am at your disposal," said he; and sat immovable while +the Prime Minister spoke. + + +II + +The Prime Minister's argument ran upon material and mathematical lines; +he imported no passion into the discussion,--there was no need. He had +at his disposal all that was requisite--the parliamentary majority, the +popular mandate, and, so he believed, the necessary expedient under the +Constitution for bringing the Church to heel. Episcopalianism no longer +commanded a majority of the nation; Church endowments had therefore +become the preserves of a minority, and scholarship by remaining +denominational was getting to be denationalized. Having laid down his +premises he proceeded to set forth his demands. Henceforth the +Universities were to be released from Church control, all collegiate and +other educational appointments to be open and unsectarian, scholarships +and fellowships, however exclusive the intentions of their pious +founders, were to follow in the same course; degrees of divinity were to +be granted irrespective of creed, and chairs of theology open to all +comers. + +At this point the Archbishop, who had hitherto sat silent, put in a +word. + +"That will include Buddhists and Mohammedans. Is such your intention?" + +The Prime Minister corrected himself. "I should, of course, have said +'all who profess themselves Christians.'" + +The Archbishop accepted the concession with an ironical bow. + +"Unitarians and Roman Catholics?" + +"That would necessarily follow." + +"I am ceasing to be amazed," said his Grace coldly. "We, the custodians +of theological teaching, are to admit to our endowments the two extremes +of heresy and of schism." + +"If both are admitted," suggested the Prime Minister, "will they not +tend to correct each other? We study history by allowing all sides to be +stated, and we admit to its chair both schools, the scientists and the +rhetoricians. Why, then, should not theology be studied on the same +broad lines?" + +"Will the chair of theology become a more stable institution," inquired +the Archbishop, "by being turned into a see-saw?" + +The Prime Minister smiled on the illustration, but his answer was edged +with bitterness. + +"That is a way of securing some movement at all events," he remarked +caustically. + +"The Church," retorted his Grace, "denies the need of such movement. Her +firm foundations--we have scriptural warrant for saying--are upon rock. +She is neither a traveling menagerie, a swingboat, nor a +merry-go-round." + +"Yet I have heard," said the Prime Minister, "that she takes a ship to +be her symbol, and one, in particular, very specially designed to be a +traveling menagerie--containing all kinds both clean and unclean." + +"The unclean," said the Archbishop, "were by divine dispensation placed +in a decisive minority." + +"Yet they shared, I suppose, the provisions of the establishment?" + +"They did not, I imagine, sit down at the table with the patriarch and +his family." + +"Perhaps the dogs ate of the crumbs?" + +"It is not 'crumbs' that you are seeking," said the Archbishop with +asperity. "From our chairs of theology we dispense to the Church the +bread of wisdom from which she draws sustenance; and you ask us to let +that source of her intellectual life become infected with microbes,--at +a time when latitudinarian doctrines are sapping the unity of the Church +and weakening her discipline, to allow their establishment as a +principle in our centers of learning and in our seats of divinity! What +claim to denounce heresy and schism will be left to the Church if in her +very government heretics and schismatic teachers receive posts of +influence, emolument, and authority? To what extremes may not the minds +of our students be led, to what destruction of ecclesiastical +discipline?" + +"If you will admit free teaching in the Universities," explained the +Prime Minister, "we shall not seek to touch your theological seminaries, +or to invade your orders by an infusion of fresh blood." + +"Invade our orders?" cried the Primate. "That you cannot do; no Bishop's +hands would bestow them!" and he drew back his own with a declamatory +gesture. "You yourself are not a Churchman, and you do not perhaps know +what to us the Church means. We hold in sacred trust the power of the +Keys--if we surrender those we surrender everything." + +"They are in a good many hands already," remarked the Prime Minister +blandly. "Episcopal power is not limited to the Church of Jingalo." And +then for the first time, as a pawn in the political game, the +Archimandrite was mentioned. The Archbishop could not believe his ears. +"You would not dare," he said. + +"I am sorry," replied the other, "that you should be under any such +misapprehension. Let me remind you that only a year ago you yourself +recommended him for an honorary benefice--a church that had not a +parish." + +"Yes, honorary; not with administrative powers." + +"Yet I fancy it was devised in order that at a later date you might +employ him--merely by accident as it were--for confirming the validity +of your orders." + +"While your device," said the Archbishop, "is to use him as a means for +placing schismatics in a position of control and authority. Sir, I say +to you that you would not dare. The nation will not allow it." + +"Time will show," replied the other smoothly. + +"Ah!" cried the Archbishop passionately; "you trust to time; I to the +power of the Eternal. If such an attempt is made to violate the body of +our Mother Church then I pronounce sentence of excommunication upon all +who take part in it." + +"It would have no legal effect," said the Prime Minister. "You miss the +point in dispute. We have not to discuss matters of faith and doctrine, +but only of government. If you prefer--if you will give us your +co-operation and consent--we are ready at any time to offer you the +alternative of disestablishment. It is a solution which for the moment I +do not press; but undoubtedly it would leave the spiritualities of the +Church more free. Your real fear, I have gathered, is that it would +prepare the way for extremes of doctrine, which you yourself cannot +countenance. The Church Triumphant, I am told, would run the risk of a +larger recognition than is allowed to it under present forms; and the +limitations imposed by a State connection are your most hopeful means of +retarding doctrinal development. Is not that so?" + +"We have not to discuss matters of doctrine," countered the Archbishop +stiffly, "but only of government. Our concern is not with the Church's +teachings but with her powers for enforcing them upon her own members." + +"Including," commented the Prime Minister, "what you have called 'the +power of the Keys.' That power you seek to extend over temporalities to +which we claim access; and to retain it you have in the past used +political means; we are using them to deprive you of that power. I +recognize that had your Grace occupied to-day the position of advantage +which is now mine, you would have used it--and with justification--for +the strengthening of your order; from the popular verdict you would have +had authority to deliver sentence against me. Upon the same ground I now +take the only sure means that are open to me to strengthen my own order +and to safeguard its future liberty." + +"What is your order?" smoothly inquired his Grace. + +"My order is the representative system, which voices the popular will." + +"Mine," said the Archbishop in richly reverberating tones, "is divine +revelation, which voices the will of God." + +"You claim a closer acquaintance with that Authority than I," remarked +the Prime Minister. "Yet I, too, have faith in the efficacy of its +workings." + +"We base our faith differently," retorted his Grace. "I have my +principles; you, as you have just boasted, have your opportunity. I do +not think that opportunities are of the same eternal character as +principles. To-morrow your opportunity which now seems to give you +power, may disappear. My principles will remain." + +"I shall always respect them, in their proper place. As an adornment to +the Church I am sure they will continue to shine. In the State they have +become an excrescence and an impediment." + +"You are pushing your definition of impediments rather far when you plan +a new thoroughfare, giving strangers the entree to church premises." + +"It is really your definition of 'premises,'" said the Prime Minister, +"over which we are chiefly at issue. What right has the Church to regard +as strangers any who are baptized Christians?" + +The Archbishop seized his advantage exultingly. "I will only remind +you," said he, "of the Church Government Act--a measure of no ancient +date--by which Parliament forced the Church to expel from benefice those +who would not accept her discipline in matters of outward observance. +You yourself voted for that measure." + +The Prime Minister had to acknowledge the stroke; but he made light of +it. "I think that measure has already become obsolete. It was not put +very thoroughly into practice even at the beginning." + +"Let Parliament, then, admit its error," said the Archbishop, "and +abolish the act and the principle which it enshrines before proceeding +with other acts diametrically opposed to it. While the law claims a hold +over the Church, the Church claims to hold by existing law." + +"I may possibly, then, satisfy your Grace," insinuated the Premier, "if +presently I propose the restoration of certain Free Church ministers by +episcopal consecration to the fold from which they were expelled." + +The Archbishop rose to his feet, and raising the presentation Bible high +over his head brought it down upon the table with a bang. Then +instantaneously conceiving his mistake, he laid his hands over it in the +act of blessing. + +"Never!" he said firmly and solemnly, with ever deepening inflection of +tone, "never! never!" + +"It is a measure that might be avoided," conceded the Prime Minister. +"The alternative is before you. We have made you our offer." + +"You have offered," said the Archbishop, "an alternative which I am not +able to discuss. Roman Catholicism and Unitarianism in alternate doses +is the price you ask us to pay. The Church of Jingalo will accept +neither the Triple Crown nor an untriune Divinity as its guide." He drew +himself to his full height. "That, sir, is her answer." + +"So you really think," inquired the Prime Minister, "that yours and the +Church's voice are one?" + +"The blood of her martyrs," said the Archbishop, "has stained the very +steps of that throne from which under divine Providence I am +commissioned to speak with authority. I call on them to witness that +never in her hour of need shall the Church surrender her divine mission +to preach only pure doctrine and to defend the faith committed to the +saints." + +"I thought," said the Prime Minister, "that, officially at least, you +did not invoke the dead." + +"Sir, we have no need. Their record is our inheritance. It is they who +invoke us from an imperishable past." + +"Our discussion, then, seems to be at an end. We have gone back into the +middle ages." + +The Prime Minister, having got very much the answer he expected, here +rose and began buttoning his coat. "Well, Archbishop," said he, as he +thus trimmed himself to give a neat finish to the discussion, "before we +part I will put the question quite frankly: Is it to be peace or war?" + +"I am a servant of the Church Militant," answered his Grace. + +And then they compared notes and settled dates as to when war was to be +declared. Jingalo was about to exhibit to the world the continuity of +her institutions, and with her mind thus carried back to ancient times +modern controversy was an anachronism. + +It was on those historic grounds that they arranged their armistice; but +Recording Angels are more truthful than Archbishops or Prime Ministers; +and the Recording Angel, having listened to their conversation, was led +to set down upon his tables this notable memorandum--that on no account +were popular pageantry or trade interests to be disturbed during so +golden an opportunity as the Silver Jubilee. While that was going on +defense of Church and State must be relegated to obscurity. + + +III + +All this had taken place before the truce actually began (see, in fact, +Chapter II). How much, or rather how little the King had heard of it we +already know. How little the truce brought benefit to him we shall learn +more fully in later chapters. Still for the moment he was not without +comfort, for he had got Max to talk to. Every evening that they spent +together much talk went on; and the King sat infected and edified while +Maxian oratory flowed. + +"How is it," inquired his father, "that you have been able to think of +these things? I see them when you tell me; but how did they ever come to +enter your head?" + +"For some years," answered Max, "I had the advantage of being your +youngest son. Until I was twenty, two lives stood between me and the +succession, and while Stephen and Rupert were drilling I managed to get +educated." + +"Poor Rupert!" murmured his father, "he would have made a much better +King than either of us." + +"I don't think so," said Max. "He would merely have kept the monarchy to +its old lines--that means sticking in a rut. If the monarchy is to mean +anything it will have to move, not merely with the times but ahead of +them." + +"How can it move ahead of them?" + +"How otherwise can it lead? That is what the heads of the privileged +classes never seem to understand. Look at the Bishops! See what a +spectacle they have made of themselves, all through not leading." + +"Ah, yes," sighed the King; "I thought you'd be against the Bishops." + +"Against them?" cried Max, "of course I'm against them! The Bishops are +a set of prehistoric remains: and even if they were all up to date, a +combined house of Bishops and Judges with full legislative powers is +antediluvian (I'm speaking of the Deluge now in the sense in which Louis +XV spoke of it)--it's an eighteenth-century arrangement. + +"Yes, I'm against the Bishops, but I'm much more against the Cabinet. +The Cabinet is seeking to control not only the Upper but the Lower +Chamber as well, it is fighting the Bishops merely to delude the people; +and there are the Laity so stupid, or so lazy, or so corrupt that they +won't see it. Every one knows that the Government sells honors for party +purposes, and then covers it up by pretending that contributions to the +party funds are 'public services.' Everything now is to be had for a +price, a Chancellery at so much, a Knighthood at so much more; an Order +of the this, that, or the other, in exact proportion to its prestige or +its rarity. Last year they had a debate on it in the House, a debate +where, between them, the corruptors and the corrupted were in a +majority! And they solemnly took a vote on it, and declared that there +was no corruption, though everybody knew it to be a fact. The Opposition +lay low because they mean to do exactly the same when their time comes. +Oh, and it's not only the House of Laity: I daresay a bishopric has got +its price if we only knew!" + +The King would have rejected such a suggestion as fantastic only a month +ago; but now with the Archimandrite in his mind he began to be +suspicious. What price, monetary or political, might not the Free +Churchmen be paying for their bishoprics, what secret bargain of which +it was no one's duty to inform him? He lashed at his own impotence, for +the ignominy of his position increased with his growing consciousness. +Here was the Prime Minister respectful but compulsive, able to threaten, +to browbeat, to dictate terms; but he himself had no counter means to +extract from that minister on what terms he was consenting to do these +things or what price he was paying to get them done. How +constitutionally was he to obtain knowledge of anything? And still, +piling up the accusation, the voice of Max went on. + +"I presume," said he, "that quite lately a list of Jubilee honors has +been submitted to you for approval. What does your approval mean? Is a +single one of them your own selection? Do you know what the majority of +them are for?" + +The King shook his head. "Mostly they are political," said he. "The +Government has the right; I have no call to interfere. Isn't it perhaps +better that I should not interfere?" + +"It may be arguable, sir, that the uncomfortably high position to which +we are born cuts us off from the more strenuously fermenting issues of +the political game, and from the malignities and hypocrisies of that +party system of which, as a nation, we pretend to be so proud, and are +secretly so much ashamed. It may be well that some single authority +should stand removed from and above party, if in the hands of that +authority there is also left power of sentence and dismissal, power also +to withhold unmerited reward. But that power you are no longer expected +to exercise,--it lies like a china nest-egg never to be hatched, but +only to promote the laying of other eggs. + +"Yet while your prerogatives have been thus diminished, the claim that +you shall act with judicial impartiality has increased, and has become a +fetter. To oppose any course of ministerial action to-day is by +implication to ally yourself with the other side. You are in the +position of a judge whose directions the jury has authority to ignore, +and from whose hands all power of imposing a penalty has practically +been withdrawn. And these changes have been thrust upon the monarchy by +the will, not of the people, but of that class or section which in the +evolution of our political system happened at the time to be the ruling +one. At one period it was the Church, at another the army, at another +the landlord or the capitalist; it was never that latent force lying in +the future, that peace-loving, industrial democracy which to-day we are +still striving to hold back from its aim. These ruling powers of the +past have now concentrated on the Cabinet as their last line of defense; +and so at the present day it is the Cabinet which has the largest +control not only of patronage (much of it corruptly applied), but of +certain penalizing devices by which monetary pressure can be brought +upon those who thwart its will. By its practical usurpation of the +Crown's right to decree a general election, and by its control of the +party funds, from which parliamentary candidates are subsidized and +assisted to the poll, it is able to hold over the heads of its +supporters a financial threat to which very few can remain indifferent. +And this is how our so-called popular chamber is manipulated and run. +The power of the purse (I speak now of the moneys voted for public +service) lies almost entirely in the hands of those who themselves have +the largest monetary interest for keeping away from their constituencies +and maintaining their leaders in power; and as a consequence the +Ministry's evasion of all regulations and safeguards, its increasing +seizure of parliamentary time, its postponement of finance to a date in +each session when the legislature's energies are exhausted, have become +more and more corrupt in character. Why, the very minister whose duty it +is to see that members are constant in their voting and their attendance +is the one with whom lies, if not the distribution of patronage, at +least its recommendation. He is the go-between, and they know it. How +likely, then, are the rank and file to throw their Government out of +office when the immediate result will be not only to transfer these +bribes to the hands of their political opponents but to inflict upon +themselves the cost of a contested election which privately they cannot +afford, and to face which they are accordingly obliged to go, cap in +hand, to the very men they have voted from power, but who still have +absolute control of the party organization and its funds?" + +Here Max stopped to take breath. + + +IV + +"But can you suggest any other way?" questioned the King. "Surely we +must have party?" + +"I have no reason to suggest it," answered his son, "it stands written +in history. Under our more ancient Constitution the House of Laity came +pledged from its electorate to criticise, and to control (by the giving +or withholding of supply) the acts of a separate and administratively +independent body. Now Government is carried on by an administrative +body, which, though nominally dependent, has at its back a majority of +the elected pledged _not_ to criticise. And the difference between the +two systems is as the difference between darkness and light. That body +is now forcing the monarchy also into the same non-critical attitude, or +at least is securing that the criticism shall be impotent of result. And +I have the right, sir, to ask what are you doing to-day to preserve for +me the powers which you inherited?" + +"To tell you the truth, my son," answered the King, "it is only lately +that I have begun trying to find out what those powers are. It seems a +strange confession to make after twenty-five years; but it is true. When +I came to the throne, at a moment of great political changes, I was +entirely uninstructed and quite naturally I made mistakes, letting +things go when I was told to. From that false position successive +ministries have never allowed me to escape; they have kept me (I have +only just found it out) as uninstructed as they possibly could. They +burden me with routine work, they busy my hands while starving my brain. +One of their little ways--done on the score of relieving me of +unnecessary trouble--has been to submit in large batches at intervals +important documents requiring my assent, smuggling them in under cover +of others. And when I find it out, they plead unavoidable delay and +urgency, as though it were quite an exception. But I tell you it has +been going on, oh, dear me, yes, for a long time now; and the General +has known of it as well as any of them! The other day I made one of my +secretaries go through the entries, and I find that in the last year I +signed sixty Acts of Parliament and about fifteen hundred other State +documents, besides mere commissions, titles, diplomas, and all that sort +of thing, and I tell you that I haven't a ghost of a notion of what more +than a dozen were about! They don't give me time to digest anything; and +you are quite right, it's a system!" + +"Well," said his son, "at least they don't treat you much worse than +they do the people's representatives. It has become their regular plan +now to bring in six bills all rolled into one, in a form far too big and +complicated ever to be properly discussed. They insert a lot of +unnecessary contentiousness at the beginning, and all the really +administrative part--the machinery which provides them with political +handles throughout the country, and which they call the non-contentious +part--at the end; and then--on the score of it being non-contentious, +and because by the time they get to it the mind of the legislature is +exhausted--then they shut it down with the closure. One result is that +we have laws on the statute-book which don't even make grammar. Only +last session the Minister of Education got a bill sent up to the +Spiritual Chamber with three split infinitives in it." + +"What is a split infinitive?" inquired his Majesty. + +"Merely a grammatical error for which in your day school-boys used to be +whipped. You were not. It's important, because when lawyers get on to +the interpretation of the law, loose syntax gives them their +opportunity; they make fortunes out of the grammatical errors of +Parliament. And, of course, it was a lawyer who drew up this bill." + +"Do you mean that some one paid him to put in the split infinitives?" +inquired the King anxiously. + +"That was quite unnecessary; the thing paid for itself; good drafting +is never to the legal interest. But what I wanted to say was this: here, +in a House of educated men dealing with education, nobody troubled to +correct the grammar of the thing. That to my mind stands out as a moral +portent of the first magnitude. The Bishops quite rightly sent it back +again, but for the wrong reason. Their reason was pure blind +obscurantism; if they had returned it because of its split infinitives +and its slovenly drafting, and requested that it should be put into +decent Jingalese so that they might pretend to understand it they would +have had all the enlightened educationalists in the country with them. +As it was they were against them. It is curious how the Spiritual +Chamber always seeks its popularity among the fools instead of the wise. +It treats democracy like a dog with a bad name, and yet it is to the +dog's tail that it pins its faith: and so it wags with the tail." + +The King was not happy at hearing the Bishops so abused; and now a word +had fallen from his son's lips which enabled him to change the subject +to a point which more immediately concerned him. + +"Max," said he, "answer me truly, I don't want flattery. Do you think +that _I_ am popular?" + +The young man viewed his father leniently, indulgently even; the worn, +fussy, over-anxious face appealed to his sense of pity. "Oh, yes, I +believe so," he said. "They think you are trying to do your best and all +that sort of thing. You don't enthuse them as my grandfather used to do; +but, then, he had the grand manner, and the grand way of speaking as if +he were an oracle. You have put all that aside--except when you make +speeches which have been written for you by your ministers. Well, decent +people respect you for it; but it has its drawbacks; the crowd prefers +the other thing occasionally;--it likes still to pretend, at moments of +ceremony, that it believes in divine right and the hereditary principle, +and so forth; and where it likes to pretend, the press and the +Government are always ready to play into its hands. Yes; it's a +mixture; you must attend sometimes to the unrealities,--then, with your +real moments, you get your effect." + +"Your grandfather," said the King, "never talked to me about anything. +He didn't like the idea of being succeeded, hated to think of a time +when affairs would have to go on without him. I fancy that he rather +despised my mental capacity, or else thought that by just looking at him +I should learn. So he never talked to me--not on these subjects I mean; +and I am still not sure whether I ought to talk to you. I don't really +know where State secrets begin and where they end, or whether I have the +right to say anything of what goes on in Council to a single living +soul. I wanted to consult the Archbishop the other day--merely to hear +his statement of the case from his own side--but I was not allowed. I am +the most solitary man in my kingdom; and am kept so, in order that I may +remain powerless." + +"As Charlotte would say," observed Max, "we haven't taught each other +the business. And yet, isn't it strange? Here are we, a long-established +firm ('limited, entire,' I suppose we should describe ourselves), +existing upon the hereditary principle, and yet not allowed to extract +any of its living values. As detached forces we succeed each other upon +the throne, each in turn reduced in power and initiative by our official +training and our inexperience. When shall we learn to organize our labor +and combine like the rest of the world?" + +"I think we are combining now," said the King. + +"Yes," said Max, "I really believe we are--'John Jingalo and Son'--how +nice and commercial that sounds!" + +"I only hope the Prime Minister won't hear of it." + +"I hope he will," said Max. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +OF THINGS NOT EXPECTED + + + + +I + +"Charlotte!" cried the King, aghast, "what on earth is the meaning of +this?" + +"What is it, papa?" inquired the Princess innocently. + +His Majesty shook at her the paper he had just been reading. "You have +promised a hundred pounds donation to the Anti-vivisection Society! Here +it is in large headlines: 'The Princess Royal supports the +Anti-vivisectionists!'" + +"Well, so I do." + +"But you mustn't," said her mother. + +Princess Charlotte made a face--rather a pretty one. + +"I can't help having my opinions, mamma." + +"Then you mustn't express them--not publicly." + +"If I am not to express them," argued the Princess, "why do you send me +into public at all? Isn't laying foundation-stones and opening bazaars a +public expression of opinion? Don't I go because you approve of them?" + +"That is a very different matter," said her mother. "Good objects like +those no one can possibly object to." + +"But I think anti-vivisection a good object." + +"I don't care what you think," said her father, "you are perfectly free +to think as you like. What I want to know is--who do you suppose is +going to pay that hundred pounds?" + +"You are, papa." She smiled on him sweetly. + +"Indeed, your father will do nothing of the sort!" interposed the Queen, +while the King was still opening his mouth in wonder at the suggestion. + +"If he will only make me an allowance, he needn't," said Charlotte; and +while her parents were giving weight to that pronouncement she went on. + +"I am going to promise a hundred pounds to every deserving charity you +send me to; and if you leave off sending me, I shall write and offer it. +It will be in all the papers--it will become the recognized +thing--people will begin to look for it,--me and my hundred pounds. And +as soon as it is the recognized thing, you know quite well, papa, that +you will have to pay." + +"Why do you disapprove of vivisection?" inquired her father, finding +this frontal attack unmanageable. + +"Just a fellow-feeling, I suppose, through being myself a victim. Oh, I +don't say there's any torture involved, but now and again mamma gives me +an anesthetic, and when I wake up I find something has been done that I +don't like--something vital taken off me." + +"Nonsense!" said the Queen, "I never do anything of the kind." + +But this statement corresponded so startlingly to his Majesty's own +experience that he began to pay closer attention. + +"When have I done it?" demanded the Queen. + +"The last time was when you sent me to spend three weeks with Aunt +Sophie in order to develop a taste for foreign missions. It didn't +succeed. And when I came back you had changed my suite of rooms without +asking me; and I was done out of my balcony!" + +"I found her," the Queen explained, "going down by the balcony in the +early morning, while the gardeners were still about, to gather flowers." + +"I didn't talk to the gardeners." + +"You went out when I told you not to." + +"You see!" appealed Charlotte, "she does vivisect me. Last time Aunt +Sophie was the anesthetic: sometimes it's even worse. You don't hear of +these things, papa, because I don't often complain; but there they are. +And mamma is so pleased with herself about it--that's what tries me!" + +"Charlotte," said her father, "that's not pretty--that's not +respectful." + +"No, but it's true." + +The Queen attempted a diversion. "Why do you want an allowance? I give +you pocket-money, and you get all the dresses you need." + +"I get a great many more," admitted Charlotte; "but I don't get one that +I really like." + +"That shows your want of taste." + +"Of course, I haven't your taste, mamma, you can't expect it; and what's +too good for me doesn't suit me." + +But this obliquity of speech missed its point, for of her own taste the +Queen had no doubt whatever. + +"But, my dear child," interposed the King, "do try to be reasonable! +Whatever allowance we made you, you couldn't go on giving a hundred +pounds to every charity. You'd have all the benevolent societies in the +kingdom flocking about you; life wouldn't be worth living." + +"Oh, I know that, papa," said the Princess, "I'm not charitable in the +least. I'm only doing it to bring pressure on you; I haven't any other +reason whatever." + +At this brazen avowal the Queen gasped; but his Majesty became more +sympathetic. + +"I wanted," she went on, "to do it as nicely and respectably as +possible, and I thought to give you away in charity was better than +gambling or anything of that sort. Not that I haven't been tempted; for +you know, papa, I could quite easily lose you a hundred pounds at every +tea-party I go to. But now, if I'm asked to a bridge-table, all I can +say is, 'Papa won't make me an allowance, so I can't play for money.'" + +"Surely you don't say that!" cried the Queen in horror. + +"No," answered the Princess slyly, "but I can say it. And, of course, I +shall have to say it to the charities and the anti-vivisectionists if +papa doesn't pay up. There'll be headlines about that, too," she added +reflectively. "You see, I am in the business now that I've begun helping +at sales." + +The King got up from his seat, and began to pace the room. For the first +time he had discovered in his daughter's character a resemblance to Max, +and much as he was beginning to love certain mental values which his son +possessed, it rather frightened him to see them cropping up in his +daughter. + +"Charlotte," he said, in a tone of affectionate appeal, "when have I +ever denied you anything that was right and reasonable?" + +"Never, dearest papa, never!" said his daughter. "And I'm sure you are +not going to begin now. It's too late," she added mischievously. + +Yes. It was too late. The King knew it. He had known it from the moment +the discussion started. Even the Queen was beginning to know it. +Charlotte, sweet, smiling, and determined, held them in the hollow of +her hand. Newspaper headlines, if properly manipulated, will defeat in +its own domestic circle any monarchy that is now existing. + +So the long and short of it was that the King promised Charlotte her +allowance; and the Queen sat by and heard, and did not object. And as +the Princess passed out to follow her own avocations, whatever they +might be, she gave each of her parents the nicest kiss imaginable, +thanking them quite humbly for that which they had been powerless to +withhold. + +The King looked enviously on that bright presence as it flitted away, +calm, wilful, and self-possessed; and much he wished that he could +conduct his own affairs with the same gay insouciance, and emerge with +as much success. Max might be able to manage it, but not he. + +The Queen's voice broke in on his deliberations. + +"Jack," said she, "we must get her married." + +It was her Majesty's remedy for that new portent, the revolting +daughter. And there and then she started to discuss ways, means, and +dates for bringing the wished-for affair to a head. The dear lady was +already exuberantly hopeful. A carefully selected portrait of the +Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wasser now stood on the central table of +her boudoir, and only two days ago she had spied Charlotte looking at +it. A fine, adventurous figure, it stood out prominently from all the +uniformed splendors surrounding it. "Who is this person in fancy +costume?" Charlotte had asked, and the Queen, alive in certain +fundamental instincts, had cleverly informed her that it represented one +who had been driven by his musical taste to a three years' wandering in +the wilderness, and who, though still sadly under a cloud, was now +obliged to return to his princely duties. Charlotte did not know, as she +looked with amused pity on that sunburnt visage of adventurous youth, +that she was gazing on the remedy for her own ailments, nor did she or +any one else guess to what surprising results the attempted application +of that remedy would lead. + +It was quite sufficient for the Queen's gentle lines of diplomacy that +Charlotte now knew who he was, that he was presently returning to +Europe, and would, on his way or soon after, present himself at the +Court of Jingalo. In another quarter her Majesty was less contented, she +had not yet found any one good enough for Max; and as the quest added +greatly to her daily correspondence, she felt it as a burden and an +anxiety, for she did not want to hear of another case of morals. + + +II + +To the King, on the other hand, Max had become a very real and positive +relief. The "Max habit" had grown and flourished exceedingly; and as +this history deals largely with the mental developments of King John of +Jingalo we must follow him to his hours of training and set down their +record wherever we can find room for them. + +His Majesty told Max of the Charlotte affair that same evening. + +Max chuckled. "So Charlotte is not to disapprove of vivisection?" he +commented. "How very characteristic that is of the way we have to avoid +giving countenance to any movement or change of opinion till it is +backed by a majority." + +"Is it not our duty to avoid all matters of controversy?" + +"If it is we do not act on it. There is much controversy to-day on the +subject of vivisection; but that did not prevent you quite recently from +bestowing a high mark of favor on its foremost exponent. What you dare +not do is bestow a similar mark on one who is opposed to it. Your favors +go only to those who represent a majority; minorities are carefully shut +away from your ken. You are taught to believe that they are unimportant. +Whereas the exact opposite is the truth; for it is always the minorities +who have made history and brought about reform." + +"Are you still quoting your book at me?" inquired the King. + +"I am always quoting it," said Max, "or, rather, I am composing it. Yes; +this is the beginning of a chapter which I am about to put together with +your help and assistance." + +"Make it a mild one!" entreated his father. + +"I assure you, sir, that throughout I am understating the case. We have +already discussed the question of a monarch's relation to the political +and religious controversies of his day. Is he any more truly in contact +with the national life on its intellectual side? The only occasion on +which I meet at your Court any representatives of literature, or art, is +when popular authors and dramatists have come among a miscellaneous +gathering of pork butchers, politicians, stock-brokers, bankers, and +other prosperous tradesmen to receive at your hands the now somewhat +tarnished honor of knighthood. They come in a strange garb hired for the +occasion, and they go again. How much have we ever troubled ourselves +about the value and quality of their work, or as to why they were +selected? Are they the men, think you, who will be reckoned a hundred +years hence the artistic and literary giants of their day? I doubt if +anybody thinks so except themselves. Is it not rather because by winning +contemporary popularity they represent the trade values of their +profession, something that can be made to pay, and which, when it does +pay, invites public recognition and encouragement? We give small +pensions to the specially deserving, I know, to save them from the +extremes of poverty and ourselves from disgrace; but to those pensions +do we ever add a title? No; titles are the reward of prosperity." + +"But, my dear Max," said the King, "how do you expect me to judge of +such things? I should only make mistakes." + +"You have for your advisers," answered his son, "some twenty men drawn +from all departments of life; ought you not to be able to rely on them? +When you came to the throne one of our greatest literary men lay +bed-ridden, dying quietly of old age. He had received a State pension, +for he was poor; he was a giant whose work was done; and he had never in +all his life been to Court. Did it occur to you to go and pay this old +man reverence? Did it occur to any of your advisers to suggest that you +should? Yet in the past kings have done these things, and history has +remembered to praise them for doing it. No, sir, we are out of touch +with all the really great things that are going on around us in +literature and art; for whenever anything new is really great it +inevitably divides opinion; and wherever opinion is sharply or at all +evenly divided we are out of place. You are under exactly the same +orders as those which Charlotte received from my mother--you must not go +down into the garden while the gardeners are actually at work; only when +they have finished you may come and gather the results. You are run by +the State merely to give prestige to the established order, and you must +not support things that are not already popular." + +"You are mistaken, Max," said his father, in despondent protest. +"Nothing whatever prevents me; only I haven't anything to take hold of." + +"Yet I have been credibly informed," replied Max, "that when you go to +see a so-called problem play of the more intellectual kind, it is +arranged for you to go in Lent, for the simple reason that during that +period of fasting it is against etiquette for the papers to make any +announcement of the fact." + +"You don't say so!" exclaimed the King. + +"You were not aware of it, then? Yet it is all arranged for you by the +Comptroller-General. Tell him that you wish to go and see _The Gaudy +Girl_ presently, on its five hundredth performance, and he will raise no +difficulty whatever. Tell him that you intend to be present at a +performance of _Law and Order_, a piece that has managed to hold on +through thirty performances in spite of the many interests opposed to +it, and difficulties will immediately occur to him. Your going would +revive the fortunes of that play; and as it makes a very direct attack +upon our present judicial system, you can have nothing to do with it. +Yet I hear that as a result of its production modifications in our +criminal procedure have already been discussed." + +"Max," said the King, "you are quite unfair! Our last State performance +was of a play that attacked the very things you are always talking +about, money-lending, gambling, commercial greed, and the rest of it; +and it was the Comptroller-General himself who selected it." + +"There!" exulted Max, "now you have given me an example, and I will tell +you what happened. You had as your guest the king of a country +possessing a real school of drama which is affecting the whole of the +European stage. What did we do in his honor and for the honor of our +dramatic literature? We chose a play of sixty years ago--our worst +period--a piece of clever bombastic fustian mildewed with age; and we +chose it merely because it contained the greatest possible number of +small 'effective' parts in which 'star' actors could strut across the +stage, make their bow before an extremely distinguished audience, and +speak their lines in the ears of royalty as the accepted representatives +of modern drama. And how they did speak them! How they clung to their +entries and exits, how they gassed, and gagged, and threw in fresh +'business' to extend the all too brief time of their appearing; and what +an abysmally boring performance the whole thing was! Over a score of +these leading actors and actresses had appeared in a similar gala +performance on the occasion of your coronation, twenty-five years ago. +Most of them are now living on their past reputations, but they have +become established; and so that woeful exhibition of utterly used-up +material was royalty's public recognition of drama in this country! +There, then, you have our connection with art! What good do you suppose +we do by countenancing performances like that? We are merely employed to +flatter the popular choice and to fatten out the drama in its most +commercial connection. All that was done to suit the managers. It gave a +pleasant little fillip to the star-system on which most of our theaters +are now run; every theater contributed its quota and secured its +proportion of reward." + +"I was under the impression that they all gave their services." + +"Just as you gave yours. You were all busily engaged in making each +other popular, and in maintaining your prestige; and you were all very +well paid for your trouble." + +"But what else do you expect me to do?" exclaimed the unhappy monarch +irritably. "All this destructive criticism of yours is so easy; but what +does it lead to? Nothing!" + +"Revolution," declared Max, "peaceful, bloodless revolution! Whenever +any matter is submitted to you over which you have control and a +deciding voice, do the unexpected, and you will nearly always be right! +That is the biggest revolution in this unwritten Constitution of ours +that I can suggest. Do it, and then watch the results." + +"But, for instance, do what?" + +"Well, go for a beginning to the very plays your Comptroller refrains +from recommending or tries to dissuade you from. Oh, you won't come upon +anything shocking; quite the reverse. That play, _The Gaudy Girl_, which +I spoke of just now, is about to be revived in a new form--with +additions. No doubt it will draw enormously; and as a fortune has been +spent on it you would do a popular thing by attending the first +performance. It is a risky and indecent piece, but no one will object, +on that score, to its receiving the royal patronage." + +"How possibly can it be indecent," protested the King, "when it has +already run for five hundred nights at one of our leading theaters?" + +Max smiled. "Father," he said, "in all your life have you ever once been +in a crowd--formed part of it, I mean? Well, then, how can you tell? I +have. There is plenty of indecency in a Jingalese crowd--especially +indecent suggestion; and it is crowds the theaters have to cater for." + +"Still, they have the Censor to reckon with." + +"The Censor!" exclaimed Max. "Have you ever asked the Lord Functionary, +who controls him, to show you the text of the plays he passes?--or gone +further in order to compare them with those he does not pass? Till you +have, you know nothing about the Censor's protective powers. He merely +protects the existing order of things, like yourself; whatever is paying +and popular it becomes his duty to countenance. Well, all that is +strictly within your own department, for the supervision of the morals +of the stage is still a royal prerogative outside parliamentary control. +And I tell you this--that if you were to begin exercising your +prerogative conscientiously you would get into more intimate touch with +the popular will than would suit the calculations of your ministers. As +for the Lord Functionary, he would probably resign. He might be glad of +the excuse. Just now there is a considerable row on, and he finds +himself in hot water. When you see him you had better ask him about it; +and as he is technically the keeper of your conscience you really have a +concern in the matter. What has he been doing? Oh, merely drawing the +usual invidious distinction between adultery treated seriously and +adultery treated as a joke. Under this latter and more popular form it +is now occupying with success half the theaters in Jingalo. And if you +want to see the deeps open, and understand what they contain,--well, +there you have your cue: follow it! Only do that, and you will light +such a candle--Ah! now I am quoting from English history; and as I am +only concerned with that of Jingalo--I perceive that my present chapter +has come to an end. May I take another cigar?" + + +III + +All this time the King had sat cautiously imbibing the stimulus of his +son's words. They sent a curious glow through his system; for they +touched on the very point which was now daily engaging his +thoughts--how, in connection with his own ministerial problem, to do the +thing which Brasshay did not expect without thereby involving the +prestige of the monarchy in ruin. He looked at his son, so full of +self-confidence, so easy and unconcerned in the opinions of others, and +very greatly he envied him. + +"Max," he said slowly, "you are a very dangerous character." + +And Max was flattered, as your man of words and not of deeds always is +flattered when the attributes which belong by rights to his betters are +ascribed to him. + +Nevertheless, in this instance the epithet was well earned, for these +secret potations of Max were having their effect upon the King's brain; +they reproduced in facsimile the cerebral excitement which had followed +upon his fall, and touching the same spot kindled in him a curious +mental ardor, which sent him to his Council a different person +altogether, one whom his ministers were finding it difficult to +recognize and still more difficult to reconcile to their plans. Only +when the effects had died down towards the end of each day did the King +become himself again. Obstreperous till noon, he would then quiet down +by degrees till, at six o'clock, his spirits had reached a strange nadir +of depression. Had Brasshay only caught him then, in that period of +reaction, he would have found him unformidable as of old; but Brasshay +did not know. And then, night after night, came Max with his tangle of +words and whipped him into fresh revolt. + +He still carried the memory of that last conversation--that chapter +which Max had composed into the echoing cavities of his brain--when he +next encountered the Lord Functionary. + +Certain questions of court etiquette and procedure having been disposed +of: "By the way," said his Majesty, "I was told yesterday that you are +being criticised--in the play department, I mean." + +The Lord Functionary had been spending sleepless nights in a scrambling +attempt to acquire a literary education; but his own royal master was +the last person to whom he would give himself away; so he only smiled +with that air of deference and self-complacence which all court +officials know how to combine. "I have heard rumors of it, sir," he +replied, in a tone of easy detachment. + +"Who are making the complaints?" + +"Certain members of Parliament, I believe. They have constituents to +satisfy; and under a democracy, of course, autocrats can never do +right." + +"Are you the autocrat?" inquired the King. + +"At your Majesty's disposal," returned the Lord Functionary with a bow. + +"Then you are not responsible to Parliament?" + +The Lord Functionary smiled, with a touch of disdain. "I should not be +holding office if I were," said he. + +"Then you are not under the Prime Minister, either?" + +"No more than your Majesty," said the magnificent one blandly. "In the +order of precedence I am, indeed, several degrees above him. It is, of +course, a Government appointment; but while I hold it my discretionary +powers are unlimited." + +This seemed a very great person, and the King looked on him with envy. + +"To whom, then, are you actually responsible?" he inquired. + +"To you, sir." + +"To me alone?" + +"My official title would make it indecent for me to consult any one but +your Majesty." + +"Ah, yes, you keep my conscience for me, don't you?" said the King. Max +was right, then; here was something still left for him to do. He +addressed himself to the previous question. + +"What exactly is the trouble?" + +"A self-advertising minority, sir, has been persistently submitting +plays which it was quite out of the question to pass. Being annoyed, +they are now attacking the plays which _have_ passed." + +"I should like," said the King, "to see some of these plays; to be in +touch, if I may so put it, with my own conscience. Would you be good +enough to send me three of those you have not passed, and three of the +others which are now being attacked. I would like also," he added, "to +see _The Gaudy Girl_ in its new version." + +The Lord Functionary raised his pale eyebrows. + +"May I be allowed to know why, sir?" he inquired. + +"Just curiosity," said the King. "I thought of going to see it, and I +wanted first to be sure that there was nothing--nothing, you know----" + +The Lord Functionary's face became wreathed in smiles. + +"Why, certainly, sir. I will see that a copy is sent to your Majesty at +once. It is, of course, work of a very light and frivolous kind--but it +is popular and it does no harm." Then, as by an after-thought, the +official countenance grew grave. "Was her Majesty also intending to be +present?" he inquired. + +The King, discerning that a negative was invited, gave the required +assurance. "As a matter of fact," said he, "it was the Prince who asked +me to go--suggested it, that is to say." And immediately official +confidence was restored, for to the Lord Functionary Max as a reformer +was still unknown, while his taste for frivolous diversion was more +easily assumed. And so in due course a copy of the play reached the +King's hands. + +Perhaps it was through mere inadvertence that the other six did not +accompany it. The King noted the omission; but when once he started to +read the single play which had reached him he forgot all about the +others, for he found that his hands were full. At one stroke of the +scythe he had reaped a plentiful harvest. + +Here was a play on the very eve of production, reeking with the +sniggering improprieties which the keeper of the King's conscience had +permitted to become the popular vogue. Suggestions and innuendoes to +which the ordinary theater-going public had now grown accustomed, struck +his inexperienced Majesty as bold and glaring novelties. The mere +cheapness of the wit he passed uncritically by, but the indecencies +were so bare and bald that even he, with all his innocence and +inexperience, could not fail to understand them. The explanation, of +course, was easy; this new version of an old and accepted play had +received the official sanction through oversight. Providence had sent +him to the rescue in the nick of time; and delighted to have found +something which his hand really could do, he took up the blue pencil and +set to work. + +Snatches of dialogue, half lines of lyric--especially when it came to +the last verse--here, there, and everywhere he scored them through with +a ruthless hand; and with a renewed sense of usefulness, and a +conscience well at ease, he returned the much deleted copy to the Lord +Functionary. + +Before long that official visited him, presenting a grave countenance. +He was by no means enthusiastic over the royal handiwork; the production +was about to take place; the play had already practically been +licensed--silence up to so late a moment having virtually given consent; +and--most difficult point of all--these things which the King was now +ruling out had almost all of them been in the previously accepted +version. + +"Then I suppose," said his Majesty, "that nobody really reads the +plays?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, they are always read," corrected the Lord Functionary, +"but our readers have necessarily to go upon certain lines. They are +guided by precedent and custom, which it would be highly inadvisable to +disturb." + +So he pleaded that the _status quo ante_ might prevail; and yet, man to +man, he could not defend what the King showed him. + +"Could you," inquired his Majesty indignantly, "read such things aloud +to your own family? Could you comfortably, if I called upon you to do +so, read them aloud to me?" + +"The drama," explained the Lord Functionary, "is so different from +anything else; it has not to observe the same conventions. In light +comedy, especially, these things really do not count. People never +trouble to think about them--they mean nothing." + +"In that case," said the King, "no one will mind your cutting them out." + +The Lord Functionary seemed not so sure,--his assurance went, in fact, +in quite an opposite direction. He pleaded hard for the trade interests +which he stood to represent. The play was in an advanced state of +rehearsal; many thousands had been spent upon it; and, seeing that it +was but a revival, no doubt about the new version passing had existed +anywhere. + +But to all his entreaties the King remained adamant. + +"In this matter," said he, "you have to consult my conscience." + +The point could not be further argued. + +"It is very unfortunate," said the Lord Functionary in acid tones. + +"I must insist," said his Majesty, "that you see to these omissions +being made." And the Lord Functionary bowed his pained body over the +hand which the King graciously extended. + +"Your Majesty must be obeyed," said he. + +It was a phrase that the King very seldom heard; it gave him a taste of +power. + +"Max," said he to his son, upon their next meeting, "I have been doing +as you advised. And I do believe you are right." + +"What did I advise?" inquired Max, assuming forgetfulness. + +"That I should 'do a bust' was, I think, your expression; something +unexpected." + +"And how have you done it?" + +"I have censored _The Gaudy Girl_." + +Max whistled. + + +IV + +The sibilations of that whistle were prophetic of atmospheric +disturbance to come. In a week the storm broke. + +The King happened to be away, paying a visit of complimentary inspection +to frontier fortresses and heard nothing about it. But on his return Max +came to him charged with tidings. + +He stood over his father and looked at him with a note of satirical +approval in his eye, which did not inspire the King with any confidence. + +"Sir, do you know what you have done?" + +His Majesty denied the impeachment. "I haven't done anything. Not yet." + +"You have revolutionized the drama! Even now, at this very moment, the +great heart of Jingalo is throbbing from plushed stalls to gallery +stair-rail. Because of you _The Gaudy Girl_ is playing its third night +to an accompaniment of hilarious riot and uproar such as have not been +known in our dramatic world since the public was forced to give up its +right to free sittings." + +The King was startled; some alarm crept into his voice. "Do you mean +that I have done harm?" + +"Not in the least; no, quite the reverse. But you have certainly doubled +the play's fortune. The run is going to be tremendous." + +His Majesty felt flattered; had he not reason? For this surely must mean +that he had rightly interpreted the public taste, and that what the +popular will really wanted was a pure and carefully expurgated drama. + +But Max speedily undeceived him. + +"What happened," said he, "is this. The Lord Functionary obeyed your +orders, and less than a week ago word went to the management, happily +engaged with its finishing touches to the play. Your share in the +business, of course, was not mentioned; your cuttings had become the +official act of the department. What that meant, you can perhaps hardly +conceive. Here was popular musical comedy censored as it had never been +censored before. Time was too short for negotiation; besides the whole +thing was too drastic for half measures to be of any avail. Dullness, +decorum, and disaster stared the management in the face. Suddenly +perceiving that its strength lay in submission, it accepted the +situation like a man, and in all Jingalo to-day, no hand is raised for +the censorship. You have given it the _coup de grace_--it will have to +go; for you have enlisted the managers--the trade interest against it." + +"I?" exclaimed the King. + +"Its moral position, as I told you," went on his son, "had recently been +shaken by the attacks of the intellectuals--a camp, however, so much in +the minority that hitherto its hostility has not been seriously +regarded. But now Jingalese drama, as a great commercial enterprise, an +interest wherein hundreds of thousands of pounds are yearly invested, +has been touched on the raw, and Jingalese drama has risen and shaken +itself in wrath. The press, which depends on it for advertisement, has, +of course, rushed to its assistance, and condemnation of the censorship +now figures in stupendous headlines on all the posters. Leading +articles, interviews, and indignation meetings are the order of the day; +I wonder you can have missed them." + +"I have been busy with other things," explained the King. + +"Well, if you are not too busy to-night, I invite you to come and see +your handiwork." + +"I can hardly do that," said the King, "under the circumstances--if, as +you say, there is disturbance going on." + +"It is disturbance of a very unanimous kind," said the Prince; "the +public is enjoying itself thoroughly. Did I not the other day advise you +to reach out a fearless hand to democracy? Well, you have done so; and +the dear, good beast has given you its paw." + +"I don't think I can go." + +"Then you will never understand. But, indeed, sir, I think that you +should. I have taken a box under a private name and we can go +unobserved; the play has already begun; and if you will keep to the back +no one will know that you are there. Besides it is Lent, a season when +the incognito of your visits becomes a recognized rule. Do you think you +are justified in missing so vivid an interpretation of the popular +will?" + +The King's hesitation ended. "I suppose I must go on doing the +unexpected," said he, "now that I have once begun." + +"You could not make a better rule," said Max. + +And so, quite unexpectedly, and to the extreme bewilderment of a +detective force taken suddenly by surprise, the King found himself in +the theater where performance number three of _The Gaudy Girl_ was going +on. + +The house was packed, tumultuous, and excited. As he entered the +sheltering gloom of the box his Majesty recognized the words of the +play, remembered, too, that a censored passage lay close ahead. It came. + +A sumptuously bosomed figure stepped into the limelight and sang. In the +second verse she threw out a rhyme that seemed to clamor for its +pair--threw it out as the angler throws out his fly for the fish that is +sure to rise. The King held his breath as the blue-penciled passage drew +near. The voice quavered and broke; singer and orchestra stopped dead. +The house roared. "Go on!" cried encouraging voices from gallery and +pit. "Go on! Go on!" And the singer thus emboldened, and accompanied by +one small piping flute, a ridiculous starveling of sound after all the +blare that had preceded it, sang with a modest and deprecating air a +line which fell very flat indeed--a mere nothing tagged from a nursery +rhyme--obviously an importation. Stalls, pit, and gallery rocked and +shouted with laughter. "Try again!" roared the crowd; and with small, +frightened mimminy-pimminy tones the singer tried again. This time a +snippet from the national anthem served her turn--but it was no good, +the audience would have none of it; in a crescendo of uproarious demand +it invited her to try again. Patient as a cat waiting for its chin to be +stroked the conductor sat with extended baton. Down to the footlights +she minced, delicately as Agag to the downfall of his hopes, thrust out +an impudent face, and waggled it. "I can't! You know I can't!" she +remonstrated in a shrill cockney wail. And straight on the anticipated +word the house roared its applause. Off pranced the singer to her encore +on cavorting toes, down flourished the conductor's baton in a crash of +chords, and away to its fortunes sailed the play, more than ever a +confirmed triumph in the popular favor. + +"You see," whispered Max in the parental ear, "you see now what you have +done." + +"It's a perfect scandal!" exclaimed the King, much put out, for he +could not but feel that he was being mocked. + +"Not at all," said Max. "All the scandal has been eliminated." + +"It ought to be put a stop to!" + +"A law doesn't exist." + +"This holding authority up to ridicule!" + +"When authority has made itself absurd, could you wish it a better fate? +To my mind, you have done a noble work." + +"But this," said the King, "this is not what I intended at all." + +Max smiled indulgently. + +"So much the better," said he. "The unexpected is just as good for you, +sir, as for others." + +Then the King drew back again into his corner, to prepare himself for +fresh shocks as the play went on. + +The managerial device was simple, effective, and very easy to +understand; and from start to finish it was played with little +variation, though with ever-increasing success. Here and there, where +for a long period no blue-penciled passage occurred, imaginary +censorings had been inserted merely to whip curiosity, with the result +that the atmosphere of innuendo and suggestion was greatly increased. +Indeed, the whole piece reeked of it, new situations had been evolved +which the play had not previously contained; and a stimulated audience +sat metaphorically with its eye to an eye-hole from which the key had +been accommodatingly withdrawn. + +And then came the sensation of the evening. + +Whether in the course of the performance the King had become so +interested as to forget his caution, or whether between the acts too +much light had penetrated the box at the back of which he had been +sitting, it is now impossible to say. Just before the fall of the +curtain he and the Prince got up and left, and traversing the still +empty corridors unrecognized, returned to their carriage and the care of +the anxiously waiting detectives. But somehow, as the play ended, a +whisper got round from the stage and, like an electric flash, through +the whole theater the fact of the royal visit became known. + +Instantly, with cheer upon cheer, the audience broke into loyal and +excited plaudits. The orchestra struck up the national anthem. Hands +down popular opinion had won; for in this matter of "the new censorship" +as it was called--in this attack upon the interests and liberties, not +of a foolish minority, but of a sacred and freedom-loving public, +Jingalo and its monarch had joined forces, and bureaucracy was +dethroned. + +The next day it was on all the posters; newspapers celebrated the event +in flaring headlines--"THE KING CONDEMNS THE CENSOR!" And before +the week was over, the Lord Functionary had resigned his high office on +grounds of health. + +The King was much puzzled over the whole affair; and his advisers did +their best to keep him mystified. Both the Prime Minister and the late +Lord Functionary himself earnestly assured him that his conscientious +interference had had nothing whatever to do with the latter's +retirement; for at this juncture it would never have done for the +monarch to suppose that he held so much power over the official lives of +his ministers. Quite by accident he had come in contact with that great +unknown quantity "the popular will," and, without in the least realizing +what he was about, had first touched it on the raw, and then tickled it; +and the "dear good beast," as Max phrased it, recognizing only the +second part of his performance, had turned rapturously round and given +him its paw. + +The King had his scruples; he did not like thus to win popularity by +accident, and yet, the more he looked into it, the more he saw this for +a fact, that by committing a popular _faux pas_ he had secured far more +consideration from his ministers than by doing the correct thing. + +John of Jingalo did not yet understand that his correctness of conduct +was one of the chief factors relied on by a bureaucratic government for +reducing him to political insignificance. He had yet to learn that a +submissive and well-behaved monarchy was essential to its very +existence. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE OLD ORDER + + + + +I + +All this, the reader will remember, had taken place in Lent. The King +had done something which according to the accepted canons was quite +incorrect; he had been to a frivolous but popular play during the +penitential season and it had got into the papers. But instead of being +blamed for it he had gained enormously in popularity. + +Now had his Majesty been merely aiming for this, as politicians aim for +it (deserting principles for party, or party when its principles become +a hindrance), he might have followed the lead given him by the people of +Jingalo, and, recognizing that the Church Calendar had lost its hold +upon the popular imagination, might thenceforward have secularized his +conduct, and paved the way in Court circles for that separation of +Church and State which his ministers were itching to bring about but did +not yet dare. + +But John of Jingalo had all the defects which belong to a conscientious +character. He had not gone to the play for amusement, it had not amused +him, he did not at all agree with the public's attitude towards it, and +yet he was reaping the benefit; he was standing in a glow of popular +approbation under false pretenses; and the more he thought about it the +less he liked it--it gave him a bad conscience. + +Yet, in spite of that, he could not but recognize that he had touched +power; under a misapprehension the people had responded to him as never +before; he had done what they regarded as a sporting thing in sending +unpopular officialdom to the right-about; it was even possible that +among theatrical circles when the exploit was talked of he was now known +as "good old King Jack." All the same he did not feel that he had been +good, and he wanted to make amends. + +The highly colored conversations of Max, the talk about whipping-boys +and Court jesters, and all those ancient divinities which had once +hedged a King but were now mere barbed wire entanglements, had turned +his attention toward certain medieval institutions the practice of which +had lapsed, or had become reduced to a mere shadow of their former +selves. And with a conscience ill at ease over the damage he had wrought +to a season which he still regarded with a certain conventional +reverence, his thoughts lighted upon Maundy Thursday, then less than a +fortnight off. + +He remembered having once watched from a private gallery in the royal +chapel the impoverished ceremony which now did shabby duty for the old +symbol of kingly humility and service. He had seen the vicarious +sacrifice of silver pennies doled out by his almoners to a duplicated +dozen of old men and women who had lost their better days in +circumstances of the utmost respectability; and shocked at the poverty +of the display he had been glad to learn that a more Christian gift of +tea, clothes, snuff, and tobacco was added outside the Church door when +the ceremony was over. But even so its ritual had not attracted him: it +had lost its human values, and seemed to have been kept in life merely +for archeological association. + +Now on looking into the matter once more (the _Encyclopedia Appendica_ +gave him the required information) he was astonished to find that the +old foot-washing ceremony of Holy Thursday was originally the chief +function at which every year the Knights of the Holy Thorn were bound, +if not unavoidably prevented, to appear and do service. Nay, when he +turned to it, he found that it still stood so expressed in the Charter +of the Order, and that each new Knight, upon admission thereto, swore +solemnly to keep and observe the same--so help him God--faithfully unto +his life's end. + +If he had had any doubt before, the terms of that oath, which he himself +had taken--probably without understanding it since it had been read to +him in Latin--were sufficient to decide him. Without loss of time he +sent word by his Comptroller-General to the Prime Minister that he +intended in the following week to revive the full ceremony and to recall +the Knights of the Thorn to the duties they had so long neglected. The +ceremony, as of old, was to take place in public at noon outside the +doors of the metropolitan cathedral. + +"The King is going off his head," said the Comptroller-General by way of +preface to the announcement with which he was charged; and the Prime +Minister was ready to agree with him when he heard it. + +"Preposterous!" he exclaimed. + +"He has got chapter and verse for it," lamented the Comptroller-General. + +"Can't you persuade him that it's a forgery?" + +"It's in the oath," replied the other; "you yourself have taken it." + +"Oh, yes, the form; but the ceremony--the accompanying service, I +mean--was cut out of the Church Prayers at the time of the Reformation. +It has become illegal." + +"Inside a church, yes; not outside. At least that is his contention. Oh, +I have already done my best! He got quite excited when I ventured to +discuss the matter,--asked me if I understood the nature of an oath, and +whether I had ever taken one." + +"Is he much set on it?" + +"I have had to write to the Archbishop." + +"What do you think he'll say about it?" + +"Ordinarily he would oppose it as savoring of Rome; under present +circumstances my impression is that he will welcome it as giving the +Church an added importance. You don't like it?" + +"Of course, I don't." + +"Then you had better see the King yourself. You have only a week left; +and he has already begun looking at the weather-glass and wondering if +it's going to be fine." + +"That's just like him!" said the Prime Minister. + +"Yes, and he's getting more like himself every day. My part is not a +sinecure, I can assure you." + +Accordingly the Prime Minister went over to the Palace and saw the King. +Informed as to what line of argument had already been tried and failed, +he approached the matter from a new standpoint: he spoke in the name of +Protestantism. This ceremony had only survived in Catholic countries; in +Jingalo the Reformation had killed it, and it had gone with graven +images, the invocation of saints, and the worship of relics to the limbo +of forgotten foolishnesses. + +"The Charter of the Holy Thorn has not gone," said the King. + +"Nor has your Majesty's title to the Crown of Jerusalem; but who ever +thinks of enforcing it?" + +"I am willing to resign it any day," replied his Majesty. "I can also, +if you think it advisable, abolish the Charter of the Holy Thorn and the +Knighthood with it. But I don't think the Knights would quite like +that." + +"If it comes to a question of liking," said the Prime Minister, "I do +not think they will quite like washing beggars' feet in public." + +"Oh, I do the washing and the drying," said the King. "They only carry +the basins and put on the boots. I have looked up the whole ceremony; +it's very impressive. You have only to read it and you will become +converted: it is so symbolical." + +The Prime Minister objected that though in its origin the ceremony might +have had symbolic meaning and beauty, its performance now-a-days would +be looked upon as a mere form and superstition, contrary to the spirit +of the age. + +This reminded the King of a certain "maxim." + +"'The spirit of the age,'" he quoted, "'is the industrious collection of +bric-a-brac--good, bad, and indifferent': this one happens to be good, +and has been neglected. And talk about forms and ceremonies!--what can +be more formal, superstitious, and idiotic than the procession of Court +functionaries and King's Musketeers (with the Dean of the Chapels Royal +carrying a candle) which, on every ninth of November--the anniversary of +the Bed-Chamber Plot--comes to look under my bed to see whether +assassins are not lurking there? On one occasion I was laid up with +influenza, but I had to submit to that form and superstition because it +had become traditional. And all the papers gloated over the fact, and +called it 'a link in the chain of monarchy,' though as a matter of fact +the conspiracy in question had been got up against that branch of the +succession which we afterwards succeeded in dethroning. All the personal +inconvenience I had to endure on that occasion was as nothing in +comparison to the satisfaction which the public got out of it. No, Mr. +Prime Minister, if you are going to do away with things because they are +forms and superstitions, then I institute the Order of the New Broom, +and I make you the first Knight of it; and the rest of your life will +have to be spent in sweeping." ("And oh!" thought the King, feeling +himself in form, "I only wish Max could hear me now!") + +Failing in his personal appeal the Prime Minister turned on the +Departments, and the King fought them one by one: the Board of Works +which wanted to have the roads up; the Clerk of the Weather who said +that a depression unsuitable for open-air gatherings was crossing +Europe; the Chief of the Police who said that so large an open space was +bad for a crowd; the Minister of Public Worship who wished everything to +be done--if done at all--indoors and unobtrusively, by preference in one +of the Royal Chapels: the effect, he said, would be more reverent. And +when all these in turn had failed, the Prime Minister asked for a +Council on the subject, and was told it was none of the Council's +business. + +"I am Grand Master in my own Order," said the King, "and you, as one of +its Knights, in any matter pertaining to the Order owe me your +unquestioning obedience." + +That was unanswerable; he did. And so the King got his way. + + +II + +The revival proved a tremendous success, although it did not reproduce +the medieval conditions in their entirety. + +The twelve old women were left out; it was not considered decent for the +King to wash their feet in public and the Queen absolutely refused to do +so. Instead they were invited to take tea at the Palace, and afterwards +were all presented with foot-warmers. + +In other directions also invidious distinctions were attempted, and a +certain amount of controversy was raised. The Bishops made a scrambling +and desultory fight for it that, as the steps of the Cathedral were to +be used, all the washen beggars should be actual communicants of the +Established Church; but the demand died down when it was found that such +a breed did not exist; and a rush of undesirables to the altar in order +to qualify could hardly be welcomed as a tolerable solution. + +There was a tussle, too, among the Knights of the Thorn as to how many +towel-bearers there should be (the towels remaining perquisites +afterwards); but the King and his Master of Ceremonies--the delighted +Max helping them--were able to settle matters to the general +satisfaction, and, by allowing a towel to each foot and twelve cakes of +soap, provided a sufficient number of souvenirs to go round. + +And so the day came, the weather was fine, and the attendant crowd +rapturous. The King and his Knights, in nodding plumes and robes of +thorn-stamped velvet, made the show of their lives; organ music rolled +from within, bands played without, and massed choirs sang like angels +from the parapets and galleries above the west doors of the Cathedral. + +And when their ordeal by water was over, then the twelve beggars--all of +guaranteed good character although not actual communicants--received +with delight each a new pair of shoes and stockings, which they were +able to sell at fabulous prices, immediately the ceremony was over, to +collectors of curiosities, chiefly Americans. And that same night twelve +very happy beggars, all more or less drunk, made their appearance on the +largest music-hall stage in the metropolis, where the whole scene was +elaborately re-enacted in facsimile, followed by a cinematograph record +of the actual event. + +The King was a little disappointed at these modern developments, they +seemed to take away from the penitential character of the performance, +and rather to weaken than restore in the public conscience the due +observance of Lent. + +Max, however, assured his father that he had made the greatest hit of +his life; his personal popularity had been greatly enhanced. What +pleased him better was that in feeling for the public pulse, by the +light of his own conscience, he had proved that he was right and the +Prime Minister wrong. + +Yet, though ostensibly in the wrong, the Prime Minister had really been +right. He had reckoned that the move might prove a popular one--for the +monarchy; and though a dull average of popularity for that ancient +institution suited his book for the present, he did not wish, in view of +certain eventualities, to see it greatly increased, and still less did +he wish the King to discover that by acting in opposition to his +ministers he might gain in popular esteem. + +As one of the Knights of the Thorn he himself had been obliged to +attend the ceremony; and by some it was noticed that, as he stood +holding a golden ewer in his two hands, he looked very cross. But +all the other Knights of the Thorn--those who had towels and soap as +perquisites--enjoyed themselves thoroughly and were already looking +forward to a repetition of the performance next year. Even in their +case, then, the King had proved to be right,--forms and ceremonies +accompanied by fine clothes were still popular things; the Order of the +New Broom would not be yet. + + +III + +And then, with blare of trumpet and clash of drum, with troopings and +marchings, with garlanded streets and miles upon miles of cheering +people, came the great Jubilee festivities. Silver was the note of the +decorations--silver in the midst of green spring. The Queen herself wore +silver gowns and bonnets of heliotrope, and the King a uniform wherein +silver braid formed the becoming substitute for gold. Corporations came +carrying silver caskets; army pensioners and school-children, feted at +the public expense, received white metal mementoes which, while new at +any rate, looked as real as any coin of the realm. For a whole week the +piebald ponies really worked for their living, grumbling loudly between +whiles in their stalls; for a whole week "loyalty" was the note on which +the press harped its seraphic praises of monarchy and nation; and for a +whole week people actually did drop politics, reduce their hours of +labor, and run about enjoying themselves. + +The poet laureate published an ode for the occasion; he remarked on the +passing of time, said that the King had acquired wisdom and +understanding, but that the Queen did not look a day older; said that +the trees were green on that day twenty-five years ago when the King +ascended the throne, and that they were green still; said that cows ate +grass then, and were eating it now without any decrease of appetite; +said, in fact, that nothing sweet, reasonable, or beautiful had really +changed at all, and that the monarchy, taking its constitutional day by +day, was the national expression of that unchangeableness. + +The day after the appearance of his poem he received that titular +recognition for lack of which a poet laureate must feel that he has +lived in vain. And then, all this unchangeableness of things having been +thus ratified and sealed with the official seal, the King, his +ministers, and the whole political world advanced to the edge of changes +such as the country had not seen the like of for the last hundred years. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PACE-MAKING IN POLITICS + + + + +I + +Inside the Council, meanwhile, curious and uncomfortable things had been +happening. The King's talkativeness had steadily increased; no one could +reduce him to reason. + +"He reminds me," said one of his ministers irritably, "of the +school-boy's story of the tea-kettle which discovered locomotion. Off +boiled the lid: 'Why!' cries the observant inventor, 'put that upon +wheels and it would go!' So he put it upon wheels and it went. He is +exactly like that tea-kettle on wheels, miraculously set going without +any inside reason to guide him! In my opinion before long there will +have to be a regency." He tapped his skull meaningly, but in the wrong +place: he should have tapped the back of it. + +"What? Prince Max!" ejaculated his auditor; "I should hardly call that a +remedy!" + +"Nothing can be worse," declared the other, "than things as they are!" + +In that he made a mistake; they were going to be much worse. The King's +new mental activities were only just getting into their stride; and from +a very unexpected quarter he was about to receive aid. + +At the Council board, where the King had now found voice, one alone sat +humorously interested and amused--the Minister of Fine Arts. He was not +an artist himself--had he been he would never have been allowed to +occupy that position; he was a Professor of History, Teller by name, +and more than any of his fellow-ministers he studied life. Nothing +interested him so much as the human machine; and to see this rather +humdrum monarch suddenly developing into a tea-kettle on wheels, as his +colleague had so happily phrased it, filled him with profound interest +and an underlying sympathy. + +Dimly the King had become aware that somewhere in that body of adroit +shufflers who were supposed to minister to his constitutional needs the +confused cry of his conscience had evoked an echo. He saw under a high +bald forehead kindly eyes watching him; and it was a kindly voice +charged with considerateness which one day, over a matter in which time +pressed, begged for a further interview. + +International exhibitions had become the vogue; and in putting on its +peace paint for the Jubilee, Jingalo had determined to maintain its +prestige among the nations by holding a conversazione of the Arts. In +matters of that sort his Majesty had no particular taste; but in an art +exhibition it was his duty to be interested. If need be he would open +it, and would say of art and of its relations to the national life +anything that the commissioners required of him. He would also lend any +pictures from the royal collection which did not leave too obvious a gap +upon the walls. All this was a mere matter of course; but the occasion +being important--one of the great events indeed of the Jubilee +festivities--it was expected of him that he should give a rather special +consideration to the final plans. + +Though wearied by the circumlocutions of his Council which had lasted +throughout the morning, he named an hour, and at six o'clock received +his minister in private audience. + +The Professor began to explain matters in the usual official tone, but +before long perceived that the attention paid to him was merely formal. +The King sat depressed, listless, and cold. This renewal of the official +routine found him mentally fagged out; it was evident that his thoughts +were elsewhere. + +Making the matter as short as he could in decency, the Professor folded +his memoranda and returned them to his pocket. + +Recalled to himself by the ensuing silence the King spoke-- + +"I really don't know enough about it to say anything," he murmured. "No +doubt you have arranged everything for the best." But still he remained +seated as though the interview were not ended, and the minister had +perforce to remain seated also. + +"I fear that to-day we have wearied your Majesty," he said at last to +fill up the pause. "The Council is sometimes very trying." + +The King lifted forlorn eyes in a sort of gratitude upon this, the least +troublesome of all his ministers. "You, at least," he answered, "have +not to reproach yourself, for I noticed that you did not speak." + +"I was listening," answered the Professor; "I was much struck by your +Majesty's line of argument." + +"You agreed?" + +"I cannot separate myself from my colleagues," returned the minister +cautiously; "but I recognized the strength of your Majesty's case. On +its own premises, if well put, it becomes unanswerable." + +"I hardly thought that I had put it well." The King's voice showed +despondency. + +"To be perfectly frank, sir," said the Professor, tempering the amiable +twinkle of his gaze with a deferential movement of the head, "you did +not. The historical argument requires a knowledge of history." + +"You remind me of another of my deficiencies, Professor." + +"It is shared, your Majesty, by nearly the whole of the Cabinet. Very +few of us, sir, knew anything more of it than you; and those of us who +did were intent on concealing our knowledge." + +"Very considerate, I am sure." + +"Not at all, sir: our knowledge would have given strength to your +argument." + +The King sat up a little at this confirmation of his suspicions. "Do you +mean, then, that my ministers make it a part of their duty to conceal +from me the truth?" + +"Some truths, sir," submitted the Professor, "may have undue weight +given to them, which it then becomes a councilor's duty to correct. +After all, history is only history; if at times we cannot break from it +we shall never get anywhere." + +"Yet all to-day," protested the King, "history, precedent, and the +Constitution are the words that have been drummed into my ears, for all +the world as though I, and not you, were the preacher of subversive +doctrine." + +"Your Majesty will remember that in this country we have had three +successful revolutions against the Constitution. In one the monarchy was +successful, in two the people." + +"Is that said as a warning?" + +"By no means, sir; merely to show that precedents lie on both sides like +dry bones in the wilderness. But it requires the power of a prophet to +call those dry bones to life. At present I see no prophet in Israel." + +"Yet every member of the Government prophesies." + +"I noticed, sir, that you did not. Never once did you pretend to know +what the future would bring forth: you only pointed to the past, +deducing therefrom your duty, as you conceived it, to the Constitution. +Conditionally that commanded my respect." + +"Surely," said the King, "I am bound, whatever the conditions, to hold +sacred a trust which has been committed to me by inheritance." + +The Professor bowed. "With your Majesty," he assented, "the hereditary +principle must naturally be strong: it is implanted in your blood. I +have no such impulse in mine. My father was born in a workhouse." + +"That is very remarkable," said the King. "To have attained to your +present position, your life must have been full of interest and +adventure." + +"Full of interest--yes. Adventure--no. Very plodding, very uneventful, +almost monotonous apart from mental happenings. Now and then an unsought +stroke of fortune. That is all." + +"How did you ever get into the Cabinet?" inquired the King, in a tone +that betrayed a sort of puzzled respect. + +"Merely to fill a gap in a ministry whose days were numbered. Then an +unexpected turn of the wheel kept us in power, and I remained. It was an +inglorious arrival, but I found I could be of use: a sort of connecting +line between incompatibles. I am not unpopular with my colleagues, and +left alone in my department, I go my own way." + +"And what is your way?" inquired the King, still searching for guidance. + +"I do nearly everything as my permanent officials tell me, recognizing +that while ministers come and go permanent officials remain and acquire +experience from both sides. On the other hand, I use my own discretion +in the hastening or suspension of the superannuation clause; I promote +by results and not by seniority. My department, in consequence, is the +most efficient in the whole Civil Service, and I have less work to do +than any other minister. Thus I am left with more leisure and energy to +devote to the consideration of policy, and affairs in general." + +"And do you approve," inquired the King, "of the present policy?" + +The minister paused. "I think the pace is about right," he said +reflectively. + +"The pace?" + +"Yes; government to-day, sir, is largely a matter of pace, the actual +measures do not so much matter. Modern democracy is making for something +of which we are all really--the governing classes I mean--profoundly +apprehensive: and the problem now is to let it come about without actual +catastrophe. When I used the word 'pace,' I had a certain graphic +illustration in my mind--an incident I once heard from the manager of a +railway--the recountal of which will show your Majesty what I mean. + +"A passenger train, before arriving at the head of a long, evenly +graded declivity, had taken on three or four good trucks heavily laden. +Owing to some carelessness in the coupling these wagons became detached +on the very crest of the descent, and falling to the rear came almost to +a halt. Not quite: sluggishly at first they began to move, and gathering +impetus from sheer weight followed in the track of the proceeding train. +Halfway down the declivity, the engine-driver discovered his loss and +the danger that threatened him. Looking back, he saw in the distance the +wagons weighted by the labor of men's hands drawing nearer with a speed +that grew ever more formidable. His one chance, therefore, of avoiding a +catastrophe was to put on pace in the hope of arriving at more level +conditions before the impact took place. Yet he must still limit himself +to a speed which enabled the train to keep to the rails on a certain +sharp curve which lay ahead. That was the problem which the +engine-driver set himself to solve: up to a certain point the more pace +he could allow the greater his chance of safety, beyond that point a new +danger arising out of pace lay ahead of him." + +The minister paused. + +"What happened?" inquired the King. + +"He negotiated the curve with success, and had got so far ahead that +when the wagons finally overtook him their impetus had been diminished +by the more level conditions of the road, and the impact was but slight. +Only the guard's van was smashed, and the guard himself rather badly +disabled." + +"And what happened afterwards to the guard and the engine-driver?" +inquired his Majesty, much interested. + +"The guard was pensioned for life: the engine-driver was promoted." + +"And whose fault was it--the guard's?" + +"Well, not exactly," replied the Professor; "the careless coupling was +done by others, but the guard had the right, which he had not chosen to +exercise, to refuse to accompany any train in which his van was not put +last--so as to embrace the whole combination. At least, he had the +technical right." + +"I suppose he did not wish to give trouble," said the King meditatively. + + +"Very likely; for, of course, had he exercised his right the whole train +would have been delayed by the extra shunting." + +"And he in consequence a less acceptable servant to his employers." + +"No one could have blamed him." + +"Not for excess of caution?" queried the King. "Did you not yourself +say that on those lines government would become impossible? You have +to run your railway system, it seems, with a certain risk of +accidents--otherwise you would never be up to time." + +"That is so," said the Professor. "In every political crisis it is pace +more than principle that I find one has to consider. If it is solved in +such and such a way, our pace will be so and so, and the question--will +it take us safely over the curve? If it is solved in another way so that +the pace slackens, those wagons in the rear may be down upon us." + +"And the guard, whose control, while the train makes its running, is but +nominal, is then the first to suffer!" He saw himself in the man's +place. "Poor glow-worm!" he cried, "he may change the green light in his +tail to red--or was it red to begin with? but it is no use! Those +proletarian forces descending upon him from the rear are quite blind in +their purpose: it is merely dead weight and impetus that send them +along." And then he pulled up abruptly, astonished to find that he was +talking in Max's manner. Was it so catching? + +"Not wholly blind, sir," said the Professor; "believe me, they mean +well--mainly to themselves, no doubt: that is only human nature. Every +body in the community, whether energized or sluggish, has some weight +attached to it; and the more that bodies can agree to combine the +greater is their weight politically. One has to recognize that consensus +of opinion carries with it a certain moral as well as physical force. +Out of that springs the evolution of our governing system." + +"Only I," said the King, "in the nature of things have always to stand +alone." + +"Sir, you have all history!" said the Professor. + +"Which, as you have reminded me, I do not know." + +"May I inquire, sir, whether you have a real wish to know?" + +"Why, naturally!" exclaimed the King. Whereupon the Professor, as though +laying aside something of his officialdom, took up an easier attitude +and addressed himself to the point. + +"It would, I think, sir, be quite compatible with my duty to my +colleagues were I to send your Majesty a few volumes of constitutional +history with certain appropriate passages marked. It would interest me +very greatly to hear the argument developed on the lines you have +already laid down. The history I would venture to send is a thoroughly +reliable and standard authority, written by an eminent jurist to whose +words we later historians still bow. As I said, sir, _pace_ is to-day +the thing which really matters; beyond a given pace we, certainly, are +not able to go. Luckily for our present plans there is no source from +which any forcing of the pace seems probable. I do not think this or any +other ministry dare attempt it. Speaking for ourselves any increase of +the present pace would, I conceive, become a grave embarrassment. If, +therefore, your Majesty has been apprehensive of our adopting any +increase of speed, I think you may be reassured. After the +constitutional readjustment our pace is scarcely likely to grow +dangerous." + +The Professor had managed to indicate that these were--if so it might be +allowed--his last words. The King rose. + +"I shall be much obliged, Professor," said he, "if you will lend me the +books you have mentioned. When may I look for them?" + +"Sir," said the Professor, in smooth matter-of-fact tones, "it so +happens that I have them with me in my carriage. I will have them +conveyed to your Majesty immediately." + +And therewith he bowed over the King's hand and departed. + + +II + +Left to himself the King stood considering for a while. He was pleased, +but puzzled. What had this man, wise and kindly, been telling him? What +advice were his words intended to convey? He was quite sure now that +this minister had come and talked to him for a purpose: and what he had +mainly talked about was "pace." It was "pace" that mattered. That was +all very well, but with pace he himself had nothing to do--except in a +negative sort of way. He, occupying the position of guard with brakes to +his hand but no steam-power, could only cause delay; he had no means, +and no object that he could see, for accelerating matters. Besides, had +not the Professor said that in his estimation the pace was about right? +All his efforts to secure delay would--he was already aware of it--fail +of their effect; ministerial resignation threatening, he would have to +give in. The alternative, the mad alternative that had for a moment +occurred to him--no, it would not do! The results might be too +tremendous, might lead even to revolution and a republic, and so he gave +the problem up. And then a pile of six large volumes "with Professor +Teller's humble duty" was brought in and set down before him; and John +of Jingalo sat down to read the marked passages. + +It was a reading that for its completion extended over many days. + +What first attracted his attention, however, was a chronological series +of plates, showing the map of Europe in all its political changes from +the tenth to the twentieth century. This was, in fact, a key to the +whole work, for as the author rightly pointed out in his opening +paragraph the history of Europe was inextricably bound up in the history +of Jingalo, and the one could not be properly studied without some +understanding of the other. + +These maps of Europe he turned from century to century; and there, as he +marked their many variations, there always to be recognized was Jingalo +occupying its proud historical position--so often challenged, yet still +on the whole unchanged. It had found room to live and breathe, not by +its own strength, but by a careful adjustment of the political balance +between others, and a neutralization artfully and sometimes +treacherously contrived of greater forces than its own. It had for +neighbors two great military states and several smaller ones; and had at +some time or another been at war with nearly all of them. +Often--generally in fact--it had come out of those wars more vanquished +than victorious (though Jingalese school-books carefully concealed the +fact): it had lost, for proof, more territory than any other power in +the world except England, and yet, like England, cherished the curious +conviction that it had won all the really important battles and dictated +each peace upon its own terms. Having been wholesomely driven out of +France in the fifteenth century, it had captured and carried away with +it as trophy the order of the White Feather, with its proud motto, "J'y +suis, j'y reste." In the eighteenth century it had adopted by compulsion +from Germany an alteration in its law of regal inheritance, and had +marked its adhesion to the new formula by the institution of the order +of the Dachshund, with the obsequious motto, "Das ist mir ganz Wurst," +popularly mistranslated by the wags of the day into, "That is the worst +for me." Beaten by the infidel in the Crusades it had joined thenceforth +to its regalia the holy crown of Jerusalem; and having thrown over the +Papacy at the time of the Reformation, had added to its armorial +bearings the Keys of St. Peter, and to its royal claims and titles the +Kingship of Rome. A frequent and murderous deposition of its kings had +but accentuated its devotion to the monarchic system: while its solemn +confirmation of each fresh breach of continuity had stood to reaffirm +its general belief in the hereditary principle, and in divine providence +as controlled by Act of Parliament. The only other country in the world +which had acted with such scrupulous inconsistency, unrepentant and +unashamed, was England. It was no wonder, therefore, that in their +history the two countries had much in common; and it must have been +through sheer inadvertence, in view of their rival claims to be the +constitutional pace-makers of Europe, that while they had often stood +badly in the way of each other's interests they had never yet fallen to +blows. + +International politics, however, were not for the moment the King's +chief concern, and he turned back from the pages of Europe to study in +detail the constitutional history of his own country and the powers it +still reserved for its kings. + +While he pursued these studies, many things new and strange presented +themselves to his gaze. There were, he discovered, powers of the Crown +still extant, though lapsing through gradual desuetude, of which he had +never dreamt, and as to the existence of which no one had made it his +duty to inform him. Some of them had been in regular practice less than +forty years ago; they were becoming obsolete merely because the advisers +of the Crown wished it. Just as the House of the Laity was now falling +more and more under the control of a Cabinet whose powers waxed as the +other's waned, so the King himself was in the hands of those whose +interests were to conceal from him the powers he possessed. + +He came on a page where the right of royal initiative in Council had +been thoughtfully underlined by the Professor; and he discovered with +astonishment that a whole series of constitutional questions lay +altogether outside the competence of ministers to deal with until they +had been first formally submitted to the King himself. Under this +heading he found that no financial proposal touching on Crown lands, or +on grants to the royal family, could become a matter of ministerial +discussion without his consent first given; no proposal to alter the +royal line of succession or the oath taken by the King at his +coronation; no change of definition in the articles or creed of the +Established Church; no alienation of Church lands; no fresh institution +of any rank, title, order, or degree, nor the abolition thereof; no +alteration in the laws governing the right of the voteless to petition +the King against the acts of his ministers; no subsidy or treaty of war, +and no surrender, barter, or exchange to a foreign power of any part +whatsoever of the King's dominions; no appointment to a foreign embassy; +no elevation of a commoner to rank or title; no issue of royal patents; +no free pardons for criminals, and no change in the composition of +either of the two Houses of Parliament. All these things must be +formally submitted to the will of the Crown before being entered as +items of the ministerial policy. + +"My word!" cried the King, perceiving for the first time how +unconstitutionally that word had been set at naught. He could hardly +believe his senses. Here under his nose, all these weeks lese majeste +had been rampantly disporting itself; and he knew nothing of it! +Possibly the Prime Minister knew nothing of it either; had not the +Professor said that many of his colleagues were as ignorant of +constitutional history as the sovereign himself? But some knew--some +must know! And the King, who but a few hours before had believed himself +the most helpless of emblems, a mere ornamental topknot to the +constitutional edifice, now found himself armed with weapons of +far-reaching precision that would enable him to carry war into the +enemy's country. Metaphorically he clapped his wings and crowed. Yes, it +was as though that weathercock, to which hitherto he had likened +himself, that toy of chance, swung this way and that upon a pivot with +no will of its own, had suddenly taken to itself life and wing and +power, and quitting its stake had descended into the arena with beak and +claw stiffened for the fray. That board of tormenting ministers was now +in his power--for a time at any rate. + +In his excitement he got upon his feet and trotted about the room, and +pausing now and again he gazed ahead with a gloating eye on a whole +series of ministerial councils to come. For this monarch, you must +remember, had been departmentalized all his life, and to that extent +dehumanized; and it was only in a departmental way that he recognized +his opportunity. The power to strike which he now visualized came +through no intellectual enlargement, no opening up of moral vistas, but +only through the discovery that he had on his side a mass of red tape +the existence of which he had not previously suspected. In similar +trammels to those which had so long hampered and restricted his own +movements it was now possible for him to entangle the goings of his +ministers. A hundred and one things had been done which were not merely +out of order but--oh, blessed word!--unconstitutional; and in +consequence the poor dear man's mind was in a welter of delight. At last +he had a weapon to his hand whose reach and mechanism he could +manipulate. "Oh, dear me, yes!" he said to himself, and said it several +times. + +When a character of childlike simplicity has got hold of a loaded gun, +it has a natural instinct to let it off. The actual direction, and what +the target is to be, are not so important as the delightful sense of +hearing the gun go off,--of proving by actual demonstration that it +really was a loaded and dangerous thing, capable of causing +consternation. John of Jingalo was simple, and when he got up from his +first solid reading of the Professor's volumes he felt that he was well +primed; and his instinct was to let himself go, to spread himself, to +attack his enemy with extended front so that they would not know where +to have him. Half-a-dozen small tags of red tape gave him a far greater +sense of resource and opportunity for aggression than any one good piece +of measurable length capable of being well wound and knotted. His +powers, such as they were, were largely imitative; and now for some +weeks the wordy Max had been coaching him. The Professor had supplied +him with the material, Max with the method for applying it; the +Professor had given him his head, Max had given him his tongue. Looking +forward to the exercise of his new-found powers he meant, in a word, to +be voluble; and when in later chapters he becomes yet more surprising, +let the reader remember that fortuitous crack at the back of his skull +through which the windows of his head were open and his brain-pan a +place of draughts wherein any winds of doctrine might blow. A word of +opposition, a mere gust of excitement, were now quite enough to set him +going, and once started he was very difficult to stop. + +For much the same reason, having once started to prance up and down the +carpet--that carpet so variegated and Maxian in its pattern--he found it +very difficult to sit down again; and would not have done so had not the +measured striking of the clock upon the chimney-piece reminded him that +he was expecting a visit from Max. Then a curious change came over his +deportment; he stood considering, glancing from the telltale volumes +upon the table to the door through which he was presently expecting his +son to enter. Then with a secretive look and a shake of the head, "Oh, +dear me, no," he murmured very softly; and taking up the books he put +them away in a drawer and locked it, and, when presently Max came in, +said nothing of his new discovery, but sat docile and listened, while +the other drew out the shining length of his vocabulary, making words +sound like deeds. + +Not for nothing was John of Jingalo the son of his father, not for +nothing a descendant of kings who so far as they consciously achieved +power had always held it possessively and exclusively, withholding the +key from their heirs. Post obits were not popular in that royal House of +Ganz-Wurst which for two hundred years had ruled over Jingalo. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE NEW ENDYMION + + + + +I + +Readers who have hearts will remember that while these things were +taking place in the political world, something of more intimate and +personal concern had happened to Prince Max. That young man, whose head +was so crowded with ideals for others, had discovered--or glimpsed, it +would be more correct to say--an ideal of his own, in the shaping of +which he had nothing whatever to do. Goddess-like she had descended upon +him from skies in which previously he had held no faith at all; and even +yet it was a tussle for his conscience to accept anything coming from +that quarter as really divine. He was agnostic; he did not like the +Church, and he rather despised that attitude of mind which accepted +miracle as a directing power in human affairs, and looked to an unseen +world for the inspirations of life. It was as though some modern +Endymion gazing up at the round and prosaic surface of the moon, and +refusing to admit that there entered into its composition anything even +of so low a vitality as green cheese--it was as though such an one had +seen the affirmed negation suddenly take to itself life and form, and +disclose from afar a whole heaven of thoughts, beauties, and aspirations +which he had not believed existent. And then, having seen that gracious +form so well defined that it must for ever remain imprinted upon his +consciousness, he had watched it steal from him into obscurity, wilfully +concealing its whereabouts, though ever since the silver haze of that +hidden presence had permeated his world. + +Concealment and flight are, we know, the very arrows of love when +directed with subtle intent against the hunter's heart in man; and they +are scarcely less powerful to kindle his ardor when undirected and +without purpose, or, as in this case, of a purpose wholly negative and +without lure. + +His lady had disappeared, because in very truth parting was her intent; +and in haunting for a while the dark and crooked ways which her feet had +blessed, he had but the poor satisfaction of knowing that he was +depriving of her ministrations lives inconceivably more miserable than +his own. That consciousness when it came touched him in a point of +honor, and forced him to relinquish the quest; but there remained with +him thenceforth a maddening sense that if, accepting his withdrawal, she +had resumed her avocations, he now knew daily where she was, and had +only to break with his scruples in order to find her. + +They had met less than half-a-dozen times; and he, driven by his mental +pugnacity to test so unreasonable an apparition, had spared neither +himself nor her. The sincerity of her faith had angered him, though +anything else, had he detected it, would have destroyed his dream; and +when he had scoffed she had not troubled to rebuke him, had only glanced +at him amused, not with pity or condescension or kind Christian charity, +but with a very friendly understanding and often with what seemed +agreement. He was astonished to find that a rippling sense of humor +could go hand in hand with a blind gift of faith, and to hear sayings as +bold as his own uttered as though they were the merest common-sense. +"Why yes, of course," she admitted, in answer to one of his tirades, "if +you want envy, hatred, and uncharitableness in a concentrated form you +will find them in the Church; that stands to reason." And when he +inquired why, she answered, quite simply, "Because a bad Christian is +Satan's best material." + +Nor had she any illusions about that particular branch of the Church +militant for which she labored; she regarded it rather as a half-baked +body of territorials than a regular army equipped for the field. Still +it served a purpose, gave useful occupation to many, and stood for the +time being against unreasoning panic or callous desertion of duty; nor +would she surrender its few poor healing virtues for any of the nostrums +he sought to set in their place. "It does more than you with all your +talking," she said quietly, and, as they passed by, took him into a +mission church where he might see--a small corrugated iron hut, set down +in the midst of slums. Under the scent of incense the smell of +disinfectants was strong; near a stove sat a lay reader, and about her a +dozen poor weary women plying needle and thread. Two or three of them +held children at the breast; in a pen near by lay half-a-dozen others +asleep. Over the stove was a large boiler supplying hot water to poor +parishioners; away by a small side altar knelt a single figure in +prayer. Brightly colored "stations of the Cross," and something upon the +altar that looked like a large tea-cozy, before which burned a light, +told how here the law was systematically broken, and that the "nonsense" +inveighed against by the old Queen Regent had not yet been put down. + +"That is the bit of Christianity I work for," she said as she led him +out again, "a sort of mother-hen whose cluckings, scratchings, and +incubations are run in a parish of five thousand half-starved people on +less than L300 a year. Have you anything better to show?" + +"I want revolution," he said. + +"Choose your own time," she answered mildly. "Here every day we are +facing a far worse thing." + +"Making it endurable," he objected. "These people are patient because of +you and your like." + +"Impatience would only make it harder for them," she returned. "You +can't argue with them; they haven't the brains." + +"Not in working order, I admit." + +"Meanwhile they have to live." + +"And when you help them to that end--are they at all grateful?" + +"A few; yes, that is one of the hardest things we have to bear,--we who +are living stolen lives; for whether we will it or not our vitality +comes from them; daily we drain it from their blood, and nothing we can +do will stop it." + +"Are you in need of money?" + +"Always; but five million pounds given us to-morrow would not go to the +root of this." + +"What would?" + +"Nothing but true worship." + +"You worship an alibi," said Max. + +"What nearer divinity has brought you here?" she inquired. And he, too +conscious of the personal motive, forbore to explain. + +At their fifth meeting she told him quite frankly that he was +interfering with her work, that she could not have him accompanying her, +waiting for her, picking her up as if by chance. + +"If you want to do work you must find it for yourself; you will if you +are sincere," she said in answer to his request that she would +commission him. + +"But may I not be your follower?" he pleaded, choosing the word for its +double sense. + +"Lay sisters don't have followers," she replied. "They don't go with the +costume." + +"Then why wear it? Will you turn away a disciple for a mere matter of +dress?" + +"My dress," she said, "is of more use and protection to me than anything +you can do or than money can buy. You have politicians who say that +society is built upon force. My dress is the work of women; thousands of +lives have made it what it is, and it will take me safely into slums +where no policeman dare go alone. When your politicians can come here in +coats of a similar make, then they will have begun to solve the problems +which they are so fond of talking about. Now, will you please to walk on +the other side of the road?" + +He took her hand, saying earnestly, "When are we to meet again?" + +She shook her head at him, smiling. "Truthfully I haven't time for you," +she said, "and I can't make promises." + +And then, just for once--for it seemed his last chance--Max fell into +sentiment. + +"One I want you to make," he insisted. + +"What is that?" + +"That you will pray for me!" + +"Now you are asking for luxuries," she smiled; "you don't believe in +prayer. But I will." Then, nodding confidently, she added, "And it will +do you good." + +And then, as he still lingered, with quiet business-like demeanor she +crossed the street and disappeared. + +It was true that in thus seeking her intercession Max had asked for a +luxury. He did not believe in prayer any more than he had ever done; but +he did very much like the idea of being prayed for by the woman he +loved. Once, for a brief moment, he had seen her kneel before an altar +empty to him of meaning; and as he then watched the serene joy and +beauty of her face had realized with a jealous envy how in an instant +all thought of him had passed from her mind. So in asking her to pray +for him he had merely sought to penetrate by subtlety the unbelievable +world of her dreams. And then, even as he reveled in the vision, the odd +thought occurred in what terms would he obtain introduction? Once, when +for the repayment of a borrowed cab fare she had asked his name and +address, he had told her who he was, and she had not believed him; had, +indeed, herself tantalized him in return with an address as little +probable as his own. If, therefore, she prayed for him in words how +would they run, or, if in thought, what character would it assume? "That +man," "that nice man," "that talkative man," "that person who called +himself Prince Max," "the tall stranger," "the man whom I sent away," +"the man who emptied my bucket," "the man who brought in the bed," "the +man who waited for me at corners," "the man who wanted to be my +follower." All these variant products of a brief acquaintance, though he +dwelt on them as luxuries, failed to give him satisfaction, they formed +a fretful and at times a tormenting accompaniment to his unapportioned +days. At his hours of rising and setting the thought would insistently +recur to him: "Now, perhaps even now, she is praying for me." And +straightway he would return to the task of trying to realize the nature +of her prayer and with what label she pigeoned him in the columbarium of +her soul. + +Whether or no it could be said that this was "doing him good," he had +certainly begun to apprehend the power of prayer; that dove-like spirit +with overshadowing wing had found means to ruffle very considerably the +even current of his existence. Even had he wished to he could not get +her out of his thoughts. Fantastic and prosaic statements of his +identity kept leaping into his mind. "The man with his trousers turned +up" was one of them. Yes, he had done that in order to make their +immaculate cut less noticeable; he had dressed as badly as he knew how, +and yet--she might possibly be praying for him as "that well-dressed +person." It was a ghastly thought, and he had brought all this purgatory +upon himself merely by asking for a "luxury," for something in which he +did not really believe. And then, at the thought of her deep sincerity, +his mind revolted from all these bywords and subterfuges. "Oh!" he cried +to himself, "she knows, she knows, she must know!" + +And, of course, as a matter of fact she did. She knew that she had a +lover, a young man who had nicknamed himself,--clever and handsome, +evidently with time and money to spare, probably of some social +position, and with an undeniable likeness to a Prince whom she only knew +by his photographs. And for this young man, who on five or six separate +occasions had so hindered her with his attentions, she had a deep and +impulsive liking which, as it ran counter to her plan of life, she did +not choose to encourage. + +But if Max could only have known he would have been comforted: she +prayed for him every day, morning and night, and taking him at his word, +though not in the least believing it, it was as "my Prince Max" that she +begged heaven to look after him. And when in her orisons that nymph +remembered him she smiled a little more than was her usual wont--for +truly he had amused her. In spite of dignified air and polished speeches +and a belief in himself that never failed, she had discerned the +stripling character of his soul; and greatly would Max have been +surprised, and perhaps also a little shocked, could he have learned that +he ranked in her mental affections as "rather a dear boy"; for it is +woman's way to claim the privilege of a motherly regard without any +seniority in age, and with a good deal of feeling that mere "mothering" +will not satisfy. + + +II + +Another lady, as to whose movements and plans Prince Max could not yet +be indifferent, had meanwhile returned home, and he had been to see her. + +The Countess Hilda von Schweniger had sent word that she had serious +things to say to him; it was only thus that he received notice of her +return. She had a tender weakness for talking seriously at intervals, +for the periodic workings of her conscience were ever open to view. But +whatever special seriousness of purpose was now perturbing her, this +matter-of-fact return to the roof they shared seemed to give it +contradiction,--did not at least suggest that any immediate breach in +their present relations was to be looked for from her. + +And so Max went to the interview wondering how he was going to behave +over this new fact which had so largely entered his life; whether he was +going to "behave well"--whether indeed it were possible at the same time +to behave well and be honest and above-board. He was, in fact, up +against the usual difficulty of the man who, having run domesticity on a +temporary basis, has discovered grounds for wishing to exchange it for a +more permanent one. And as he put his latch-key into the garden door of +the quiet tree-shadowed house which for five years he had regarded as +his second home, he uttered to himself a kind of a prayer that his +relations with a good woman would not now have to be less honest than +formerly. + +It was evident that she had been on the lookout for him; a French-window +in a creeper-covered veranda opened as he advanced, and gracious +domesticity stood smiling in the green-lighted shade. + +She laid her hands on his shoulders as she kissed him. "Well, mon +Prince," she said, "are you glad to see me again?" + +He took in all the pleasant and familiar appeal of her face before +answering. "Yes, I am," he said, "very." + +"That's true--really true?" + +And at that challenge he gave a funny little duck of the head, known to +her of old, and kissed her again. + +She turned quietly and walked away into the room. + +"I came back just to hear you say that," she murmured in a moved tone, +and stood waiting with her face away from him. + +The heart of Max was wonderfully relieved: gladdened also, for as he +looked at her he realized that she remained dear to him. With her old +simple directness she had let him know what was in her mind, and by her +clean brevity of speech had already, in this their first moment +together, saved him from the trap into which he might have fallen. Not +that the ordinary male temptation to let her resolution stand as cover +to his own did not for a moment occur to him. Nay, he could even suggest +good reasons; for was not this the kindest reward now left within his +power--to let her think that the wish was not shared--to show even a +little resentment and reproach? Max, the satirical critic of human +nature, could see clearly the attractiveness of such a course,--knew +himself a sufficiently good actor to play the game at least well enough +to satisfy his artistic taste. But he did not yield to the temptation; +had he done so he would have formed a more moral emblem for the +edification of my readers than I am now able to provide; and they must +face instead the uncomfortable fact that out of this long and immoral +liaison between a prince and his mistress certain moral values held +good, and that being in need of a sincere friend and confidante he found +it in the woman from whom he was about to separate. + +He crossed to her side, and taking her hand kissed it with more +frequency and fervor than he had kissed her face, and heard then her +breath struggling against tears. She reached up her other hand and began +stroking his head; and it is life's truth that these two still found +attraction and comfort the one in the other. + +"Then you are going back again?" whispered Max. + +She nodded, saying "yes" afterwards on a catch of breath. + +"When?" + +She looked at him wistfully. "I didn't want to go--yet." + +"Why should you?" + +"It wouldn't worry you?" + +"Not at all. Very much the reverse." + +"I should want to see you, though." + +Max smiled. "You mean, then, shouldn't _I_ worry _you_----" + +"I suppose I did mean that," she said, viewing him speculatively. + +Then Max was tempted to show off. "Who gave me my first lesson in not +worrying?" he asked. + +"Oh, yes," she admitted, "but then, you see, I was yours. It has to be +different now." + +"I want it to be different too," he said; and as by that statement he +wished to convey important inner meanings, he spoke solemnly. + +She looked at him radiant, half incredulous--the pious wish shining in +her eyes. "Oh, Max!" she cried amazed, "has it come to you too, then? +Has Our Lady----" + +But Max shook his head. "Your Lady is not my lady," he gently confessed. + +"Oh!" her voice went down into the deeps of despondency. "Oh! is that +what you mean?" + +A solemn nod from Max informed her that it was. + +"You always told me that it would happen some day." + +"I hoped I should have gone." + +"And I," said Max, "am glad that you have not. Selfish of me, isn't +it?" Then he kissed her hand again. + +She began a homely mopping of her face. + +"Then it doesn't matter how I look now?" she commented, and paused. "How +am I looking?" + +"Well, and as dear as ever," he replied. + +"That isn't what I wanted to know. You know it isn't." + +"You are looking," he said, "just two evening moons older than when I +saw you last." + +"What have evening moons got to do with it?" + +"They are your most becoming time." + +She took the compliment with a sigh and a smile; then with an air of +resignation sat down. + +"Who is she?" she asked abruptly. + +"I haven't a ghost of a notion. We haven't been properly introduced, she +hasn't encouraged me, I haven't said a word, and I'm not to go near her +any more." + +This for a start. The Countess Hilda became deeply interested, and very +much alarmed. "Then it isn't a princess?" she cried in consternation, +"she isn't royalty?" + +"Oh, no," said Max, "far from it. She is what you call a sister of +mercy, and 'sister'--horrible word--is the only thing I am allowed to +call her; she is a sealed casket without a handle." + +"Oh, Max," cried his Countess, "don't do it, don't do it; it's +wickedness! _I_ didn't matter; but this--oh, Max, you don't know what a +grief and disappointment you'll be to me if you----" + +"Dearly beloved friend," interrupted Max, "do give me credit for a +morality not very greatly inferior to your own. After all I am your +pupil." + +"But you can't _marry_ her?" cried the Countess. + +"Saving your presence, I mean to," asseverated Max. + +"You! Where will the Crown go?" + +"Charlotte will have three inches taken out of its rim and will fit it +far better than I should--that is if anybody is so foolish as to object +to my marrying where I please." + +"Then in Heaven's name," cried the Countess, "why in all these years +haven't you married me?" + +Max smiled; they were back into easy relations once more. This was the +lady with whom he had never spent a dull day. + +"I did not wish to give you the pain of refusing me," said he. "Had I +asked you you would have said that I was far too young to know my mind, +and that you yourself were too old." + +"Yes, I should," she admitted, "but you should have left me to say it." +Then she returned to her original bewilderment. "But, my dear boy, if +she is a sister of mercy she has taken vows." + +"Oh, no, we don't do that in Jingalo. No Jingalese Church-woman may +throw away her whole life on so problematical a benefit as a religious +vow of celibacy. She may lease herself to Heaven for a given number of +years, but freeholds are not allowed." + +"And you call that a Church!" cried the Countess. + +"Well," said the Prince, "I think that in this case she has got hold of +a scientific point worth keeping. Seven years ago I was not, science +tells me, the man that I am now; and seven years hence I shall be yet +another. What right has my past man to bind this present 'me' in which +he has no particle of a share?" And Max, having taken wing on a fresh +notion, was off into flight when the Countess brought him to earth. + +"And how long is your next lease going to be?" she inquired dryly, "if +seven years is all you can answer for?" + +"My next man will renew," said Max confidently. + +"Sisters of mercy don't accept tenants on those terms," she retorted. +And then, seeing that he looked at her with a benevolent eye, added, +"Oh, yes, I know that I did, but that isn't the sort of mercy you are +looking for now. You'll find, Max, that you need a religion in order to +become a freeholder. Mark my word! There! I couldn't have put it better +than that! And now as I've come to the end of _my_ lease I had better +retire and see to dilapidations and repairs." + +She left him smiling; but he knew, in spite of her brave face and +jesting words, that there was still trouble of spirit to be gone +through; and the repairs took some time. + + +III + +In the days that followed, Max, now launched on his new quest, had as +good and sympathetic a listener as lover could wish. And while the +Countess thus paid penance and endured some purgatory for a five years' +breach with her own conscience, she found compensations, as all sensibly +good women will when they come on logical results of their own making. +In our conventional readiness to reverence the mother and disown the +mistress as social institutions, we are apt to ignore, as though the +mere suggestion were an impiety, the fact that in their instincts and +affections they have often much in common. It is one of Nature's kindest +and wisest economies; yet perhaps the woman treasures it secretly, +because it is a quality of her sex scarcely to be understood by men. The +chaste mistress sleeps in many a mother's breast, ready to welcome in +her grown son that touch of the lover which nestles before it takes +flight; and in the unchaste mistress, homely of heart, there is often +more of the mother than her paramour has wit to discern. + +The Countess Hilda, cut off from home ties and kindred in the very prime +of her maternal powers, had cast her eye on Max with a possessive but +with no predatory aim; and in her own illicit fashion, contrary to some +qualms of conscience and the strict dictates of her creed, had mothered +him through the dangerous years with as little damage to his moral fiber +as seemed reasonably possible. And now, not without some pangs of +maternal jealousy, but with none of the baser kind, she listened while +he sat at her feet and talked of the woman he loved. But the real price +to be paid, as she clearly saw, lay still in the future and in all those +possibilities of beautiful domestic possession wherein she could have no +part. Left to herself she sometimes wept in woeful abandonment at the +thought that she and his children must for ever remain strangers; and +then she dried her eyes and sat eager and attentive to learn what manner +of woman their mother would be, if Max had his present will. + +"I met her," said Max, "or rather found her again, washing the floor of +a single-room tenement on a 'four-pair back' to the accompaniment of +screams from its enraged occupant. And when, as a means of introduction, +I tendered assistance, she sent me down to the basement to refill her +bucket,--offered me a child's head to wash, and then as an alternative +bade me bring in a mattress from a second-hand dealer who had neglected +to send it. I went. Required to give proofs of my honesty by a shopman +who rightly regarded all strangers with suspicion, I deposited the +value, which I forgot afterwards to reclaim, and set off with my load. +Before I reached the first corner I made the humiliating discovery that +I did not know how to carry it. I was bearing it embraced like an infant +in arms, but owing to its size my arms would not go round. Twice it +unrolled itself and lay like a drunken thing in the gutter; small +children stood round and laughed at me. From one of them came these +words of wisdom: 'Lor', 'e's only a gentleman, he don't know nothing!' +On my second attempt, not seeing well where I was going, I stumbled into +an apple-stall; and immediately I, heir to a throne and engaged in a +charitable action, found myself regarded as a criminal lunatic by people +quite obviously my superiors in all honest ways of earning a living. A +small boy took pity on me and offered to carry it on his back--any +distance for a penny. That taught me; I gave him the penny and put it +upon my own, and having disentangled myself from the crowd in which for +foolishness I had become conspicuous, found with relief that thenceforth +no one took any notice of me. The old scriptural act of a man carrying +his bed struck nobody there as absurd; the streets of our sweated +quarters are far more genuine and human than those in which we parade +the clothes they make for us. Ah, yes; that statement, at which you show +some incredulity, is directly pertinent to my story; for it was an +endeavor to trace my clothes to their origin--over the many impediments +and difficulties placed in my way--that had led me into those slums. I +won't go into that just now, though it had an important connection with +our future acquaintance. + +"By the time I returned with the bed to the four-pair back attic I had +received a better lesson in human values than in any previous half-hour +of my existence. I was then given other commissions, and these without +any word of apology; as I had volunteered so I was to be used without +scruple or mercy, just as a millionaire's motor-car is used at election +times, till scratched, battered, broken down, it creeps from the fray. +'We are all sweated workers here,' she said to me afterwards, and then I +saw her uses of me explained; anything which came to that mill came to +be ground, and the chaff to be cast out. I submitted to her test, and in +that first day saw her only by glimpses; but in accompanying her back to +the Home from which she emanated I told her why I had come--said that I +wished to have a clear conscience and wear clothes upon my back in which +there was no element of sweating. She told me it was quite impossible, +impossible, that is to say, unless I controlled every stage of +manufacture from the raw material to the finished article; and even +then, I was warned, the paper cover, the cardboard box, and the string +with which it was tied, would all be sweated products. And when I asked +what I could do to help matters, she bade me go with empty pockets and +see as much of the life as possible for myself, and make others like +myself see it also. That is what she had been doing to me--rubbing my +nose into it before I should get tired and run away. Even while +accepting it she showed a fine indifference to my money. 'Don't let that +salve your conscience,' said she, 'we can make it useful, but it won't +change matters.' And had I given her a million pounds I do not think she +would have thanked me any more." + +All that Prince Max narrated of his charitable adventure would take too +long to tell here. One thing the Countess noted, as a point well scored, +he had begun to learn humility; his offers of service had been rejected +as of little use, his company as a hindrance, his new lady had left him +to feel small, and he had not resented it, had indeed owned that her +judgment on him was just. He had also put himself to her test of +sincerity and failed. "I tried to go on with it," he confessed, "but it +was no good. What my father says is quite true--we can't really get at +the lives of these people, we are too cut off. We make use of them, they +of us; but we are still hiding from each other round corners, or walking +on opposite sides of the street. She, having become one of them, meant +me to see that." + +"But she doesn't know who you are." + +"She knows what kind I am; it's all the same." + +"You didn't cross after her?" + +"How could I? It wouldn't have been manners." + +"She presumed on your having them, then?" + +"She has a generous nature." + +"And then, for whole weeks, you did much more than cross after her; you +hunted for her, lay in wait for her, doing nothing all the time. My dear +grown-up man, wasn't that rather childish?" + +"What else could I have done?" + +"Made her miss you." + +"Well, as we haven't seen each other since, it comes to the same thing." + +"But she knows you've been there; she would have thought much more of +you if you hadn't been." + +"Why?" + +"It would have made her more repentant. Now she only thinks that you've +tired of it." + +"Ah, well, she promised to pray for me," said Max. + +"Oh, I pray for you, my dear," sighed the Countess; "not that I suppose +that does any good!" + +And therein may be discerned a difference between the two women who most +concerned themselves for the good of Max's soul; for the other had been +quite confident that her prayers would do good. And it is curious how +often those who have faith prove to be in the right. + + +IV + +Max had given up the quest, but he had not given up hope. Though love +had humbled him, he yet believed in his star, and reminded himself that +the world was small. + +In the late spring the Jubilee celebrations took up some of his time; +maneuvers followed. He went and played at soldiering for the public +satisfaction; then returned to his more private and serious avocations, +put the finishing touches to his book, and began to receive proofs from +the foreign printing-house to which through the Countess's hands he had +entrusted it. She herself with kind, charitable intent stayed on; more +than ever now he needed some one to talk to and--he did not worry her. +Others were trying to worry him. The Queen, after voluminous +correspondence, had found and offered him choice of two German +princesses whose photographs said flattering things of them; and, when +he declined both propositions, had looked at him very sadly indeed--had +almost broached the unmentionable subject. "Oh, Max, what are we to do +with you?" she sighed; for she was still keeping herself badly informed +of his goings-on. "That woman is back again," she informed her husband; +"I really think we ought to consult the Archbishop." + +The King saw no hope in that. "You must leave Max to take his own time," +he said. He did not just then want to worry about Max, since he was +preparing to plunge on his own account. "Alone I did it," was to be his +boast, and he knew that if once he resumed fathering Max, Max would be +fathering him, and his small spurt of initiative would be over. + +But all that must be kept for another chapter. This one belongs to Max +and his love affairs, past, present, and future; and it is still Max and +his fortunes that we are following as we step back into the limelight of +publicity. + +At the first Court following on the Jubilee celebrations the Bishops +appeared in force. It was their final demonstration of loyalty to the +throne before the political battle joined, for they were now preparing +to reject, just as a last fling, the whole of the Government's program, +and then to see what the country thought of it. + +As a bilious man sticks out his tongue toward the glass in order to know +whether he looks as he feels, so the Bishops were sticking out their +tongues toward the country in the hopes of looking as brave as they were +pretending to be. And they came to Court that they might advertise their +attitude. + +They came in silken court-cassocks, preceded by their croziers and +followed by their women-folk, a nice expression of that ecclesiastical +and domestic blend on which the Church of Jingalo prided itself. These +Church ladies were moral emblems in another respect as well: they had +the privilege of appearing at Court functions more highly dressed--that +is to say, less denuded--than others of a more aristocratic connection. +The sacred and unfleshly calling of a bishop threw a protecting mantle +over the modest shoulders of his wife and daughters; and these did not +go unclad. In accordance with Pauline teaching they were covered in the +assembly, expressing in their own persons that "moderation in all +things" which was the accepted motto and policy of the Church. + +The Archbishop of Ebury was there also; his crozier was different in +shape from the rest, and as an addition to his silken cassock he wore a +train. He was accompanied by his daughter. Daring in her assertion of +the vocation which had withdrawn her from the gaieties of life she wore +the gray robe of a little lay-sister of Poverty. + +"His Grace the Archbishop of Ebury, Prince Palatine of the Southern +Sees, Archdeacon of Rome, Vicar of Jerusalem, and Primate of all the +Churches," so, upon entry to the Presence, his full and canonical titles +were proclaimed by an usher of the Court. + +After so high a flourish more impressive in its way was the simple +announcement that followed: "Sister Jenifer Chantry." + +Dignity led, quiet unassuming modesty came after; indifferent to her +surroundings, obedient to the call of duty, she advanced in her father's +wake toward the royal circle. They bowed their way round; and there, +suddenly before him, Prince Max beheld the face of his dreams. + +The eyes of the beloved met his; and he, struggling desperately to +conceal his excitement and emotion from those who stood looking on, saw +himself recognized without shock or quiver of disturbance. No +heightening of color belied that look of quiet assurance and peace; with +disciplined ease, perfect in self-possession, she courtesied and passed +him by. And suddenly it seemed to him that all the air was filled with a +strange humming sound, soft yet penetrating, like the populous murmur of +a summer's day. Above the rustle of robes, the patter of feet, the +subdued murmur of voices, and the regulated tones wherein Court ushers +were announcing fresh names, that high vibratory note went on; elated +and thrilled he listened to it and wondered, not knowing its cause--the +quickened murmur of his own blood at the touch of Love's index finger +upon his heart. + +Now at last he knew who she was; now he could find her again on +unforbidden ground, follow her where she had no excuse to hide, +and press against all obstacles for an earthly fulfilment of +that unpractically directed thing called prayer. For now it +should not be only her prayer for him, but his for her; her very +name--Chantry--expressed the need he had of her. She was the shrine +within which his soul kneeled down to pray--not to any God, but to life +itself. Here was the matrix from which all his desultory and scattered +forces had been waiting to receive form and direction; to his own small +fragment of that general outpouring which we call life, purpose and +destiny had come. He with his adventurous theories, she with her patient +and unflinching practice, how gloriously together they could tumble old +monarchy to the dust and build it anew. For the first time in his life +he felt almost fiercely desirous to step into his father's shoes. +Strange that such sudden ambitions should be sprung on him by contact +with a heart which apparently held none. + +All this while he was returning the bows of bishops and their wives. +They flowed by in solid file forty or fifty strong; for this was a +demonstration with political import behind it, this was going to be in +all the press to be understanded of the people; the Bishops about to +fight for their own order were passing before the steps of the throne to +indicate in dumb show that allegiance to Crown and Constitution which +animated their hearts. + +And then, gorgeous in cloth of gold and high funnel-shaped hat, +introduced by the Minister of Public Worship but unaccompanied by his +two black wives, came the Archimandrite of Cappadocia--a counter +demonstration; and after him, forty Free Churches divines, all in black +gowns, silkened for the occasion, but unenlivened by the moral emblems +of their domesticity; a queer somber tail they seemed to that great +eastern bird of Paradise under whose wing they would presently acquire +the right to wear feathers as fine as his own. + +Most of them had never been at Court before, and in consequence were not +so well drilled as the Bishops. Some of them bowed too often, and too +hurriedly, and before they need, beginning with the Lord Functionary +whom they mistook for royalty; and they walked out sideways instead of +backwards, reactionary methods of progress not being in their blood. +Still, taking them for all in all, they were a very learned-looking +body, and their presence in such uncongenial surroundings showed that +they meant business. + +And deficiency in their demeanor was quite covered by the deportment of +the Archimandrite. In the new robe presented to him for the occasion by +the Prime Minister (for the moth had got into his own) he looked superb, +and behaved with a majesty beside which Jingalo's home-bred royalty sank +into insignificance. Max frankly recognized his superior, and bowed low. +"This is a descent of the spirit, Archimandrite," he said, as they +touched palms; and as he did so a queer breath of eastern spices blew +over him, for the man of God was chewing them. + +And so, in this great overt act of respectful homage to the throne from +both sides, the truce came to an end and the signal for fight was given. +More important to Prince Max was the fact that it had revealed to him a +certain lady's identity. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +KING AND COUNCIL + + + + +I + +During the weeks of the Jubilee recess the King had spent his spare +moments in taking notes, and priming himself on fresh points of +constitutional usage. + +The Comptroller-General was greatly puzzled to see writing going on day +after day in which neither he nor any of the secretaries were invited to +take part. He was more puzzled still when, by means available to him, +he obtained access to what the King had actually written. + +After a single reading he felt it his duty to report to the Prime +Minister. + +"He seems to be writing a history of the Constitution," said the +General. "Where he gets his facts from I don't know, but they don't seem +to have come from you; quite the other side I should say." + +On this note-taking, so voluminous that it resembled the writing of a +history, the King was getting into his stride, and was discovering how +very much better all these years he could have made his own speeches, +had he only been allowed to. He had within him the gift of expression, +though not the power of condensing it; he had industry, a good case, and +now at last behind his back an unimpeachable authority. And so, at its +next meeting he came down into Council stuffed full of facts and +phrases, and quite determined that before things went any further his +Ministry should hear them. + +The constitutional crisis had reached a head as soon as Parliament again +met. The defiant action of the Bishops had thrown the Government's +program so much into arrears that a drastic quickening of the pace had +become necessary; and if, in spite of scare and warning, the Bishops +meant to go on doing as they had hitherto done it was evident that their +constitutional powers must be limited. The Archimandrite and the Free +Churchmen between them might supply the Government with a bare working +majority; but that alone would not be sufficient to make legislation +fruitful between then and the next general election. Unless the +Government, after striking the blow, could come before the country +bearing its sheaves with it, there was a very serious chance that its +patriotic intention of continuing in power would be frustrated; and even +a Government busily engaged in marking time to suit its own bureaucratic +interests must appear to have covered the ground mapped out for it. + +For this reason Cabinet ministers had been meeting and deciding on a +good many things behind the King's back; and the "Spiritual Limitations +Bill"--all the world has since heard of it--was the device they had +adopted as most suitable to their needs. They proposed to bring it +forward in a late winter session. + +On the day before Council a draft of the proposed bill reached the hands +of the King; and his Majesty on reading it and after referring once +again to certain passages in Professor Teller's books of history, smiled +gleefully and rubbed his hands; for though he had the heart of a +vegetarian he was beginning to scent blood and rather to enjoy the smell +of it. + + +II + +The Council was already standing about the board when the King entered. +Having bowed them to their seats he formally called on the Prime +Minister to read the presented draft. This was done, and through the +whole of it without a word of interruption his Majesty sat quiet and as +good as gold. + +Polite exposition was about to follow; but as the Prime Minister essayed +an enlargement of his text his flight was stayed. + +"Gentlemen," said the King, "I am dissatisfied with my position." + +All turned amazed; the Professor with less amazement than the rest, for +he observed, as confirmation of his suspicions, that the King's hand +rested upon a bulky pile of manuscript. + +"In this bill," said his Majesty, "you are proposing to remodel a +Constitution that has lasted in an unwritten form for five hundred +years. I see in your proposed emendations that the Crown is frequently +mentioned, but its powers are nowhere defined--unless that constantly +recurring phrase 'on the advice of his ministers' is a definition which +you wish to see indefinitely extended. Otherwise there is no open +indication that the Crown's powers are affected. But the question of +constitutional rights as between the Bishops and the Laity to-day may +to-morrow be a question involving the Crown also; and if you now mean to +impose limits on one branch of the legislature, you must extend your +definitions to cover the whole ground. I require, gentlemen, if this +matter is to be carried any further, that my own powers and prerogatives +shall be as accurately defined and set as much on a working basis as +those of your two Chambers." + +"'Working basis' is distinctly good," murmured Professor Teller, and +looked admiringly at the King, whom the Prime Minister hastened to +reassure. + +"Your Majesty's powers," said he, "are in no way touched. At no single +point of our proposals is any limitation suggested." + +"Oh, I daresay not, I daresay not!" replied the King, "but though it +isn't there in the text it is between the lines; yes, written with +invisible ink which will be plain enough to read presently. What I am +thinking about is the future. You may be perfectly right as to the +wisdom of change; but we must have chapter and verse for it. We can't +treat these matters any longer as an affair of honor. It used to be: now +it isn't. Honor to-day is not a help but an impediment; I've found that +out. To me it has lately become a question--a very grave +question--whether I can in honor accept the advice of my ministers; and +I do not intend to leave so disquieting a problem for my son to solve +after me. There, now you have it!" + +The King panted a little as he spoke, like a dog that has begun to feel +the pace of a motor-car too much for him. + +"I'm sorry that your Majesty has found any reason to complain," said the +Prime Minister in a tone of grieved considerateness. + +"I am not complaining," answered the King, "I'm only saying. And what I +say is, let us have chapter and verse for it from beginning to end. +Define the powers of the Crown as they exist to-day--but as they won't +exist to-morrow unless you do--and your proposals shall have my most +sympathetic consideration; but not otherwise." + +"Surely the question your Majesty raises," interrupted the Prime +Minister, "is an entirely separate one." + +"No doubt you would treat it so," replied the King. "Oh, yes--break your +sticks one at a time as the wise man did in the fable!" + +A breath of protest blew round the Council board. What would he be +accusing them of next? + +"I daresay you don't mean it," he went on; "but it will be said, at some +future day, that you did. And either you do mean it, or you don't; so if +you don't what can be your objection to having it put down in black and +white? I'm sure I have none. I have got everything written out here +ready and waiting." And the King fingered his manuscript feverishly. + +"One very obvious objection," interposed the Prime Minister in alarm, +"is that there is no demand for it in the country. No political +situation has arisen--the matter is not in controversy." + +"You must pardon me," said the King, "we are in controversy now. Though +the country knows nothing about it, my position is affected; the demand +is mine." + +"It is quite impossible, your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, with a +brevity that was almost brusque. "It would entirely confuse the issue in +the public mind." + +"Direct it, I think you mean." + +"In a most dangerous and inadvisable way." + +"Dangerous to whom?" the King inquired shrewdly. + +"The functions of the Crown must not be involved in party politics." + +"Though party politics are involving the functions of the Crown? Oh, +yes, Mr. Prime Minister, it is no use for you to shake your head. I +contend that, without a word said, this bill does directly undermine my +powers of initiative and independence. You deprive the Bishops of their +right to vote on money bills; very well, that will include all royal +grants, whether special or annual,--maintenance, annuities, and all that +sort of thing. At present these are fixed by law and cannot be disturbed +without the agreement of both Houses. That is my safeguard. But in +future you leave the Bishops out, and you have me in the hollow of your +hand. Oh, gentlemen, you need not protest your good intentions: I am +merely putting the case as it will stand supposing a--well, a +socialistic Government, bent on getting rid of the monarchy altogether, +were to succeed you. Where should I be then? That is what I want you to +consider. Oh, you don't need two sticks to beat a dog with! If you mean +that, let us have it all said and done with,--put it in your bill; and +if the country approves of it, well, if it approves of it, I shall be +very much surprised." + +The Prime Minister rose. + +"Does your Majesty suggest," he began, "that any such idea----" + +But the King cut him short. "Oh, I don't know what your ideas were; this +isn't an idea, it's a bill." + +The Prime Minister sat down again; all the Council were looking at him +with mildly interrogating eyes, wondering what they should do next. The +King had often been voluble before, but this time he was reasonably +articulate; and as his pile of manuscript indicated he had come armed +with definite proposals. + +"I am asking for safeguards," said the King. "How do I know, how do any +of us know, at what pace things may not be moving a few years hence? It +is the pace that kills, you know; yes, very important thing--pace." His +eye caught a friendly glance; it twinkled at him humorously; he appealed +to it for support. "Yes, Professor, have you anything to say?" + +The Professor rose and bowed. "I am only a listener, your Majesty," he +said, and sat down again. + +"Pace," said the King again, having for a moment lost the thread of his +discourse. Then, having clung to that anchor to recover breath, once +more he plunged on. + +"If any royal prerogatives still exist," said he, "if I am to be still +free to act upon them, then I want to be told what they are, and to have +the country told also; yes, before any more of them become obsolete! At +present it seems to me that anything of that kind is obsolete when it +becomes inconvenient to the party in power." + +Once more a respectfully modulated wave of protest went round the board. + + +"Oh, yes, gentlemen, I have become quite aware from what has recently +taken place that an unexercised authority, if not set down in black and +white, comes presently to be questioned as though it did not exist. If +the title-deeds are missing, then you are no longer on your own +premises. Well, for the future, I want to be upon mine. And here you +come to me with this bill, and not a single one of you has seen fit to +advise me as to how my own position is affected by it; no, I have had to +go to other sources, and find out for myself." + +At these words the Prime Minister saw an opening, and also a possible +explanation of the manuscripts which lay under the King's hand. He put +on a bold front and spoke without waiting for the royal pause. + +"Have I, then, to understand," he inquired, "that your Majesty's +advisers have lost the benefit of your Majesty's confidence?" + +"By no means," replied the King. "If I am not confiding in you now, I +don't know what confidence is. I am putting all my difficulties before +you, and asking for your advice. But I don't want to have it in a +hole-in-corner way, a bit at a time, first one and then another. We are +in Council, and it is from my whole Council that I want to know how +these difficulties are to be met. When I am alone I can get anybody to +advise me, go to whomsoever I like; there is no difficulty about that." + +The Prime Minister bristled; he seemed now to be on the track. "I must +ask further, then," said he, "whether upon this question of a new +written Constitution your Majesty has thought fit to consult +others--those, that is to say, who are politically opposing us?" + +Under an air of the deepest respect a charge of unconstitutional usage +was clearly conveyed. + +"Oh, you mean the Bishops?" said the King. "No; since all this trouble +began I have been deprived of the consolations of the Church; not a +single one of them has dared to come near me, except in an official +capacity. Though, as I say, I have the right to consult any one." + +The Prime Minister raised his eyebrows, in order, while formally +agreeing, to make denial visible. + +"Of course if your Majesty informs us of it," he said, "we shall know +where we are." + +"That is what I am saying," persisted the King. "If we all consult about +it, then you know where you are, and I know where I am. There are the +twenty of you, and here am I, and this is the first time that we have +exchanged a word on the subject. Isn't it unreasonable to expect me to +come to you with my mind made up on a thing I knew nothing about till +yesterday? Why, it was only then I discovered that for you to discuss +such a bill among yourselves, without having first sought my +permission--a bill affecting the Constitution and the powers of the +Crown--was in itself unconstitutional." + +What on earth did he mean? Ministers looked at each other aghast. + +"There!" cried the King, "you are all just as surprised as I was. That +is why I say we must get it put into writing. You didn't know that you +were interfering with royal prerogative. No more did I: we had forgotten +to look up history. Now I've done it, and I daresay that as an historian +Professor Teller will be able to inform you whether I am right?" And +here with a flourish the King named his authority. + +"Your Majesty has stated the constitutional usage with accuracy," +acknowledged the Professor. "Whether usage is decisive remains a +question." + +"There!" said the King triumphantly. "That is what happens if things are +not actually set down in law. Now you see my point." + +The Prime Minister's brow grew dark. + +"I think, your Majesty," said he, "that this is hardly a question we can +discuss in Council." + +"In a way you are right," acknowledged the King; "it should not have +been discussed here, as I said just now, without my permission. But as +it has been brought forward we either do discuss it and all that I have +to propose in the matter, or I rule it out of order; and we will pass +on, if you please, to the next business." + +The King had finished; he leaned back in his chair; and the Prime +Minister, collecting authority from the eyes of his colleagues, stood up +and spoke. + +"I think your Majesty hardly recognizes," said he, "that we cannot +legislate on a matter as to which there is no public demand. In regard +to the status of the Crown no political situation has arisen such as +would justify your Majesty's advisers in adopting a course which might +seem to indicate a lack of confidence. Under representative government +no ministry can propose legislation which has only theory to recommend +it. If your Majesty will allow me to make my representations in private, +I think I shall be able to show that the course we propose is the only +practical one. I would, therefore, most respectfully urge that for the +present the points your Majesty raises may be set aside." + +It was as direct a challenge of the royal will as one minister could +well make in the presence of others; never before had a difference of +opinion stood out so plainly for immediate decision under the eyes of a +whole Cabinet. + +The King heard and understood: it was a crucial moment in the exercise +of his partially recovered authority; twenty pair of eyes were looking +at him, curiously intent, one pair benevolently anxious. The Prime +Minister was fingering his brief, ready to go on with the interrupted +disquisition; he even looked surreptitiously at his watch to indicate +that time pressed. + +That little touch of covert insolence was sufficient; by a sort of +instinct the incalculable values of heredity, training, and position +asserted themselves. The King's lips parted in the shy nervous smile +which charmed every one. "Mr. Prime Minister," he said, "I am perfectly +willing to meet you at any future time you may like to name." He took up +the agenda paper as he spoke and turned to the Minister of the Interior. +"The Home Secretary," said his Majesty, "will now read his report." + +Before they knew where they were the Council had passed on to its +accustomed routine. + + +III + +Nobody looked at the Prime Minister's face just then; for the moment he +had been beaten, though the person who appeared least aware of it was +the King. + +But, of course, it was for the moment only. And when at a later hour of +the day, with mind made resolute, the Prime Minister sought his promised +interview, the monarch was no longer at an advantage. Dialectically he +could not meet and match his opponent, and he had no longer that subtle +advantage which presidency at a board of ministers confers. Speaking as +man to man the head of the Government did not feel bound to observe that +tradition of half-servile approach which in the hearing of others +fetters the mouths of ministers. + +The Jubilee celebrations were now over, the Parliamentary vacation +approached; and what before had been mere talk and threat could now be +put into instant action. And so when he had given the King his run, and +listened to the royal obstinacy in all its varying phrases of +repetition, contradiction, reproach, till it reached its final stage of +blank immobility, he formally tendered the Ministry's resignation. + +The King sat and thought for a while, for now it was clear that one way +or the other he must make up his mind. All those strings of red tape, +which he had meant to tie with such dilatory cunning hung loose in his +grasp; to a Cabinet really set on resignation he could not apply them. +Just as his hands had seemed full of power they became empty again. He +knew that at the present moment no other ministry was possible, and that +a general election was more likely to accentuate than to solve his +difficulties; and so in sober chagrin he sat and thought, and the Prime +Minister (as he noticed) was so sure of his power that he did not even +trouble to watch the process of the royal hesitation resolving itself. + +When after an appreciable time the King spoke he seemed to have arrived +nowhere. + +"This is the fifth time," he said, "that you have offered me +resignation: and you know that I am still unable to accept it." + +The Prime Minister bowed his head; he knew it very well, there was no +need for words. + +"And you know that I am still entirely unconvinced." + +"For that," said the minister, "I must take blame; since it shows that +my advocacy in so strong a case has been very imperfect." + +"Oh, not at all," said the King. "I think you have shown even more than +your accustomed ability." + +"That is a compliment which--if it may be permitted--I can certainly +return to your Majesty." + +"I have felt very strongly upon this matter," said the King. + +"We all do, sir--one way or the other. With great questions that is +inevitable." + +"You admit it is a great question?" + +"I should never have so troubled your Majesty were it a small one." + +The King's thoughts shifted. + +"What a pity it is," said he, "that I and my ministers have never been +friends." + +"Have not loyal service and humble duty some claim to be so regarded?" +inquired the Prime Minister. But the King let this official veneer of +the facts pass unregarded. + +"It would have helped things," he went on. "As it is, when I differ from +my ministers I am all alone. It is in moments of difficulty like this +that the head of the State realizes his weakness." + +"There again, sir, you do yourself an injustice." + +"Ah, that is easily said. But what does my power amount to when all is +done? Perhaps at the cost of constant friction with my ministers I have +been able to delay things for a while--given the country more time to +make up its mind; but then, unfortunately, it was thinking of other +things, and I myself provided the counter attraction. What I was trying +to do in one way I was rendering of no effect in another; all that I +intended politically has been swamped in ceremony." + +"Your Majesty was never more popular than to-day," observed the Prime +Minister. "That in itself is a power." + +The King paused to consider; then he said, "If I am prepared eventually +to give way, what time of grace can you allow me?" + +"We must have our bill ready for the winter session, sir." + +"Will you allow me till then?" + +"If I may know what is in your Majesty's mind." + +"What is in my mind is that the country should know what it is about. +This bill has not yet been seen; by the public nothing is known of it. +Well, that is what I ask: put it before the country, let the terms of it +be clearly stated, and if, when we come to the winter session, you are +still determined that it must form part of your program, then,"--the +King drew himself up and took a breath--"then I will no longer stand in +your way." + +The Prime Minister bowed low to conceal his proud sense of triumph. + +"I have your Majesty's word for that?" + +"To-day is the 27th," said the King, "you can claim the fulfilment of +that promise in four months' time." + +"And till then?" + +"Till then," said the King slowly, "this question is not again to come +before Council. I hold to my point that its introduction without my +express consent was unconstitutional, and to maintain the Constitution I +am bound by oath." + +The Prime Minister yielded the point readily, seeing in it the effort of +dull obstinacy to score a nominal triumph. "There is, however, the +accompanying condition," said he, "necessary for the success of our +scheme; and to that I must once more refer. In order to pass our bill we +shall need the consecration of at least fifty new Bishops, nominated by +the Government; to that, also, your Majesty has hitherto been opposed." + +"Oh, you mean the Free Churchmen?" queried the King. "Ah, yes, and the +Archimandrite." + +"In that matter," replied the Prime Minister, "I have some reason to +believe that the Bishops will eventually give way." + +The King felt himself a little more alone. "Yes," he said, "I daresay +they will; I shouldn't wonder at all." + +"Then over that, too, I may look for your Majesty's consent?" + +The King repeated his former word. "I shall not stand in your way," he +said; and again the Prime Minister bowed low. + +"I have to thank your Majesty for relieving me of a great difficulty." + +"Oh, no, why should you? You have not persuaded me in the least; you +have merely forced me to a certain course, in which I still cannot +pretend that I agree." + +"I shall always recognize that your Majesty has acted on the highest +motives, both in opposing and in ceasing to oppose." + +"I shall ask you to remember that," said the King. + +"There shall never be any misunderstanding on my part," replied the +minister; and applying a palm to the hand graciously extended as though +its mere touch had power to heal, he took his leave, and the fateful +audience was over. + +For a long time after, the King stood looking at the door out of which +he had gone. + +"I think there has been a misunderstanding, though," he said to himself, +with a slow, faint smile, "and I don't think it is mine----" He paused. +"Perhaps, though, I had better write down exactly what I said." And +going to his desk he made there and then a careful memorandum of his +words. + +He read them over, and once again he smiled. He was still quite +contented with what he had done. "And I wonder," he said to himself, +"what Max would say if he knew?" + +There was a great surprise waiting for Max, and well might the King +wonder what that interesting young man would make of it. Yes, it was +just as well that Max should not know anything about it beforehand; Max +might run away. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A ROYAL COMMISSION + + + + +I + +While the King and the Prime Minister had thus been giving each other +shocks of a somewhat unpleasant character, Prince Max had received a far +pleasanter one. Only a week after the holding of the King's court the +lady of his dreams had written asking for an interview. + +The letter was not dated from the Archbishop's palace, but from the Home +of the Little Lay-Sisters; and it was thither that he repaired, in order +to forestall her humble yet amazing offer to wait upon him. + +In the bare, conventual parlor, with high walls that echoed resoundingly +and boards that smelt of soap, they met once more face to face and +alone. She courtesied low, addressed him formally as "sir," and thanked +him with due deference for coming; otherwise there was no change in her +demeanor. The flat-frilled cap showed within its border a delicate +ripple of hair, and above the fair breastplate of linen the face shone +with tender warmth like a white rose resting upon snow; and as her lips +moved in speech he re-encountered with a fervor of delight that curious +quality of look which had ever haunted his dreams--a communicativeness +not limited to words. Though it remained still her whole face spoke to +him; lips and eyes made music together--a harmony of two senses in +alliance, as into morning mist comes the yet unrisen light and the +hidden singing of birds. + +And yet all the while she was but saying quite ordinary things, making +brief the embarrassment of this their first meeting since their relative +positions had become explained. + +"I have taken you at your word, sir," she began. "When we last met you +asked if you could not be useful. Now you can." + +"Your remembrance makes me grateful," said the Prince. + +"Perhaps I ought not to be so confident," she went on, "since the idea +is only my own. It came from something I heard my father saying; and as +he strongly disapproves of women taking part in politics it was no use +saying anything to him." + +"Oh, politics?" That explanation rather surprised him. + +"Sometimes--just now and then," explained Sister Jenifer, "politics do +touch social needs: and to their detriment." + +"My acquaintance with politics," answered the Prince, "is +very--Chimerical," he added after a pause, pleased to have found the +term. + +"Yes," she smiled, "I have heard you. You are full of happy ideas, many +of them somewhat contradictory; but you have not yet fallen into any +groove. To you freedom means rebellion; you represent no vested +interest." + +"Is that my certificate of character?" + +"I had not finished," she said. "I was keeping the best to the last. You +have a great position and an open mind." + +"An important combination, you think?" + +"An unusual one." + +"And so you have an unusual proposition to make to me?" + +"Yes, I suppose you will think so. There is a brand I want plucked from +the burning--a Royal Commission saved from becoming merely official and +useless." + +"What is its subject?" + +"All this!"--she made an inclusive gesture--"slums, the conditions of +sweated labor, the daily material which we have to work on." + +"About which you have taught me that I know really nothing." + +"You said you were anxious to learn. At least half of that Commission +will be anxious not to learn--or not to let others." + +"Then you ought to be on it." + +"No woman is on it." + +"You wish them to be?" + +She threw out her hands. "What would be the use? Their voices would have +no weight." + +"Whose would?" + +"Yours," she said; and, eyeing him full, stopped dead. + +"You wish me to go upon that Commission?" cried Prince Max. + +"Yes." + +"In spite of all my ignorance?" + +"The sittings do not begin till late autumn; between now and then you +could get more actual knowledge--brought home and made visible to you, I +mean--than most of those who will form its majority." + +"Then you think I could be of use?" + +She looked at him, silent for a moment. "I think you have a mind capable +of taking fire, when it learns the facts." + +"Facts only deaden some people," said he. + +"Yes; that is what crushes us here. We have such mountains of facts to +deal with." + +"And you want fire to come down from those mountains and consume me?" + +She nodded prophetically. + +"I know you wouldn't run away." + +"I am trying to feel the call," said Max a little skeptically. And in +truth he was of divided mind, not because he had any doubt of his +ability, but because the temptation to insincerity was so strong. This +would give him the very opportunity he sought--through a vale of misery +he beheld the way to his own Promised Land; but was it fair that he +should take advantage of it without a heart of pity and conviction? This +Prince of ours rather prided himself on his conscientious scruples. + +"Will you tell me from the beginning," he said at last, "what put this +thought into your mind? I seem to be getting it only by fragments." + +"Three days ago," she answered, "I heard my father talking with others +of the projected Commission. They were dissatisfied at the Church not +being sufficiently represented--so insufficiently, indeed, that they +took it as an intentional slight, part of the Government's policy for +depriving the Bishops of all standing. It was held that further +representation was imperative." + +"What?" exclaimed Max; "am I to represent the Bishops, then?" + +She shook her head, laughing. "Oh, no!" she answered. "They found some +one very much better for themselves. That is the really immediate +danger. They are afraid that the Commission as it stands will issue +findings of a one-sided and party character, and that any minority +report, unless it obtained the chairman's signature, would have no +weight. Their main hope, therefore, is to secure a chairman of high +standing on whose help they can rely, and it is thought that the +Government could not oppose the nomination of a member of the Royal +Family. It would appeal to popular sentiment; and subject to his +Majesty's assent, his Royal Highness the Duke of Nostrum has expressed +his willingness to serve." + +Max had no great opinion of the collaterals of his grandfather--this one +least of all. "Oh, ye Heavens!" he exclaimed. "For what use these bones +of my ancestors? Why, with him to direct its deliberations, the +Commission will run on into the next century, and its report be only +applicable to the last!" Then, as he took stock of the situation, "And +are you expecting me to head the minority report instead of him?" he +inquired. + +"It is not their report I am concerned about," she answered, "and for +party I care little; it is the majority I fear. On paper the Commission +looks as if it meant business; Church and property have been squeezed +into one small corner, but the trade-interest is very strong; it is +there in concealed ways which outsiders cannot recognize, for even over +our public and medical departments--and still more in the press--it has +now got control. I can give you instance after instance of men known as +philanthropists whose riches come from sweated labor, and whose +munificent charities form not one tithe of their inhuman profits drained +from the lives of the very poorest. Some of them, great advertisers, are +to sit on this Commission, and all the press, irrespective of party, +will praise their appointment; while to defend their interests others +will be attacked. The Government may be quite ready as a temporary +expedient to make scapegoats of the property-owners, but it is not so +ready to antagonize trade. I believe, sir, that on this Commission the +real source of evil will never be traced; we shall hear of the grinding +middleman and the rack-renter, but nothing dangerous to these magnates, +or to the trade-system itself--unless----" She paused, and left silence +to carry her message. + +"Unless," supplemented Max, "some one thoroughly indiscreet occupies the +chair?" + +"Somebody," she replied, "whose minority report of one would attract all +the attention it deserved." + +"Oh, you think----?" His mind sparkled at the prospect: to be in a +minority of one had a peculiar fascination for him. + +"Yes, I think it may come to that," she said, "if you will honestly open +your eyes." + +"Then you cannot promise me the support of the Church?" + +She shook her head as though that were the last thing possible. + +"I am to be all alone?" His tone invited commiseration, while his brain +soared with the dreams of a hashish-eater. + +"I think about three may be with you, not more," she said, letting him +down to earth again. + +"Why are you so confident about me?" + +Her gentle gray eyes met his with friendly understanding. + +"When I found out who you were," she said, "I saw"--then she +hesitated--"I saw that you had the rare gift of doing naturally what one +would never expect." + +"In what way?" + +"To begin with, in coming here at all. And then you did things which, I +imagine, no prince ever did before, and did them quite easily--'for +fun,' I suppose you would say. Well, if you could do all that for fun, +what might you not do when you became serious? A man who doesn't mind +being laughed at--whatever his position--is very rare." + +"Ah!" cried Max, "but now you are giving me more credit than I deserve. +You set me to do ridiculous things for you--ridiculous, I mean, in one +dressed as I was for fashion and not for use--I was aware of it; but +nobody was aware of me. When I come here into these poor streets, I am +so unexpected that nobody recognizes me. If they thought that they did, +they would not believe their eyes. In that alone there is a sense of +enlargement and liberty which those who have not to live in our position +can hardly realize. It was like holiday; I felt as though I had been let +loose." + +"And so became more yourself?" + +"I cannot say; but I was happy while I was here. Why did you send me +away?" + +"For the same reason that I now ask you to come back. I wanted you to be +of use--independently." + +"Yet here I am dependent upon you again." + +"No; you have this in your own hands: it is your position." + +"That secures the chairmanship? But am I at all likely to be accepted?" + +"From what I hear, nobody suspects you of taking any great interest in +the life of the poor. They have therefore no reason to be afraid of +you." + +"I see," said Max. "As a figure-head chairman I might even be valuable." + +"Very, I have no doubt." + +"Part of the game?" + +"Royalty and Trade are supposed to be natural allies," remarked Sister +Jenifer. + +Max was startled at her discernment. "Oh, but that is true!" he cried. +"How wonderful, then, that you should be able to trust me at all." + +This set her smiling. "I had the advantage to begin with of not knowing +who you were." + +"And that gave you a start." + +"No, finding you out gave me the start." + +"You certainly have not lost time." + +"That I cannot say, till I have your answer." There was no temporizing +here. + +Max thought for a while, then drew breath and spoke. "I want you quite +to understand," he said, "that if I take up this work it will be very +largely for a personal reason. I daresay I shall, as you say, 'take +fire' when I know more about it; but at present I am not so moved. +Commissions do not attract me; and what I undertake I shall do solely on +faith--faith in you. Are you content that it should be so?" + +"For a beginning, yes." + +"Very well; something else follows. I shall need you for my guide." + +"I am always here at certain hours," she said. "But there are others who +know far more than I." + +He let that point go unregarded. + +"Then I may come to you for help?" + +"Always, if really you need it." + +"My needs shall be as real as I can make them," said Max. "How am I to +begin?" + +She named one or two books. "If you follow up what you read there," she +said, "you will find most of it practically demonstrated in this +district alone. For instance, we have a strike on just now among our +tailors and shirt-makers; the men have made the women come out with +them; they did not want to--women can exist under conditions where men +cannot. Go and mix with them, be among them for hours, attend their +street-corner meetings; you will hardly hear two ideas of any practical +value, but you will get many. It isn't theory that is wanted,--it is +that the life which thousands are living should be known and realized. +When the eye has seen, the heart follows. All we really want is +brotherhood; but how are we to bring it about?" + +"From that I am furthest away of all," said Prince Max. + +"No, no," she cried; "that is the great mistake! If kings are not the +very symbol of our community then they have no value left. May I tell +you two of the most kingly things I ever heard done in the present day? +The one was by the old King of Montenegro, the smallest of the Balkan +States. He found that his chief gentry were becoming lazy, too proud to +put their hands to labor--making idleness a class distinction. He sat +down in the courtyard of his palace and began to make shoes, and went on +making them daily while he held his Court and administered justice; and +so the new folly died." + +"And the other?" inquired the Prince. + +"It may seem far-fetched in the present connection," said she, "yet as +an expression of the real kingly instinct it has all that I mean. Some +years ago the heir to the English throne--the one who died young--went +out to India. One day he was holding a durbar of Indian chiefs, and they +with their retinues stood drawn up in parade ready to offer homage as he +passed along their ranks. Opposite was a great crowd of natives watching +the spectacle, and at a certain point in that crowd stood, as a mere +onlooker, one whom Britain had defeated and driven into exile, the old +Ameer of Afghanistan. Just before he rode down the Prince heard of it, +and had the man pointed out to him; and when he came there he wheeled +his horse about and gave the full royal salute. And through all that +great multitude went a thrill because the kingly thing had been done, +and all had seen it." + +Tears glistened in her eyes as she spoke. "He was rather a dull young +man," she went on, "so one has been told, but that was better than +brains, for that was the touch of human kindness done in the grand +manner which royalty makes possible, and ought to make natural--done +with a pride which has its place beside the humility of St. Francis." + +"Well, well," said Max, "put me in touch then, and I will see what I can +do. But I haven't the grand manner, you know." + + +II + +The King was considering the request of his revered uncle, the Duke of +Nostrum, to preside over the Commission on slums, when Max came, asking +also to be made useful. + +"What, you too?" cried his Majesty; "isn't one of us enough?" + +"Quite," said Max. "I want to be that one." + +"What are your qualifications?" + +"Willingness," said Max, "a brain capable of taking fire at facts, a +great position, and an open and rebellious mind. I am quoting from +authority; I was given my certificate yesterday." + +To his Majesty this was merely the voice of Max at his flightiest. +"Well," he said, "your Uncle Nostrum happens to have come first." + +"Do you always grant first applications?" + +"He has had much more experience." + +"Of slums?" inquired Max. + +"Of commissions, and all that sort of thing. He has sat on them." + +"So he has--the elephant! And they have died the death." + +"He works," said the King, "and you don't! You only talk." + +"I only talk!" cried the injured Max; his voice went up to Heaven +appealing against parental injustice. "Has he ever in his life been down +into the slums and spent whole days there, as I have? Has he carried +buckets for washing-sisters of charity, as I have; and borne upon his +back the beds of the dying, as I have?" + +"You?" cried the King with incredulity. + +"I do not publish these things upon the housetops," said Max, "but in +the secrecy of your chamber and in strict confidence I tell you that +they are true. And while I, for many anxious weeks, have been toiling to +qualify for this post, he, this Nostrum, this patent-drug from our royal +medicine-chest, this soporific sedative----" + +"Max, Max!" reproved his father. + +"He rushes in where an angel has feared to tread, and filches from me +my reward!" + +"My dear boy, are you serious?" cried the King. + +"I was never more serious in my life, father," replied his son. "But in +order to arrest your attention I have to be theatrical. Now if you will +really believe what I am going to say I will drop play-acting. I have, +as I tell you, been down into our slum districts, I have been among the +slum workers, means have been offered me for studying these problems at +first hand, and I am prepared,--from this week on when Parliament rises, +and the metropolis empties itself of pleasure, and you have gone sadly +to your annual cure at Bad-as-Bad,--I am prepared to devote the whole of +my time and energy to qualifying for this post; and with Heaven helping +me, I will make it the most astonishing and effective Royal Commission +that ever sat down believing itself on cushions to find that it was on a +hornets' nest." + +"You are becoming theatrical again," said the King. + +"No, no," said Max, "but my brain is taking fire; an angel warned me of +it in a dream, and behold it has come true. I have been seeing things." + +"Your Uncle Nostrum won't be pleased," remarked the King. + +"He never is," said Max. "Discontent is his prevailing virtue. Give +himself something to be discontented about, then he can go down to his +house justified." + +"The Prime Minister has already recommended him," went on the King, "at +least, said he would not oppose; but I don't know what he'll say to +this." + +"Nor do I," said Max, "and I don't care; neither do you." + +The King opened his eyes as though he had been surprised in some +secret--how did Max know that? And then his mind traveled a few months +further on; yes, it was quite true, he did not now care in the least. +What he had made up his mind to do had released him from all ministerial +terrors; and as he contemplated the relief in his own case his thoughts +turned to that bright youth over whose head so unlooked-for a fate was +now impending; how dramatic it would be! And here was Max, all +unbeknownst, harnessing himself to the wheels of State, pledged, unable +to run away. It was just one more turn in the toils which a +simple-minded man of gentle and retiring character was able to wind +around the scheming lives of others. By at last daring to be himself he +had become a power. + +"Very well. I will see that it is arranged," he said. "Yes, it is +perhaps time you had some experience in presiding over--over boards and +all that sort of thing. I shan't last for ever; I don't feel like it." +And he shook his head sadly, for he liked to be sorry for himself; +nothing helped him more to bear up under the troubles of life. + +"My dear father," said Max, with some fondness of tone, "you know that +the prospect of going for your cure always depresses you; but as you +insist on doing it you must pay the penalty. And when you are taking +those waters which so upset your digestion, and deprive you of the flesh +which nature meant you to wear, then think of me--not talking any +longer, but really up and doing--preparing myself at last to follow in +your footsteps. Now in this land of Jingalo, in the very heart of its +social and commercial system, I am going to make history." + +"Oh, you think so?" said the King to himself. "Young man, before you +have much more than begun, you may have to come out of it! You can't do +that sort of thing when you are in my shoes." + +And then he bade Max a benevolent good-bye and went off to his cure; and +Max, assured of his seat upon the forthcoming Commission, went off to +his. + + +III + +"How am I to dress for this business?" Max had inquired; it was one of +the first practical problems to be solved, and an important one. + +"If you don't mind," said Sister Jenifer, "you had better dress like a +Socialist. Wear a very soft hat, a very low collar, and a very red or +green tie, done loose in the French fashion, and nobody will wonder at +your looking clean, or at your asking questions. Young Socialists come +here to study the social problem and to show themselves off, and in a +vague sort of way the people have begun to understand them; and though +they look upon them as cranks, they don't any longer think they are +inspectors or charity agents--the two things you must avoid." + +"Dress," said Max, "has a very subtle effect upon the character. At a +fancy-dress ball, last season, I wore a Cardinal's robe--there is a +portrait of one in the British National Gallery rather like me--and it +took me a month to get rid of the effects. If I turn into a Socialist, +therefore, it will be upon your advice." + +"As far as politics go it matters very little what you turn into," said +Sister Jenifer. + +"What a statement!" exclaimed Max. + +"It is perfectly true," she said. "At present what we are fighting is +ignorance and indifference; in comparison to that the mere theory of +government doesn't matter, for nothing is going to succeed while one +half of society neither knows nor cares how the other half lives. Your +politicians are welcome to any theories they can find tenable, if only +they will face facts." + +"What are your own politics?" + +"I haven't any; I haven't room for them. My only aim is just to get that +one half of the community to come and look with understanding at the +other half; and then service, I know, would follow. It won't until they +do." + +"Well, you are making me look," said Max. + +"Yet I have not been able to make my father." + +"Has he never been here?" + +"He has opened churches." + +"Well, you believe in prayer." + +"That depends on how you define it." + +"I wanted to ask you that. You are only a lay-sister; but some of you +have taken vows--for a period, at all events." + +"That is all the Church allows; but it makes little difference since +they can always renew." + +"Those who have taken vows--do they give themselves entirely up to +prayer?" + +"No, but they entirely depend upon it." + +"Depend--how?" + +"They could not do their work without it. You asked me for definition: I +can only give you example. Some of our sisters quite literally cannot +face what they have to do except after prayer; otherwise their flesh +would revolt." + +"Is it such horrible work?" + +"They will not tell you so; but I know that it must be. You see I am +rather an outsider. My father only allowed me to come here on certain +conditions; and with the inner side of our work here I have nothing to +do; I understand nothing about it." + +Her face flushed slightly under his gaze, the faint, troubled flush of +maidenhood which apprehends an evil of which it may not know the +conditions; and he saw by swift intuition that this sincere spirit was +ashamed of its own ignorance. His mind darted a guess that he had before +him, in fact, an inexperience of life underlying intimate acquaintance +with grief and poverty which he would not have believed to be possible. +And oh, sexually, how it redoubled her beauty and charm! Yes, he could +not deny that so unnatural a combination attracted him, and yet it +enraged him also. A few moments ago he had heard from this woman's lips +a declaration that no help could come till half and half made up one +whole in knowledge and understanding; and yet there she stood--if his +guess was right--hesitant and bashful on the borders of that great +central problem about which parental authority had decreed she was to +know nothing; an example set before him of that idealistic waste of +womanhood which is for ever going on, and which for bad practical +reasons society is always encouraging. For depend upon it the practical +social result is what we men are really afraid of--not lest our women +should lose either modesty or charm, but lest with knowledge they should +apply themselves too ruthlessly to practical ends, and set upon their +charm a price which hitherto we have avoided having to pay. And as he so +moralized upon the relations of sex, a sentimental desire grew in him to +kneel down there and then at her feet and tell her how good a young man +from his point of view he had always been--and how bad a one from hers. + +For the time being he resisted that temptation; other things that he was +not yet sure of must come first; for before we can allow the beloved to +think ill of us at all she must first think far better of us than we +deserve. Then for the letting-down process there is a safe margin left, +and confession becomes a luxury with no danger involved; since to see +himself retrospectively pardoned by a heart virginally pure has surely +restored to many a weary and disillusioned sensualist a better opinion +of himself than he could ever have hoped to refurbish by his own +efforts. That, oh ye men about town, is a good woman's mission in life; +that is what she is for--when the watch has run down she winds it up +again and sets it domestically ticking. And that she may continue to do +so, let us keep her from all knowledge independently acquired. When we +ourselves bring her the evidence, having first packed her fond jury of a +heart, then we can also dictate verdict and sentence, and the world will +run on in the grooves to which we have accustomed it. + +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. + + +IV + +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-- + + 'And black is white, + And wrong is right, + If it be Thy sweet Will.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE + + + + +I + +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. + + +II + +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." + + +IV + +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, attaches, 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?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A PROMISSORY NOTE + + + + +I + +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!" + + +II + +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 melee. 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." + + +IV + +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." + +"Is she so very beautiful, then?" + +"You have seen her, sir, and you have not remembered her. I did not mean +that sort of beauty." + +"Ah, then, you are really in love." + +"Ludicrously," confessed Max. + +"My dear boy, I am very sorry for you." + +"Oh, you need not be, sir; I am quite sure of myself at last; and by +refusing to marry anybody else I have only to wait and you will have to +yield to my request." + +"You may have to wait a long time," began the King, and then he stopped; +for looking into the future he saw Max in a new light, that same fierce +light which had beaten upon himself for the last twenty-five years, +preventing him from doing so many things he had wished to do. It would +prevent Max too. + +"But I want your consent now, father," said the young man; and there was +something of real affection in his voice. + +"Why can't you wait till I am dead?" + +"That would be selfish of me. Do you not want to see me happy first?" + +But to that the King only shook his head. + +"It won't do, Max, it won't do. The Archbishop wouldn't like it either," +he went on, trying to get back to the political aspect again. "It would +be terribly damaging to him. With a connection like that, leadership of +his party would become impossible." + +"Have we to consider the political ambitions of an archbishop?" + +"You would have to get his consent." + +"I don't think so. All she bargained for was yours. I told her I would +get it; and she did not believe me." + +"You make me wish that I were altogether out of the way." + +"Quite unnecessary, I'm sure." + +"Ah, but if you were in my position then you'd see--then you'd +understand. You couldn't do it; you simply couldn't do it." + +The King was now saying what he really believed, and at the sound of his +own voice telling him he realized that all he had to do was to temporize +and time would bring its own solution. If Max were King he could no more +do this thing than he could fly. Why, then, should he trouble himself? + +To cover his change of ground he continued the argument, and on every +point allowed Max to beat him (he could not probably have prevented it, +but that was the way he put it to himself), and finally, when he felt +that he could in decency throw up the sponge, he let Max have his +way--or the way to it, which was the same thing. + +"Well," he said, "I can't give you my consent all at once. I must have +time to turn round and think about it; you must have time too. But +if----" here he paused and did a short sum of mental arithmetic. "Yes," +he went on, "if in two months from now you find me still upon the +throne--and I'm sure I don't know that you will with the way things are +going and all the worry I've had--but if you do, and are still of the +same mind about it, then you may come to me and I will give you my +consent." + +A quiet, rapturous smile passed over the face of Max. "May I have that +in writing, sir?" he said. + +The King was rather taken aback, and a little affronted. "Do you doubt +my word?" he demanded. + +"Not in the least, but it is your consent I have to get. You might have +a stroke, or lose your memory; you might even die, and there should I be +left stranded. My love is so great that I can let it run no risks. And +therefore, sir, if you will be so good, a promissory note to take effect +in two months' time." + +"You won't tell your mother?" said the King, halting, pen in hand. + +Max shook his head sagely. "Nobody shall know," said he. "No filter +could contain such news as this." He took the precious document from the +King's hand, folded it, and put it away. + +"By the way, sir," he said, "in a week or two I shall be sending you my +book." + +"I am afraid it is going to shock people," said his father. + +"Not nearly so much as this." Max touched his breast pocket and smiled. +"I will confess now, sir, that I really had hardly a hope: if I said so +just now, I lied. And if a son may ever tell his father that he is proud +of him, let that pleasure to-day be mine." + +They parted on the best of terms. "I wonder," thought the King to +himself, "whether he will be quite so pleased and proud two months +hence." + +His countenance saddened, and he sighed. "Poor boy," he said. He was +very fond of Max. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HEADS OR TAILS + + + + +I + +It is no use pretending that all history is equally interesting, even +though the facts which it contains are necessary for an understanding of +what follows. And I am well aware that much of this history so far has +been very dull. We have been exploring interiors, moldy institutions, +cast-iron conventions, and one poor human mind,--with a tap on the back +of its head as an incentive--wriggling to find a way out. But from this +point on you see him wriggling no more; the slow wave of his resolve has +crept to its crest and now breaks into foam. + +A month has now passed by; and four weeks hence the enamored Max will be +coming for his answer--Max asking for the impossible thing. Like the man +who set fire to the tail of his night-shirt in order to stop the +hiccoughs, so now John of Jingalo had at his heels that terror of his +own planting driving him on. Perhaps nothing else would have given him +the courage. + +The day for the last Council meeting had arrived, the last before the +closing of that long session of Parliament which, beginning in February, +had run on at intervals into November. Then only a brief month, and the +winter session with the new Government program would open. + +It was to this Council that the Cabinet's latest scheme for squeezing +the Bishops out of the Constitution was to be presented; and for that to +be possible, since he was so great a stickler for constitutional +propriety, the King's consent had been necessary. A few days before, +therefore, the Prime Minister had once more formally submitted the +question; and the King had given his leave. "Produce what you like, Mr. +Premier; I will no longer stand in your way." + +The brief autumn session was closing with a clangor of agitation which +had not been heard in Jingalo for half a century at least. Everybody +outside the machinery of party was profoundly dissatisfied with the +parliamentary system and with all its doings and undoings; and this +general dissatisfaction was being quaintly expressed by a refusal to let +Parliament rise. The Women Chartists were battering at its closed doors; +and from peep-holes and other points of vantage within, smiling and +indifferent legislators saw those bruised bodies, those strangely +obsessed minds, those indomitable spirits carried off to magisterial +lack of judgment and to prison. + +With a good deal more concern they saw strikes breaking out in their own +constituencies, and riot becoming the normal accompaniment of the +industrial demand for better conditions. Three strike leaders were in +prison under sentence of death for having killed by purposeful accident +a few over-zealous policemen; and from great working centers over a +hundred miles away thousands of men were marching to demand remittance +of the death penalty. + +The Government was, in consequence, in a great hurry to get the session +closed. It was an undignified scramble of the red-tape worms of various +departments to be well out of the way before those slow, heavily shod +feet of labor arrived upon the scene. At every town they came to they +stopped, made inflammatory speeches, gathered funds and adherents, and +then, a swelled body of discontent, marched stolidly on toward the +capital; and this not from one point alone but from half-a-dozen at +once. If there was not to be conflict between the police and these +converging forces, appeasement of some sort must be devised, or official +vacuum must be there to meet them. + +And behind all this was the ministerial fear that, if they were not +quick about it, it would be impossible to close Parliament with due +ceremony. The Lord High Functionary had put it bluntly to the Prime +Minister. "If those men get here we can't have out the piebald ponies +and the state coach; they wouldn't stand it." + +And as the piebald ponies and the state coach were necessary for the +prestige of the Government and for proof that the King and his ministers +were working amicably together, therefore the red-tape worms were all +wriggling their level best under pressure from above, and in the small +hours every morning millions of public money were being voted into the +hands of the Government by an obedient majority of sleepy legislators, +bound by party loyalty neither to criticise nor to control. + +It was in the midst of affairs thus disarranged that on a morning three +days before the rising of Parliament the Royal Council met, and awaited +with official calm the advent of its titular head. + +Since his outbreak of a few months ago the King had once more become +amenable to that deferential guidance which was his due; and now word +had gone round that all further opposition was to be withdrawn, and the +Ministry to have its way. + +And so the _piece de resistance_ is at last in full brew and we see the +twenty cooks of the national broth waiting without any trepidation of +spirit for the royal flavoring to arrive. And they talk among themselves +in carefully modulated tones; for it is not etiquette, when the doors +are thrown open to the royal presence, that the King should hear +conversation going on. + +The Prime Minister enters a little later than the rest, carrying his +brief, and moves to his place near the head of the board through a +circle of congratulatory looks and smiles. For all know that in this +long bout with titular kingship, obstinate for the preservation of its +rights, the representative of Cabinet control has won, and that a new +and very comfortable stage in the subservience of monarchy to +ministerial ends has been attained. + +And how quietly this important little bit of constitutional revolution +has been carried through!--without any passing of laws or petition of +rights, merely by internal pressure judiciously applied. And Jingalo, +that well-represented State governed by the popular will, knows nothing +of what has been done; like a body in absolute health it is unconscious +of the working of those vital functions so necessary for its +constitutional development. Oh, admirable popular will! in searching for +your whereabouts and to come into touch with you, old monarchy has had +yet another tumble--and at the right and preconcerted time will reach +the ground without any outward revolution at all. + +If these or suchlike thoughts were in the mind of the Cabinet, just then +they were diverted by the sound of opening doors; and there entered, not +the King himself, but a Court functionary in full dress attended by two +others, and bearing before him on a crimson cushion a sealed document. + +A few eyebrows went up; what revival of old forms was this? The +functionary advanced and with a low bow presented the document not to +the Prime Minister, but to the Lord President of the Council. "By his +Majesty's gracious command," said he, "a message from his Majesty the +King to his faithful people." + +Then, with another bow, the Court functionary withdrew. + +The Lord President looked at the seal in some embarrassment, for he did +not quite know how to break it; it was very large, some three inches +across, and was composed of a wax of specially resistant quality. + +"Cut it!" said the Prime Minister, and to that end he presented his +pocket-knife. + +The document was opened; and the Lord President and Prime Minister, +glancing together at its contents, suddenly went white. + +"Gentlemen," said the Lord President (his voice and hands trembled as he +spoke), "his Majesty the King abdicates!" + + +II + +Around that ministerial board it would have been amusing to an impartial +onlooker to see how many mouths of grave and reverend Councilors did +actually open and drop chins of dismay. A gust of horror and +astonishment blew round the assembly; it was a word unknown in the +Jingalese Constitution; no place had been there provided for it,--it had +never been done. Strictly speaking--legally speaking, that is to say--it +could not be done. Kings had been deposed, exiled, their heads cut +off--all without their own consent--but never without the consent of +Parliament, or of some portion of it at all events. Yet nothing whatever +could prevent it; for clearly on this point the King could insist; but, +if he did, the Constitution would be in the melting-pot, and the +consequences could not be foreseen. What right had this pelican in piety +to go pecking his own breast and shedding the blood of his ancestors? +Viewed in any constitutional light it was a revolutionary and bloody +deed. + +The Prime Minister was not slow to see its bearing on the whole +political situation and on the fortunes of his ministry. + +"Gentlemen," said he, "if this abdication is allowed to take effect, our +plans are defeated and the Government must go." + +"You mean we shall have to resign?" + +"We cannot even do that; we are forestalled. Though not yet publicly +announced this is an absolute abdication here and now." And then that +all might hear, the Lord President proceeded to read out the terms. + +"WE, John, by the Grace of God, King of Jingalo, Suzerain of Rome, +Leader of the Forlorn Hope, and Crowned Head of Jerusalem, do hereby +solemnly declare, avow, render, and deliver by this as Our own act, +freely undertaken and accomplished for the good, welfare, comfort, and +succor of the Realm of Jingalo and of its People, that now and from this +day henceforward. WE do utterly renounce, relinquish, and abjure all +claim to rank, titles, honors, emoluments, and privileges holden by US +in virtue of OUR inheritance and succession as true and rightful +Sovereign Lord of the said Realm of Jingalo. And for the satisfying of +OUR Royal Conscience and the better safety and security of those things +aforetime committed to OUR trust and keeping, under the Constitution of +the said Realm of Jingalo; to the preservation whereof WE are bound by +oath, therefore WE do now pronounce, publish, and set forth, that it +may be known to all, this OUR ABDICATION, made in the 25th year of OUR +reign and given under OUR hand and signet----" + +Then came date and signature; and following these the old form of mixed +German and Latin, without which no State document was complete--"Der Rex +das vult." + +When the reading ended there was a short pause. Here at all events, in +their very ears, history was being incredibly made. + +"Remarkably well drawn," observed Professor Teller, admiringly: "copied, +you may be interested to learn, from the actual instrument wrung by +Parliament out of King Oliver the Second under threat of torture four +hundred years ago. As legal and regular a form, therefore, as it would +be possible to devise." + +"You mean we shall have to recognize it?" + +"If we recognize anything at all." + +"Gentlemen," said the Prime Minister, "it must not be recognized; it +would mean for us not merely defeat but disaster. As against the Bishops +we have a certain amount of popular opinion to back us; but if once it +appears that dislike for our policy has driven the King into abdication, +then our ruin will be immediate and irremediable. We have to recognize +that during the past year his popularity has greatly increased, while +our own, to say the most, is stationary." + +"Yes, and he knows it!" said the Minister of the Interior, bitterly. + +"I call it a treacherous and a cowardly act!" exclaimed the Secretary +for War. + +"He is trying to bully us!" said the Commissioner-General. + +"I should say that he is succeeding," remarked Professor Teller in a dry +tone. "Had we not better recognize, gentlemen, that his Majesty has made +a very shrewd hit? Can we not--compromise?" + +"Impossible!" asseverated the Prime Minister. "It is too late." + +Professor Teller leaned back in his chair and let the discussion flow +on. His attitude was noticeable; he was the only minister who was taking +it sitting down. + +"When does this abdication take effect?" asked one. "I mean, how long +can it be kept from the press?" + +"Who knows? If his Majesty has done one mad thing he may have done +another." + +"I must see him at once," said the Premier, "this cannot be allowed to +go on." + +"You will have to take a very firm tone." + +"I would suggest that we all send in our portfolios." + +"We have tried that once; he would not accept them now, and we have no +power to make him." + +"No; that is the damnable thing! That is what makes his position so +strong." + +"Do you think he knows?" + +"Of course; why else has he done it? It's really clever; that's what I +can't get over, he has done a clever thing!" + +"Who can have put it into his head?" + +"It is the most unjustifiable stretch of the royal prerogative that ever +I heard of." + +"There's no prerogative about it; it's sheer revolution and rebellion." + +"An attack on the Constitution, I call it." + +Thus they talked. + +"Strange!" murmured Professor Teller, irritating them with his +philosophic tone and his detached air,--"strange that when it threatens +itself with extinction monarchy becomes powerful." + +"It is no question of extinction," said the Prime Minister tetchily; "we +should still have his successor to deal with; and Prince Max, I can tell +you, gentlemen, is a very dark horse. You all know what happened three +months ago; and now, within the last week, we have learned that he is +publishing a book--a revolutionary book with his own name to it. You may +take it from me that if he comes to the throne our present scheme for +the evolution of the Cabinet system will be over. Anything may happen! +Read his book and you will understand." + +"Has any one yet seen it?" + +"A privately procured copy has been shown me; it was by the merest +chance we heard of it. I could only read it very hurriedly in the small +hours; it had to go back where it came from." + +"Is it a serious matter?" + +"Perfectly appalling." + +"And are you going to allow it to be published?" + +"How can we prevent? It is being printed abroad." + +And then spoke the Prefect of the Police, holding technical place upon +the Council as Minister of Secret Service. + +"Over the present edition, gentlemen, you may make your minds quite +easy. I have received intelligence that last night the establishment at +which it was being printed was burned to the ground." + +The Premier cast a keen and confidential glance at his colleague. + +"How much does that involve?" he asked. + +"Only the insurance company, I should suppose." + +"I meant of the book?" + +"Oh! everything except the manuscript. There will be no publication this +year at any rate." + +"I make you my compliments," said the Prime Minister, "on the +particularity and speed with which your department has become informed. +That at all events gives us time." + +"And meanwhile?" + +"I must see the King immediately. It is no use our remaining here to +discuss a situation that is not yet explained. The first thing to find +out is whether this has gone any further; but I do not think his Majesty +really means it as anything more than a threat." + +"Had you no hint that it was coming?" inquired the Commissioner-General. + +The Prime Minister was on his way to the door. "No," he said; "not a +word." And then he paused, as the particular meaning of a certain +carefully chosen and repeated phrase flashed on him for the first time. +"He said to me yesterday--repeating what he said four months ago when we +tendered our resignations--'I will no longer stand in your way.' And now +I suppose we have it." + +"Good Heavens!" cried the Minister of the Interior, "does he call this +not standing in our way?" + +The Prime Minister cast an expressive glance at his chagrined and +embarrassed following--a glance of self-confidence and determination, +one which still said "Depend upon me!" + +But only from one of his colleagues was there any look of answering +confidence, or speech confirming it. + +"When you are disengaged, Chief, may I have a few moments?" + +It was the Prefect who spoke, a man of few words. + +Eye to eye they looked at each other for a brief spell. + +The Prime Minister nodded. "Come to me in two hours' time," he said. "We +shall know then where we are." And so saying he left the room. + + +III + +In the next two days a good many things happened; but carried through in +so underground and secret a fashion that it is only afterwards we shall +hear of them. And so we come to the last day of all; for on the morrow +Parliament closes and when that is done the King's abdication is to +become an acknowledged and an accomplished fact. + +It was evening. His Majesty had just given a final audience to the Prime +Minister; the interview had been a painful one, and still the ground of +contention remained the same. But the demeanor of the head of the +Government had altered; he had tried bullying and it had failed; now in +profound agitation he had implored the King for the last time to +withdraw his abdication, and his Majesty had refused. + +"I will close Parliament for you," he said, "since you wish it; it will +be a fitting act for the conclusion of my reign. But my conscience +forbids any furthering on my part of your present line of policy; and as +I cannot prevent that obstacle from existing, in accordance with my +promise I remove it altogether from the scene." + +"But your Majesty's abdication is the greatest obstacle of all, it is a +profound upheaval of the whole constitutional system; and its acceptance +will involve a far, far greater expenditure of time than we are able to +contemplate or to provide for. I am bound, therefore, to appeal from the +letter of your Majesty's promise (which no doubt you have observed) to +the spirit in which as I conceive it was made." + +"When I made it, Mr. Prime Minister, I had no spirit left. Nothing +remained to me but the letter of my authority, and even that was dead. I +told you that I would no longer stand in your way, and I will keep my +word." + +"By throwing us into revolution!" + +"By throwing you upon your own resources. You have been working very +assiduously for single chamber government, you may now secure it in your +own way." + +"Your Majesty takes a course entirely without precedent." + +"What?--Abdication?" + +"Against the wish or consent of Parliament." + +"Ah, yes," said the King, "that is precisely the difference. Abdications +have, like ministerial resignations, been forced upon us--I mean on +kings in the past--at very unseasonable times and in most inconsiderate +ways; and we kings have had to put up with it. Mr. Prime Minister, it is +your turn now; and I only hope that you may find as clean a way out of +your difficulty as I had to find when four months ago you threatened me +with a resignation which you knew I could not accept." + +The Prime Minister's face became drawn with passion; but there was no +more to be said after that. "Is that your Majesty's final word?" he +inquired. + +"I hope so," said the King, rising and making a formal offer of his +hand. + +And so the interview ended. + +Left alone the King felt badly in need of comfort, for now in the hour +of triumph depression had begun to enter his soul. He did not like +hurting people even when he was not fond of them; and on the Prime +Minister's face as he went out he had seen something like tragedy. "Is +he going to cut his throat?" he wondered; but, no, it was not the look +of a beaten man--rather that of a gambler prepared to make his last +throw. + +The King had already made his own--he had nothing more to do; and now he +wanted companionship, some one to humor him with more understanding and +sympathy than his own wife could supply. And it so happened that just +then his only two possible comforters were away. Max had gone to the +Riviera to recruit before the regular sittings of the Commission began, +and Charlotte three days ago had taken that leave of absence which had +been promised her; for in less than a month's time the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser would be paying his promised visit. + +As he could not have the society he craved he chose solitude, and +wandered out into the deepening dusk of the November garden; and there, +gazing up through its now thinned foliage at the quiet and misty heavens +above him, thought of steeplejacks and the death of kings, and how at +the root of every great downfall in history there had probably been some +poor human heart like his own, conscious of failure, longing for the +kindred touch which pride of place makes so impossible. And yet he knew +that he had brought himself to a better end than, with all the defects +of his qualities, he could ordinarily have hoped to secure; perhaps this +dramatic taking of himself off (which he felt in a way to be so out of +character) would help Max to make something out of the situation +startling and unexpected. But Max would have to give up the idea of +marrying the Archbishop's daughter. + +The quiet, dusky paths had led him to a point where high walls carefully +shrouded in creepers shut off the royal stables from view. Through +circular barred grilles he could hear the noise of horses champing in +their stalls; and the comfortable sound drew him round to the entrance. +Opening a wicket, he stood in a dimly lighted court, but the buildings +surrounding it contained plenty of light, and in the harness rooms a +brisk sound of furbishing went on. + +Turning to the left he passed into the largest stable of all, a spacious +and well-aired chamber of corridor-like proportions divided up into +stalls. To right and left of him stood the famous piebald ponies, +lazily munching fodder and settling down to their last sleep before the +unusual exertions which would be required of them on the morrow. + +But these pampered minions did not know as he did what the morrow had in +store: how, for the sake of effect, they would be harnessed to a huge +obsolete coach weighing a couple of tons, each clad in an elaborate +costume of crimson and gold weighing by itself considerably more than a +full-grown rider. To the King this presumed ignorance of theirs was a +matter for envy; he knew his own part in the affair well enough; the +thought of it oppressed him. + +He walked down the double line--twelve in all--pausing now and then to +take a closer look and judge of their condition, but keeping always at a +respectful distance, for he was aware that almost without exception they +were an ill-tempered crew. Contemplating the astonishing rotundity of +their well-filled bodies, the spacious ease of their accommodation, the +outward dignity of circumstances, and the absolute lack of freedom which +conditioned their whole existence, he was struck with the resemblance +between himself and them; and recalling how, with a similar sense of +kinship, St. Francis had preached to the lower forms of life he too +became imbued with the spirit of homily and prophecy, though it did not +actually find its way into words. + +"You and I, little brothers"--so might we loosely interpret the +meditations of his heart--"you and I are much of a muchness, and can +sing our 'Te Deum' or our 'Nunc Dimittis' in almost the same words. We +are both of a carefully selected breed and of a diminished usefulness. +But because of our high position we are fed and housed not merely in +comfort but in luxury; and wherever we go crowds stand to gape at us and +applaud when we nod our heads at them. We live always in the purlieus of +palaces, and never have we known what it is to throw up our heels in a +green pasture, nor in our old age are we turned out comfortably to +grass--only to Nebuchadnezzar by accident came that thing, and he did +not appreciate it as he should have done. Never shall we go into battle +to prove that we are worth our salt, and to say 'Ha, Ha' to the fighting +and the captains; nor is it allowed to us to devour the ground with our +speed: whenever we attempt such a thing it is cut from under us. Little +brothers, it is before all things necessary that we should behave; for +being once harnessed to the royal coach, if any one of us struck work or +threw out our heels we should upset many apple-carts and the machinery +of the State would be dislocated. Let us thank God, therefore, that long +habit and training have made us docile, and that our backs are strong +enough to bear the load that is put upon them, and that if one of us +goes another immediately fills his place so that he is not missed." + +In a vague, unformulated way this was the homily which arose from his +meditations; and if he thought at all specially of himself and present +circumstances, it was merely as an insignificant exception which proved +the general rule. + +As he strolled back again he stopped at the door and spoke to the man in +charge. + +"They all seem very fit, Jacobs," said he. "They do you credit, I must +say." + +"Fit they are, your Majesty!" said the man, beaming with satisfied +pride; "and so they ought to be, considering the trouble we've took with +'em. We've been polishing them like old pewter for days. Ah! they know +what's coming; and you can see 'em just longing for it." + +"Oh, they like it, do they?" + +"Believe me, your Majesty, they couldn't live without it. It's in the +blood--been in 'em from father to son. Why, if we didn't take 'em out to +help us open and shut Parliament and things of that sort, they'd think +we was mad." + +This was a new point of view; the King listened to it with respectful +interest, and then a fresh thought occurred to him. + +"Jacobs," he said, "did one of them ever refuse to go?--on a public +occasion, I mean." + +"Well, yes, your Majesty, it did once happen; before my time, though. +One of 'em--ah, it was at a funeral, too--he stuck his heels into the +ground and couldn't be got to start, not for love or money." + +"Which did they offer him?" + +"Ask pardon, your Majesty?--Oh, just my manner of speaking, that was. +Wouldn't go except on his own terms." + +"And what were they?" + +"Well, your Majesty, he was a clever one, you see, he was; they aren't +generally. But he, he'd got a taste for his own set of harness--knew it +by the smell, I suppose, and when they come to put it on him a bit of it +broke, and he wouldn't wear anything else. That's how it all come +about." + +"They tried, I suppose?" + +"Oh, they got it on him; and they got him out, before all the crowd, +with the guns going and the handkerchiefs a-waving--Ah, no; but that was +a funeral though--there weren't no handkerchiefs that day. Well, there +he was; and when he felt they was all looking at him, and the +perishables kept waiting behind----" + +"The perishables?" + +"The corpse, sir;--then he wouldn't move." + +"Very embarrassing, I must say." + +"You see, your Majesty, they couldn't beat him in public--not as he +deserved; 'twouldn't have been respectful to what was there. They had to +do that afterwards. But, believe me, he stopped the whole show for +twenty minutes and more; and they never used _him_ again." + +"What became of him?" + +"Oh, he was just kept, in case; but he weren't never used--he was +reckoned too risky after that. Oh, and he felt it too; I haven't a doubt +but he did. They don't like only to be one of the extras, they don't." + +"What does that mean?" + +"Why, you see, sir, there's always four extras here, in case of +accident; and believe me, your Majesty, when the four extras to-morrow +find 'emselves left out they'll squeal for hours, and it won't be safe +to go near 'em, not for days. Blood's a wonderful thing, sir, wonderful! +And they know, just as well as you or me." + +"And what becomes of them when they grow old?" + +"Well, sir, they make saddle-cloths of 'em for the band of the +forty-ninth Hussars. Your Majesty may have reckonized 'em; most people +think it's giraffe skin, but it's really our old ponies." + +"So they come in useful even at the last?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, they ends well, one can't deny that; and they have to be +in pretty good condition too. So they aren't none of 'em what you might +call really old." + +"Very interesting," said the King. "What a great deal there is in the +world that one doesn't know till one comes to inquire." + +"About horses? Your Majesty's right there!" said the man; and his tone +spoke volumes of the things which would never be written, but which +those who had the care of horses knew. + +As the King moved away from that brief colloquy, one phrase in +particular stuck in his mind. "He was reckoned too risky after that." +Was that, he wondered, what the Prime Minister was thinking about him +now; had he, indeed, proved himself too risky for future use? If so +there would be no yielding at the eleventh hour; and perhaps it was as +well that to-morrow would see him harnessed to the royal coach for the +last time. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A DEED WITHOUT A NAME + + + + +I + +The King and Queen sat in their state coach responding with low bows to +the plaudits of the crowd. Their velvets and ermines lay heavy upon +them, for although it was now November, the day was close and warm, and +there seemed to be thunder in the air. + +The King, in this his Jubilee year, had resumed wearing his crown on +great State occasions, for he found that the people liked it. He had +worn it at the Foot-washing; and every one then admitted that it gave +the true symbolic touch to the whole ceremony. And now for the last +time he was wearing it again. + +Artistically he was right; a cocked hat, of nineteenth-century pattern, +does not accord well with robes in the style of the sixteenth. In some +countries that mistake is made by royalty out of compliment to the army; +but if on these State occasions sartorial compliments are to be paid +irrespective of the general effect, then surely your monarch should wear +a wig as representative of the law, lawn-sleeves in honor of the Church, +and divide the rest of his person impartially between the army, the +navy, and the doctors. Thus all the great professions would receive +their due recognition, and we should presently find so symbolical a +combination just as harmonious and dignified, and as pregnant with +meaning, as we do the heraldic quarterings by which the mixed blood of +ancestry is so proudly displayed. We can get accustomed to anything if +there is a good reason for it; but when we cease to be reasonable, +beauty should be our only guide. In this case reason as well as beauty +had induced King John of Jingalo to reject the cocked hat and to resume +the crown. + +The royal coach had already borne its occupants along two miles of the +route; and continued exercise was making them warm. + +"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, "it's very stuffy in here; I feel as +if I were in a furnace. Why did you ask to have the windows closed, my +dear?" + +"It makes one feel so much safer," said the Queen, keeping her +stereotyped smile, and sweeping a bow as she spoke. + +"Safer from what?" Here his Majesty responded to a fresh burst of +cheers. + +"Accidents," replied his consort; "one never knows." + +"Glass, my dear, does not protect one from the accidents of Kings. Glass +can't stop bullets, you know." + +"I didn't mean that sort of accident; and I wish you wouldn't talk +about them just now." + +"You always take out an umbrella when you don't want it to rain; and if +one talks about accidents then they don't happen. At least that has +always been my experience. What sort of accident do you mean?" + +"Dust, and microbes, and infection, and all that sort of thing. There +must be a lot of it about in so large a crowd; I wonder how many people +with measles." + +"What an idea!" exclaimed the King: "people with measles don't come out +to see shows." + +"Oh, yes, they do,--nursemaids especially. They all catch it from each +other in the public parks; at least so I've been told. And whenever I +see a perambulator now, I think of it." + +"There are no perambulators here to-day," said the King, "so you needn't +think about measles. Smallpox if you like; though it strikes me that all +I have yet seen are remarkably healthy specimens--considering how many +of them there are." And he bowed to the healthy specimens as he spoke. + +"Very enthusiastic," murmured the Queen appreciatively. + +"Yes; I wonder if presently they will be as enthusiastic about Max." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Oh, nothing. I was only thinking ahead, in quite a general sort of way. +We seem lately to have become quite popular." + +"I think we have always been." + +"Yes, you have, my dear; about myself I was not so sure. Well, it's very +gratifying to come upon it just now." + +His Majesty felt a little guilty, for he had not yet told the Queen of +what lay ahead; it was so much better that she should not know +beforehand what she would never be able to understand. + +Then for a while they relapsed into silence, each attending to what +Charlotte would have described as their "business"--a carefully +regulated succession of bows accompanied by a smile which never quite +left off. + +Presently the King spoke again. "By the way, where has Charlotte gone +to?" + +"Well, I hardly know," said the Queen. "She wrote to me from her first +address--that college place; but said she was going on elsewhere, and I +thought you settled that we were to leave her alone." + +"I think she ought to have waited till to-morrow. As Max is away, she at +least should have been here." + +"So I told her; but she said she had a very particular engagement which +she must keep; and I could see that, relying upon your promise, she +meant to have her own way, so I said nothing." + +"I hope they are going to like each other," said the King, his thoughts +carrying on to the meeting which was now near. + +"She and the Prince? Oh, yes, I think there's no doubt about it. +Strange, wasn't it, that her running away actually pleased him?" + +"I suppose it was so very unusual. We don't as a rule get people to run +away from us. It's generally all the other way. Look at this crowd! I +wonder how the police manage to keep them back." + +Smiling and bowing, the Queen replied: "They are so well behaved; and +see, how patient. Many, I daresay, have been here for hours. Doesn't +that show loyalty?" + +"It isn't all loyalty, my dear; they like the whole spectacle, the +troops, the coach, the piebald ponies. Last night I went to look at +them; four of them have been left out." + +"What a strange thing to do." + +"But some have to be." + +"No; going to see them, I mean." + +"Well, I don't know; they play a very important part in the proceedings, +and in a way they are heroes, for wherever they go with us they share +our danger. I heard quite a lot of interesting things about them." + +At this moment they were approaching a part of the route which separated +them for a while from the popular plaudits. In the forefront was a deep +archway, and beyond it was a brief stretch of road shut in by hoardings +and dominated by high masts of scaffolding, behind which new Government +buildings were in process of erection. Across each front to left and +right a few strings of bunting fluttered to give festive relief; for +here there were no stands filled with spectators, no pavements lined +with shouting crowds; and behind the palisades work had been knocked off +for the day. The cry of the populace lulled down to a mere murmur, and +the trampling of the hoofs echoed strangely as they passed under the +vaulted arch and along the walled-in track with its huge baulks of +timber on both sides supporting the growth of stone walls. + +Ahead stood a wide gateway opening by a sharp turn into Regency Row, +whose broad thoroughfare of cream-tinted facades, now bright with flags, +formed an ideal rallying-ground for the sightseeing multitude. + +"Now there," said the King, pointing ahead to a high triangular building +facing the gates through which they were about to emerge, "there is the +place that I always think a bomb might be thrown from with much +certainty and effect, plump into the middle of us, just as we are +turning the corner." + +"I do wish you would leave off talking about such things," said the +Queen reproachfully, "or wait till we are safe home again. How can I +keep on smiling, if you go putting bombs into my head?" + +"I was only saying, my dear----" + +Suddenly, from behind, an amazing detonation seemed to strike at the +smalls of their backs, throwing them half out of their seats. The glass +slide upon the Queen's side of the coach ran down with a crash, and one +of the large gilt baubles from its roof toppled and fell into the road. +At the same instant a great blast and swirl of smoke blew by, shutting +for a moment the outer world from view. Then loud cries, hullabalooings, +shoutings--a scramble and clatter of hoofs as though three or four +horses had gone down and were up again--a capering flash of pink silk +calves--as the six footmen exploded upon from the rear sought safety in +front where the eight piebald ponies were all standing on end with men +hanging on to their noses. And then further disorder of a less violent +kind, runnings to and fro, and from the crowd waiting ahead a vast and +tumultuous cry rather jovial in its sound. + +The King had risen from his seat, and trying to look out and see what +was going on behind had put his head through the glass, his crown acting +as a safe and effective battering ram. + +"I do believe there has been an attempt," he said, drawing his head in +again. "That certainly sounded like a bomb; not that I have had much +experience of such things." + +Then he did what he should have done at first, and let down the glass. + +"I am going to faint," sighed the Queen, sinking back in her seat. + +"Nonsense!" said the King sharply. "Pull yourself together, Alicia! You +are not hurt." + +"I think I am," she said. But the sharp tone acted as a tonic, and she +settled herself comfortably in her corner and began quietly to cry. + +There was still plenty of confusion going on. The piebald ponies had +been brought to a standstill, and some of them were now showing temper. +A voluble and excited crowd was trying to break through the police lines +and grasp the whole situation at a run. Troops were coming to the +rescue; horsemen from the rear dashed by. Then a staff officer galloped +up to the coach window, and reining a jiggetty steed saluted with +agitated air and a rather white face. + +"The danger is over, your Majesty," he gasped, a little out of breath, +"only a few horses are down; no one is killed." + +The King nodded acceptance of the news; and as he did so noticed a tiny +fleck of blood upon the officer's cheek--no more than if he had cut +himself in shaving. It seemed to give the correct measure of the +catastrophe, and to assure him more than words could have done that the +damage was really small. + +Except for that one moment when he had impulsively put his head through +glass, the King had kept his wits and remained calm; and now his royal +instinct told him the right thing to be done. + +"If you want to manage that crowd," he said, "we had much better drive +on. Until we do they may think that anything has happened. Tell them to +start, and not to drive fast." + +The officer went forward bearing the royal order. + +"Alicia," said the King, "there really is nothing to cry about; the most +important thing is to show the people that we are not hurt. Pull +yourself together, my dear. There! now we are starting again. And if you +think you can manage it, stand right up at your window and I will stand +at mine; then nobody can have any doubt at all." + +He removed some shattered glass from her lap as he spoke, and gave an +encouraging squeeze to her hand; and as the coach moved forward they +stood up and confidently presented themselves to the public gaze. + +Sure enough that sight had a magical effect equal to the controlling +force of a thousand police. The crowd recovered its wits and allowed +itself to be shoved back into place. Out through the gates sallied the +piebald ponies; and from end to end all Regency Row broke into a roar. +Ahead went the troops and the police, pressing back the once more +amenable crowd; men and women were weeping, moist handkerchiefs were +ecstatically waved, quite new and reputable hats were thrown up into +air, and allowed to fall unreclaimed and unregarded. And truly it was a +sight well calculated to stir the blood, for there, emerging unhurt from +dust and smoke, from rumor and sound of terror, came the monarch and his +Queen standing upon their feet and bowing undaunted to a furore of +cries. + +Through all that vast multitude word of the outrage had sped, like a +black raven flapping its wings, charged ominously with tidings of death; +and as confusion had spread wide nothing more could be heard, till once +more a resumption of the processional movement was seen. Then came +white-faced footmen quaking at the knees; after them eight piebald +ponies rather badly behaved and requiring a good deal of holding in; and +then Royalty, itself smiling and quite unharmed. And straightway the +ordinary loyalty of a sightseeing Jingalese crowd was merged in a +passionate and tumultuous cry of jubilant humanity; and the royal +procession became a triumphal progress. + + +II + +The Queen was still crying a little when they reached their +destination; but she was very happy all the same, for she felt that +between them they had risen to the occasion and had passed exceedingly +well through an ordeal that falls only to few. + +And now at the House of Legislature itself a strangely informal +reception awaited them. Word of what had happened had gone in to the two +Chambers, and human nature proving too strong, rules and regulations of +ceremony had been dispensed with, and out had streamed judges, prelates, +and laity in full force, to attend upon their own front door-step the +belated arrival of their mercifully preserved Sovereign and his Queen. + +And when they did arrive, the whole House of Laity there assembled broke +into cheers; and not to be behindhand in demonstrations of loyalty, the +Judges and the Bishops cheered too--a thing that none of them had done +individually for years; and in their official and corporate capacity, +judicial and ecclesiastical, never in their lives before. + +Then as spokesmen for their respective parties, for Ministerialists and +for Opposition, came the Prime Minister and the Archbishop, giving voice +to the thankfulness that was felt by all. + +The Archbishop performed his part the better of the two; for between him +and his sovereign there were no strained relations; he was also on +closer terms of reference to the Powers above; and so, while giving +earthly circumstances their due, he rendered grateful thanks to a +Beneficence which had guided and directed all. The Prime Minister did +not. + +The King, in recalling afterwards the happy impromptus of that scene +when Prelates and Laity were vying with each other in the expression of +their relief, remembered how once or twice the Prime Minister had halted +and gone back to the repetition of a former phrase, like one who having +learned a lesson had momentarily lost the hang of it. + +The circumstance did not greatly impress him at the time, he was ready +to make allowances, for between him and his minister the situation was +somewhat embarrassing. They had parted with unreconciled views, and by +no stretch of terms could their relationship any longer be regarded as +friendly. All the same, on such an occasion it was incumbent upon the +Prime Minister to say the correct thing, and he had said it: he had +described the outrage as "a dastardly attempt," and the immunity of his +sovereign as "a happy and almost miraculous escape" for which none had +more reason to be thankful than himself and his colleagues; he had also +said that the passionate attachment of the people of Jingalo to the +person of their ruler had now been made abundantly evident, and he +trusted might ever so continue. + +Later in the day, when the short ceremony of Parliament's closing was +over (for it was impossible under the circumstances to return to stiff +formality, no one being in the mood for it), later in the day, he again +presented himself, and besought a private audience. And then--while once +more repeating what he had said previously, almost in the same +words,--he showed that he had something very serious of which to deliver +himself. + +He began with a great parade of leaving the matter to the King's +decision only; his duty was merely to state the case as it would strike +the world. + +"We are in your Majesty's hands," he said, "and I have no wish to revive +a discussion in which your Majesty has by right the last word. I have +only to ask whether the circumstances of the last few hours have in any +way affected your Majesty's decision." + +As usual this formal insistence upon his "majesty" aroused the King's +distrust; with his ministers in privacy he always disliked it. But all +he said was: "Why should it?" + +The Prime Minister pursed his lips and elaborately paused, as though +finding it difficult to express himself. Then he said-- + +"After an attempted assassination so nearly successful, abdication would +have a different effect to what your Majesty presumably intended." + +"How?" inquired the King. But though he asked he already knew; and +mentally his jaw dropped, as a new apparition of failure rose up and +confronted him. + +"It might seem to reflect upon your Majesty's personal courage: about +which, I need hardly say, I myself have no doubt whatever." + +"I see," said the King. His voice sounded the depression which had again +begun to overwhelm him. + +"I have no wish to press your Majesty," the Premier went on; "but at the +present moment we are still under orders that to-morrow the definite and +irrevocable announcement is to be made public." + +Again he paused; and the King did not answer him. + +"I wish to ask, therefore, whether it is your Majesty's wish that the +announcement of the abdication shall be postponed?" + +"Yes," said the King, and his words came slow, "I suppose that it must +be--as you say--postponed." + +"Does your Majesty wish to suggest any later date?" + +The King thought for a while before answering. + +"Is there any reason that I should?" But though he thus spoke to +temporize over the position in which he now found himself, he knew that +his opportunity was gone never to recur. + +"Merely for our own guidance," explained the Prime Minister. "There is +to be a special Cabinet meeting to-night." + +"What are you going to discuss?" + +"Should your Majesty remain, it will be our duty to present an address +of loyal congratulation immediately on the reassembling of Parliament; +and that, under the new circumstances, must take place almost at once. +In any event some address will, of course, have to be moved; but if what +has happened to-day is followed by an abdication, then regrets and deep +gratitude for all the gracious benefits of the past would have to be +added, and the whole form of it most carefully weighed and considered. I +may say, therefore, that we are even now awaiting your Majesty's +instructions." + +"And you can do nothing till I decide?" + +"Nothing practical, sir." + +Their eyes met with a lurking watchfulness; and it was not difficult for +each to read something of the other's thought. The King knew that behind +all that aspect of deference and humility lay a sense of triumph, +almost malignant in its intensity. He knew that circumstances had beaten +him; and that the bomb of some wretched assassin had made his abdication +impossible. The Prime Minister had said that he had no wish to press +him; but what a pretense and hypocrisy that was, when that very night +the Cabinet would have to meet and register its decision in one of two +alternative forms totally distinct. Yes; the Ministry had him now in a +cleft stick; and no pressure was to be put upon him only because there +was no possibility for his decision to be delayed. + +Defeat, following upon the terrific events of the day, filled his brain +with weariness. At the moment when he had hoped to be free of his +persecutors he had come once again to a blank wall. Further progress was +barred, further thinking had become useless, events must take their +course; once more he felt himself the sport of fate--a mere chip +floating with the stream. + +"Very well, Mr. Prime Minister," he said with resignation, "the +Abdication is withdrawn." + +He sighed deeply; and then (when left alone to his cogitations), for +such weak comfort as the mere saving of his face could lend, this +thought occurred to him,--"What a good thing that I told nobody about +it." Even Max did not know. + +And so in the year of his Jubilee, and the plenitude of his popularity, +John of Jingalo continued to reign; and was, in consequence, the most +saddened and humiliated monarch who ever bowed his head under a crown +and resigned his freedom to a mixed sense of duty and a fear of what +people might say. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +CONCEALMENT AND DISCOVERY + + + + +I + +There was plenty of hue and cry to discover the perpetrator of the +outrage, but nothing came of it. From somewhere in that labyrinth of +unfinished building and scaffolding fenced in by high hoardings a bomb +had been thrown of insufficient power to do much damage to anybody. The +Prefect of Police, riding in close attendance on the royal carriage, had +himself vaulted the barrier, on the side whence it had seemed to come, +and reported that he had found no trace of any one. Pieces of the shell +had been collected upon the spot, they had not flown very far, nor were +they much broken; and experts of the detective department had been busy +putting together the bits. + +The whole performance turned out on investigation to have been so feeble +and amateurish that suspicion rapidly descended from the more +experienced practitioners of anarchy, imported from other countries, to +home-products of later growth--strikers made desperate and savage by the +recent sentences upon their leaders, or, as some would have it, the +Women Chartists, hoping by an attack upon royalty to bring a neglectful +ministry to its senses. As there were no real clues except those which +industriously led nowhere and which the police seemed delightedly to +follow, everybody was free to lay the charge against any agitating +section of the community which they happened to regard with special +disfavor; and for that reason the Women Chartists did, in fact, get most +of the blame. + +But in the process they also reaped a certain advantage; the mere +suspicion, though malice directed it, was good for them. Had it been +possible to convict them, their cause would have gone down for another +generation; but there was really nothing to catch hold of, and the power +of any organization to commit such an outrage without being detected--to +break the glass of the King's coach and make the eight piebald ponies +rise up on end in horror--was a power which raised them greatly in the +eyes of all law-abiding people; it suggested an unknown potency for +mischief far more ominous than had discovery and conviction followed. +And so, while squibs and crackers were being thrown at them and sham +bombs hurled into their meetings to show how greatly the law-abiding +people of Jingalo disapproved of them for incurring such +suspicion--politically, the unjustly suspected ones moved a little +nearer to their goal. + +As for the King and Queen, they were simply inundated with telegrams and +letters of congratulation. In many instances the loyalty shown was +extraordinarily touching: one instance will suffice. Every schoolboy in +every public school in Jingalo contributed a penny from his pocket money +to a congratulatory telegram sent in the name of the school; and when, +as sometimes happened, the school numbered over six hundred boys the +telegram had necessarily to be lengthy, and proved a severe tax upon the +literary ability of its senders. + +Amid all this influx--this passionate outpouring of loyalty to a King +who had stood only a few days before within an ace of abdication, there +were of course messages of a more intimate and personal kind. Every +crowned head in Europe had written with that fellow-feeling which on +such occasions royalty is bound to express. "I know what it is like +myself," wrote one who had had six attempts made on him; "but I have +never had it done to me from behind. How very devastating to the nerves +that must be!" The Prince of Schnapps-Wasser wired that he could find no +language to express himself, but hoped in a few weeks' time to come and +show all that he felt. Max after a brief wire had flown back to town; +and his obvious perturbation and demonstrative affection had made it a +happy meeting. + +But, while all these messages flowed, there was one inexplicable +silence. Charlotte neither wrote nor telegraphed; nor did she return +home. That portent dawned upon their Majesties as they breakfasted late +the next morning with correspondence and telegrams piled up beside them. + +"What can have become of Charlotte?" cried the Queen. "She must _know_!" + +"If she knew, she would be here," said the King, confident in his +daughter's affection. + +They stared at each other in a surmise which turned gradually to dismay. +This unfilial silence upon their escape from the bomb of the assassin +told them with staggering certainty that Charlotte was missing. + +"She has run away!" cried the Queen. + +"But she must be somewhere," objected the King; "and wherever she is she +would surely have heard the news." + +"She may be quite out in the country," suggested the Queen, picking up +hope. + +"Still she has friends who must know where she has gone." + +"It's incredible!" cried her Majesty; "heartless, I call it." + +"No, no, she simply doesn't know!" said the King; of that he was quite +certain. "We are sure to hear from her in the course of the day," he +continued reassuringly, "meanwhile we shall have to make inquiries." + +But the day went on, and no sign from Charlotte; nor did inquiries bring +definite news up to date. She had arrived with her expectant hostess on +the day appointed; but after staying only one night had gone elsewhere, +and from that point in place and time no trace of her was to be found. + +Before the day was over the King and Queen had become terribly anxious, +and by the end of the week they were almost at their wits' end. + +And here we get yet another instance of the drawbacks and dangers which +attend upon royalty. Had Charlotte belonged to any ordinary rank of +life, it could have been announced that she was missing; her description +could have been issued to the press, and search for her made reasonably +effective. But, as things were, this could not be done, Charlotte was +impulsive and did indiscreet things; and until one knew exactly what it +portended, to publish her disappearance to all the world would have been +too rash and sudden a proceeding. Once that was done there could be no +hushing up of the matter; all Jingalo, nay, all Europe, would have to +hear of it, including, of course, the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser; and so, +at all costs of private strain and anxiety, it was necessary to conceal +as long as possible that the Princess was not where she ought to be, and +was perhaps where she ought not to be. + +Now please, do not let my readers at this point think that it was +Charlotte who had thrown the bomb. Even for the sake of literary effect, +I would not for one moment deceive them. It was not Charlotte; Charlotte +had nothing to do with it, and did not even know of it. And yet--I will +give them for a while this small problem to grapple with--Charlotte was +quite well, was in possession of all her senses, was thoroughly enjoying +herself, and was not outside the land of her inheritance. Most +emphatically she had not run away. + +And there for the moment we will leave the matter, and attend to things +more important. + + +II + +The King had caught sight in the newspaper of something which annoyed +him very much; annoyed him all the more because it seemed to betoken +that the moment his abdication was withdrawn the old ministerial +encroachments on the royal prerogative had begun again. + +"We are officially informed," so ran the paragraph, "that the Minister +of the Interior has advised his Majesty to grant a reprieve to the three +strike leaders now lying under sentence of death for their part in the +recent riots and police murders. It is understood that the sentences +will be commuted to penal servitude for life." + +And this was the first the King had heard of it! + +He sent at once for the Home Minister; and within an hour that great +official stood before him. + +"Mr. Secretary," said the King sharply, as he laid the offending +paragraph before him, "since when, may I ask, has the Crown's +prerogative of mercy become the perquisite of the Home Office?" + +"I do not think, sir," submitted the Secretary with all outward +humility, "that any such change has come about. In this case the +circumstances were special and very urgent." + +"Why, then, was I not consulted?" + +"There was hardly time, your Majesty." + +"I was here." + +"I apprehended that the recent event--so very upsetting to your +Majesty----" + +"Come, come," interjected the King, "if I was able to read my speech +immediately after it--as I did--I was quite able to attend to other +business as well; and you ought to have known it." + +The King did not thus usually speak to one of his ministers; but, having +just had to face so heavy a defeat of his plans for honorable +retirement, he was the more bent on asserting himself. + +"Your Majesty will pardon me, it had to be issued to the press without a +moment's delay. We had received information which made the matter of +great urgency." + +"I will hear your explanation," said the King coldly; and the Secretary +went on. + +"You are doubtless aware, sir, that about these sentences there has been +a very considerable agitation among the workers; and the utter failure +of the strike has not improved matters." + +"I am aware of that," said the King. + +"It had always been my intention, as soon as the march of strikers had +been dispersed in an orderly manner, to recommend the exercise of the +royal clemency. It was in fact merely a matter of hours, when +circumstances forestalled us. The session closed before any of the +strike marchers could arrive upon the scene; and then came the event +which diverted popular attention. It was for that reason, I presume, +that only yesterday certain of the men's leaders made very inflammatory +speeches--of a kind which it would be extremely difficult for the +authorities to overlook or make any appearance of yielding to. One +speech in particular, calling upon the hangman to refuse to perform his +duty and threatening his life if he did so, was of a peculiarly +seditious character; for I need hardly point out that if that +functionary is not protected in the fulfilment of his official duties +the downfall of law and order has begun. It was absolutely necessary, +therefore, to forestall any reports of that speech in the metropolitan +press. For a few hours we were able to keep back the news; your +Majesty's clemency was announced in the late issues of all the evening +papers, and the 'Don't Hang' speech was not reported till this morning; +and thus, coming after the event, has fallen comparatively flat. I think +that now your Majesty will understand the position." + +The Secretary had finished. + +"And that is your explanation?" queried the King. + +The minister bowed. + +"I have to say that it does not satisfy me." + +The minister lifted sad eyebrows, but did not speak. + +"You tell me that for many days this recommendation of mercy has been +your fixed intention. Why, then, did you not consult me? Why did you +assume that, at a moment's notice, I should be able to fall in with your +suggestion; why, even, that I should think the dispersal of certain +riotous assemblies a convenient signal for the exercise of the royal +prerogative?" + +"I have merely followed, sir, the ordinary course of procedure observed +in my department." + +"Until, being unexpectedly pressed for time, you departed from it. After +all the telephone was between us; I was here. I might not have agreed: +but at least I should have been consulted!" + +The minister pursed his lips; to this sort of hectoring he had really +nothing to say. It did not comport with his official dignity. + +The King rose. "Mr. Secretary, as I have already said, your explanation +does not satisfy me. I shall communicate my sentiments to the Prime +Minister." + +His Majesty did not extend his hand; but by a motion of the head showed +that the interview was over; and there was nothing left for the Minister +of the Interior to do but retire from the room. + +And the next day he retired from office; for though the Prime Minister +urged many things in his defense, and more particularly the +misapprehension which his present retirement might cause, the King +remained obdurate; he was bent upon making an example. In the great +political game he had miscalculated and lamentably failed, but red-tape +was still his cherished possession; and you can do a good deal with +red-tape when you have an unquestioned authority to fall back upon. +Professor Teller's volumes of Constitutional History still lay upon a +retired shelf in the royal library (indeed it was from one of them that +he had extracted with slight changes his formal pronouncement of +abdication); and if he could not get anything else out of his ministers +he was determined to secure official correctness. Though they slighted +his opinion, they should recognize his authority; punctiliousness at +least they should render him as his one remaining due. + +And so when the Prime Minister urged how small and accidental was the +omission, his Majesty remarked that it was one of many; and when he +argued how any delay might have proved dangerous, the point at which +delay had begun was again icily indicated. More pressingly still did he +invite the King to consider in what light, if unexplained, this +resignation would be popularly regarded; would it not be taken as an +admission of blame by the head of the Home Department for the occurrence +of the late outrage? + +"Very likely," assented the King; "after all it took place on +Government premises." Whereat the Prime Minister, looking somewhat +startled and distressed, inquired whether any such imputation of blame +had been his Majesty's ulterior motive for his present action. + +"I have no motives left," said the King wearily; "I am merely doing my +duty." + +In which aspect he was proving himself a very difficult person to deal +with. "I am not arguing, I am only telling you," was an attitude which +put him in a much stronger position with his intellectual superiors than +any attempt at converting them to his views. From this day on he stood +forth to his ministers as a rigid constitutional reminder; and with six +volumes of the minutiae of constitutional usage at his fingers' ends the +amount of time he was able to waste and the amount of trouble he was +able to give were simply amazing. + +The Prime Minister had been quite right; the resignation of the Home +Secretary caused just that flutter of unfavorable suspicion which he had +expected. For some reason or another he was extremely distressed by it, +and begged from his Majesty the grant of a full State pension to the +retired minister. But the King would not hear of it. "It is not my +duty," he said, "to grant full pensions to those who fail in their +official obligations. Where I am more personally concerned I have not +pressed you; I have not asked for the resignation of the Prefect of +Police, though I think I might have some reason to show for it. He +prevented nothing, and he has discovered nothing. Do you expect me to +open Parliament for you again next week, with the same ceremony, along +the same route, and at the same risk?" + +He was assured that every precaution would be taken. + +"I hope so," he said in the tone of one who very much doubted whether +the ministerial word was now worth anything. + +Under this harassing and unhandsome treatment the Prime Minister was +beginning to show age; and the coming session gave no promise that his +cares in other respects would be less heavy than before; the Women +Chartists were threatening a bigger outbreak in the near future, and +Labor was now claiming to be freely supported from the rates either when +out of work or when on strike. And when the Address to the Throne was +being moved Labor and the Women Chartists would be in renewed agitation, +asking for things which would make party politics quite impossible, and +which it was therefore quite impossible for party politics to grant. If +the Government had not still got that thoroughly unpopular House of +Bishops to sit upon and coerce, things would be looking very black +indeed. + + +III + +And meanwhile where was the Princess Charlotte? Seven horrible days had +gone by; and the inner circle of the detective force had been running +about in padded slippers, so to speak, giving an accurate description of +a lady whose name nobody knew, and who had been last seen in the +vicinity of a college for women. Very privately and confidentially the +titled lady who was the head of that institution had been interviewed; +but her information was limited. + +"She came to me only for one day," said the Principal, "though I thought +she was intending to stay a week. I hardly know when I missed her; she +had laid it down so very emphatically that she was to be left free and +treated without ceremony, that really I did not trouble to look after +her. Whenever she was here her Highness always mixed quite freely with +the students; I know that with some of them she had made friends. They +are far more likely to know what her plans were than I am." + +Further inquiry in the direction thus indicated had to be carried on +elsewhere, since the students had now separated for the vacation; and +wherever inquiry was made the same stealthy secrecy had to be adopted; +nobody must be allowed to suppose that the Princess Royal of Jingalo was +missing. And so--on a sort of all-fours not at all conducive to +speed--the quest went on. + +On the fifth day, however, some relief had arrived to reduce the +parental anxiety to bearable proportions. A letter, dropped from +nowhere, bearing the metropolitan postmark, came to the King's hands. It +gave only the barest, yet very essential information. + +"Dearest papa," it ran, "I am quite well, and enjoying myself. I shall +be back in a fortnight." + +News of the arrival of this letter was immediately conveyed to the +Constabulary Chief; and after three days of deep cogitation the absence +of all reference to the outrage and to the risk run by those near and +dear to her seemed to strike him as peculiar, and supplied him with what +hitherto the police had lacked--a clue. And after two more days of +strenuously directed search it bore fruit. + +Late one afternoon the King was sitting at work in his study when his +Comptroller-General entered hastily and in evident excitement; for +though the King was then busily engaged in writing he presumed to +interrupt, not waiting for the royal interrogating glance to give him +his permission. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, in a tone of very urgent apology. + +"Well, well?" said the King rather testily, for he did not like his +writing-hour to be thus disturbed, "what is it?" + +"The Prime Minister wishes to see you, sir, on a matter of extreme +urgency." + +The King had so long been pestered by ministers on matters which they +considered urgent and which he did not, that he had little patience for +such pleas, coming at the wrong time. + +"What about?" he inquired curtly. + +The Comptroller-General, who was supposed not to know, replied +discreetly but in a tone of veiled meaning, "Something in the Home +Department I believe, sir. Just now, while there is no chief secretary, +the Prime Minister himself is seeing to matters." + +"Dear, dear!" sighed his Majesty, "I do wish he would manage to get his +urgent business done at the proper time!" + +"I think, sir," said the General, "that this matter is one of sufficient +importance to justify a suspension of the ordinary rules." He paused, as +though about to say more, but thought better of it; after all the matter +did not lie within his department. + +"Very well," said the King, "let him come in, then!" And in due course +the Premier entered. + +It was evident at a glance that he was the bearer of important, nay, +even alarming, intelligence; his eye was startled and anxious, his +manner full of discomposure, and without waste of a moment he opened +abruptly upon the business which had brought him. + +"I have come to inform your Majesty," said he, "that we have at last +discovered the Princess Charlotte's whereabouts." + +"Oh?" said the King, excluding from his tone any indication of gratitude +over the too long delayed discovery. "And pray, where is she?" + +"I regret to say, sir, that her Royal Highness is at this moment in +Stonewall Jail." + +"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, startled out of his coldness. +"Whatever took her there?" + +"She was taken, sir, in a 'Molly Hold-all'[1] along with several others. +And she has been there for the last ten days." + +[Footnote 1: Jingalese equivalent for "Black Maria."] + +"Yes, yes; but what I want to know is what has she been doing? In this +country one doesn't get put into prison for nothing, I should hope." + +"The charge, sir, was for assaulting the police. No doubt there has been +a very regrettable mistake; there was, unquestionably, in the +magistrate's court, some conflict of evidence." + +"Assaulting the police!" exclaimed the King petulantly. + +"But what else are the police there for?--when there's trouble, I mean. +And how many of them did she assault, pray?" + +"I believe only one, sir," replied the Prime Minister; "at least only +one of them gave any evidence against her, and there were five witnesses +to say that she did not assault him. The magistrate who convicted, +however, accepted the constable's evidence; he is, I believe, rather +hard of hearing; and I am told that he thought the witnesses in her +favor were all giving evidence against her. If that is so, it +sufficiently accounts for the conviction. On the other hand there can be +no doubt that the Princess did intend to get arrested." + +"When did all this take place?" + +"In the course of the last Chartist disturbances, three days before the +rising of Parliament. Some sixty or seventy women then caused themselves +to be arrested, and it seems that the Princess was one of them." + +"She must be mad!" exclaimed the King in bewilderment. "Whatever could +have induced her?" + +"Was your Majesty aware that she had any leanings towards politics?" + +"She has ideas," said the King, "like other young people; but she is +generally very busy changing them; and, beyond a notion that a woman +ought always to have her own way, and never be asked to do what she +doesn't want to do, she----" And then it began to dawn upon him--though +only darkly--what Charlotte was really after: she was demonstrating +madly, extravagantly, her claim to personal freedom. And to prove how +much she meant it she had gone to these wild lengths. Well might her +father, in his essentially middle-aged mind, wonder what the younger +generation was coming to. + +"Poor dear silly child!" he exclaimed in fond irritation. "Why ever +could she not have waited?" + +That was a question the Prime Minister could not answer. + +"Well, well," he went on, endeavoring to be philosophical over the +business, "she has had her lesson now; and after all there is no real +harm done." + +"Your Majesty must pardon me; it has become a very serious matter," said +the Prime Minister gravely. + +"Why? Who knows anything about it? Who need know? She wasn't sentenced +in her own name, I suppose?" + +"Certainly not, sir; had she been recognized the thing could never have +happened. She must to some extent have altered her dress and her +appearance: as to that I have no particulars. The name she actually went +in under was Ann Juggins." + +"Preposterous!" exclaimed the King. "And supposing that were to come +out!" + +"That is the trouble, sir. Without the full and immediate exercise of +your authority, I fear it may. As a matter of fact, that is why she +still remains where we found her." + +"Oh! Stuff and nonsense!" cried the King. "You don't come for my +authority in cases of this kind. Let her out, let her out! and say +nothing more about it!" + +"The Prefect, sir, has already been to see her, and she refuses to be +let out; that is to say, declares that if she is not allowed to serve +her full sentence she will make the whole of the affair public." + +"Public?" + +"Name and all. There was her ultimatum; she made a special point of it. +Her Highness seems somehow to be aware that the name is an impossible +one, a weapon against which no Government department could stand. The +word 'Juggins,'--only think, sir, what it means! Here we have a +ridiculous, a most lamentable blunder committed by the police, +sufficient of itself to cause us the gravest embarrassment; and then to +have on the top of it all this name with its ridiculous association +rising up to confound us. We should go down as 'the Juggins Cabinet'; +the word would be cried after us by every errand-boy in the street--the +Government would become impossible." + +The King did his best to conceal his delight at the predicament in which +Charlotte's escapade had, by the confession of its Chief, placed the +Cabinet. This tyrannical Government, in spite of its large majority, its +strong party organization, and its bureaucratic powers, was unable to +stand up against ridicule; a mere breath, and all its false pretensions +to dignity would be exposed, and its dry bones, speciously clad in +strong armor, would rattle down into the dust. + +And if he chose to use this knowledge suddenly gained, what a power it +would give him! Yes; he had only to send for Charlotte and bid her cry +'Juggins,' and that which, with so many months of anxious toil and with +threat of abdication, he had failed to bring about, would immediately +accomplish itself in other ways. But unfortunately the King was a man of +scrupulous conscience, and was bound by his ideas of what became a +monarch and a gentleman. He may have been quite mistaken in regarding as +unclean the weapon with which Heaven had supplied him; but as he did so +regard it, one must reluctantly admit that he was right to throw it +aside. + +"Well," he said, when the Prime Minister had finished, "she must be made +not to tell, that's all!" + +"I fear, sir, she is very determined." + +"Determined to do what?" + +"To serve out her sentence." + +The King sat and thought for a while. He knew his Charlotte better than +the police did; and, besides that, during the past week he had quite +made up his mind that the Prefect of Police was in some matters a +blunderer. "I wonder how he tried to get her out," he meditated aloud. +"Did she send me any message?" + +"Nothing direct, sir, that I know of; but I take it that her ultimatum +was also directed against any possible action on the part of your +Majesty. She was quite determined to do her full time; said indeed that +you had promised her a fortnight. What that may mean, I do not know." + +"Oh, really!" cried the King, "the folly of the official mind is past +all believing,--especially when it concentrates itself in the police +force! Let somebody go to that poor child and tell her that her father +and mother have had a bomb thrown at them, and are trying to recover +themselves in the grief caused by her absence! And then unchain her (you +keep them in chains, I suppose?), open the door of her prison, and see +how she'll run! And tell the Prefect," he added, "that I cannot present +him with my compliments." + +The King was quite right. In case Charlotte should refuse to believe the +official word, she was shown a newspaper with lurid illustrations; and +within an hour's time she was back at the palace, weeping, holding her +father and mother alternately in her arms, and scolding them for all the +world as though they had been guilty of outrageous behavior, and not +she. + +And, after all, it was a very good way of getting over the preliminaries +of a rather awkward meeting. + + +IV + +But when the first transports of joy at that reunion were over, they had +to settle down to naughty facts and talk with serious disapproval to +Charlotte of her past doings. And as they did so, though she still wept +a little, the Princess observed with secret satisfaction that she had at +any rate cured her mother of one thing--of knitting, namely, while a +daughter's fate was being dangled in the parental balance. + +From that day on when Charlotte showed that she was really in earnest +the Queen put down her knitting; and those who have lived under certain +domestic conditions where tyranny is always, as though by divine right, +benevolent, wise, self-confident, and self-satisfied to the verge of +conceit, will recognize that this in itself was no inconsiderable +triumph. + +Charlotte was quite straightforward as to why she had done the thing; +she had done it partly out of generous enthusiasm for a cause which she +did not very well understand, but to which certain friends of hers had +attached themselves with a blind and dogged obstinacy (two of those +friends she had left in prison behind her); but more because she wished +to supply an object lesson of what she was really like to the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser. + +She insisted that he was to be told all about it. And the Queen was in +despair. + +"Tell him that you have been in jail like a common criminal for +assaulting the police? I couldn't, it would break my heart! I should die +of the shame of it." + +"Very well," said Charlotte, "I will tell him myself, then; you can't +prevent me doing that! No, I'm not going to be headstrong, or foolish, +or obstinate, or any of the things you said I was: now I've made the +exhibition of myself that I intended making, I'll be a lamb. If I like +him enough, and if he likes me enough, I'll marry him. But I shall have +to like him a great deal more than I do at present; and he will have to +want me very much more than it's possible for him to do until he has +seen me----" + +"Oh, don't be so conceited, my dear!" said the Queen, her good-humor and +confidence beginning to be restored as she watched the fair flushed +face, and those queer attractive little gestures which made her +daughter's charm so irresistible. + +"Before anything will induce me to say 'yes,'" concluded Charlotte. + +And then, as though that finished the matter, and as though her own +naughty doings were of no further interest, she cried: "And now tell me +about the bomb!" And the Queen, who still liked to dwell upon that +episode of sights, sounds, and sensations, strangely mingled and +triumphantly concluded by a popular ovation such as she had never met +with in her life before, started off at once on a detailed narrative, +corrected now and then by the King's more sober commentary, and aided by +the eager questions of her daughter, who sat in close and fond contact +with both of them, mopping her eyes alternately with her mother's +handkerchief and her own. + +"Oh! why wasn't I there?" she cried incautiously, when word came of the +great popular reception crowning all. + +"Ah! why weren't you?" inquired the King waggishly. And when he had made +that little joke at her, Charlotte knew that all her naughty goings off +and goings on were comfortably forgiven and done with. + +"But you know, papa," she said later, when for the first time they were +alone together, "I have found out quite a lot of things that _you_ know +nothing about: quite dreadful things! And they are going on behind your +back, and women are being put into prison for it." + +All this was said very excitedly, and with great earnestness and +conviction. + +"My dear," said the King, "it's no use your talking about those Women +Chartists to me." + +"But I'm one of them," said Charlotte. + +"Nonsense; you are not." + +"I am. I signed on. I couldn't have gone to prison for them if I +hadn't." + +"Do any of them know who you are?" cried the King, aghast. It was a +disturbing thought, for what a power it would be in their hands, and he +had always heard how unscrupulous they were. + +"Only one or two," declared Charlotte, "and they won't tell unless I +tell them to. They are wonderful people, papa!" + +The King sighed; for the very name of them had become a weariness to +him. The whole agitation, with its dim confused scufflings against law +and order, and its demonstrations idiotically recurring at the most +inopportune moments, had profoundly vexed him. Years ago he had received +the bland assurance of his ministers that the whole thing would soon die +down and cease; but it was still going on, and was now taking to itself +worse forms than ever. + +"What is it that they want?" he exclaimed, not quite meaning it as a +question; rather as expressing the opinion that the subject was a +hopeless one. + +"They want a great many things," said his daughter; "they've got what +they call 'grievances'; I know very little about them; they may be right +or wrong--that isn't the point. The only thing that concerns you, papa, +is that they want to come and see you; and they are not allowed to." + +"Come and see me?" + +"Yes; bring you a petition." + +"What about?" + +"To have their grievances looked into." + +"_I_ can't look into their grievances." + +"No; but you can say that they shall be." + +The King shook his head. Charlotte did not know what she was talking +about. + +"Yes, papa, that is the position. Of course you haven't the right to +make laws or levy taxes, but you can send word to Parliament to say +something has got to be considered and decided. And about this, +Parliament won't consider and won't decide. And that is why they are +trying to get to you with a petition; so that you shall say that it is +to be looked into." + +"But I can't say that sort of thing, my dear." + +"Yes, you can, papa! It's an old right; the right of unrepresented +people to come direct to their sovereign and tell him that his ministers +are refusing to do things for them. And your ministers are trying to +keep you from knowing about it, to keep you from knowing even that you +have such a power; and by not knowing it they are making you break your +Coronation oath. Oh, papa, isn't that dreadful to think of?" + +"My dear, if that were true----" + +"But it is true, papa! These women are trying to bring you their +petition, and they are prevented. The ministers say that you have +nothing to do with it; so they go to the ministers--they take their +petition to the ministers, and ask them to bring it to you, so that you +may give them an answer. Have any of them brought you the petition, +papa?" + +The King shook his head. + +"You see, they do nothing! And so the women go again, and again, and +again, taking their petition with them; and because they are trying to +get to you--to say that their grievances shall be looked into, and +something done about them--because of that they are being beaten and +bruised in the streets; and when they won't turn back then they are +arrested and sent to prison." + +By this time Charlotte was weeping. + +"They may be quite wrong," she cried, "foolish and impossible in their +demands; they may have no grievances worth troubling about--though if +so, why are they troubling as they do?--but they have the right, under +the old law, for those grievances to be inquired into and considered and +decided about. And Parliament won't do it; it is too busy about other +things, grievances that aren't a bit more real, and about which people +haven't been petitioning at all. But you, papa (if that petition came to +you), would have the right to make them attend to it. And they know it; +and that's why they won't let you hear anything about it." + +The King's conscience was beginning to be troubled. He had no confidence +either in the good sense or the uprightness of his ministers to fall +back upon; and he saw that his daughter, though she knew so little about +the merits of the case, was very much in earnest. She had caught his +hand and was holding it; she kissed it, and he could feel the dropping +of warm tears. + +"Very well, my dear," he said, "very well; I promise that this shall be +looked into." + +"Oh, papa!" she cried joyfully. "It was partly for that--just a little, +not all, of course--that I went to prison." + +"Then you ought not to have been so foolish. Why could you not have come +to me?" + +"I don't think you would have attended; not so much as you do now." + +And the King had to admit how, perhaps, that was true. + +"Well, my dear," he said again, "I promise that it shall be seen to. No, +I shan't forget." + +And then she kissed him and thanked him, and went away comforted. And +when he was alone he got down the index volume of Professor Teller's +_Constitutional History_, and after some search under the heading of +"Petitions" found indeed that Charlotte was right, and that the power to +send messages to Parliament for the remedying of abuses was still his +own. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE INCREDIBLE THING HAPPENS + + + + +I + +Since the break-up of his plans the King had been finding consolation in +his son's book, an advance copy of which had reached him while Max was +still abroad. Consolation is, perhaps, hardly the right word; it had +distracted him in more ways than one; partly, and in a good sense, from +his own personal depression over things gone wrong, but more with a +scared apprehension of the terrible hubbub that would arise when its +contents became known. The title, _Government and the Governed_, was +sober enough, and the post-diluvian motto once threatened by Max had +been omitted; but the contents were of a highly revolutionary character, +and the bland "take-or-leave me" attitude of the author toward the +public he would some day be called upon to rule was on a par with that +statement of her prison doings which Charlotte was preparing for the +delectation of Hans Fritz Otto, Prince of Schnapps-Wasser. In neither +case did it seem likely that such a confession would draw parties +together. + +And so before the King had even finished reading he felt it his duty to +write imploring his son not to publish. + +Before an answer could reach him important events supervened. The +reverberations of the bomb brought Max flying back to the bosom of his +family; and then the Charlotte episode had followed, over which Max had +not been at all sympathetic, for in spite of his emancipated views about +things in general, he had still the particular notion that revolution +belonged only to men, and that women, incapable of conducting it +efficiently, had far better leave it alone. + +And so it was that only when things had begun to resettle themselves was +any fresh reference made to the book's forthcoming publication. + +As soon as the subject was broached Max presented a face of polite +astonishment. + +"I thought you knew, sir," he said. + +"Knew what?" + +"The most important event in recent history; I even thought you might +have instigated it." + +"I don't know what you are talking about." + +"Then I must break the news. My book has been burned to the ground." He +spoke as though it had been an edifice. "I am told, for my consolation, +that it burned extremely well--'fiercely,' the papers said--and gave the +firemen a lot of trouble. Your letter and the news reached me almost +simultaneously; I knew, therefore, that you would be glad." + +"No, no, don't say 'glad,'" protested the King; "in a way I am sorry, +even. I only wanted it to be anonymous. One can do things anonymously. +How did it come about?" + +"It was the work of an incendiary." + +"How do you know that?" + +"There was absolute proof,--something which refused to burn,--a box of +matches made in Jingalo, or some other fire-resistant of a similar kind. +The perpetrator got off. Yes--the House of Ganz-Wurst certainly seems at +the present moment particularly to attract the attentions of these +obscurantists in politics. Who knows whether the hand which threw the +bomb at you had not already been dipped in the petrol which had given so +flaming an account of my claims to authorship?" + +"What are you going to do about it?" + +"Reprint, I suppose, as soon as I can afford it, or do you still wish me +not to? You hold almost the only copy that is left." + +The King shook his head. "As I told you, Max, I think publication would +be very unwise; you would be sure to regret it afterwards. Remember +that some day you will come to the throne; and what you think you can do +now you can't do then. All at once it becomes impossible." + +And then the King gave a queer consternated gasp, for he himself +remembered something--something he had conditionally promised, believing +that the conditions would never be fulfilled; and now fate had brought +them about; and if Max so willed it a thing would presently be taking +place much more disturbing to the institution of royalty than the +publication of a mere book. + +To the King's last remark Max merely replied: "At present, sir, it is +you who are upon the throne and not I--a circumstance over which I have +very particular reasons for being glad. And now, sir, something has just +occurred to me: do not think that I am going to anticipate the date you +fixed, that is not till next week, but when all is settled, as it so +soon will be if I remain of sane mind, then I will present all the +preserved copies of my book to the lady whom you so disapprove of, and +she shall do with them exactly as she wishes--order a new edition, or +put them on the fire to help her make soup for the poor. That is a +little device of mine, sir, for bringing her into your good graces; for +if I know anything of her mind she will maintain that to publish such a +book without a full intention of putting its principles into practice is +a mere parade of insincerity and foolishness. And so--from your point of +view--she will be saving the monarchy from a danger which no one else +can avert; for I am not prepared to surrender my power to do mischief +into any hands but hers. A copy of the book, you may be interested to +hear, has already gone to her; and her silence about it warns me that +the epoch it so strenuously makes for is not the one that she desires." + +"You are still talking like a book, Max," said the King sarcastically, +wishing to divert discussion for the time being from that which he was +referring to. + +"Ah, yes," said Max; "as a bird who mourns his mate. Why, for a while, +should I not indulge my grief? I shall never write another; all I had it +in me to say was said there. In future--though you may hear in my voice +an echo of that lost romance--I am going to be a man not of words but of +deeds." + +The King smiled. + +"You look incredulous, sir; but I have already startled that Commission +you put me on, and compelled it to include in the scope of its inquiry +things which it did not want to inquire into at all. Believe me, sir; if +we get before us all the evidence that I intend we shall find ourselves +forced into making a very unpopular report--far more unpopular than my +book would have been, and far more subversive of the established order +of things than at present you can have any idea. Even your coats, +sir--exorbitant though their price now is--are going to cost you more as +a result of this Commission, unless we can so arrange that in future a +little less shall be paid for the 'cut' and a little more for the needle +and thread that join the cuttings together. I am going to have it said +in this report of ours--for I have discovered it to be a fact--that the +very clothes which are your daily wear (and mine) are put together by +men and women paid at something less than twopence-half-penny an hour. +And I am going to get it put in that scandalously personal way (your +clothes and mine--the clothes we go to open Parliament in, and set the +fashions in, and when we have worn them some half-dozen times hand on to +charity), I am going to have it thus put that all may be conscious and +ashamed when they see us so exhibiting ourselves, and no longer think a +well-cut coat under modern commercial conditions a fit adjunct for +royalty. That, sir, will do a great deal more harm to 'trade' than my +book would have done. The public conscience does not like to have these +things brought home to royalty itself; we and the 'social evil' are in +no way to be connected with each other, lest it should be seen that we +help to make its ways easy. Only the other day I was credibly informed +that a man who headed with twenty thousand pounds the list of a charity +bearing my mother's name, has been allowed by the police to get out of +this country scot free--though guilty of infamous conduct,--merely +because the contribution of that tainted donation to a royal fund would +not have 'looked well.'" + +"Oh, stop talking to me, Max!" cried the King, made irritable by his +increased sense of helplessness. "Go and do what you like, say what you +like, report what you like; you've got the Commission to play with; run +it for all it is worth; but for Heaven's sake let me have peace for a +while! Why should you trouble me? You know that I can do nothing." + +"You have done a great deal," said Max, whose admiration for his father +had grown very considerably during the past year. + +"I have missed doing a great deal; but of that you know nothing, and I'm +not going to tell you." And then he could stand it no more. "Do you +imagine I should have made you that idiotic promise," he cried, "if I +had supposed for a moment that I should still be here when you came to +claim it?" And so saying he got up and, diplomatic in retreat, hurried +out of the room. + +Max, left to his own surmisings, opened wide and wondering eyes. "Did he +throw that bomb at himself?" he murmured in astonishment. "It looks very +much as if he did." + + +II + +Parliament opened again without any difficulty in the middle of +December; and the enormous popularity of the King and Queen was greatly +enhanced by the circumstance of their reappearance within so short a +time for an occasion so closely similar. Only another bomb could have +increased the favorable impression made upon the populace by their +affable return to the charge--if a slow walking-pace may be so +described--within three weeks of the attempted outrage. + +As the Prime Minister had promised the police spared no pains to insure +their safety, and behind the hoardings of the new Government offices +detectives were packed like herrings in a barrel, with special eye-holes +bored through so that they might note the actual passing of the royal +carriage, and have it well under observation at the point of danger +which was, presumably, that at which the last explosion had occurred. +Then the whole police force held its breath, and the coach got past +without any difficulty; and immediately the waiting multitude in Regency +Row became violently demonstrative as though some great acrobatic feat +had been achieved. And the piebald ponies came stepping like +rope-dancers each held by a groom; and everything--except the fresh bomb +for which so many stage preparations had been made--went off with all +the success imaginable. + +The King did not read his own speech: he had a sore throat for the +occasion, and only with his ears did he swallow the bitter pill of that +foreshadowed scheme which he had so long and vainly resisted; for now he +was bound by his own promise, and could no longer "stand in the way." + +And so, by the mouth of the Lord High Commissioner, the Bishops heard +under its smooth-sounding title the plan for their approaching doom read +out from the steps of the Throne, and as soon as the King and the Queen +had retired, budding members on the ministerial side in both Houses +rose up to congratulate the Cabinet and the country on those wise and +statesmanlike proposals, and hardened veterans upon the other, the +Archbishop included, rose up to condemn them. And after that, for three +or four days a general wrangling--all leading to nothing--went on. + +But while Parliament talked vacuously within, outside came rumblings of +storm; the discontent of certain sections of the community with +conditions unsettled or unattended to was gathering to a head. And on +the third day after the session had opened, Charlotte said to her father +with rather a tragic look, "Papa, do you know what is going to happen +to-night?" And then she told him. + +It was those Women Chartists again. + +The King had been true to his word, he had made inquiries; in a way he +had even "looked into the matter," and had received from the right and +official quarter bland assurances that there was nothing in it--merely a +general obstreperousness and a wish to cause trouble to the police. But +his conscience, which so often ran away with him, was still troubled; +and so when the evening came he sent once again for the newly appointed +Home Minister; and in reply to rather anxious questions was given +confidently to understand that the police arrangements were quite +adequate for the occasion, that everything would be done as quietly and +as leniently as possible; and that no edge of the disturbance would in +any case be allowed to overflow in the direction of the royal palace. As +he listened to the cocksure tone of this new minister, and the almost +patronizing air with which he exposed his official fitness for the post +so recently conferred on him, the King ceased to ask questions--let the +man talk himself out,--and then, when silence seemed to give consent, +got rid of him. + +It was now time that he should go to dress for dinner, but the motive +force was absent. He stood for a while considering, then went to the +window, and opening it let in the distant hum of the city traffic. + +All sounded as usual, pleasant, busy, peaceable. Yet if what his +daughter told him was true, within half-an-hour those quietly-sounding +streets would be thronged with thousands upon thousands waiting for the +arrival of the women to claim their old historical right of petition; +and serried lines of police--thousands of them also--would be standing +to bar their way, whatever direction they might go in quest of the +governing authority. And in the hands of these women would be petitions +personally addressed to himself; yet never had any minister put to him +the question whether he would be willing to receive them and hear what +they had to say; such an idea seemed not to have entered their heads--or +was it the fear lest such a reception might give the cause too great an +importance in the public eye? Here, once again, then, proof met him of +the conspiracy of modern government constantly going on to bring about +disconnection between the Crown and the real life-needs and aspirations +of the people. Suffocating traditions closed him round making a cypher +of him--to himself a scorn and a derision, and a monster unto many--just +as much, by this denial of petition, a breaker of his Crown oath as +those who in the past had paid penalty for it with their lives! + +There outside, in the nipping wintry air, he could hear the sounds of a +liberty he no longer shared: the trotting of cab-horses, the cry of +newsboys, the whiffle and hoot of motor-cars. Up through the bare trees +of the park swam a soft radiance of light from the lamps below, and +emergent like a full moon on a misty sky the face of the great +Parliament clock dawned luminous to his gaze. + +So long he stood, and listened, and waited, that before he closed the +window again the clock had told the three-quarters to eight. Then he +hesitated no more; passing out of his study and down to a lower corridor +he came presently to the cloak lobby, and selecting a rough full-length +overcoat, a motor cap, and from a drawer a pair of clouded snow-glasses, +arrayed himself in these, and with flaps drawn down and coat collar +turned high, passed out by a small side-entrance which led on to the +terrace. + +Chill air and a bosom of darkness received him; through the thick +barrier of trees skirting the walled precincts scarcely a light winked; +only the large domed conservatory behind him threw a pale radiance +before his feet as he crossed the terrace and moved off by a winding +path in the direction of a small postern concealed in shrubbery. + +As he quitted the grass, the sound of his own footfalls upon firm gravel +made him guiltily afraid; and it was not without some moral effort that +he, a king in his own domain, kept himself from stepping back +secretively to the turfed edge. Suppressing the inclination, he +proceeded at a smart pace, and coming presently to the door with a +slip-latch on its inner side he opened it and passed through. + +At the sound of opening a policeman stationed outside turned and stood +passively regarding him; his muffled appearance seemed sufficiently in +keeping with the uses to which this particular exit was put by others to +awaken neither suspicion nor surprise. With a half-waggish air of +respect the man touched his helmet. "Good-evening, sir," said he, as +though there subsisted between the habitues of that door and himself a +sort of understanding. + +To make a quicker escape from the man's scrutiny and the glare of the +lamp commanding the entrance, the King crossed the road, and took up his +course along the more dimly lighted footway on the further side. At this +hour the park row in which he found himself was almost deserted; now and +again single pedestrians went by, and as he received from none of these +more than a cursory and inattentive glance, his sense of incognito +increased, and he stepped out more confidently to the task that lay +ahead. + +Presently he was passing along the palace front and under the +eyes of sentries standing motionless at their posts; and again +he had satisfaction in perceiving that as he went by there was no +inclination on the part of any one of them to present arms. He +glanced up at the palace facade, with its windows softly lighted +through blinds. He could pick out his own sitting-room, and the +Queen's, where probably she was now reading the note he had sent to +inform her that urgent business called him away. There were the +lights of the smaller dining-hall, within which a table richly adorned +with gold and silver plate stood even now waiting its twenty accustomed +guests--the minister-in-attendance and the higher permanent officials of +the Court. No one else from outside was coming to-night except Prince +Max. That was fortunate, Max would take his place. + +As soon as he was outside the borders of the park the King quitted the +main thoroughfare for narrow and dimly lit alleys, avoiding the streets +of wide pavements and shops which had scarcely yet begun to close; and +before long found that he had lost his way. + +The fact was sufficiently absurd; here within a stone's throw of his own +palace, and stretching almost to the doors of the House of Legislature +whereto he went in so much state every year, lay an unknown territory +which he had never thought to explore. The intricacy of back streets was +quite unknown to him, and he seemed at almost every corner to be +stepping into yards and cul-de-sacs, from which he had perforce to turn +back again. In a short time all sense of the points of the compass was +gone. + +A small ragged urchin asked him the time, and that casual touch of +communalism made him feel more at home. He took out his watch--it was +already five minutes past eight: over those high narrow streets, with +their thin strip of sky, the big clock of Parliament had boomed the hour +and he had not heard it. Away scurried the urchin as though already late +for something, excitedly calling on others to follow; and the King, with +the presumption that these running feet would be sure to lead him in the +direction where he wished to go, followed them round two corners. After +that all trace of them was gone. + +A sound of shrill singing now struck his ear. He was in a narrow +asphalted way surrounded by workmen's tenements. Right in the middle, +occupying the place of the non-existent traffic, ten or a dozen children +were dancing a sort of figure, and singing the while. As he drew near he +caught snatches of the words. + +Of an elder child, who stood looking on, he stopped and asked the way. +She told him, gesticulating as to which corners he was to pass, pointing +all the time to the promised goal. Incautiously he dropped a coin into +her hand; and, as kings do not carry coppers, immediately there was a +cry. The singers stopped and surrounded him, stretching up clamorous +palms; a whole dozen were now feverishly anxious to show him every step +of the way. + +"It's the 'Chartises' as you want to see, arn't it, mister?" inquired +one. "I'll show you where they go; I know all of 'em." + +The King pressed hurriedly on, hoping to get rid of them; but his +flustered air appealed to the tormenting instincts of youth, and told +them that here they had got some one capable of being worried into +surrender. Still clamoring and thrusting up hands for backsheesh they +kept pace with him. A few of them started singing again, and the rest +joined in: perhaps singing was what the gentleman liked best--and so a +better way for gaining their end. The shrill voices fell into chorus; +and to a queer lilting tune the words rang clear. + + "Come to me + Quietlee, + Do not do me an injuree! + Gently, Johnnie of Jingalo." + +"What's that?" cried the King, stopping short in his amazement; "what's +that you say?" A new bewilderment seized on him. It was +impossible--quite impossible that the children should know who he really +was, yet there were the words with their implied accusation, as though +personally directed at him, and at him alone. + +The small street singers, taking the inquiry for an encore, sang it +again; and this time the words had a curious flirtatious meaning which +made them even worse. What was he being charged with? + +"Where did you get that from?" he inquired, hot of face. + +"One of the Chartises taught it us," said a child more ready of speech +than the rest. "They all sings it now. It's one of their songs, that +is!" So with reduplicating speech she conveyed intelligence to his mind. + +Never before had any word of poetry struck him a blow like this. He had +said that he did not understand poetry, but here was meaning only too +clear; in this song--so gentle, pleading, and pathetic in character, he, +John of Jingalo, stood publicly accused of all the injuries that were +being done to women in that necessary defense of law and order against +which, petition in hand, they were so obstinately setting themselves. +What was all his popularity worth, if by the mouths of little children +his name was to be thus cried in the streets? It was scandalous, +indecent; and yet--was it altogether without justification? + +To be rid of his small tormentors and free for his own meditations, he +took the most practical means that suggested itself. + +"There, there!" he cried. "Run away, run away, all of you!" and throwing +a random coin into their midst moved hastily away. Behind him as he went +he heard battle royal being waged; liberal though the donation, and +sufficient to distribute sustenance to all, each was now claiming it as +her own perquisite. + +And so at his back the shrill sounds of wrath and contention went on +till they became merged in a louder roar, the origin of which was +presently made apparent. + +He turned a corner and saw before him a huge crowd, and Regency Row +packed with seething humanity from end to end. + + +III + +For the first time in his life the King formed part of a crowd, and knew +what it was like to feel his body and limbs packed in by the bodies and +limbs of others and to have the breath squeezed out of him. In this +crowd the proportion of men to women was as ten to one; from the +physical point of view, therefore, the chances for these conflicting +women were nil. All the same they were there in large numbers, and not +for the first time; many of them were already sufficiently well known to +the police. + +A curiously corporate movement possessed this crowd; when it shifted at +all it shifted in large sections--three or four hundred at once; a whole +street-width of men driving forward at a lunge, before which the +strongest barrier of police momentarily gave way. And wherever this kind +of movement went on a few women formed the center of it. + +Small bundles of humanity, they shot by in the grip of that huge force, +mischievous and uncontrolled; tossed, tousled, and squeezed, shedding as +they went small fragments of their outer raiment, lost momentarily to +view in the surging mass of men, cornered, crushed back, held down as +within a vise--emerging again like popped corks followed by a foaming +rush of shouting youths, jeering or cheering them on; and still through +all that pressure obstinately retaining their human form, and enduring +with a strange silence what was being done to them by this great roaring +mob which had come out "for fun." + +Some went their way wide-eyed, with terror in their looks, yet still set +to their end; some with rigid faces and eyes shut fast, as though +scarcely conscious--their souls elsewhere, submitting passively to the +buffetings of fate; and a few--strangest sight of all--smiling to +themselves, almost with a look of peace, as though in the very violence +by which they were assailed they discerned a triumph for their cause. + +And with all the screwing, pushing, and wrenching, the driving forward +and the hurling back, scarcely one woman's arm was raised, except now +and again to protect her breast from the lewd or wanton assaults of the +crowd. Some held, tight clasped in their hands, crumpled bits of +paper--the petition, presumably, over which all this trouble +arose--stained, torn, almost illegible now, useless, yet still a symbol +of the fight that was being waged. Now and then above the turmoil, in +the dimness that lay between the lighted streets and the crowning +darkness of night, went sudden flashes like sheet-lightning in storm; +and at the stroke horses plunged, and youths screamed, facetiously +imitating the voice of women. It was the work of photographers, +securing, from some point of vantage overhead, flashlight records for +the delectation of the music halls. Again and again, with pistol-like +report, the monstrous dose was administered, the night took it at a +gulp, and the rabble responded with noise and shoutings. + +The genial voice of a mounted policeman working his way through the +crowd sounded humanly above the din. + +"I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" There was a touch of +humor in the cry; for it was like the voice of a showman advertising his +wares to a pack of holiday-makers anxious to buy; and wherever he went +pleasantness reigned, and an element of good temper and considerateness +mingled itself with the crowd. + +"Oh! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" Away he went on his +disciplined errand of mercy, a man of kindliness, good counsel, and +understanding, carrying out his orders in as human a way as was +possible. + +"Now then! Now then! Now then! I'm coming. Oh, I'm coming!" + +The roaring multitude swallowed him; his cry grew faint, merged in the +general din. + +By the gradual compression and movement of the multitude toward some +fancied center the King had been borne a good many hundred yards from +his original point. Presently he found himself in a large open space, +with its low-railed inclosure guarded by police. Here the crowd was +denser than ever and its sway harder to withstand. A woman's form was +driven sharply against him. To avoid elbowing her off he offered the +shelter of his arm; and she, finding herself up against something not +immediately repellent, stayed to breathe. He saw the sweat pour from her +skin, and as she panted in his arms she had the rank scent of a creature +when it is hunted. Yet in her face there was no fear at all, only the +white strain of physical exhaustion nearing its last point. + +"Are you hurt?" he asked. + +She shook her head. + +"The police; are they treating you properly?" + +"I have nothing to complain of," she said. + +"Won't you go home? You must see it is no use." + +She turned away as though she had not heard him, and threw herself once +more against the barrier she was unable to overcome. Into the shock of +it she went, with "nothing to complain of," forgetful of self, forgetful +of all but her blind unreasoning determination to gain her end. Her +passive yet battling form was borne away from him in the huge eddies of +the crowd. + +"Hot work!" said a voice at his side; a little man, with keen, appetized +face, ferreting this way and that, was hurriedly taking notes as though +his life depended on it. The King looked at him in surprise, and +wondered what it meant. + +"Got any news?" inquired the man, still scribbling at his notebook. + +"What kind of news?" + +"I'm not particular; anything suits me. I'm the Press." + +"The Press?" + +"Yes, reporter." And, as one proud of his great connection, he named the +King's favorite journal. + +Never it is to be hoped to his dying day did that poor penny-a-liner +know what a piece of news he allowed in that moment to slip by--news +which to him would have meant almost a fortune; and here he was actually +rubbing shoulders with it; and making no profit. + +"How many arrested?" he inquired. + +"I don't know." + +"Any of the leaders yet?" + +"I have not heard." + +Unprofitable company; the man moved away. They were separated by a +fresh movement of the crowd. + +A royal mail-van drove through the square, the police with difficulty +making way for it. And the crowd, mistaking it for something else, +rushed off to gaze and cheer excitedly at the prisoners within. The +postman who sat mounting guard over the netted window at the rear smiled +wittily at the popular error which made him for a few brief moments so +conspicuous a figure. No doubt the incident gave the newspaper-man some +copy, and the van, having contributed its share to the general +amusement, rolled on its way. + +Again the crowd made a rush; on the other side of the square a woman had +managed to get arrested, and a strong body of constables was escorting +her across to the police-station. Captors and captive walked quickly, +anxious to get the thing through. The woman had a scared yet triumphant +look in her eyes: she had succeeded in making the police do what they +did not want to do; and now for a fortnight, or a month, or for two +months--according to what these men might swear to, or the magistrate +think--she and a few score of others would find in a criminal cell that +temporary goal at which they had aimed; and the press would quiet the +public conscience by saying that they had done it "for notoriety." + +Always friendliest when it saw a woman actually under arrest, the crowd +broke into applause--dividing its cheers impartially between prisoner +and police. For this was what it had come out to see: this was why it +had paid tram-fares from distant slums, sacrificing its evening at the +"pub" and its pot of beer. These men of hard toiling lives and dull +imagination were there to see women of a class and education superior to +their own break the law and get "copped" for it, just like one of +themselves. + +"Quite right too! teach them to be'ave as they ought to," was the +comment passed here and there--though as a matter of fact it had already +been abundantly proved that it taught them nothing of the kind. But +that, after all, is "Government" as understood by the man in the street; +he is still the intellectual equal of the rustic, or of the child, who, +smiting the reptile upon the head, "learns him to be a toad"; and it is +down to his imagination that modern government has to play. And so, to +ambiguous cheers uttered by rival factions, the triumphal procession of +prisoner and escort passed on its way. + +"Three cheers for the Women's Charter!" cried a voice somewhere in the +crowd; and there went up in response a genial roar, half of derision, +half of sympathy. + +"Give 'em hell!" cried a wild little man, his face contorted with rage +and the lust which finds satisfaction in a blow. He went fiercely on, +butting his shoulder against every woman he met. Nobody arrested him; +nobody cried "shame." "Give 'em hell!" he cried. + +"They're getting it!" laughed a pale youth with an underhung jaw. + +Wherever the eye turned hell could be seen having its will, and deriving +a curious satisfaction from its momentary power to do foul things under +the public eye. + +"Oh, save me! save me! save me!" whimpered a woman's voice. Down in the +gulf below, buried under the shoulders of men, a small elderly figure +was clinging to the King's arm. + +"Oh, can't you do anything for me?" wailed the poor little Chartist, +with nerve utterly gone. + +"Why don't you go home?" inquired the King kindly. + +"I want to go home!" she said. "Take me!" + +"The first thing, then, is to get out of this crowd. Keep hold of my +arm." + +"No!" A perverse tag of conscience held her back. "I don't want to! I've +got a petition; it has to go to the King. Oh, if he only knew!" + +"Give it to me! I will see that he gets it." + +"You? You'd only throw it away when my back was turned." + +"No; I promise you I would not. Give it me! It shall really go to him." + +"You are not making fun of me?" + +"Indeed I am not. Here, where is it? Give it to me, quick!" + +She put the precious crumpled document into his hand. Poor nameless +soul, unconscious of what she had achieved--"I hope I've done right," +she said. + +A fresh movement of the crowd drove them against the railings. The +elderly little woman cried out like a frightened child. + +"Oh, oh! They are killing me!" + +The King lifted her up and put her over into free space on the other +side. + +"Here! none of that!" cried a big voice beside him. A rough hand seized +hold of him and wrenched him back; he turned round and found himself in +a policeman's charge. Then another came and took hold of him on the +other side. + +Incredibly the thing had happened: he was arrested. Triumphantly, +through a roaring, eddying crowd, the strong arm of the law bore him +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE KING'S NIGHT OUT + + + + +I + +The King sat in a large square chamber with barred windows, awaiting his +turn to be attended to. + +The crowd of prisoners seated on benches round the walls had become +attenuated; only about a score of them now remained. Women had been +dealt with first, the residuum were men; the general charge against +these was pocket-picking. + +He had been sitting there for hours. It was now one o'clock. + +"Now then, you!" said the voice of the sergeant in charge. His turn had +come. + +In an adjoining room he found his two accusers awaiting him. He was led +up to a table where sat an official in uniform making entry of the +names. A charge-sheet, nearly full, was spread on the table before him. + +The policeman who had made the arrest gave in the charge. + +"Name?" said the sergeant-clerk sharply, suspending the motion of his +pen. + +The King, still wearing his cap, took off his snow-glasses and turned +down the collar of his coat. + +It was no use. The officer looked at him without recognition. + +"Name?" he said again; and the policeman upon his right, giving the King +a rough jog, said, "Tell the sergeant your name!" And so, it appeared, +the useless formality must go on. + +The King gave the two essentials--first-christian and surname--out of a +long string of appendices for which half the sovereigns of Europe had +stood as godfathers. + +But the three words "John Ganz-Wurst" meant nothing to the official ear. +Over the patronymic he paused in doubt when only halfway through. "Spell +it!" he said, and, at the King's dictation, altered his V into a W. + +"Foreigner?" he grunted; Jingalese names he could spell properly. + +"Of foreign extraction," said the King, "my great-grandfather came over +to this country and was naturalized." + +"Oh, we don't want to hear about your great-grandfather!" said the +sergeant, cutting him short. + +At this moment one of the higher inspectors came into the room. + +"Address--occupation?" went on his interlocutor, busy with his form. + +The King named the dwelling from which he emanated. + +"Come, come!" said the official voice, "no nonsense here! What address?" + +The inspector was now looking at the prisoner. He touched the sergeant +upon the shoulder, and made a gesture for the two constables to stand +back. + +"Will you please to come this way, sir?" he said, in a tone of very +marked respect. + +The King followed him to an inner room. + +The inspector closed the door. "I beg your Majesty's pardon," he said. +"This is a most regrettable occurrence. Fortunately, none of those men +know." + +The King smiled. "I tried not to give myself away before I was obliged +to," he said. + +"Your Majesty must think we are all quite mad." + +"Not at all. So far as I know, every man I have encountered has merely +done his duty. Your methods of arrest are a little--arbitrary, shall I +say?" + +"That is unavoidable, sir, when we have large crowds to deal with." + +"I can understand that. A woman was being crushed; I helped her to get +over the railings. I suppose that was wrong?" + +The inspector smiled apologetically. "Men have been fined for it, before +now, sir," said he. + +"Very well, I will pay my fine," smiled the King. "And then, if you +don't mind, I will go home." + +His Majesty's kindly humor won the inspector's gratitude. "I'm sure it's +very good of your Majesty to treat the matter so lightly." + +"It was entirely my own fault," said the King. "How was I to be +recognized?" + +"You took us off guard, sir. We were not informed that your Majesty +would be going anywhere to-night." + +"Is that the rule?" + +"It is always our business to inquire." + +"I should not have told any one." + +"It would still, sir, have been our business to find out." + +"You surprise me!" said the King. It had never dawned upon him that he +was so watched. "And so to-night, for the first time, I gave you the +slip?" + +"I take the blame, sir," said the inspector; his voice was grave. + +"Why should you? No harm has been done. The only question now is how am +I to get back?" + +"I can get you a cab, sir, at once. Or would your Majesty rather I sent +word to the palace?" + +"No, certainly not. If I have not been missed, nobody need know." + +"Your Majesty was missed by us four hours ago. That is what brought me +here." + +"You come from the palace?" + +"Yes, sir. As head of the special department, I have to be there every +night." + +"I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble." + +"Oh, not at all, sir." + +And then, a cab having been summoned, he led the way out. + +No one was by; the street had not a soul in it, and the King knew that +once more foresight and care were watching over him. + +"I have paid the cabman, sir," said the inspector, as he closed the +door. "And, sir, would you kindly say where he is to go?" + +There was a hint of discretion in the man's tone. + +"Ah, yes," said the King, "to be sure--yes. Tell him to stop at the park +gates." + +The inspector, saluting, gave the required direction, and the cab drove +off. Arriving a few minutes later at his destination, the King got out, +and passed in through the gates. + +The palace was now shrouded in gloom; only in the guard-room, within the +high-railed quadrangle, a light still burned. Dimly through the night a +sentry could be seen pacing up and down. + +By a subconscious instinct the King was returning along the same route +that he had come. Only as he approached the postern in the wall did it +occur to him that it would almost certainly be locked; and yet for no +other door had he a key. Attended constantly by servants, and leading a +scrupulously regular life, requiring neither secret passages nor late +hours, he had never possessed a latch-key of his own. + +How, then, was he to get in now without attracting attention? + +Having come so far, however, he went forward on chance and tested the +door. The attendant policeman was no longer there, the road-lamp had +been turned low, giving only a glimmer. + +He tried the handle, but found that it would not respond. A figure +glided forward and inserted a key. "Allow me, sir," came the inspector's +voice. + +"You?" exclaimed the King, surprised. + +"It was my duty to see your Majesty safe home." + +"Very kind of you, I'm sure." He passed in, and the inspector followed. + +"Pardon me for asking, sir. Was this the way your Majesty came out?" + +"Yes." + +"Ah, that accounts for it! We never thought of your Majesty coming this +way, and the man put here was only on beat, not on point duty." + +"He was here when I came out," said the King. + +"He did not report, sir." + +"Are they all bound to?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, of course we have to know." + +The King smiled. "I suppose he did not recognize me. Remember, I was not +quite myself." + +"All the same, sir, he should have known. It's what he is trained for." + +The King's surprise grew. "I never guessed that I had to be guarded like +this." + +"Of course, sir, we try to keep it out of sight as much as possible. It +isn't pleasant always to feel yourself watched." + +"I make you my compliments," said the King; "I had not the remotest +idea. Whereabouts are we now?" + +The walls of the palace loomed black above them; the night was dark. + +"Small stair entrance on the north side, sir. If your Majesty is without +a key----" + +"I have no key at all." + +"Then kindly allow me, sir." And again to the inspector's pass-key a +door opened. + +The King entered, and the inspector still accompanied him. "There may be +others locked inside," he said, by way of explanation. + +They passed through a short corridor and ascended stairs; a small +electric pocket-lamp of the inspector's showing them the way. Three +doors he unfastened in turn. Having opened the last he switched on the +light, then respectfully drew back, presuming to come no further. "This +is where your Majesty's private apartments begin," said he; an +indication that his task as conductor was over. + +"Ah, yes," replied the King, "now at last I know where I am. Till this +moment I felt myself a stranger. I have to thank you, Mr. Inspector, for +the kind way in which you have done me the honors of my own house; and," +he added, "of the police-station." + +"I am very sorry, sir, that any such thing should have happened. I can +promise it won't occur again." + +"No," said the King, smiling, "I suppose not. But pray do not be sorry! +I have seldom spent a more interesting time; or--thanks to you and +others--had more things given me to think about." + +The inspector did not reply; he stood looking down, pensive and +resigned--tired, perhaps, now that the anxieties of the last few hours +were over. + +"Good-night," said the King. + +"Good-night, sir," replied the inspector. He withdrew and the King heard +him locking the door after him. + + +II + +The King went into his study, turned on a light, and sat down. He had, +as he had told his guide, many things to think about. It was no use +going to bed, for he knew that he could not sleep. + +These last few hours had been the most wonderful, and the most +crowded--yes, quite literally the most crowded--that he had ever +experienced. At last he had really taken part in the life of his people, +and had come into direct contact with things very diverse and +contradictory, representing the popular will. He had talked with street +urchins, and visionaries, had rubbed shoulders with men of brutal habit +and vile character,--with knaves, cowards, fools; he had been shut up +with drunkards and pickpockets, policemen's thumbs had left bruises upon +his arms, and all his mind was one great bruise from the bureaucratic +police system which had him fast within its grip. + +Now at last he knew that he knew nothing; for only now did he realize +it. To what was going on outside his ears had been stopped with official +lies; morally, intellectually, and physically he was a prisoner, just as +much as when, to the cry of "Old Goggles," from a jeering crowd, he had +marched captive to the police-station. He knew now that even his private +life was watched and spied on--always, of course, with the most +benevolent intentions. This was the price he paid for modern kingship; +and what was it all worth? + +Out of his pocket he drew a small sheet of crumpled paper. In order to +get this to him, a poor, timid woman had gone out into a raging crowd, +had borne its brutality for hours, and then, a piteous bundle of broken +nerves, had by sheer accident accomplished that which hundreds of +others, braver, abler, more confident, and more deserving, had tried to +do and failed. Morally this small slip of paper had upon it the blood, +and the tears, the sweat, the agony, and the despair of all the rest; +and only by accident had he ever come to know of it! + +Here, almost within a stone's throw of his palace, he had seen something +taking place which to-morrow the papers would deride, and of which the +official world would deny him all cognizance. Whether these women had +truly a grievance, any just and reasonable cause for complaint, he did +not know. But he knew now that, with the most desperate earnestness and +conviction, that was their belief, and that in getting their petition to +his hands they saw the beginning of a remedy. + +He spread out the paper before him, and for the first time read the +words-- + +"Humbly showeth that by your Majesty's Ministers law and justice are +delayed, and prayeth that your Gracious Majesty will so order and govern +that your faithful subjects' grievances may forthwith be sought and +inquired into, and remedy granted thereto by Act of Parliament. And your +petitioners will ever pray." + +That was all. What the grievances might be was not stated. He knew that +to hear argument for or against a given case was outside the functions +of the Crown; but he knew equally well that to order inquiry to be made +lay still within his right, though every minister in the Cabinet except +one would seek to deny it to him. And so he sat looking at the crumpled +sheet which meant so much to so many thousands of lives; and slowly the +night went by. + +Long before the first chitter of awakening birds, and before the first +hint of light had crept into the east, he heard outside the slow stir of +the city's life breaking back from short uneasy slumber. With stiffened +limbs he got up from his chair, for the room had grown cold and his body +ached with all the strain and exertion it had so recently undergone. +Slowly he moved off towards his own sleeping apartment, in case the +Queen, when she awoke, should send to inquire after him. And on his way, +as a short cut, he crossed the minstrel gallery, which divided one from +the other the two state drawing-rooms,--a broad half-story colonnade, +with central opening and corners draped into shade. + +Halfway across this elevation he paused to look down into the vast +chamber below. At some point among its chandeliers burned a small +pinhole of light that revealed in a strange dimness various forms of +furniture, showing monstrous and uncouth in their night attire. +Night-gowns rather than pajamas seemed the general wear; only a few legs +were to be seen. In this, its sleeping aspect, the place was certainly +more harmonious and more chaste than by day; mirrors and pictures loomed +from the white walls with a mystery that would disappear when the +lusters contained their light; and the King lingered to take in the +pleasant strangeness of it all, and to wonder what was this new quality +which so attracted him. + +As he did so his ear caught from without a faint reverberation of +muffled sound; even and regular in its beat, it drew near. + +At the far end a door was thrown open; a flush of light entered the +chamber, and there came following it a troop of men wearing felt +slippers and long linen aprons, and bearing upon their shoulders brooms, +feather-heads, wash-leathers, brushes, dusters, steps, vacuum-cleaners, +and other mysterious instruments of an uninterpretable form. + +With the regularity and precision of a drilled army, and with no word +spoken, they moved forward to the attack. Curtains were drawn, cords +pulled, blinds raised, steps mounted. Lusters jingled to the touch of +feathers, cornices shed down their minute particles of dust to the +Charybdian maw of traveling gramophone. Over the carpet metallic +cow-catchers wheezed and groaned with a loud trundling of wheels, and +departed processionally to the chamber beyond. Then by a triple process, +simultaneously conducted, the furniture-sheets were lifted, drawn off, +and folded; a large wicker-table on wheels received and bore them away. +A cloud of light skirmishers followed after; and over every cushion and +seat and polished surface plied their manicurist skill. Then a +storming-party escaladed the gallery from below and the King, to avoid +the embarrassment of an encounter with a body of servitors who had not +the pleasure of his acquaintance, was at last obliged to retire. + +But what a wonderful machine had been here revealed to his +gaze--manipulated without a word, marshaled by signs, and composed +entirely of strangers! And to think that all this insect-like marvel of +industry, so expeditious, and done on so huge a scale, had been going on +daily under his own roof, and he had known nothing of it! So this was +how his palace was cleaned for him, and why it never showed a sign of +wear or the marks of muddy boots? Yet never before had any thought on +the matter occurred to him. And what if some fine day those insects, +fired by revolutionary zeal, had taken it to heart to rise up in their +dozens by those escalading ladders to the first story and rush the +private apartments, and murder him in his morning bath or in his bed! +What a surprising and unexplained apparition it would have been! But +now, and for the future, he would know that daily about this time a +large ant-like colony was running about under him, very strong of arm, +very active of leg; and what protection, he wondered, from peril of +sudden inroad was that search under his bed on the ninth day of every +November? Did that really meet and counter modern methods of conspiracy +and assassination, or the growing dangers of labor unrest? He very much +doubted it. + +And so, with his head very full of the wonder, the order, and the +underlying disturbance of it all, he passed on to his own inner chamber, +and had now something to tell the Queen as to how their immediate +domestic affairs were conducted which should entirely put aside all +awkward questions as to what he had been doing the evening before and +where he had spent the night. + +But, as a matter of fact, sleek officialdom had sheltered the Queen from +all anxiety, and she had not a notion that the King had been anywhere +except to some consultation with ministers, and thence late to bed. + +In order that his valet might find him there he got into it, and when, a +couple of hours later, he greeted her Majesty he found that sanguine +mind looking eagerly ahead and concerning itself very little over things +which were past. + +"Remember, my dear," she said, looking up from her letters, "that in +three days' time the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser comes. I do hope, while +he is here, that you will be fairly free." + +"Not so free as I thought I should be," said the King, and he sighed +heavily. + + +III + +His Majesty had a good many things that day to discuss with the Prime +Minister when at a later hour they met. He began on the matter which was +most regular and formal; had he been at all likely to forget it the +Queen's observation would have reminded him. + +"By the way, Mr. Premier," he said, "as you already know, the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser arrives in a day or two; and there are certain possible +eventualities arising out of his visit which we must be prepared for. +Hitherto the Princess Charlotte has had no definite grant made to her. +While she was still living with us, without an establishment of her own, +I preferred to let the matter stand over. But now--well, now a change +may be necessary." + +The Prime Minister's face beamed with congratulatory smiles. "Your +Majesty may be sure that the matter shall have immediate attention." + +"There will be no difficulty?" + +"Oh, none whatever." + +"I will leave all question of the amount to be discussed later. I +believe that it is etiquette, in the case of a reigning Prince, for him +also to be consulted." + +"That is so, sir." + +"The Prince himself is very wealthy; and I think that you will find him +disinterested. Still there is, of course, a certain balance to be +observed." + +"Oh, quite." + +"I leave the matter, then, entirely in your hands." + +The Prime Minister bowed. + +And then the conversation changed. + +"You know what happened to me last night, I suppose," said the King. + +"Ah, yes, indeed, sir! You will pardon my silence; I was most horrified. +But I thought that perhaps your Majesty did not wish to speak of it." + +"On the contrary," replied the King, "I have got a great deal to say." +And then, with much detail and particularity, he narrated his +experience--all those hours which he had spent in the crowd; and the +Prime Minister listened, saying nothing. + +"Well," said the King, when he had done, "that is what I have seen; and +you cannot tell me it is something that does not matter." + +"By no means, sir; I admit that it is very serious." + +"I was never told so before." + +"We did not wish unnecessarily to trouble your Majesty. This is hardly a +case for Cabinet intervention; the Home Office does its duty, takes +preventive measures as far as is possible, and puts down the +disturbances when they arise." + +"Yes, yes," said the King, "but is nothing going to be done?" + +The Prime Minister raised his eyebrows, as though asked to reply once +more to a question already answered. + +"Everything possible is being done, sir." + +"Legislatively, I mean." + +"Oh, sir," exclaimed the head of Government in a tone of the most +deferential protest, "that surely is a matter for the Cabinet." + +"Quite so," said the King. "That is why I ask." + +So then the Premier explained circumstantially and at great length why, +in that sense, nothing whatever could be done. We need not go into it +here--those who read Jingalese history will find the Prime Minister's +reasons published elsewhere; and it all really came only to this: "It is +the duty of a government to keep in power; and if it cannot do justice +without endangering its party majority, then justice cannot be done." + +You could not have a more satisfactory, a more logical, or a more +unanswerable argument than that. And at all events--whether you agree +with it or not--it is the argument that all ministers act upon +now-a-days, even when, in the House of Legislature which sits +subservient to their will, there is a majority ready and waiting which +thinks differently of the matter, but fears to act lest it should lose +touch with the loaves and fishes. For now it is on the life not of a +Parliament but of a Cabinet that losses are counted. And the reason is +plain; for every member of a Cabinet has to think of saving for himself +some L5,000 a year together with an enormous amount of departmental +power and patronage; while an ordinary private member of Parliament has +only his few hundreds to think about and his rapidly diminishing right +to any independence at all. The life and death struggles of a ministry +are bound, therefore, to be more desperate, more unscrupulous, and more +pecuniarily corrupt than those of any other branch of the legislature. +And, of course, when we put all the leading strings into fingers so +buttered with gold, political corruption is the necessary and inevitable +result, and such incidental things as mere justice must wait. + +But the Prime Minister did not explain matters to the King in such +plain and understandable terms as these; and, as a consequence, his +explanation being incomplete, his Majesty's mind remained unsatisfied. + +"Very well," said he, when the ministerial apologia was concluded; "I +will consider what you say, and when I have quite made up my mind I will +send a message to Council with recommendations; I still have that right +under the Constitution." + +The Prime Minister stiffened. Here was conflict in Council cropping up +again; it must be put down. + +"That right, sir," said he, "has not been exercised for nearly a hundred +years." + +"I beg your pardon," said the King, "I exercised it only two months ago, +when I sent in the message of my abdication." + +"Which your Majesty has been wise enough not to act upon." + +"Which, nevertheless, you were forced to accept, and would have had to +give effect to, ultimately, by Act of Parliament." + +That was true. + +"By the way," went on the King, "arising out of that withdrawal of my +abdication which you say was so wise, there has come a difficulty I had +not foreseen. Believing that by now my son would be upon the throne +instead of me, I gave my consent to his marriage with the daughter of +the Archbishop. Yes, Mr. Premier, you may well start: I am just as much +perturbed about it as you; for the Prince now comes to me and claims the +fulfilment of my promise." + +"Impossible, sir!" exclaimed the Prime Minister. + +"That is what I tell him. He does not think so." + +"But, your Majesty, this is absolutely unheard of. The whole position +would be intolerable!" + +"I indorse all your adjectives and your statements," said the King +coldly; "but the fact remains." + +"Then, sir, I must see the Prince, immediately." + +"It is no use, no use whatever," replied his Majesty. "Besides--the +matter is still rather at a private stage. You had much better wait till +the Prince comes to you; otherwise he may accuse me of having been +premature." + +"But what does the Archbishop say?" cried the Premier, aghast. + +"That is the point; I believe he does not yet know. Technically +speaking, the engagement is scarcely a day old. The Prince's note +claiming my promise reached me only this morning, and I imagine it is +only now that the Archbishop will have to be informed. Hitherto the +matter has been in suspension. You will understand it was dependent--on +my abdication, I might say." + +"In that case, sir, the conditions are not fulfilled." + +"I fear they are," said the King; "the Prince has my promise in writing; +and abdication is not mentioned. You see, it was the bomb that made all +the difference. Very provoking that it should have happened just then; +it upset all my plans!" + +The Prime Minister began to look very uncomfortable. + +"Oh, no," went on the King, observing his change of countenance, "don't +think that I am blaming you. What you said was quite true; abdication +after that became impossible; I am only saying it as an excuse for the +position in which I now find myself. It was not I who made the mistake, +it was that poor misguided person who threw the bomb; he ought to have +killed me. I am confident that, had the Prince been actually on the +throne, the situation would have been radically altered, that he would +not have persisted--that he would have seen, as you say, how impossible +the position would be. Very unfortunate--very--but there we are!" + +"But again I say, sir, that even now, though the Prince is not on the +throne--and long may your Majesty be spared!--the whole thing is +absolutely and utterly impossible." + +"I quite agree," said the King; "but that is the situation. Before now I +have found myself in similar ones, and have tried to get out of them; +yet I have seldom succeeded." + +"But this, sir," persisted the Prime Minister, "is politically +impossible. Things could not go on." + +"And yet, Mr. Premier, you know that they will have to; that is the very +essence of politics." + +"I tell your Majesty that rather than admit such a possibility the +Ministry would resign." + +"Very well--then it must," said the King. "But you will find that the +Prince will not regard my inability to secure an alternative Government +as any reason why he should not marry the lady of his choice. I may as +well tell you, for your information, that he has revolutionary ideas, +and this is one of them." + +"I am confident," exclaimed the Prime Minister, with a gleam of hope, +"that the Archbishop himself will forbid it." + +"Very likely," replied his Majesty; "but I am not sure that he will +succeed. I wish he could; but from all I hear the lady herself is of a +rather determined character. Women are very determined now-a-days." + +He thought of Charlotte and sighed; and yet, in his heart, he could not +help admiring and envying her. + +"We will talk of this all again some other time," he went on, tired of +the profitless discussion. "After all the marriage is not going to take +place the day after to-morrow." + +"Sir," said the Premier, "over a matter of this sort any delay is +impossible--the risk is too great. I must see the Prince myself." + +"Very well," said the King, "do as you like. After all I ought to be +glad that it is with the Prince you will have to discuss the matter, and +not with me." + +And he smiled to himself, for he very much liked the thought of the +Prime Minister tackling Max. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE SPIRITUAL POWER + + + + +I + +But the Prime Minister, though he lost no time, was unable to catch his +quarry. Prince Max had gone out; and his secretary could give no +information as to his whereabouts. "His Highness told me that he had a +very important engagement; he did not say with whom." To apprehensive +ears that phrase sounded ominous; and fearing what risks delay might +entail the Premier drove down to Sheepcote Precincts, the archiepiscopal +residence; and there for three mortal hours he and the Archbishop sat +with heads together (yet intellectually very much apart) discussing what +was to be done. + +It was during those three hours that his Grace of Ebury performed his +most brilliant feat of statesmanship, and redeemed that local off-shoot +of the Church of Christ over which he ruled from the political slough +whereinto it had fallen. To him solely--by means of his daughter, that +is to say (but in politics women do not count)--is due the fact that the +Church of Jingalo still stands on its old established footing, and that +her Bishops have a decisive modicum of political power left to them. + +The Archbishop was, in his heart of hearts--that last infirmity of his +noble mind--quite as much horrified at the news as the Premier had been. +But scarcely were the dread tidings out of the minister's mouth when, +perceiving his opportunity, he rose to it as a fish rises to a fly, and +pretended with all due solemnity to be rather pleased than otherwise. +Though his daughter's elevation to princely rank and to the prospect of +future sovereignty would assuredly seal his political doom, he professed +presently to see in it a fresh stepping-stone to influence and power, +or, as he conscientiously phrased it, to "opportunities for good." His +approach to this point, however, was gradual and circuitous. + +"Of course it is a great honor," he began, deliberately weighing the +proposition in earthly scales, and seeming not wholly to reject it. + +"That goes without saying," replied the Prime Minister, "and hardly +needs to be discussed. Our sure point of agreement is that it must not +be." + +His Grace lifted his grizzled eyebrows in courteous interrogation, and +beginning delicately to disentangle the gold strings of his pince-nez +from the pectoral cross to which like a penitent it clung, said, "Of +course I perfectly understand how great a shock this has been to you. To +me also it comes as an entire surprise: my daughter has told me nothing, +and therefore--in a sense--I can say nothing till I have seen her." + +"You have influence with her, I suppose?" said the Premier. + +"Oh, undoubtedly." + +"I am confident, then, that your Grace will use it to the right end." + +"It has never been my habit, I trust, to neglect my parental +responsibilities," replied his Grace. + +"I was thinking, rather, of your responsibilities to the State." + +"Those, too, I shall have in mind. There is also the Church." + +The Prime Minister was puzzled. + +"This matter does not seem to impress your Grace quite as it does me. I +should have thought there could be no two opinions about it." + +"That was too much to hope, surely? Our points of view are so very +different." + +The Premier felt that plain dealing had become necessary. "It would make +quite untenable your position as leader of a party," he remarked grimly. + +"I was not concerned about myself," replied his Grace with wonderful +sweetness. "As for that, I am growing old." + +"But surely you agree that the thing is wholly impossible?" + +"Impossible is a strong word." + +"That it would profoundly alter the constitutional status of the Crown?" + +"Possibly. I think not." + +This slow weighing of cons in the balance was having a devastating +effect upon the minister's nerves; he got upon his feet. + +"Does your Grace mean to tell me that this thing is even conceivable?" + +"Conceivable? I wish you would state to me, without any fear of offense, +the whole body of your objection. I recognize, of course, that the Royal +House, in the direct line, has made no such alliance for over two +hundred years,--never, in fact, since it ceased to be of pure native +extraction. I also admit that for myself as a party politician (if you +impose upon me that term) it is inconvenient, destructive even to +certain plans which I had formed. But putting myself altogether aside, +and allowing that for a precedent we have to go very far back into the +past, what real objections have you to urge?" + +The Prime Minister was beginning to get thoroughly uncomfortable. + +"It is a breach--a fatal breach to my mind," said he, "in that caste +distinction which alone makes monarchy possible under modern conditions. +I mean no personal disrespect to your Grace: were it a question of my +own daughter, I should take the same view. It disturbs a tradition which +has worked well and for safety, and has not been broken for hundreds of +years. But most destructively of all it threatens that aloofness from +all political entanglements--that absolute impartiality between party +and party--which to-day constitutes the strength of the Crown." + +"I might be quite prepared," said the Archbishop slowly, "in such an +event, to withdraw myself from all political action of a party +character." + +"You cannot so separate yourself from the past," objected the Prime +Minister. + +"I do not see the difficulty. You yourself, in a long and varied career, +have twice changed your party, or deserted it. If that can be done with +sincerity, it is equally possible to become of no party at all." + +The Prime Minister flushed at this attack on his past record, and struck +back-- + +"Not for an Archbishop," he said, a little sneeringly. "The Church +now-a-days has become not merely a part of our political system, but a +stereotyped adjunct of party, and a very one-sided one at that." + +"To answer such a charge adequately," replied his Grace, "I should be +forced into political debate foreign to our present discussion. What +concerns me here and now is that something has taken place--pregnant for +good or ill--which you regard as impossible, and which I do not. In +either case--whatever conclusion is reached--I am called upon to make a +sacrifice. Of that I do not complain, but what I am bound to consider, +even before the interests of the State (upon which we take different +views), are the interests of the Church. When we last met you were +preparing to do those interests something of an injustice: and your more +recent proposals do not induce me to think that you have changed your +mind. If the Church is to lose the ground she now holds in the State she +must seek to recover it elsewhere. I cannot blind my eyes to the fact +that, in the high position now offered to her, my daughter will be able +to do a great work--for the Church." + +"I believed that you had no sympathy with the intrusion of women into +the domain of politics." + +"Not into politics, no; but the Church is different. We have in our +Saints' Calendar women--queens some of them--who were ready to lay down +their lives for the Church, and to secure her recognition by heathen +peoples and kings. Why should not my daughter be one?" + +He spoke with an exalted air, his hand resting upon his cross. + +"Your Grace," said the Prime Minister in a changed tone, "may I put one +very crucial question? Have you a complete influence over your +daughter?" + +"That I can hardly answer; I will only say that she is dutiful. Never, +so far as I am aware, has she questioned my authority, nor has she +combated my judgment in any matter where it was my duty to decide for +her what was right." + +On this showing she seemed a very estimable and trustworthy young +person; and with a sense of encouragement the Prime Minister went on-- + +"Then upon this question of her marriage with the Prince, would she, do +you think, be guided by you?" + +"She would not marry him without my consent." + +"And your consent might be forthcoming?" + +"Under certain circumstances, I think--yes." + +"And as the circumstances stand now at this moment?" + +The Archbishop paused, and looked long at the Prime Minister before +answering. + +"How do they stand?" he inquired. + + +II + +That evening when Jenifer returned home the Archbishop was waiting her +arrival. The door of his private library stood ajar. "Come in, my dear," +he called, hearing her step in the corridor, "come in; I wish to speak +to you." + +She entered with a flushed face. "_I_ wanted to speak to you, father," +she said. + +He saw that she was come charged for the delivery of her soul, and +perceiving what a strategic advantage it would give him to hear the +story first from her own lips, he waived his prior claim. "Very well, my +dear," he replied, "for the next hour I am free, and at your disposal." + +"It may take longer than that," she warned him; "I have something to +tell you that seems to me almost terrible." + +"Anything wrong?" + +"Oh, no, but so tremendous I hardly know how to begin." Her breast +labored with the burden of its message, but in her face was a look of +dawn. + +"Has it to do with yourself?" + +"Yes, papa. I am engaged to marry Prince Max." + +The Archbishop paused for a moment, thinking how best to avoid any +appearance of foreknowledge. + +"My child," he said, "what Prince Max do you mean?" + +"The only one that I know of," she answered. + +"You mean the heir to the throne?" + +"Yes, papa." + +"You say you are engaged to him?" + +"Yes." + +"With whose knowledge, may I ask?" + +"The King knows; he has just given his consent. That is why I am telling +you now." + +"Why only now?" There was reproach in his tone. + +"Until we had his consent we were not engaged." + +"And now--being engaged--you come for mine?" + +"No, papa; only to let you know." She paused. "Of course I should be +glad of your approval." + +The Archbishop sat silent for a while. "How long have you known Prince +Max?" he inquired at last. + +"About six months." + +"Is not that rather a short time?" + +"Yes." + +"For so important a decision, I mean." + +"Yes; it is, I know." + +"For learning a man's character, shall I say?" + +"Some characters one learns more quickly than others. I know him, papa, +better than I do you." + +"That may well be, youth does not easily understand age. And so my +question remains: Do you know him well enough to marry him?" + +"I want to marry him," she said. + +"You know there are objections?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Very serious ones." + +"Yes, I told him; I said it was quite impossible. He said he could get +the King's consent. I did not think so: I felt sure, indeed, that he +could not. But to-day he came and showed it to me in writing--a promise +made conditionally more than two months ago." + +"Conditionally?" + +"Yes; it named a date. That is why until to-day there was nothing that I +could tell you." + +"Not even the fact that he had asked you to marry him?" + +"I could not wish that to be known, if nothing was to come if it--not by +any one." + +"It would have been better, my child." + +"No, papa; why should you, or any one, know what I had had to give up?" + +"Of course, it would have been painful; that I can understand." + +"I can smile at it now," she said; "but at the time it was terrible! For +I found, then, how much I loved him." + +The Archbishop withheld all speech for a moment, then said tenderly-- + +"I am very sorry for you, my child." + +"Ah, but there is no need to be now!" she cried joyfully. + +Once more he paused; then he repeated the words. + +There was quick attention then in her look, but she showed no fear; and +he shifted to easier ground. + +"Tell me," he said gently, "how all this came about. How did you come to +know the Prince?" + +"Only by seeing him at the Court; then I recognized that we had met +often before, when I had not known who he was." + +"Why should he have concealed it?" + +"He did not; one day he told me, and I would not believe him, it seemed +so unlikely. Neither did he believe me when I told him who I was; he +said that the facts were incompatible, and that mine was the more +unlikely story of the two." + +"Did you--did you begin liking him very soon?" + +"I began by almost hating him. He used to scoff at everything, he seemed +not to believe in anything that was good. Almost the first time that we +met he told me that the dress I wore was 'provocative'--'a lure of +Satan's devising' he called it, and said that nothing tempted men more +than for women to wear what he described as 'the uniform of virginity.' +He declared that it was because of my dress that he got lost following +me through the slums." + +"Did not that warn you what sort of man he was?" + +"No; for it was not true. We just happened to meet, and he helped me +when I was single-handed. He confessed afterwards that he had said +everything he could to shock me--to put me to the test. He has grown up +distrusting all religious professions." + +"A scoffer? Did not even that warn you?" + +"No; under the circumstances it seemed the most natural thing; it showed +me that he was honest." + +These sounded dreadful words to the Archbishop, coming from his +daughter's lips; he felt that, in passing from theory to practice she +had become shockingly latitudinarian in her views; and again, cautious +and circumspect, he shifted his ground. + +"My dear," he said, "you do realize, I suppose, that from a worldly +point of view the Prince has committed a very grave indiscretion." + +She smiled. "He tells me so himself; it rather pleases him. But now the +King has given his consent." + +"Yes, nominally he has," replied the Archbishop. "But in that there is a +good deal more than meets the eye. When his Majesty first gave that +promise he never intended that it should take effect." + +She paled slightly at his words, and he saw that only now had he scored +a point. + +"Why do you think that?" + +"I do not think it, I know; but I am not at liberty to reveal secrets of +State. Let us put that aside, I cannot give you proof; if you wish to +disbelieve it, do. But now I come to my main point. There is a side to +this question about which you know nothing, but you know that in the +State to-day the Church has her enemies. This indiscretion on the part +of the Prince, supported by a promise from which the King cannot in +honor withdraw, has suddenly put into my hands a great opportunity which +must not be missed." + +"Into _your_ hands, papa?" + +"Under Providence, yes; I say it reverently. You are my daughter, and +in service and loyalty to the Church you and I are as one." + +She looked at him steadfastly, but did not respond in words. + +"A great opportunity," he said again; "a great power for righteousness, +to save the Church in her dire need. That is a great thing to be able to +do--worth more than anything else that life can offer. To you, my +daughter, that call has come; how will you answer it?" + +Her face had grown white, but was still hard to his appeal; he had not +won her yet. + +"Yes," she said, "I do partly understand. I will do all for you that I +can." + +"Then you will release the Prince from his bond." + +"He does not ask to be released." + +"That may be." + +Then there was silence. + +"My dear child," murmured the Archbishop; there was emotion in his +voice, and putting out his hand he laid it upon hers. + +She drew herself gently from the contact. + +"Only if he wishes it," she said. + +"He will not wish it." + +"Then he has my word." + +"Your life contains other and holier vows than that, my child." + +She did not seem to think so. "Father," she said, "this is the man I +love!" + +"That I realize," he replied gravely. "The question is which do you love +best,--him or the Church?" + +Jenifer opened her eyes in a limpid and childlike wonderment. How could +he ask a question the answer to which was so obvious? "Why, him!" she +cried; "there is no possible comparison!" + +The Archbishop was deeply shocked as well as nonplussed at such an +answer coming from his daughter; and meanwhile with clear sincerity of +speech she went on-- + +"You mean the Church of Jingalo--do you not, papa?" + +Of course it was the Church of Jingalo that he meant, but it would not +do at this juncture to say so. His daughter might be one of those +dreadful people who believed that the Church would get value out of +disestablishment. + +"I meant the Church of our fathers," said he, "the faith into which you +were baptized,--the spiritual health and welfare of the whole nation." + +"I do not think that by marrying the Prince I shall do it any harm. I am +sure that he means none." + +Her idea of the power of Princes struck him as curiously feminine; how +little she understood of politics! + +"It is rather a case," said he, "of harm that you cannot prevent, except +in one way. What have you in your mind? Is it the wish to sit upon a +throne?" + +"Oh, no!" she said; "I shall never like being queen." Then, after a +pause, she added honestly, "All the same, I could do things, +then--things which I have longed to do; and I know that he would let +me." + +Her face glowed at the prospect; and suddenly she turned upon him a full +look of self-confidence and courage, and there was challenge in her +tone. + +"I know far more about the poor than you do, father," she said, "and +much more of their needs. If I were queen I would have a house down +among the slums; and I would never spend Christmas, or Easter, or Good +Friday in any other place." Her voice broke. "I would try--I would try," +she said, "to set up Christianity in high places. That has been my +dream." + +"Have you told your dream to the Prince?" + +She smiled tenderly, and with confidence. "He is already helping to +make it come true. I asked him to be upon the Commission. That is why he +is there." + +"You?" + +The Archbishop was now realizing that he knew very little about his +daughter, and she not only amazed him, she frightened him. For the first +time he feared that he might lose the great stakes for which he was +playing; and one thing was essential--this woman, this domestic pawn +which he held in his hand, must never be allowed to become queen. + +And so with great pain he forced himself, and spoke on. How right he had +been when he told the Prime Minister that in one way or another +sacrifice would be required of him! For now he was going to sacrifice +his most sacred conventions, his ideal of how an unmarried woman should +be trained. + +"My child," he said, "do you think that you know this man?" + +"Yes; I know him better than any one else in the world." + +"Do you also know his life?" + +Jenifer's look turned on him a little curiously. + +"I know," she said, "that he is not really a Christian." + +"Ah!" he exclaimed, in a sort of joy, decorously flavored with grief, +"that I did not know! Of course that explains everything. The rest +inevitably follows." + +"What follows?" + +"No man who is not a Christian leads a life that will stand looking +into." And then, avoiding her eyes, he spoke of things which he knew; +some of them in certain quarters were almost common property; of others +he had only recently become informed. + +And as he spoke he felt, with a strange oppression, the heart beside him +grow dumb. For this woman, with her clear and gracious understanding of +so many human ills and weaknesses, had been kept in one matter, the most +important of all, with the mind of an undeveloped child. Evil things she +knew of--they had an existence, a place, and a name--but for her no +reality except in their awful results. All that she had hitherto seen of +"irregular living" bore the stamp of betrayal and disease, a thing more +grossly criminal than anything else in the social body. She did not know +how that body was permeated, and how no class and no ordinary standard +of morality was free from the taint. + +And now she heard that the man she loved had been keeping that thing +called "a mistress"--housing her in luxury, visiting her day after day, +not very greatly troubling himself whether the fact remained secret or +became known. Then dates were mentioned; and she was given to know how +those visits had still gone on while her lover had been offering her the +devotion of his heart. It was there, after his recent accident, that he +had gone to be nursed. + +The Archbishop was extremely well informed, and he told nothing which +he did not absolutely believe to be true. And now at last all the +advantage was on his side, for ignorance left her almost without +defense; with no sense of proportion she stood looking out into a +non-dimensional world. + +Dimly her mind made a struggle to escape. + +"But what, what does it mean?" she asked. "There must be some reason for +it. Is it a kind of disease?" + +"A corrupt nature," said her father solemnly; "these are what the Church +calls in her teaching 'the sins of the flesh.'" + +She shuddered, for to her by religious training "flesh" had come to have +a dreadful sound. In her spiritual world she pictured it as a shop hung +with butcher's meat; yet why it was dreadful she did not know. + +"Tell me," she murmured with pained speech, still trying for a way out, +"it isn't--natural, is it?" + +"That doctrine is preached by some," said her father; "Christianity +forbids any such view." + +"He said," she went on, "he said this, when he first asked me to marry +him: 'I have done some natural things which you would hold to be wrong. +I have loved,' he said, 'for mere comfort, not for honor or life.' He +asked me if I understood; I said 'Yes.' 'That is my confession,' he +said. 'I have been,' he said, 'no better than others; I hope not worse.' +And that was all. I thought he meant that he had been selfish and +worldly. Is that other thing what he really meant?" + +"No doubt." + +"But he _told_ me," she said, and looked at him with a forlorn hope. + +"It was the best thing that he could do for himself; no doubt he guessed +that eventually you would come to know." + +She stood thinking back into the past. + +"After he had told, he kissed me," she said; "he had never done that +before." Her lips trembled and the tears ran down her face. + +"You know enough now, my dear. That will not happen again." + +"I still love him," she said, as though confessing to shame. + +The Archbishop had sufficient wisdom to accept the statement without +protest. "It would be hard for you to do otherwise," he said. "The heart +cannot change all at once." + +"I believed that with him I could do good." + +"Can you believe that now?" + +"I don't know." + +"That sort of life enters the blood," said her father, "taints it, makes +evil that which would otherwise be holy." + +"You mean----?" + +"I speak of marriage; the drawing together of two into one." + +"It still is marriage." + +"Its mystery has been profaned. Marriage then, coming after, may be only +a reminiscence of sin." + +She stood looking at him, her face very pale. + +"I shall still have to ask him if it is true." + +The Archbishop resigned himself to what he could not avoid. "If you +must," he said. And then, thinking forward to what might possibly +happen, he added: "It was my duty to tell you everything." + +"Yes," she replied, "but you did not mean to tell me at first." + +"I hoped that I might spare you," he explained. "These are not things +that one speaks of willingly; if they can be avoided it is better that +they should not be known." + +She gave a gesture of impatience, pressing her hands against her eyes. + +"Do not say anything more to me," she said, and her voice sounded +hopeless and dead. "Not now." + +And then, very slowly, she turned and went out of the room. + +The Archbishop told himself that he had done his duty. Personal +aggrandizement, great opportunities of power and social position he had +put away, he had done a true and holy thing. And so he sat down and +wrote to the Prime Minister. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE THORN AND THE FLESH + + + + +I + +The next day Prince Max received a letter written by the hand which had +become for him the dearest in the world. It was very simple and +straightforward and methodical: it began with the word "Beloved" and +asked whether certain things were true. It seemed, then, that for the +first time his confession was understood. Not a single one of the +questions put to him contained anything that was untrue, but they did +not go much into detail, and no commentary was made upon the facts +indicated. + +Max sat down and wrote a very beautiful letter in reply, and got no +answer. + +For three days he put up with this rebuff to his honesty of character +and his literary ability; then not finding his lady where he expected +her to be, he went and called upon her father. + +The Archbishop was out; but Max, not to be denied, sat down and waited +for his return. He waited for over two hours. It was getting towards +dusk when his Grace entered, a reverend, high-shouldered figure, showing +a stoop and beginning now to look old. + +The Archbishop's very formal greeting told Max that here was the enemy. +This did not at all dismay him; at that time, indeed, he was full of +confidence. The temporary separation between himself and his beloved, +brought about in a conventional way which he thoroughly despised, was +for the moment a hindrance; but it had not yet taken to itself the +colors of doom. He knew that Jenifer's heart was entirely his, and that +they, with their common honesty, had only to meet again to be made one. +What he wanted to know, therefore, was not so much the opinion of +Jenifer's father about himself and the engagement, as to find out her +present whereabouts. From the first moment of their meeting he knew that +he did not stand in the Archbishop's good graces; but that hardly +concerned him; and so it was almost without circumlocution that he asked +for Jenifer's address. + +The Archbishop, by a simultaneous depression of the head and raising of +the eyebrows, managed to convey his just sense of the honor which was +being done him and the liberty that was being taken. + +"I wrote the other day," explained Max, "asking her to arrange a time +when I might come and see you. In strict etiquette I believe that your +Grace ought first to call upon me; but we have so few precedents to go +by. She has, I trust, done me the honor to tell you that we are +engaged?" + +"I have been informed of the circumstance," replied the Archbishop with +stately formality. + +The Prince took the matter boldly in hand. "From your manner I have to +presume that we have not the happiness of your consent?" + +"My consent was not asked." + +"Had it been?" + +"I could not have given it." + +"That I think," said the Prince, "would have been the perfectly correct +attitude until such time as the King gave his. It is for that we have +been waiting; had it not been so I should have come to you earlier." + +"Early or late, my answer to your Highness would always be the same." + +"May I ask upon what grounds?" + +"I would ask, sir, in return, upon what grounds is it suitable that you +should marry my daughter?" + +"It so happens," replied Max, "that I am in love with her." + +"What precisely, sir, to your mind does the phrase 'being in love' +convey?" + +The Prince saw that the tussle was coming; he gathered his thoughts +together, then said, "An intense personal desire to endow a certain +woman with motherhood." + +The Archbishop flushed: sharp enmity showed itself in his eyes; he made +a gesture of repulsion. + +"Ah!" cried Max, "does that shock the Church?" + +The challenge went unanswered; instead came question. + +"Have you not had this desire before--in other directions?" + +"Never!" exclaimed Max. "No, never!" + +The Archbishop eyed him keenly. "You have had experience." + +"I have lived my life openly," said the Prince. + +"I was aware of that," returned his Grace. "Need I trouble your Highness +with any further grounds for my refusal? Not with my consent shall my +daughter marry a libertine." + +"Great Judge of Heaven!" cried Max, springing to his feet. "Hark to this +old man!" + +"Don't shout," said the Archbishop; "He hears you." + +Max's scorn dropped back like a rocket to earth. + +"Yes," he retorted, "no doubt! The question is, are you capable of +hearing Him?" + +"I am always ready to be instructed," replied his Grace sarcastically. + +"I must remind you," said the Prince, "that as a Doctor of Divinity I +have some claim. Yes," he went on in answer to the Archbishop's look of +astonishment, "though you have forgotten the circumstance, you yourself +dubbed me Theologian by hitting me over the head with a Greek +Testament." + +The Archbishop accepted the reminiscence. + +"In that case," said he, "I bow to your Highness's authority." + +"Yes: you were a shepherd of that fold, yet you let me in? I was the +clever one of my family; and the title was given me when, with three +lives standing between, there was little likelihood of my becoming Head +of the Church. Was I to wear it, then, as an ornament, or as an amulet +to guide me into right doctrine? Whatever faith I still hold, I fear me +that miracle has not been wrought." + +"In these days," said the Archbishop, "faith itself is the great +miracle." + +"That people should have any faith in the Church is indeed a miracle," +said Max. "Yet I suppose it is but another instance of how easily the +world accepts what it finds. I myself remain outwardly a Churchman; +merely because it seems to me hardly to matter, and because any overt +act on my part would hurt those whom I love. And what spiritual +experience have I acquired as the result of my outward conformity? I +have found the pulpit the most polished of all social institutions: and +never once have I heard from it any word troublesome to a conscience +which has still, I can assure you, its waking moments. The eloquence +that flows from it never trespasses beyond the bounds of polite +conversation; and as regards 'unpleasant subjects' it deals faithfully +only with the lives of those who do not form the bulk of its +congregations. If it dealt faithfully with them, those polite +congregations would get up and walk out." + +"I do not think, sir, that your experience puts you in a position to +know how the Church deals with the consciences of the faithful." + +"You mean," said Max, "that in the ears of royalty uncomfortable +subjects are avoided? That merely indicates the system. As the snail +withdraws first his horns into his head, then his body into his shell, +so your Church adapts itself to its surroundings. Let me give you a case +in point--it touches on our present discussion. I have heard often +enough the cheaper forms of prostitution decorously alluded to; but when +did I ever hear dealt with, either for approval or reprobation, the +established practice among the unmarried youth of our aristocracy of +keeping mistresses?" + +"I think, sir, that you must have been often inattentive. The virtue of +purity is, I am sure, constantly inculcated by our clergy." + +"In such a form," replied the Prince, "that we need not apply it to +ourselves. The betrayal of innocency, yes, I have heard of that, for +that only touches a small minority. But these mistresses whom most of us +keep are no more innocent than ourselves, nor are we more innocent than +they. And yet, while to them all social entrances are barred, we men are +allowed to go in free." + +"Society cannot act on mere rumor and suspicion," said the Archbishop. + +"In the woman's case it does," replied the Prince. "And I wonder whether +it has ever occurred to any one to connect that fact with the +cheapening of our modern definition of chivalry. Are you ever +chivalrous; am I?" + +"Charity is a greater thing than chivalry." + +"I am not so sure of that," said the Prince. "You had forgotten just now +that I was a Doctor of Divinity; have you also forgotten that we share +the honors of one of the most ancient knighthoods in the world?" + +"Will your Highness be so good as to explain?" + +"Your Grace will perhaps remember--since you officiated upon the +occasion as prelate of the Order--my investiture rather more than two +years ago as a Knight of the Holy Thorn?" + +The Archbishop bowed assent. + +"Your discourse upon that occasion was both learned and eloquent; but it +did not really touch the subject that had brought us together." + +"How would you define the subject?" inquired his Grace. + +"The subject on which I hoped to be instructed," said the Prince, "was +the real meaning of Chivalry as expressed in the Order of the Thorn, and +the reason why I was deemed worthy to be made a knight of it. There had +already been some comment owing to the fact that the honor was not +conferred immediately on the attainment of my majority. Perhaps my +shortened career at college had something to do with it--perhaps the +fact that I had brothers who were older and worthier than myself. I am +not in the least blaming my father for the delay; rather am I now +inclined to be grateful. But that year the death of my two brothers +created more than a vacancy: and any further postponement would, I +suppose, have made the omission too pointed. I stepped into those dead +shoes." + +"What a talker the man is!" said the Archbishop to himself. But +etiquette held him bound, and there he was obliged to sit, looking +interested and attentive, while Max went on. + + +II + +"For some reason or another--perhaps because it was the one thing for +which, in spite of legitimate expectations, I had been kept waiting--I +conceived for the honor, when it was bestowed on me, a sentimental +regard which I did not experience toward my other titles. They had all +dropped upon me without any merit on my part; for this one honor I felt +in some curious way that I was not worthy. It may have been that feeling +of unworthiness which made me, before the date of my investiture, study +the history of the Order and the legend of its origin. I had hoped that +you would touch upon that legend, and give it some modern application. I +wonder now whether your Grace is aware of the legend; or whether I, +indeed, am not the only Knight of the Order who has troubled to think +anything about it." + +"I fancy," said the Archbishop, "that the legend you refer to has a +flavor of medieval Romanism that would hardly commend itself to modern +ears." + +The Prince smiled bitterly. "Your Grace persuades me," he said, "to tell +the story myself. At the point where it does not commend itself I shall +be glad to hear your criticism. + +"The Founder--or ought I not rather to say the first Knight?--of the +Order was (if the story be true) a certain ancestor of our royal house +who had spent the greater part of his life in wars of unjust aggression. +To atone for them--or for other things which weighed more heavily on his +conscience--he went late in life on a crusade to the Holy Land; and +after being there handsomely trounced by the infidel, was returning in +dejection to the sea-coast with the mutinous remnant of his following, +when the founding of the Order of the Thorn occurred to him. + +"It occurred to him thus: this at all events was his own account of it. +He had become separated from his company of knights, darkness was coming +on--when, as he spurred his tired steed with little mercy for its +exhausted condition, he passed by the roadside a beggar who cried out to +him for charity. But the charity asked for was not alms, but only the +withdrawal from the mendicant's foot of a thorn which troubled him. + +"My ancestor, softened by some accent of gentleness or patience in the +suppliant's voice, dismounted to do the service required of him, and in +the growing darkness drew out the thorn. But when he had got it free +from the flesh it seemed no more a thorn but an iron nail; and the wound +out of which he had drawn it shone with celestial radiance. Then was +founded the Order. The Mendicant bade him bind the Thorn upon his heel +in the place of his spur, so that whenever thereafter he should be +tempted to goad or oppress whether man or beast the Thorn should remind +him of pity and mercy. I wait for your Grace's criticism of that +legend?" + +The Archbishop made no reply: with a courteous gesture of the hand he +invited the Prince to continue. + +"I hoped," said the young man, "to be instructed in the connection +between that Founding and the continuance of the Order. You spoke of +chivalry and loyalty; but the chivalry which you invited us to emulate +was merely the physical daring of our ancestors as proved in war +(wherein I am no longer allowed to take part); and the loyalty was to a +form of monarchy which modern conditions now threaten with change. And +I, looking at all my brother Knights around me, and at myself, wondered +by what right we wore that iron thorn upon our heels. + +"Among us--I need not mention names--were men whose lives were far more +notoriously evil than mine--men whose wealth had been gained for them by +the grinding of sweated humanity; men who received enormous rents from +houses not fit for human habitation--men who opposed every act of +remedial legislation which disturbed their own vested interests, and who +did these things with an untroubled conscience because the conditions +they fought for were all the outcome of custom or of law. + +"And I remembered that some day I should be required to become their +Grand Master--the titular head of that dead Order of Chivalry; and I +wondered what would happen if I acted honestly upon my conscience and +refused." + +"Yet you say, sir, that for this Order, of which you now speak so +slightingly, you had sentiments of reverence?" + +"For the Order--yes; but none for the men--including myself--who make up +its membership." + +"Surely," said the Archbishop, "your Highness must admit that they are +all men of mark; many of them have spent their lives in the public +service--leaders of the people in peace and war. You cannot regard these +things as nothing." + +"For these things they already have their titles," said the Prince, +"their state-pensions, or the wealth personally acquired on which their +power and influence are based. Has the Order of the Thorn ever once in +its history been given to a man because he was conspicuously good, or +gentle, or forbearing, or unselfishly thoughtful for others? Has it ever +once been given to a successful philanthropist who was not also of high +lineage and title? I have looked through the lists; I can find none. +Your Grace is the only one among us whose profession is to serve God +rather than to be served by men." + +The Archbishop glanced uneasily at the Prince; but there was no sarcasm +in his look or tone. Max was never more of an artist than in his +adaption of manner to theme. Sadly, almost dejectedly he went on. + +"And now let us come to myself. It seems that I am not accounted worthy +to receive your daughter's hand in marriage. In a certain sense I admit +it. That he is unworthy seems true to every man who ever loved a woman +well; and perhaps the woman feels the same of herself. But I do not +admit that the reasons for your judgment are just. You deny me my claim +because, during my early manhood, I have had illicit connection with one +woman. Tell me--do you propose that your daughter shall ever marry at +all?" + +The Archbishop looked at the Prince with a half-pitying surmise and drew +himself up as though he had some statement to make. Then putting the +inclination aside he said: "That is for her to choose." + +"From her own rank in life?" persisted Max,--"not limited, I mean, to +the clerical profession?" + +"I impose no limits on my daughter's freedom," said the Archbishop. + +"And do you mean to tell me," inquired the Prince, "that of every +suitor for your daughter's hand--lawyer, soldier, politician, man of +letters--you will make it your business to inquire--and will expect to +be told the truth--whether they have not at some period of their career +had illicit connection with women?" + +"I could recommend no suitor," said the Archbishop, "who had been at so +little pains as your Highness to avoid the setting of a bad example to +others." + +"Is it, then, merely secrecy that you advocate?" + +"A respect for moral observances is in itself a ground of +recommendation," answered his Grace; "though at times a man may fall +short of what he knows to be right." + +"You mean," said the Prince, "that I have flagrantly committed myself in +the upkeep of an establishment, where others have only paid an +extravagant price for a night's lodging?" + +"Your Highness puts the matter in a way that makes it impossible for me +to discuss." + +"I beg your pardon; I really was trying to be delicately indirect. But +that you should beg off discussion because my way of putting things +seems to you indelicate is yet another count in my quarrel with your +established ministry. You seem to me to be amateurs where you ought to +be professionals. How can you possibly deal with poor weak humanity in +kid gloves? Like the surgeon before he can hope to bring healing in his +wings, you too must be anatomical in your researches. It is the +anatomical your civil churchmen fight shy of. Well, I will endeavor to +get at the matter from another and a more accessible side. Your Grace +is, I take it, a man of the world?" + +The Archbishop was inclined to demur; humbly but firmly he deprecated +the imputation. + +"But surely!" protested the Prince, "had you not been, you would not now +be in the place which you occupy; every one knows that an Archbishop's +appointment is political. I ask you then, as a man of the world, +how--short of a miracle--could you expect a man in my position and +circumstances to have kept a technically unblemished record? Surrounded +with luxuries from my birth, disciplined by no real hardship, having to +make no struggle for my existence; brought up to eat meat and drink +wine; athletic, but without any reason or opportunity for leading a +strenuously athletic life; with brains, but with no compulsion to use +them; passed, for the perfecting of my education, from one privileged +grade to another; from the University to the Army, and from thence to +sport and the race-course; from where on God's earth, in this modern +curriculum for kings, was the idea to have occurred to me that I should +do this thing, in attempting to do which your early hermits went +hullabalooing to the desert? + +"I am now nearly twenty-six. My father, for reasons of State, married at +twenty-one: I, for similar reasons, have been kept unmarried, no +sufficiently eligible partner could be found for me. And I solved the +time of waiting by contracting a non-legal conjugal relationship with a +woman for whom I had a very real affection, who was considerably my +senior in years, and who knew quite well that the arrangement could only +be temporary. My Lord Archbishop, I ask you--could you in my +circumstances have shown a better, a more blameless record? I was even +punctilious enough to tell your daughter--an excessive scruple, I +think,--she did not understand." + +"She understands now," said the Archbishop. + +"And who is it," inquired the Prince sharply, "who has thus played +bo-peep with her intelligence--first shutting and now opening her eyes?" + +"When evil is encountered," said his Grace, "instruction has to be +extended." + +"And still you have stopped halfway, just at the point where it serves +you best. What does her pure soul know of these problems which to her +are only a few hours old?" + +"She is a daughter of the Church; and she knows what the Church's answer +has always been." + +"She knows, then," said Max, "what no school of historians has yet been +able to decide! See over in England to-day how the Church, clinging to +its establishment, has to dodge and shuffle over the changes in the +moral law arising out of national habit. Is the Church of Jingalo so +greatly superior, think you, that it can boast?" + +At that moment a clock upon the chimney-piece intoned the hour; and the +Archbishop, reduced to extremity in order to get rid of his +distinguished but unwelcome visitor, permitted himself to throw an +involuntary glance in the direction of the sound. + +The Prince, perceiving the indication, rose at once to his feet. + +"Pardon me," he said, "for having kept you so long." + +"Pardon _me_," returned his Grace; "unfortunately I have to dine." + +"Of course. I ought not to have forgotten." + +"I mean that I have guests." + +"They shall not be kept waiting by me," said the Prince. He moved to the +door. Then he stopped. + +"Your Grace," he said, "I know that we cannot be friends, still----" + +He paused; and there was silence. + +"I greatly wish to see your daughter. Surely you cannot deny me that +right." + +"_I_ cannot," said the Archbishop. "She does." + +This pulled Max up with a jerk: not that he yet believed it, however. + +"Where is she now?" he inquired. + +"She has joined the Sisterhood of Poverty. To-day she entered her +profession." + +The Prince choked. + +"That is horrible!" he said. "You mean she has taken vows?" + +The Archbishop of Ebury bowed his head. "For the remainder of _my_ life +at all events," he said in a stricken tone. "She will not return here. +My house is left desolate to me--because of you." + +"You still have guests," said the Prince. + +"That is an unworthy gibe," retorted his Grace. "My work has still to go +on." + +"I beg your pardon," said Max. + +"I have written to her," he added after a pause; "and she has not +answered. Will your Grace be good enough----" + +"I do not think she will. She prays for you. If you came, I was to tell +you that." + +Again there was silence for a time. + +"When I was a child," said the Prince, "I had an old nurse, who whenever +I did anything wrong--as whipping was not allowed--used to go down on +her knees and pray for me; and she always did it against a blank wall. I +suppose it helped her. That has always remained my vision of prayer. And +now I shall always think of your daughter with her dear face turned to a +blank wall, praying for you and me--her murderers." + +He went out. + +"Upon my word!" thought the Archbishop, "that is a dangerous man to be +heir to a throne." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +NIGHT-LIGHT + + + + +I + +And meanwhile the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser had arrived; and Max, +instead of pursuing his own love-affair, ought to have been busy +entertaining him. + +The first meeting between Charlotte and her suitor had been tactfully +arranged; they had met riding to a review of troops in the great Field +of Mars which occupied a central space in the largest of the royal +parks. The Princess had a healthy taste for riding in thoroughly cold +weather; she also particularly disliked to be in a carriage when those +round her were on horseback; and so, by following her own taste, when +the Prince met her she was looking her very best. Down a white-frosted +avenue of lindens she and her escort came trotting to the +saluting-point; and there, once more in his sky-blue with its sable and +silver trimmings, the Prince was presented, and opening upon her mild +blue eyes that looked curiously light in his bronzed and ruddy +countenance, with dutiful promptness he fell in love with her. + +By a little quiet maneuvering and attendance to other matters the +King left them side by side for a while. Troops stood massed in the +distance waiting the signal to advance. + +"Do you like soldiers?" inquired the Prince. + +"It rather depends upon the uniform," replied Charlotte. + +"Oh! Do you like mine?" + +She looked at it, and smiled; for there were no sky-blue tunics in +Jingalo; and such cerulean tones on a man were to her eyes a little +incongruous. + +"It would be rather trying to some complexions," she observed. "But you +look very well in it." + +"Ah! I have been abroad," he explained. "That has given me the colors of +a Red Indian." + +"You look just as if you had dropped from the sky," she said, smiling +still at him. + +"Oh, no, not this sky!" and he cast up a grudging glance at the opaque +grayness overhead. "Here you seem to have a sun that looks only the +other way." + +She threw back a light remark, while her eye strayed over the field. +Presently he returned to the subject. + +"So you only like soldiers because of their uniforms?" + +"And when they ride well. I like drums too," she added. + +"Ah! good! I can play on the drum. It is my one instrument." + +"Does it require much practice?" + +"Oh, yes; it is very difficult--to play well. But it has been very +useful to me. I took a drum with me to South America. That is music that +the natives can understand, it can make them afraid; and when one is all +by oneself in the forest, then it helps that one shall not feel lonely. +One night when I had no fire left, I was saved my life from wild beasts +just by beating at them with my drum. It is funny that you should like +drums." + +"I like something with them as well," said Charlotte. + +"Ah," grunted the Prince, "that depends. There is some music in the +world that ought never to be allowed." + +"Well, there is some of ours," said the Princess, as the massed bands of +three regiments sent forth their blast. "How does that strike you?" + +The Prince listened with the ear of a connoisseur. "For you here, that +is good," he said judicially; "but you are not a musical nation. And +there is a man there that is playing his drum as it ought not to be +played." + +And then his formal duties called him away. This was their first +exchange of compliments. Old Uncle Nostrum, who had kept within ear-shot, +reported to the King that things had gone sufficiently well. There was +no secrecy about the intended affair in the royal circle now; everybody +knew of it. + +And that evening, at a State ball given in the Prince's honor, the +destined pair met again. + +Nothing very much happened at the ball. The Prince danced once with +Charlotte and once with the Queen, and with nobody else; while Charlotte +danced nearly the whole evening; and Max, moving about with a pensive +and preoccupied air, danced with nobody. But the only reason why this +ball has to be mentioned is because of something that happened +immediately after, quite unconnected either with the about-to-be-linked +or the about-to-be-separated lovers--something which takes us back to +those underground workings of the body politic which his Majesty was +only now beginning fully to apprehend. + +State balls end punctually, and as it were upon the stroke; as soon as +the royal countenance is withdrawn they come to an end. And so within +half-an-hour of the retirement of the royal party all the great suite of +chambers was empty, and in less than an hour light and movement had +ceased in all that part of the palace wherein the royal family resided. + +But the King, hindered during the day by constant attendance upon his +guest, had some papers to look through before his next meeting with the +Prime Minister. He went into his study, switched on the light, and for +an hour sat at work. Outside traffic died away; the sense of silence +grew deep; the whole palace became permeated by it. Wearying for bed, +having got through his last batch of papers, the King looked at the +clock; it was half-past one. + +Just as he was getting up from his seat the mere ghost of a sound caught +his ear. The door, silent on its hinges, had softly opened; and within +its frame stood a figure in dark civil uniform who gave the military +salute. + + +II + +"Mr. Inspector!" cried the King in surprise, recognizing the face. + +"I beg your Majesty's pardon." + +"Ah! You came to see that everything was safe? This time you were a +little too early. Still, as you are here, I should rather like to know +how far those keys do allow you to penetrate?" + +"Everywhere, your Majesty." + +"You mean, even to the private apartments?" + +Apparently he did. + +"Do you often have occasion to use them?" + +"Not after to-night, your Majesty--never again." + +"Oh, do not suppose that I am objecting, if it is really necessary." + +"I give these keys up to-morrow, sir," said the man. "I ought to have +given them up to-day; but I wanted to see your Majesty." + +The King drew himself up; this seemed an intrusion. + +"You could have asked for an interview," he said. + +"I could have asked to the day of my death, sir; you would never have +heard of it." + +"You could have written." + +"Does your Majesty think that all letters personally addressed are even +reported to your Majesty?" + +"I suppose not all of them," said the King after considering the matter. + +"Not one in a hundred, sir." + +"Still, any that are important I hear of." + +"Mine, sir, would not have been reckoned important," said the man +bitterly. + +The King looked hard at him, not with any real suspicion, for his +straightforward bearing inspired liking as well as confidence. But here +was a man whose measure must be carefully taken, for he was certainly +doing a very extraordinary thing. + +"And have you something really important to tell me?" + +Their eyes met on a pause that spoke better than words. + +"Yes," said the man. Quietly he shut the door. + +"Won't you come nearer?" said the King, for the depth of a large chamber +divided them. But the disciplined figure kept its place. Slowly but +without hesitation he gave what he had to say. + +"I am dismissed the force," he began; "but that's not important--at +least only to me--though I suppose that's partly why I'm here, for a man +must fight when his living is taken from him. I am dismissed because +your Majesty got out of the palace the other night without my hearing of +it." + +The King breathed his astonishment, but said nothing. + +"I admit I ought to have known, but the man we had on duty at that door +didn't know your Majesty--at least not so as to be sure. I asked him +yesterday who it was went out, and he said--well, sir, he thought it was +one of the palace stewards. They use that door a good deal at night, so +I'm told." + +"That he did not recognize me was, of course, my own doing," said the +King. + +"I know that, sir," replied the man, "but in the detective force we +can't afford to make those sort of allowances. The consequence is--I'm +out of it." + +"I'm sorry, Inspector. What do you want me to do?" + +"Well, sir, I'm here because I know something that I can't tell to +another soul on earth. If I could have gone to them with it, I needn't +have troubled your Majesty. But, so happens, I haven't got the proof." + +"Are you going to ask me to believe you without proof?" + +"Your Majesty can get the proof--or see it anyway. It's there at Dean's +Court." + +"Dean's Court? What is that?" + +"Where the police museum is, sir. The proof of what I'm going to tell +your Majesty lies there." + +This was getting interesting. "Pray go on," said the King. + +"That bomb," said the man, "the one that was thrown at your Majesty the +other day--all the pieces of it are in the museum now." + +He paused, then added-- + +"They have gone back to the place they came from." + +It was evident then, from the man's tone, that to his own mind he had +stated the essential part of his case. + +But the King, his brain working on unfamiliar ground, missed the +connection. + +"I do not quite understand," he said. + +"No, sir? Well, then, it's like this. After the bomb was thrown, we were +put on to the ground, and the public were kept off. All the pieces +picked up were brought to me. It must have been a very mild sort of +charge, sir, nothing much besides gunpowder I should say; no slugs nor +anything. Most of the shell I was able to put together again. It was +blackened all over, partly by fire, partly new painted I think, but, +under the black, I found lettering and numbers, all quite faint. I've +got them here." (He drew out a pocket-book as he spoke.) "D.C.M. 5537." + +He closed the book with a snap as though clinching an argument. + +"The bomb that had that number on it," said he, "came from Dean's Court +Museum; it's been there fifteen years. I've been in to look; that number +is missing now. You'd have thought, sir, they might have been more +careful than that!" He spoke with professional contempt for a job that +had been bungled. + +The solemnity of the man's manner, and the queer mystery of it all sent +a cold sensation through the King's blood; he felt now that he was up +against something dangerous and sinister. + +"What do you mean me to understand from all this?" he asked? + +"Well, sir," said the man, "it doesn't need me to tell your Majesty +that when anarchists or any of that sort want to do a bit of +bomb-throwing they don't go to our police museum for their materials. +But that's not all. They found out, down at head office--after it was +over, only then--that the local authorities had given permit for a +cinematograph record to be taken from a stand just opposite, overlooking +the new buildings, so as to get the procession as it came along under +the arch. And so, as it happened, those films had got the whole thing +recorded. We only heard of it when they were announced to be shown at +the theater that night. I was sent down to get hold of them, and I +brought them back with me. + +"I've been through every one; most people wouldn't see anything. The +point where the bomb went off was about fifty yards away; and those +films give a view that just takes in a bit of the palisade. At number +139 you see an arm come up, and a face just behind it, very small, under +the scaffolding; you'd hardly know it was there. But if that were put +under a good microscope I shouldn't be surprised but what it could be +recognized." + +By this time the King's understanding had become clear; he saw where the +argument was leading. + +"Before I could do that," the man went on, "they were locked away. I +didn't say anything about it--didn't point it out to them, I mean--for +I'd begun to have a feeling that things weren't all right; and I daresay +they haven't noticed what _I_ noticed. If they have, number 139 and the +ten plates following will be gone. Whether they have or not--that's my +proof." + +The King was now following the man's narrative with tense interest; +every moment its import grew more clear; yes, clearer than day, sharp +and bright as a rocket shot up against the blackness of a midnight sky. + +The inspector paused for a moment and wiped his hand over dry lips; in +the telling of that tale his face had grown white. + +"Whom do you mean by 'they'?" inquired the King. + +The man hesitated. "Well, your Majesty, I'd rather not say." + +"I ought to know." + +"Oh, yes, sir, I can't deny that! But, there, I've got no proof--so it's +not the same thing. But I do say this, your Majesty, that to be able to +lay hands on those things in the first place, and now to keep them +locked away, needs somebody higher up in the department than I'd like to +name. If I may leave it at that?" + +"That will do," said the King. + +"Your Majesty sees I couldn't safely go to anybody else with that proof; +either it would be somebody who couldn't get at it before it was +destroyed, or it would be those who had the whole thing in their own +hands." + +"I quite see that," said the King. + +"That's all I had to say, then, sir." + +"I am very much in your debt; I shall not forget what I owe you. There +is one question I want to ask--you say that the charge must have been a +very feeble one?" + +"Yes, sir, much less than an ordinary shell." + +"What do you deduce from that fact?" + +"Well, your Majesty, I should say that killing had never been intended." + +"That it was only done to frighten some one?" + +"That is about it, your Majesty." + +"Thank you; that is what I wanted to know. And if you will leave me your +name, I think I can promise that you shall be at no disadvantage after I +have gone into the matter." + +"I am much obliged, your Majesty." The inspector came forward, drew out +a card, and respectfully presenting it, retired again. + +"Then, for the present, that is all," said the King. "It is now nearly +two o'clock. You can, I believe, let yourself out?" + +And in the light of a gentle, half-quizzical smile from the royal +countenance, the inspector withdrew. + +"What an amazing thing!" said the King to himself. "And oh! if it is +true!" + + +III + +He knew that it was true; for in a flash he had seen the meaning of it. +And instead of angering him, it filled him with an almost intoxicating +sense of power. For it meant that the Prime Minister, or the +Government, could not do without him, he had been necessary to their +plans. + +He could not distinctly see why, whether it were a fear of Max +succeeding to the throne at such a juncture or of popular resentment at +the sovereign being driven to so desperate a remedy for his griefs, or +fear merely of the damage that might be done to the monarchical system +while bureaucracy was still depending upon it as a cloak for +constitutional encroachments--whether one or all of these fears impelled +his minister, the King did not know; but he saw clearly enough that to +force him into withdrawal of his abdication the Prime Minister had +adopted a desperate and almost heroical remedy. + +He bore the man no grudge; the more he envisaged the risks, the more he +admired and respected him. Feebly though the bomb had been charged, +carefully though directed by slow underhand bowling only at the legs of +horses, at a moment when the royal carriage had actually passed, still a +bomb is an incalculable weapon--pieces of it fly in the most unexpected +directions; and it was evident that for the execution of this +ministerial veto on the Crown's action it had been necessary to risk the +lives not merely of a picked body of troops, but of several high court +officials and staff-officers riding in close attendance upon the royal +coach. And a child in politics could see that if all this risk had been +run to make abdication impossible, then abdication had been the right +card to play. + +And now that game was over, and another had begun, and if, in a certain +sense, the leading cards had reverted to the ministerial hand, the King +had the advantage of knowing what they were; and by leading off in +another suit he might prevent the Ministry from playing them till too +late for effect. + +It was necessary, however, first to get his proofs. They lay at Dean's +Court under official lock and key; and the hand which held that key was, +for all he knew, the same which had thrown the bomb in order to +frighten him. How, then, was he to get at it? + +A brilliant idea occurred to him; so simple and easy that without +worrying himself further he went to bed and slept upon it. And next +morning, at their first meeting, he said to the Prince of +Schnapps-Wasser, "Would you not like to come and see our police museum? +Just now it contains some rather interesting exhibits--especially for us +personally--that bomb, you know." And he proceeded to give details. "The +actual pieces are all there, and a whole set of photographs, showing how +the explosion took place." + +Her Majesty, hearing of the project, backed it warmly. + +"You will find it quite an intellectual treat," said she, "our police +are such intelligent creatures. I went all over the museum myself once; +and it felt exactly like being in a kaleidoscope--everything so +wonderfully arranged." + +"Ah, yes," said the Prince, "that should be very interesting." + +And so, though it was not in the day's program, quite at an early hour +the King and his guest drove down together to the Prefecture. + +The Prefect himself had not arrived, but they saw one of the high +permanent officials; and stating the purpose of their visit were +formally handed over to the Superintendent of detectives. The department +was his. + +"Mr. Superintendent," said the King, "we come upon you by surprise; are +you sufficiently prepared for us?" + +The Superintendent declared that his department was ready at all hours. + +"I wanted to show the Prince some of your relics," his Majesty went on, +"particularly those connected with the recent outrage." + +Of course the Superintendent was delighted; he led the way into the +museum; and before long the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser became very much +interested in all the things that were shown him. + +Case after case was opened; and the King, seeing how smoothly matters +were shaping, made no hurry toward the attainment of his goal. + +Presently, pointing toward a case that stood in a window recess, the +official remarked with a smile, "There lies your Majesty's +death-warrant--what is left of it." + +The case was opened; the King took up the fragments. + +"Very interesting," he said. "There are also some photographs showing +the actual event, are there not?" + +"They are here, your Majesty." The Superintendent produced a small box +with numbered slides. + +"Very interesting," murmured the King again as he continued to handle +the shards. + +Presently he detected in one of these a faint trace of figures and +lettering; he laid it to one side, took up the films, and began to +examine them. Film after film he held up to the light; the scale was +very small. Unable to decipher them in detail he sought only for the +identifying numbers under which they stood catalogued. + +After a while he came to the one he was in search of; that and the other +two or three which immediately followed it he selected for closer +scrutiny. Two of them he handed to the Prince. "This is just before," he +said by way of explanation. "It was from behind those palisades that the +bomb was thrown after our coach had passed." + +"Here your Highness can see the actual explosion taking place," said +their guide. + +"Ah, very good! Very interesting!" murmured the Prince, with cordial +appreciation. "That seems to have gone off quite well." + +The King meanwhile had re-collected the four innocuous-looking films and +set them apart from the rest. "And have you been quite unable," he +inquired, "to trace the bomb to its origin, or to discover anything as +to who threw it?" + +"No trace at all, sir. The whole thing is a perfect mystery." + +"Remarkable!" said the King. + +And then with the leisurely air of a collector of curios he took up +again the four films and the shard bearing the faint trace of figures, +and before the astonished eyes of the Superintendent put them into his +breast-pocket. + +"I will keep these as a souvenir," he observed. "They will always be of +great interest to me." + +"I ask pardon, your Majesty," replied the official a little stiffly, +"but it is against all regulations for anything to go out of this museum +when it has once been catalogued." + +"Ah, yes," retorted the King, smiling pleasantly, "but then it is +against all regulations for bombs to be thrown at the royal coach when I +am in it; so you must allow, for once, this small breach that I make in +your chain of evidence. There is plenty of material for conviction still +left, should you ever discover the criminal." + +"I am afraid, sir," said the Superintendent, speaking gravely, "that +this will get me into trouble with the Prefect. May I express a hope +that your Majesty will reconsider the matter?" + +"Oh, no, not at all!" said the King. "Tell the Prefect that the +responsibility rests with me. The Prince here is witness that I robbed +you and that you were helpless. Lay all the blame upon me without any +scruple! And if it is a very grave breach of the regulations--well--you +can inform the Prime Minister; and then, no doubt I shall hear of it." + +The Superintendent stood mute; he had made his protest, and he could not +pretend that he was satisfied. + +"By the way," went on the King, "I have a very particular request to +make which I think concerns your department. In connection with a +certain incident that took place the other night--and which shall be +nameless--one of your special inspectors has been dismissed, I hear?" + +"That is so, your Majesty." + +"Well, I do not wish to interfere in anything that makes for efficiency; +but I have to request--will you please to make a particular note of +it--that he shall be retired on a full pension." + +For a moment the official hesitated. "May I ask why, sir?" + +"Because practically I have promised it. It is either that or I +re-engage him for my own personal service. He is a man whom I have +trusted in matters of an exceedingly confidential character. Pray see to +it." + +The head of the department could hold out no longer. "It shall be as +your Majesty wishes," said he. + +"Very well," said the King. "Please report when you have seen the matter +through. And now, Prince, I think that we have exhausted +everything--including, I fear, your patience, Mr. Superintendent. What a +very criminal part of society you have to deal with! I hope that the +influences of the place are not catching." + +"As to that, sir, I can hardly say," replied the other with a wry smile. +"Your Majesty has just committed a robbery which I shall have to report; +the first that has ever taken place in this department." + +"Oh, surely not quite the first!" protested the King. + +Then he checked himself. "Well, if that is so, you can but take out an +order for my arrest. And you will find," he added slyly, "that I am +already well known to the police." + +And so saying, he and the Prince took their departure. + + +IV + +But if the King was satisfied with his morning's exploit--a raid so +successfully conducted--he had harassment to face before the day was +over. His message to Council, on the matter of the Women Chartists and +their grievances, was received by the Prime Minister not only with +disfavor but with a clear though respectful intimation that it would not +be allowed to effect the ministerial program. + +"I must remind you, Mr. Prime Minister," said his Majesty, "that the +Constitution gives me this right." + +"That, sir, I do not question. But it gives to us also a discretion as +to when time can be found for attending to it." + +"Well," said the King, "you may fix your own date within reason." + +"I can fix no date, your Majesty." + +That was flat, and the monarch could not help showing his annoyance. + +"If you think that that answer satisfies me," he said, "you are +mistaken." + +"I fear," replied the Prime Minister, "that it is often my duty to give +your Majesty dissatisfaction." + +"Well, well," said the King, "we shall see!" + +He had drawn out of his pocket a small shard and was toying with it as +he spoke. + +"By the way," he said, considerately changing the subject, "I was at the +Prefecture this morning; I took the Prince to see the museum." + +"So I was informed, sir." + +The Prime Minister showed no discomposure; his demeanor was wholly +urbane and conciliatory. + +"I brought away with me a small memento," went on the King. + +"I was told of that too, sir," replied the Premier, smiling. "It was a +little irregular; but if your Majesty wishes for it I do not think there +can be any real objection." + +"Really," thought the King to himself, "is he going to pretend that he +knows nothing about it?" Yet the good face which his minister put upon +the matter did not fail to win the King's admiration; he respected the +man's courage and ability to brazen the thing out. The Superintendent, +he judged, was not actually in the secret; but of the Premier he was now +quite sure. That air of calm was just a little bit overdone. "I suppose +he thinks that I can't do anything," mused the King. "Well, well, we +shall see." + +And then he inquired whether the Prime Minister had interviewed Prince +Max. + +"I have not, sir; but I have seen the Archbishop." + +"You have been talking to the Archbishop about it?" cried the King +sharply. + +"At great length, sir," replied the Prime Minister. + +"Then I must say that you have taken a most unwarranted liberty! You +have gone entirely beyond and behind my authority. No, it is no use for +you to protest, Mr. Premier; I did consent that you should speak to the +Prince; but beyond that--until it had been thoroughly discussed with +him--what I communicated to you was entirely confidential and private." + +"An affair of such importance, sir, cannot possibly be private." + +"It can have its private preliminaries--otherwise where would be +diplomacy?" + +"The Prince might any day have taken overt action--he might even have +announced the engagement." + +"He might, but he did not! And without even seeing him you have been +behind his back and discussed it with the Archbishop! And pray, with +what result?" + +"At present, sir, I am not in a position to say, but I have good hopes. +We are still in correspondence. I assure your Majesty that my conscience +is clear in the matter." + +"Your conscience, Mr. Prime Minister, has an easy way of clearing +itself; you lay the burden of it on me! Yes, this is the second bomb +that has been dropped upon me from Government back premises, and I am +tired of it; I am not going to stand it any longer! In this matter of +the Prince's engagement you and I were in entire agreement; but now you +have so acted that you have endangered the relations--the very friendly +and affectionate relations--between the Prince and myself. I hardly know +how I shall be able to look him in the face. I give him my consent; and +then I suddenly turn round and I work against him; I go behind his back, +yes, I steal a march upon him--that is how it will appear. And if he so +accuses me, what am I to say?" + +"I appreciate your Majesty's feelings; but I say, sir, that any +sacrifice was necessary to prevent so dangerous a proposal from going +further." + +"No!" cried the King, "no! not of straightforward dealing and of honor! +That is what comes of being mixed up in politics. People forget what +honor means, their sense of it becomes blunted. Unfortunately mine does +not! Mr. Premier, you have profoundly distressed me; you have made my +position extremely difficult. And I do not think that you had any excuse +for it." + +The Prime Minister had never seen the King so disturbed and agitated. He +moved quickly up and down the room beating the air with his hands; and +when his minister endeavored to put in a word he threw him off +impatiently, almost refusing to hear him. + +"No," he said, "no, you had better leave me! With the Prince I must make +my peace as best I can. With you I no longer intend peace; it has become +impossible! I have my material; and now my mind is made up, and I mean +to use it! Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, you can go!" + +And thereupon they parted. + + +V + +Max was far gentler to his father than the King could have hoped. They +did not meet till the next day; and for the first time in his life the +King found him utterly cast down and dejected. + +"Oh, do not blame yourself," he said in answer to his parent's +explanations and apologies; "I do not suppose that what you have done +makes any real difference. I have spent my life despising convention, +occasionally defying it, and now it has overthrown me. Yes, sir, that is +the true solvent of the situation; my morals have been weighed in the +balance and found wanting." + +"Dear me," said his father, "is that so? Well, well!" and he sighed. + +"Of course, sir, I cannot expect you to be sorry about it." + +"I am sorry, my dear boy--very sorry. Don't think because I have still +to be King that I have not the feelings of a father. Ah, if you only +knew how hard I have tried to get out of it all, you would believe what +I say." + +"Out of what?" + +"Being King at all. Yes, Max, I have yet another confession to make; I +meant to conceal it from you, but now I would rather that you knew. +Perhaps you will think it wasn't quite fair; I intended to leave the +responsibility of all this to you; and--well, it so happens that when +you asked me I had determined to abdicate." + +Max opened his eyes. + +"I actually did abdicate. And then the bomb came, and that made it +impossible. And so--here I still am; and that is how you got my +consent!" + +"You abdicated?" + +"Yes, my boy, I really did. And if that bomb had not happened I should +have been off the throne and you would have been on it. So now, Max, I +am going to tell you everything." And he did, from beginning to end. + +And when it came to giving Max the actual proof, he got up and unlocked +a drawer, and handed out of it the shard and the four films for him to +look at. + +"Take a magnifying-glass," said the King. "The face and the raised arm +are behind the palisade to the right." + +"I can't see them," said Max. + +"Very small," said the King; "a man with a dark beard." + +Max continued to look without result. "I can't find it," he said. + +"Well, look at the figures and lettering on the shard; you can see +those." + +"No," said Max, "I can't." + +The King came impatiently across and took them off him. Then, as he +examined them, he saw that the shard and the four films had been +changed. + +He had his souvenir; but the incriminating evidence was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A MAN OF BUSINESS + + + + +I + +While these events of political moment were going on, Prince Hans Fritz +Otto of Schnapps-Wasser had been busy planting himself in the good +graces of the Princess Charlotte. They rode, they skated, they lunched, +they played billiards together; and so easy did their relations to each +other become that the Queen ceased to have any anxiety as to the future, +and left the entire conduct of the affair to Providence. + +Charlotte all her life had been quick and impulsive in her decisions; +her hatreds and her affections had always been precipitately bestowed, +and while her conduct was seldom reasonable, her instincts were +generally right. So now--when a most crucial question was coming to her +for decision--for she no longer needed to be informed of the Prince's +mind in the matter--she did not allow its serious character to weigh +upon her spirits or make her less ready and spontaneous in the bestowal +of her liking. On the contrary, if anything, it hastened her verdict of +approval. "I do believe that I am going to fall in love with him!" she +said to herself after an acquaintance of only twenty-four hours; and +having so determined, she set forth with all speed to study +"philosophically," as she phrased it, this huge healthy natural specimen +which fortune had thrown in her way. "For if I don't take a +philosophical view of him now," she said to herself, "I shall never be +able to do it afterwards." + +The effort to do so rather amused her; she was not in love with him but +she liked him more than a little. She had not yet, however, put him to +the test by revealing the awful fact that she had been in prison as a +common criminal; and before doing so (a little nervous as to the result) +she took such opportunity of survey as was left to her, studied him up +and down, noticed his ways, demeanor, habits, and wondered to herself +whether in three weeks' time she would be so infatuated with this great +creature as not to know where divinity ended and mere earthly clay +began. + +She had plenty of material to go upon: he was as naive in the +revelations of his own character as in his half-bewildered admiration +for the swift mercurial motions of her livelier temperament. + +For a while, at the beginning of their acquaintance, some question as to +the degree of her sincerity seemed to trouble him. + +"How much of what you say do you really mean?" he inquired. + +"Oh, it varies!" she answered. "I talk so as to find out what I think. +Don't you? Some things one can't judge of till one hears them spoken." + +"That seems funny to me." + +"Why? You are fond of music: don't you find that sound is very +important? Can you _think_ music without ever hearing it?" + +"Sometimes," he said. + +"But only the airs." + +"Oh, no; sometimes I can think like an orchestra, when I know all what +is in it." + +"You must be very musical." + +"Yes; that is my misfortune sometimes. The world has so much ugly sound +already; and then some people go out of their ways to make more." + +"Ah, yes," she smiled, "I remember you were a musical critic once." + +He let that go; and turning the conversation abruptly, as was his wont, +to more personal ends, said-- + +"Tell me, do you like my name?" + +"Schnapps-Wasser?" Shaping the word elaborately, she made a wry face +over it. + +"No--not that; my own name." + +"But you have three." + +"Yes; Hans, Fritz, Otto. Which of them you like best?" + +"Fritz suits you best." + +"Then will you always call me it?" + +"Prince Fritz, Prince Fritz?--sounds like a robin," she said, trying it +in musical tones. + +"No, just Fritz; no more, only that." + +"Wait till I have known you a few more days; then we will see." + +"But I shall already be nearly gone by then," he protested. "I am only +here such a short time." + +"Perhaps some day you will come again." + +"Ah! Again!" He sounded unutterable things, as though upon that word +hung his whole fate. Anything might happen to him before they met again. + +"I have a secret," he said; "I want to tell it you." + +"Are you sure you can trust me?" + +"When I have told you it, you can tell anybody." + +"Then it can't be much of a secret." + +"Oh! You think?" He opened his big childish eyes at her and nodded his +head solemnly. "This secret has been with me thousands and thousands of +miles. Every time I shot off my gun, every day I went 'tramp, tramp' +through the forest walking on snakes, every time I fought for my life I +had this secret of mine to live with." + +"You had better not tell it then; it may lose its interest." + +"I want it to interest you." + +"It does," said Charlotte, "very much." + +"Huh! You do not know what it is." + +"That is why; it is much more interesting not to know." + +"Ah, you are playing at me! But what I go to tell you is no joke." + +"I was not laughing," she said. + +"No; only 'chatter, chatter'!" + +"You know where I have been?" he continued. + +"I know the continent." + +"Yes;--you are right; that is all anybody knows about it. Well, inside +of it there is a country as big as this Jingalo of yours; and it +belongs really to nobody. I have been all over it." + +"The people are very savage, are they not?" + +"Savage?--oh, no. They are very fierce and proud, and strong; they are +also the most wonderful artists. You call that to be a savage?" + +"Artists?" + +"Yes; look at that." + +As he spoke he drew up his sleeve almost to the elbow, exposing a +sunburnt arm, smooth, fine of texture, and enormously muscular. Over its +brawny mold, with scaly convolutions elaborately tattooed, writhed a +dragon in bright indigo. + +"Oh, how beautiful!" exclaimed the Princess. Marveling at the clear +intricacy of its detail, she stooped to examine it more closely. + +Prince Fritz turned his arm this way and that, displaying it. He snapped +his fingers: flick went each separate muscle, the dragon became alive. + +"What do you think?" he inquired, smiling with childish vanity and the +delight of feeling upon his skin the warmth of her breath. + +"It is very beautiful," she murmured again, her admiration divided +between the scaly dragon's wings and the splendidly molded limb. + +"I have them far more beautiful upon my legs," said the Prince. + +"Dragons?" + +"Yes; but oh! quite different; more--how do you say?--'bloodthirsty' you +call it? Here and here"--he went on, indicating the locality--"I have +two. One of them is climbing up and the other is climbing down; and they +are both biting on my knee-cap with their teeth--like mad." + +"They must be quite wonderful." + +"They are all that! When I look at them I am lost with admiration of +myself." Then he gazed speculatively into her eyes and speaking in +dull, soft tones of Teutonic sentiment, said confidentially, "If you +will marry me, you shall see them some day." + +Charlotte's laughter rang loud. "Do you think I should marry you for +that?" + +A wistful, rather nonplussed expression came into the Prince's face. + +"I do not know," said he, "why women marry at all; they are so +wonderful, so beautiful, so good all by themselves; we men are not +beautiful at all--not our bodies nor our hearts. And I--oh, well!"--he +drew down his sleeve as he spoke,--"I have nothing more beautiful to +offer you than those--my dragons. If you do not want them, why should +you want me?" + +"But women don't marry dragons!" objected Charlotte, scarcely less +puzzled than amused. + +"Oh! Do they not? I think you are wrong. Many of them marry only because +the man they marry makes them afraid. I have seen it done in the country +where I come from;--Germany I mean--and everywhere here it is the same. +I am not a dragon myself; but if you are that sort of woman, these might +help you to pretend. Do you not think you could be afraid of me enough +to marry me?" + +This was strange wooing. + +"I am not afraid of you at all," said Charlotte; "but I like you--very +much." + +"Ah, then you want me to be quite another person? Very well, that make +it so much easier. Then now I will tell you what I am really like; and +you will try not to laugh, will you not?" + +Charlotte composed her countenance to as near gravity as was possible, +and the Prince went on. + +"I am just one little child that has lost its way through having grown +so big and strong. And I want some nice, kind woman, that is more +sensible than I, to be a mother to me--to take me in her arms and let me +cry to her when I am afraid. Herr Gott! I am so frightened +sometimes--how I have cried! Of the dark night, of loneliness, of the +stillness when there is no noise near, but only _that_, something far, +far away, that comes! Everything frightens me when I am alone. Fighting? +No, I am not afraid of that; it is this wait, wait, wait--for what? And +I want to have one woman just at my heart, and her voice at my ear, and +children--yes, plenty of them; and when I have plenty children, then I +shall not be afraid of loneliness any more." + +"But if you so dislike it, why did you go away into the wilds?" + +"Ah! I had to run away from the music. That was awful! And then--have +you lived in a German town?--that is awful too. Do not think that I am +asking you to live in a German town? No: I could not be so cruel. So now +I tell you my secret." + +"You mean the dragons?" + +"The dragons? No, no! They go with me,--they are part of me, they are +'in the know': but they themselves are not the secret. That is much, +much bigger thing still!" + +He paused, and she saw his blue eyes looking far away, as though he had +forgotten her presence. + +"Well?" she said encouragingly, "you are going to tell me, are you not?" + +"Oh, yes! That is what I am come for." His tone was quite business-like +now. + +"That big country I told you of--it belongs to nobody. You know that +those North Americans say that nobody from Europe is to have it, though +they do not use it themselves. Well, I am going to have it." + +"You?" + +"Schnapps-Wasser,--me, with my water-bottles. I have turned them into a +company; and they are going to give for it--well, never mind how much. +But with what my bottles bring me I can make that country so that no +power in the world can prevent it from being a great country to itself." + +"But you say it has no coast?" + +"No--just like Jingalo; that is what makes it strong. If I were foolish, +if I were only going there to make money, I should try to get some +treaty, some concession, some sort of trade-monopoly--rubber, or gum, or +niggers' blood, it is all the same thing--I should try to get that from +the Brazils or the Bolivias or whoever thinks that it is theirs to sell. +I am not such a fool: I do not want to trade, if I have got the people. +They are strong, they can run, they live clean lives--nobody has spoiled +them; they do not want to be rich; they are still a wonderful people; +they know a leader when they have found him. And when they gave me these +dragons that I have on me, then I became their King. That is my secret. +Now!" + +"But if I were to tell people _that_----" + +"Pooh! They would not believe you. 'Mad,' that is what they would say. +'Don't marry that man, he is mad!' And besides I am not King as we talk +of kings here in Europe; they would not pay taxes to me or anybody, but +I can show them what to do. That country on the map may 'belong' to +anybody--the United States may write 'Monroe'--one of their big +'bow-wows' that was--they may write 'Monroe' all round the coasts of +South America and at every port that they like to stick in their noses; +but they cannot get there to say that the people living on that land +shall not become great and strong in their own way, without any one else +to say about it. To those men outside I shall only look like a trader +what is too stupid to trade with them; but all my trade will be among my +own people. That country can live on itself; there, that is my secret! +It wants nothing, nothing from outside at all; and the people want +nothing either. They have great high plateaux where they can live cool; +and they have all the brains and the blood that they want to make +themselves a great nation. I have drilled them; ah, but not German +fashion, no! They are much too splendid for that. Every man is an army +to himself. They do not fear, for in their religion it is forbidden +them. But if you can think of Bersaglieri--which are the best troops in +Europe--able to climb like monkeys, to swim like fish, to go along the +ground like snakes, and to get all by different ways to the same place +in the dark with their eyes shut, though they have never been there +before--for that is how it seems--well, that is what my army is going to +be like. I have ten thousand of them drilled already; in a year I shall +have them armed; and I tell you that at six hundred miles from the +nearest coast nobody will be able to beat them." + +"No, perhaps not with armies," said Charlotte; "but what about +civilization itself--all the evil part of it, I mean? How are you going +to keep that out?" + +"Civilization will find us a bad bargain," said the Prince, "we shall +not trade: that is to be our law. I have told them how dreadful +civilization has become, and they are afraid of it; they will not touch +it with a pair of tongs. Traders may come to us; they shall get nothing, +and we shall get nothing from them. Only the King, with those that he +has for his Council, shall choose what is to bring in from outside; and +that will not be for trade at all. + +"Well, now you know! And it is to be Queen of that country, but never to +wear any crown, that I ask if you are going to marry me?" + +"It would be rather a big adventure, would it not?" said Charlotte. + +"Of course! I thought that is what you like." + +"Yes, so it is. But what about papa? I don't know what he would say if +he knew." + +"Do you always tell him what you do, beforehand, to see if he shall +approve?" + +"I've not done lately," said Charlotte. And then she saw that a suitable +moment for her own confession had arrived. She had very small hope of +shocking him now; but she did her best. + +"Do you know that I have been in prison?" she said. + +"No. Who was it that put you there--your papa?" + +"I put myself." + +"Did you get the keys?" + +"I made them arrest me." + +"How?" + +"I took a policeman's helmet from him, and ran away with it. At least +that is what he said afterwards: I don't know whether it was true." + +"Beautiful!" exclaimed the Prince in ravished tone. He did not turn a +hair; it was merely as though he were listening to some fairy tale. + +"But very likely it was!" persisted Charlotte, anxious for the worst to +be believed; and then she gave him a full account of the whole thing. + +"And what for did you do it?" he inquired when she had finished. + +"Because they had told me that you were coming, and I had promised not +to run away." + +"I do not understand?" + +"Well, I didn't know what you were like; and I didn't want you to think +I was a bit anxious to meet you.--That was all!" + +"That was all, was it?" Enlightenment dawned on him; he beamed at her +benevolently. + +"And I wanted to see," she continued, "whether you would be shocked: at +least, I wanted to give you the chance of being." + +"Well, you have given it me, and I am not; I am delighted. The more +women can do that sort of thing the better--pull men's heads off, I +mean." + +"Goodness me!" exclaimed Charlotte, "but I'm not going on doing it." + +"Why not? A good thing done twice is better." + +The simplicity of his approval left her without words. + +"In that country where you and I are going to," went on the Prince, +imperturbably, "the women can fight just as well as the men. They are +trained to wrestle; and before they allow to marry they must have +wrestled off on to his back a man as old as themselves." + +"But the men?" cried Charlotte, astonished. "How can they stand being +beaten by women?" + +"Pooh, that is nonsense!" said Fritz; "men do not mind being beaten by +women unless it is that they despise them. In that country the woman +that has thrown most men is the one that they are most anxious to +marry." + +"I have never thrown any one yet," said Charlotte reflectively. + +"You!" Peaceful of look he eyed her wonderingly. "You have thrown +something much stronger than a man," he said--"you, a princess, that has +gone to prison!--and for that silly notion of yours that you could shock +me. Ha!" + +"I did it for other reasons, too." + +"Quite like; people may have a lot of reasons they can make up +afterwards for doing wise, brave, foolish things like that!" + +"But I did think," insisted Charlotte, "that those Women Chartists were +right." + +"I do not care whether they are right or wrong;--that is not my concern. +They may be just as foolish as you, or just as wise--what difference to +me? But when I go to think of you sitting there in that common prison +all those ten days with everybody looking for you--looking, looking, and +not daring to say one word--so afraid at what you had done--oh, that is +marvelous! That is to be a King! That is power!" + +Charlotte had become very attentive to her lover's praise. "You think +they were really afraid, then?" she inquired, "afraid that it should be +known." + +"You ask them!" replied Fritz, "and see if they do not all cry 'Hush'!" + +And then in his usual abrupt way he returned to matters more personal to +himself. + +"Well, what are you going to say to me? For the last hour I have been +asking you to marry me, and you have said nothing; only just 'wriggle, +wriggle,' talking off on to something else." + +"Wriggling is one way of wrestling," said Charlotte. Her eye played +mischief as she spoke. + +"Just waggling the tongue!" retorted Fritz with genial scorn. "Throw a +man with that?--you cannot throw me!" + +"But I must throw somebody, or else I shall not be qualified. The women +of that wonderful country of yours would look down on me." + +"Throw me!" The Prince opened his arms, smiling. "I will let you!" he +said. + +"And despise me afterwards! No, Mr. Schnapp-dragon, I shall choose my +own man, and throw him in my own way." + +"And if you succeed?" + +"Then--yes, then I will marry you." + +"And if you fail?" + +"Then I won't." + +"H'm!" observed the Prince in easy-going tones, "you must have been very +sure of him before you would say that!" + +Charlotte opened her mouth to rebuke that brazen remark; and then shut +it again. + +"When do you do it?" went on Fritz, equable as ever. "Before I go?" + +Charlotte pretended to temporize. "Well, perhaps to-morrow," said she. + +And sure enough, to-morrow it was. + + +II + +Nobody in Jingalo knows to this day what finally induced the Prime +Minister to concede so unexpectedly that preliminary point of vantage--a +mere foothold among the interstices of the ministerial program--which +the Women Chartists had so long and vainly striven for. What use they +made of the opportunity thus accorded has now become a matter of +history: we need not go into it here. + +No royal message to ministers in Council assembled worked that miracle; +for, as we shall see in another chapter, the King's mind was destined at +this point to be suddenly distracted in quite other ways; and when he +was again able to turn his attention anywhere but to himself he found +that and other matters which had disturbed his conscience tending with +comparative smoothness toward a solution in which he personally had had +little share. + +But though Jingalo knows nothing of these inner workings of history, we +peering behind the scenes may note how, when bureaucracy is bent on +keeping up appearances, fear of scandal can become more potent to +constitutional ends than love of justice. + +Never in his long career had the Prime Minister known so flagrant an +instance of blackmail unpunishable by law as that which the Princess +Charlotte sprung on him when, in brief interview, she dictated the terms +on which alone the Ann Juggins episode was to be allowed to sink into +oblivion. And perhaps one can hardly wonder, under the circumstances, +that even then he did not feel secure, and was anxious to see so +incalculable a "sport" or variant of the royal breed removed to a safe +distance. For even though he might rely on her word as to the past, +where was his guarantee that she might not do the same thing again? + +"That Prime Minister is very anxious to get rid of you," said Prince +Fritz when at a later date he and the Princess began once more to +compare notes as to future plans, when in fact the joyful news of their +engagement was about to be publicly announced in a general uproar of +thanksgiving. + +"Oh, yes," went on Fritz, enjoying the retrospect, "one could see that +quite well. He was putting on my boots for me all the time, and was +willing to pay a good deal more for the accommodation than he had +expected me to ask." + +"Pay?" + +"Yes, dearest; but it all goes into your pocket, not mine. It is the +price he pays for your character; that is all." + +"But what has my character to do with him?" + +"Your character, beloved," said the Prince, turning upon her an adoring +gaze, "leaves him with no moment in which he can feel safe. He thinks +that you have 'a great vitality,' but here not enough scope. And he +seems that he cannot govern this country so long as you stay in it. I +think him very wise. Shall I tell you what I did?" + +"Well?" + +"I made a bargain." + +"About me?" + +"Of course about you, beloved--for you; who else except would I bargain +for? Besides was it about anything but your business that he and I were +having to seek each other? Well, because you so frighten him now he pays +rather more to get rid of you; and you, oh my dear heart's beloved, you +will get more. That is all that your Fritz had to do yesterday--and he +has done it. So now!" + +And then, well pleased with himself, the practical Fritz let his +romantic side appear again, and for two minutes or so he lived up to the +sky-like blueness of his eyes and the childlike gentleness of his face, +and because his heart was very full of love he talked his own native +German, and not Jingalese any more. + +And these two sides of him are here given so that the reader, if kindly +anxious about Charlotte's future, may trouble about her no more; for +when your idealist is also a very practical man of business he can, up +to the capacity of his brain-power, go anywhere and do anything, and +even in a land that is outside Baedeker will assuredly find his feet. +Not for nothing had Prince Hans Fritz Otto of Schnapps-Wasser turned his +bottled industry of home-waters into a company. + +In tentative motherings of her gigantic babe, Charlotte had forgotten +all about money and business affairs when once more the practical man in +him came out of childish disguise to make an inquiry. + +"Beloved," said he, "tell me--was he that man?" + +"Which man?" inquired Charlotte innocently. + +"The one that you wrestled with?" + +Charlotte nodded; a smile flickered over her face. + +"And you got him down?" + +"Yes." + +"Quite down?" + +"As flat as he could go." + +"And that is why you marry me?" + +The two lovers exchanged sweet looks of candor and honesty. + +"Yes," said Charlotte, smiling, "that is why." + +"O Beloved," murmured the infatuated Fritz, "how beautifully you do tell +lies." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +"CALL ME JACK!" + + + + +It was noticed when the King came down to the first Council of the new +session that his face was flushed and his manner strangely discomposed. +He barely returned the respectful greetings of his ministers, and by +postponement of the customary invitation to be seated, kept them out of +their chairs for quite an appreciable time. Standing awkwardly about +the board they looked like a group of carrion crows awaiting the +symptoms of death before descending to their meal. To none did he accord +any word of personal recognition. + +Even when proceedings had commenced it was evident that his attention +constantly wandered, only returning by fits and starts at the call of +some chance phrase on which now and again he would seize, remarking in a +tone of irritation, "And what does this mean, please?" And thereafter he +would require to be instructed at some length, as though he had +forgotten all current or preceding events. + +In consequence of this the formal reports of the various departments +became a lengthy business; and the really important matters, to discuss +which the Council had been specially called, were proportionally +delayed. + +Presently the word "strikes" caught his ear. + +"Ah, yes, what about those strikes?" he inquired. + +"They are still going on, your Majesty." + +"Yes, _I_ know that! Why are they going on--that's what I want to know? +The strike you are talking about was practically over more than a month +ago; why has it begun again?" + +"They have secured fresh funds, sir, and other trades have joined in." + +"Is it the other trades that are finding the funds?" + +"Not entirely, sir; large contributions are now coming in from abroad." + +"From abroad?" interjected the King irritably, "where are they getting +funds from abroad?" + +"From England, sir." + +"From the Government, do you mean?" + +"Of course not from the Government, sir." + +"Well, explain yourself, then! Don't call it England if it isn't +England." + +"I might almost say that it is England, sir, since a judicial decision +is the immediate cause of it. Labor in that country has just won a very +important action for damages arising out of a Crown prosecution. It has +now been decided that the Crown is responsible for the torts of its +civil and military agents. The unions in consequence are flush with +funds, and a portion of the Court's award, amounting to L50,000, has +been handed over to the strike fund in this country." + +"And this subsidy from a foreign and a so-called friendly Power is +having the effect of prolonging our industrial conflicts, and is doing +damage to our trade?" + +"Undoubtedly, sir, it has that effect." + +"Well, and has nothing been said about it--to the English Government, I +mean?" + +"It is not a direct act of the Government, sir." + +"I don't need to be told that," said the King. "Neither was it a direct +act of the Government when a party of English undergraduates climbed to +the top of our embassy and hauled down the national flag because +Jingalese had been made a compulsory substitute for Greek at their +universities. But for that the English Government apologized, publicly +and privately, and all round. Do they apologize for this? Do they offer +to compensate us for the loss it is to our trade and the corresponding +gain to theirs? Have they been asked to apologize?" + +"Certainly not, sir." + +"And pray, why not?" + +By this time, around the ministerial board, much open-eyed interrogation +was going on. Where, they seemed to be asking, was this glut of foolish +interrogations going to end? But still the minister under examination +endeavored to answer as though the questions were reasonable. + +"There would be no chance, sir, of obtaining any redress." + +"Yet this is doing us infinitely more harm?" + +"It is merely a development, sir, of that new thing called +'syndicalism.' It is cropping up everywhere now." + +"It may be new as it likes," protested the King. "All I say is that as +it stands it is a casus belli. You say it is cropping up; all the more +reason why it should be put down! What else is government for? Take +cattle disease; you put that down, you do not allow that to be imported. +Why should you allow syndicalism to be imported either?" + +The Council sought resignation of spirit in sighs and looked to its +Chief in mute appeal. + +"How would your Majesty propose to prevent the importation of ideas?" +inquired the Prime Minister dryly, in a tone that tried to be patient. + +"Don't tell me," said the King, "that a syndicalist subsidy to Labor of +L50,000 is only an idea. But you are quite right, Mr. Prime Minister; in +the past countries have gone to war largely over the importation of +ideas, as you call them, either religious or social; that is why they +failed. England went to war with France at the end of the eighteenth +century merely because France was importing revolutionary ideas into +England. Was she able to prevent it? No; she only got the disease in a +much more virulent form herself, and has been running tandem to it ever +since. It is no use going to war for sentimental reasons; you must do it +for business reasons, and you must do it in a business-like way." + +"Merely as a matter of business, sir," said the Prime Minister, his +hopefulness now on a descending scale, "war with England would cost us +considerably more than the loss of trade occasioned by this subsidy +which you complain of." + +"Not a bit of it!" retorted the King, "not if you went the right way to +work. The Chancellor was saying just now that we should have to devise +some fresh taxes. Well, put a tax on Englishmen; quite enough of them +come here to make it worth while. Every summer the place is alive with +them!" + +"I am afraid, sir," said the Prime Minister, sighing wearily, "that the +most favored nation clause stands in the way of your Majesty's brilliant +suggestion." + +"Not if we do it openly as an act of war," explained the King; "then it +becomes a war tax. That's what I mean when I say conduct your wars on +business lines. Don't tax yourself, tax your enemy! England is the one +country we can fight on our own terms. She can't get at us. We are an +inland power; there isn't a coast within three hundred miles of us; and +Dreadnoughts can't walk on land, you know. They really can't!" he added, +as though there might be some doubt among those who had not yet given +the matter their consideration. + +"I assure you, gentlemen, that war on England, if scientifically +conducted, would be a profitable thing. I've been reading a book by a +man named Norman Angell, who says that war doesn't pay. Well, the reason +for that is we don't conduct our wars on the proper lines. Now if we +made war on England----" + +"Your Majesty," entreated the Prime Minister, "may we proceed to +business?" + +"If we made war on England," persisted the King, "we should not have to +send out a single regiment, or impose any extra taxation on ourselves; +in fact we should save. We should simply raise our railway and hotel +tariffs fifteen or twenty per cent. to all Englishmen, except children +in arms; children up to thirteen half price. There's the whole thing in +a nutshell; no difficulty, no difficulty whatever." + +At this point, to the Premier's annoyance, Professor Teller took up the +question with a humorous appreciation of its possibilities. + +"But, sir," he inquired, "how should we know that they were Englishmen? +They might disguise themselves as Americans." + +"They couldn't!" said the King. "An Englishman trying to talk American +makes as poor an exhibition of himself as an American trying to talk +English; and besides, you don't know the British character! Penalize +them in the way I am suggesting and they would flaunt their nationality +in our faces; they would wear Union-jack waistcoats and carry in their +pockets gramophones which played 'God save the King' when you touched +them. They would make a point of showing us that they didn't care +twopence for our fifteen per cent.; in fact, their Tariff Reformers +would applaud us--they would put it in large headlines in all their +newspapers, and call it an object lesson and would demand a general +election on the strength of it." + +"But supposing, sir," inquired the Professor, "that they did not come at +all? We have to remember that we live largely by our tourists; and if we +eliminate the English tourist----" + +"Better and better," said the King. "Think how popular we should be with +the rest of Europe! No English? The Germans would simply flock to us; +our hotels would be crammed; we should be turning away money at the +door." + +The Prime Minister tapped wearily upon the table; all this was such +utter waste of time; and he began to think that the King was so +intending it, and was bent upon making a royal Council a constitutional +impossibility. + +But in some curious magnetic way other members of the Cabinet were now +beginning to be infected. The idea tickled their national vanity; and +though it was all put in a very amateurish way, many of them saw well +enough that for war to be retained as a solution of international +problems something on these lines would have to be done for it. +Syndicalism was merely a showing of the way. + +"But, your Majesty," inquired the President of the Board of Ways and +Means, "might not England retaliate by declaring a Tariff war on us?" + +"She might," said the King; "but not with the Liberals still in power; +they couldn't reduce themselves to absurdity in that way. Still, +supposing our declaration of war threw the Liberals out, what could the +others do? Our trade in English goods comes to us mainly through France +or Germany; and our own return trade is chiefly limited to our native +crockery, toys, wood-carving, and needlework, supposed survivals of our +peasant industries, which, as a matter of fact, are nearly all of them +manufactured for us in Birmingham, the home of Tariff Reform. In that +matter, by the taxing of articles which are only nominally made in +Jingalo, English trade would suffer more than ours; and there might, in +consequence, come about a real revival of our native crafts (an +advantage which I had not previously thought of)--lacking our usual +supply of the bogus article we should at last become honest in our +professions and truthful in our trademarks. Let the Minister for Home +Industries make a note of it." + +"The prospect your Majesty holds out is certainly alluring," replied the +minister thus appealed to; "but if war is to teach us moral lessons, +surely we ought to have moral reasons for engaging in it as well as +business ones." + +"Well, if you want them, you've got them!" said the King. "If moral +reasons were to count we ought to have been at war with England any day +for the last fifty years. England has become--if she has not always +been--a center of infection to the whole of Europe. Every disastrous +experiment on which we have embarked has come from her. By her gross +mismanagement of established institutions--the Church, the Peerage, the +Army, Land, Labor, Capital--the whole system of voluntary service and +voluntary education--she has driven the rest of Europe into +revolutionary changes for which there was no necessity whatever. In +avoiding the woeful example she has set us, of always standing still on +the wrong leg, we have run ourselves off both our own. And now she is +nourishing syndicalism like a bed of weeds, and sowing the seeds of it +into her neighbors' territories. If you are looking for moral excuse +there is no end to it; I preferred, however, to put it to you as a +business proposition." + +"I must assure your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, "that your +Majesty's present advisers have no intention whatever of making +themselves responsible for a war on England, however advantageous the +circumstances may seem." + +He might as well have spoken to the wind; with an increasing volubility +of utterance the King went on-- + +"If it were decided," said he, "that an actual invasion of England were +advisable, I have three separate plans now forming in my head, all +equally feasible and promising, and all capable of being put into +operation at one and the same time. Each one, in fact, would serve to +divert attention from the others." + +It may be noted that at this point Professor Teller suddenly ceased to +be amused; his look of half-quizzical detachment becoming changed to one +of gravity, almost of distress; his Majesty's "pace" had apparently +become too much for him. + +"We know, for instance," pursued the King, "that if we succeeded in +effecting a landing the German waiters would rise as one man and join us +as volunteers. Germany would, of course, officially disown them, while +for the purposes of the war we should give them letters of Jingalese +naturalization on their enlistment; these, which they would carry in +their knapsacks, would prevent them from being shot in the event of +their being taken prisoners. Our own army of twenty thousand picked +Jingalese sharp-shooters would go to England disguised as tourists. Each +in his bag would carry a complete military outfit; our new uniforms are +so like those of the English territorials that they would arouse no +suspicion at the Customs House, and even when worn only experts would +know the difference. At a given signal----" + +There the Prime Minister, having extracted a look of despairing +encouragement from the Council, got upon his feet. + +"I have to ask your Majesty," he said very resolutely, "that we may now +be allowed to proceed to the business for which we have been called +together." + +"At a given signal----" went on the King. + +"I must protest, your Majesty." + +It was quite useless. + +"At a given signal--I will give you your signal, Mr. Prime Minister, +when you may throw your bomb; yes, for I have seen you preparing it!--at +a given signal when the King and his Parliament were assembled together +in one place, some of our forces would mingle with the crowd; others +emerging from places of concealment would form into ranks and advance +from various quarters upon Westminster. Then, before any one was aware, +we would cable our declaration of war, rush the House, seize the heads +of the Government, carry them off to the topmost story of the clock +tower, garrison it from basement to roof, and there, with the King and +his whole Cabinet in our hands, stand siege till the rest of the nation +sued for peace." + +Once more the Prime Minister endeavored to interpose; he was borne down. + +"They could not blow us up," went on the King, "without blowing our +prisoners up also; they could not starve us out, for the King and his +Cabinet would perforce have to share our privations. We should have in +our possession not only the whole personnel of the Government, but that +supreme symbol and safeguard of the popular will which crowns their +constitutional edifice. And, gentlemen, you may think me as mad as you +like--you may arrest me, you may take me to the police-station, you may +rob me of all the evidence of conspiracy I have against you, and you may +call me Jack--jack-of-all-trades, master of none--Jack, plain Jack----" + +The Prime Minister and Council sprang to their feet. Consternation was +upon the faces of all. + +"But nothing! nothing!" he went on, "no power on earth--except it were a +whole army of steeplejacks----" + +At that word the flow of his eloquence ceased; his mouth remained open +but no sound came from it. Suddenly his staring eyes puckered and +closed, wincing as from a blow; and his face flushed to a fiery red, +then paled. + +He gave a short cry, threw out an arm feebly; wavered, toppled, crumpled +like a thing without bone, and fell back into his chair. + +"My God!" muttered the Prime Minister. "Oh, great Heaven!" + +Some one, more nimble of wit than the rest, dashed out of the room to +seek aid. All the others, impressed with a true sense of incompetence, +stood looking at their fallen King. Not one of them knew how to handle +him, whether it were best to lay him down or leave him alone. First +aid--even to their sovereign lord--had formed no part in the education +of these his counselors. + +The Prime Minister did the one thing which he knew to be correct--and +which could not possibly do harm; he felt the King's heart. But nobody +for a moment supposed him to be dead; unconscious though he lay, his +heavy breathings could be seen and heard. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING + + + + +I + +For three whole weeks thereafter--if the papers were to be believed--the +entire nation hung upon the bulletins which were issued hourly from the +royal palace. The King's illness gave the finishing touch to his +popularity; devotion to affairs of State had brought on brain-fever, and +the more desperate the symptoms of the illness could be made to appear, +the more sublime became the moral character of its august victim, and +the more deeply-rooted the affection of his people. + +Professional vanity had also to be flattered; and during those fierce +fluctuations of hope and despair, Jingalo's topmost place in the world +of medical science became vindicated to the meanest intelligence. If by +a scientific miracle the King's life was to be saved, Jingalese +doctoring, and no other doctoring in the world would do it. + +Nobly the press performed its task of giving to every factor in the +situation its due prominence; even the Church got its share; and when +favorable bulletins became the order of the day, their origin was +generously ascribed, even by the ministerial press, almost as much to +the prayers of the people publicly offered as to the skill of the six +best medical authorities. But when all was said and done it was to the +King's marvelous constitution, his patient courage, and his quiet +submission to the hands of his nurses (foremost of whom was her Majesty +the Queen), that the praise was chiefly due; for it was necessary, in +order to complete the situation, that the loyalty so nobly tendered +should be nobly earned. + +And nobly tendered it certainly was. Never could the nation have had so +good an opinion of itself as during those dark weeks when, taught by +its press the meanings of the various symptoms, it sat by the King's bed +feeling his pulse, holding his breath, and scarcely daring to raise any +voice above a whisper. Various sections of the public were informed in +their daily journals how they and other sections were behaving +themselves; how business men went to office almost apologetically, and +only because they could not help themselves; how nursemaids hushed the +voices of their charges as they wheeled them past the precincts of the +palace for their morning's airing in the royal park; and how Jingalo +only consented to its accustomed portion of beer in order that it might +drink to the King's health and his quick recovery. + +Every week in the streets at the back of the palace fresh straw was laid +down, not so much for the benefit of the sufferer (whose room was too +far away for any sound of traffic to disturb him), but as a stimulus to +popular imagination. The men who laid it down performed their task as +though the eye of the whole nation were upon them; and even upon the +Stock Exchange one learned that the rise and fall of prices were but the +harmonious accompaniment of a stupendous national anxiety. + +All these things Jingalo was told by its newspapers, and some of them +were true; and in the reading and the doing of them how Jingalo enjoyed +itself! It had never had such a time of feeling good, unselfish, and +thoughtful on a large and homogeneous scale, without having to do +anything particularly unpleasant in return. The theaters suffered, but +not nearly so much as the charities; for though Jingalo was still able +decorously to amuse itself--and did so at her Majesty's special request, +for the sake of trade--it could not have its heart successfully wrung by +human compassion in more than one direction at a time--at least, not to +the same extent. And so, charitable appeals had to wait till a livelier +sense of gratitude prompted by the King's recovery should revive them. + +In the conduct of human affairs association plays a very curious part. +When a man is shouting for joy he can scatter largesse with a free hand, +but he cannot loosen his purse-strings while he is holding his breath; +and even when it is only being held for him by a sort of hypnotic +suggestion, his nature is still undergoing a certain impedimental +strain. + +And as a visible embodiment to all this strain of calculation and +suspense, small crowds could be seen standing constantly at the gates of +the palace, waiting for bulletins and watching with a curious +fascination the flag that so obstinately continued to float mast high. +They watched it as a crowd watches for a similar sign outside the walls +of a jail: not that they wanted it to fall--but still, if it had to, +they dearly wished that they might be there to see. Thus, even in their +griefs, did the sporting instincts of the Jingalese people rise to the +surface and bring them a consolation which nothing else could afford. + +My readers will give me credit, I trust, for not having sought to impose +on them that fear of impending doom, that apprehension of what the next +hour might bring forth, on the strength of which the Jingalese press so +sedulously ran its extra editions from day to day. I have never for a +moment pretended that the King was going to die, seeing, on the +contrary, that he was destined to make a complete recovery. But he was +not to be quite the same man again--not at least that man whom we have +seen in these pages bumping his way conscientiously through a period of +constitutional crisis. For when the six Jingalese medicos came to put +their heads together over him, they found in the back of his head a +small dislodgment of bone, rather less than the size of a florin, and +protruding almost an eighth of an inch from the surface of the skull. +Great was their speculation as to how such a thing could have come about +without their knowing it--for here, of course, was the root of the whole +mischief. This fracture, brought about perhaps by some flying fragment +of bomb, unnoticed in the excitement of the moment and afterwards +ignored, had evidently been the cause of the brain-fever; and when a +cause of this sort is discovered nothing is easier for medical science +than to put it right again. + +And so, seeing that the bone was out of place, they put it back just +where it ought to be, that is to say, where it had been. And as soon as +that was done, and the right pressure once more restored to the King's +brain, then his temperature went down, his delirium abated, and his +mind, as it gradually came back to him, recovered the dull, safe, and +retiring qualities which had belonged to it a year ago; and with its old +constitutional balance restored to it, it became once more contented +with its limitations and surroundings, and made a very quiet, happy, and +peaceful convalescence. And though on his recovery the King still +remembered the events of the past months they appeared to him rather in +the light of a bad dream than as a slice of real life. + +The Prime Minister came to see him on the very first day when he was +allowed to sit up and receive visitors, and they met without any sign of +constraint or enmity. + +"Well, Mr. Prime Minister, how are things going?" inquired the King. + +"Very well, indeed, sir," replied the minister, "now that your Majesty +has taken the necessary step to relieve us of all anxiety. And, though I +have not come on this occasion to intrude politics, it may interest you, +sir, to hear that on the question of the Spiritual Chamber, the +Archbishop and I have come to an arrangement, and the necessary +legislation is to be carried through by the consent of both parties." + +"Very gratifying, I am sure," said the King. "How did it come about?" + +The Prime Minister hesitated. "Well, sir," he said, "there were several +contributing causes: I need not go into them all. The one thing, +however, which made some modification of our plans clearly necessary was +the death of the Archimandrite of Cappadocia. After that our proposed +consecration of Free Churchmen to the new bishoprics ceased to be +possible. No doubt your Majesty will feel relieved." + +"Yes, I am," murmured the King mildly. + +And so was the Prime Minister; for that event, happening so fortuitously +at the right moment, had saved his face; his political retreat was +covered, partly at any rate, by the death--in a queer odor of sanctity +all his own--of that exiled patriarch of the Eastern Church. + +His exit, though opportune, had not been dramatic; attention being at +the moment otherwise directed. His two wives nursed him devotedly to the +end, and wrapped him for burial in the magnificent cape which in his +brief day of political importance the Prime Minister had given him. Very +quietly and unostentatiously he was laid to rest under the rites of an +alien Church--for his own would have none of him; nor was there any one +left to say of him now, in the land of his exile and temporary +adoption, "Ah, Lord," or "Ah, his glory!" Only in his duplicated +domestic circle was he in anywise missed; polities had shifted the +ground from under him, and he had become negligible. + + +II + +The King's recovery was the event of the new year, not only giving it an +auspicious send-off, but lending thereafter a peculiar flavor to the +whole social calendar. For months, addresses of congratulation kept +coming in from all the societies and public bodies in the kingdom, and +at every philanthropic function in which any member of royalty took part +during the next twelve-month it gave pith to all the speeches and +focussed the applause. Its influences extended to every department of +public life; it affected politics, trade, public holiday, art, science; +it invaded literature, increased the circulation of the newspapers, and +lent inspiration even to poetry. + +And those being the facts, how useless for satirists and cynics to +pretend any longer that monarchy as an institution was not firmly and +inextricably imbedded in the very life and habits of the Jingalese +people? + +Even at the universities the theme chosen for the prize poem that year +was the King's recovery from sickness; and though the prizes were few an +unusually large number of the rejected poems, owing to the popularity of +their subject, were published in the local newspapers. Perhaps only a +few of them were good, but one at least achieved success, and was +recited at all charity bazaars, concerts, and theatrical entertainments +given in the ensuing year. One couplet alone shall be here quoted, +portraying as it does in graphic phrase the national suspense during +those weeks of prolonged crisis when telegram after telegram continued +to pour monotonous negation on the hopes of an expectant people-- + + "Swift o'er the wires the electric message came, + He is no better: he is much the same!" + +Even amateur reciters could make an effect out of lines like that. Many +of them did, and on one occasion the Princess Charlotte was a +conspicuous member of the touched and attentive audience. It was a +difficult moment for her, but with the help of a handkerchief she +concealed her emotion, and the papers referred to it appreciatively as a +touching incident. + +The joy-bells that rang for a King's recovery, rang also for the public +announcement of a royal betrothal. Prince Fritz had returned to the +enchantment of his Charlotte's society at the earliest possible moment, +and was in consequence one of the royal family group which went in state +to the Cathedral to return thanks for the sovereign's restoration to +health. + +Across that bright scene we have to note the passing of one shadow +which, though not of impenetrable gloom, should not fail to enlist the +equable sympathy of kindly hearts. Max still moved upon the public stage +with a pensive and a chastened air. In the last month he had matured +visibly, yet he did not mourn as one without hope, for he remembered +that in the Church of Jingalo virginity could only vow itself for a +limited number of years, and he knew that time could bring wisdom to +inexperience, and make conspicuous the virtue of a heart that would not +take "no." Also he had certain fireworks up his sleeve whose brightness, +when they were let off, would penetrate even to the most cloistral +abode--he had, that is to say, his Royal Commission to work on, and the +preparation of a minority report which could not fail, when it was +divulged, to startle the world. He was even beginning to have hopes that +three or four others would sign it; for to be in a minority with royalty +has its charm. + +But though he still believed in the future he was for the moment in very +solitary plight. His Countess, to whom alone he could go for comfort in +his grief, had cried over him and kissed him with all the motherly +kindness imaginable; and then, disturbed by the very depth of her pity +and afraid of what might come of it--her heart being but tender +clay--had suddenly packed up her traps and flown, leaving, if you would +like to know, most of her jewels behind her. And Max, sending after her +with his own hands those souvenirs of the past, had added a few tender +words of regret and thanks which to her dying day that good woman +cherished and said her prayers over. + + +III + +The Thanksgiving was a very splendid affair; but the people who liked it +least were the piebald ponies. Never in their lives did they so narrowly +escape a hugging at the hands of the great unwashed; and this unwelcome +demonstration as directed against them was quite without reason or +excuse. They had not had brain-fever, or bones put back into place, or +made miraculous recoveries from anything; and they practically said as +much when resenting the liberties that were taken with them. All they +knew was that they were doing rather more than their usual tale of work; +and in consequence they were a little cross. Nothing serious happened, +however, and while waiting at the Cathedral doors they were given sugar +which quieted them down wonderfully. + +Inside the Cathedral all that was great and good and noble in Jingalo +had assembled to celebrate the occasion; and in its midst, still looking +rather frail and delicate after his illness, sat the King with the Royal +Family. To right and left of him sat judges, bishops, lords, ladies, +members of the House of Laity, staff officers, diplomatists, mayors, and +corporations, heads of public departments, all very gorgeously arrayed +in their official uniforms; and there amongst the rest sat a compact +bunch of prominent Free Churchmen in black gowns--their chances of +episcopal preferment flown. + +With triumphant suavity the Archbishop of Ebury conducted the service, +assisted by deans, chapters, bishops, and a dozen cathedral choirs. +Something in G was being intoned; the Archbishop was in splendid voice. + +He asked that the King might be saved; and, man and boy, the twelve +choirs were with him. + +He asked a blessing on the Church; and his prayer was seconded. + +He implored wisdom for Cabinet ministers; that, it was agreed, would add +to the national satisfaction. + +"In our time, O Lord, give peace!" + +Peace: the echoes of that blessed word thrilled down the vaulted aisles +of the Cathedral. + +Put into another form that might mean, "After our time, the deluge." But +the better word had been chosen: "Peace." + +To the King's ear it came with all the softness of a caress; he welcomed +it, for it meant much to him. And thinking of all that was now happily +past he rubbed his hands. + +The watchful reporters in the press-gallery above took notes of that; to +them, whose duty that day was to interpret all things on a high and +spiritual plane, it betokened the stress of a fine emotion, and in their +grandiloquent reports of that solemn ceremony they set it down so and +published it. + +Yet as a matter of fact, the King had only rubbed his hands. And, truly +interpreted, his thoughts ran thus--"Peace? Well, yes, I think that now +I have earned it! Here am I, still King of Jingalo, alive and in my +right mind. During the last few months I have abdicated--put myself off +the throne, and been blown on to it again by a bomb engineered by my own +Prime Minister; I have been arrested, I have been locked up in a police +cell, I have committed robbery, and in my own palace been robbed again. +My daughter has been in prison for ten days as a common criminal; my son +seriously assaulted by the police, and for about four months +surreptitiously engaged to the daughter of an Archbishop; while a +revolutionary and seditious book written by him as a direct attack on +the Constitution and on society has been providentially burned to the +ground--that also, probably, at the instigation of my ministers. And +though all this has been going on in their midst, making history, +bringing changes to pass or preventing them, the people of Jingalo know +nothing whatever about it. What a wonderful country is the country of +Jingalo!" + +And at that happy conclusion of the whole matter the King had rubbed his +hands. + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's King John of Jingalo, by Laurence Housman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING JOHN OF JINGALO *** + +***** This file should be named 18498.txt or 18498.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/9/18498/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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