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Title: Temporal Power

Author: Marie Corelli

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[This file was first posted on February 11, 2003]

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TEMPORAL POWER ***




Charles Adarondo and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team



TEMPORAL POWER




A STUDY IN SUPREMACY

BY MARIE CORELLI




CONTENTS

I.      THE KING'S PLEASAUNCE

II.     MAJESTY CONSIDERS AND RESOLVES

III.    A NATION OR A CHURCH?

IV.     SEALED ORDERS

V.      "IF I LOVED YOU!"

VI.     SERGIUS THORD

VII.    THE IDEALISTS

VIII.   THE KING'S DOUBLE

IX.     THE PREMIER'S SIGNET

X.      THE ISLANDS

XI.     "GLORIA--IN EXCELSIS!"

XII.    A SEA PRINCESS

XIII.   SECRET SERVICE

XIV.    THE KING'S VETO

XV.     "MORGANATIC" OR--?

XVI.    THE PROFESSOR ADVISES

XVII.   AN "HONOURABLE" STATESMAN

XVIII.  ROYAL LOVERS

XIX.    OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE STATE

XX.     THE SCORN OF KINGS

XXI.    AN INVITATION TO COURT

XXII.   A FAIR DEBUTANTE

XXIII.  THE KING'S DEFENDER

XXIV.   A WOMAN'S REASON

XXV.    "I SAY--'ROME'!"

XXVI.   "ONE WAY--ONE WOMAN!"

XXVII.  THE SONG OF FREEDOM

XXVIII. "FATE GIVES--THE KING!"

XXIX.   THE COMRADE OF HIS FOES

XXX.    KING AND SOCIALIST

XXXI.   A VOTE FOR LOVE

XXXII.  BETWEEN TWO PASSIONS

XXXIII. SAILING TO THE INFINITE

XXXIV.  ABDICATION




CHAPTER I

THE KING'S PLEASAUNCE


"In the beginning," so we are told, "God made the heavens and the
earth."

The statement is simple and terse; it is evidently intended to be
wholly comprehensive. Its decisive, almost abrupt tone would seem to
forbid either question or argument. The old-world narrator of the
sublime event thus briefly chronicled was a poet of no mean quality,
though moved by the natural conceit of man to give undue importance to
the earth as his own particular habitation. The perfect confidence with
which he explains 'God' as making 'two great lights, the greater light
to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night,' is touching to
the verge of pathos; and the additional remark which he throws in, as
it were casually,--'He made the stars also,' cannot but move us to
admiration. How childlike the simplicity of the soul which could so
venture to deal with the inexplicable and tremendous problem of the
Universe! How self-centred and sure the faith which could so arrange
the work of Infinite and Eternal forces to suit its own limited
intelligence! It is easy and natural to believe that 'God,' or an
everlasting Power of Goodness and Beauty called by that name, 'created
the heavens and the earth,' but one is often tempted to think that an
altogether different and rival element must have been concerned in the
making of Man. For the heavens and the earth are harmonious; man is a
discord. And not only is he a discord in himself, but he takes pleasure
in producing and multiplying discords. Often, with the least possible
amount of education, and on the slightest provocation, he mentally sets
Himself, and his trivial personal opinion on religion, morals, and
government, in direct opposition to the immutable laws of the Universe,
and the attitude he assumes towards the mysterious Cause and Original
Source of Life is nearly always one of three things; contradiction,
negation, or defiance. From the first to the last he torments himself
with inventions to outwit or subdue Nature, and in the end dies,
utterly defeated. His civilizations, his dynasties, his laws, his
manners, his customs, are all doomed to destruction and oblivion as
completely as an ant-hill which exists one night and is trodden down
the next. Forever and forever he works and plans in vain; forever and
forever Nature, the visible and active Spirit of God, rises up and
crushes her puny rebel.

There must be good reason for this ceaseless waste of human life,--this
constant and steady obliteration of man's attempts, since there can be
no Effect without Cause. It is, as if like children at a school, we
were set a certain sum to do, and because we blunder foolishly over it
and add it up to a wrong total, it is again and again wiped off the
blackboard, and again and again rewritten for our more careful
consideration. Possibly the secret of our failure to conquer Nature
lies in ourselves, and our own obstinate tendency to work in only one
groove of what we term 'advancement,'--namely our material self-
interest. Possibly we might be victors if we would, even to the very
vanquishment of Death!

So many of us think,--and so thought one man of sovereign influence in
this world's affairs as, seated on the terrace of a Royal palace
fronting seaward, he pondered his own life's problem for perhaps the
thousandth time.

"What is the use of thinking?" asked a wit at the court of Louis XVI.
"It only intensifies the bad opinion you have of others,--or of
yourself!"

He found this saying true. Thinking is a pernicious habit in which very
great personages are not supposed to indulge; and in his younger days
he had avoided it. He had allowed the time to take him as it found him,
and had gone with it unresistingly wherever it had led. It was the best
way; the wisest way; the way Solomon found most congenial, despite its
end in 'vanity and vexation of spirit.' But with the passing of the
years a veil had been dropped over that path of roses, hiding it
altogether from his sight; and another veil rose inch by inch before
him, disclosing a new and less joyous prospect on which he was not
too-well-pleased to look.

The sea, stretching out in a broad shining expanse opposite to him,
sparkled dancingly in the warm sunshine, and the snowy sails of many
yachts and pleasure-boats dipped now and again into the glittering
waves like white birds skimming over the tiny flashing foam-crests.
Dazzling and well-nigh blinding to his eyes were the burning glow and
exquisite radiance of colour which seemed melted like gold and sapphire
into that bright half-circle of water and sky,--beautiful, and full of
a dream-like evanescent quality, such as marks all the loveliest
scenes and impressions of our life on earth. There was a subtle scent
of violets in the air,--and a gardener, cutting sheafs of narcissi from
the edges of the velvety green banks which rolled away in smooth
undulations upward from the terrace to the wider extent of the palace
pleasaunce beyond, scattered such perfume with his snipping shears as
might have lured another Proserpine from Hell. Cluster after cluster of
white blooms, carefully selected for the adornment of the Royal
apartments, he laid beside him on the grass, not presuming to look in
the direction where that other Workman in the ways of life sat silent
and absorbed in thought. That other, in his own long-practised manner,
feigned not to be aware of his dependant's proximity,--and in this
fashion they twain--human beings made of the same clay and relegated,
to the same dust--gave sport to the Fates by playing at Sham with
Heaven and themselves. Custom, law, and all the paraphernalia of
civilization, had set the division and marked the boundary between
them,--had forbidden the lesser in world's rank to speak to the
greater, unless the greater began conversation,--had equally forbidden
the greater to speak to the lesser lest such condescension should
inflate the lesser's vanity so much as to make him obnoxious to his
fellows. Thus,--of two men, who, if left to nature would have been
merely--men, and sincere enough at that,--man himself had made two
pretenders,--the one as gardener, the other as--King! The white
narcissi lying on the grass, and preparing to die sweetly, like
sacrificed maiden-victims of the flower-world, could turn true faces
to the God who made them,--but the men at that particular moment of
time had no real features ready for God's inspection,--only masks.

"C'est mon metier d'etre Roi!" So said one of the many dead and gone
martyrs on the rack of sovereignty. Alas, poor soul, thou would'st have
been happier in any other 'metier' I warrant! For kingship is a
profession which cannot be abandoned for a change of humour, or cast
aside in light indifference and independence because a man is bored by
it and would have something new. It is a routine and drudgery to which
some few are born, for which they are prepared, to which they must
devote their span of life, and in which they must die. "How shall we
pass the day?" asked a weary Roman emperor, "I am even tired of killing
my enemies!"

'Even' that! And the strangest part of it is, that there are people who
would give all their freedom and peace of mind to occupy for a few
years an uneasy throne, and who actually live under the delusion that a
monarch is happy!

The gardener soon finished his task of cutting the narcissi, and though
he might not, without audacity, look at his Sovereign-master, his
Sovereign-master looked at him, furtively, from under half-closed
eyelids, watching him as he bound the blossoms together carefully, with
the view of giving as little trouble as possible to those whose duty it
would be to arrange them for the Royal pleasure. His work done, he
walked quickly, yet with a certain humble stealthiness,--thus
admitting his consciousness of that greater presence than his own,--
down a broad garden walk beyond the terrace towards a private entrance
to the palace, and there disappeared.

The King was left alone,--or apparently so, for to speak truly, he was
never alone. An equerry, a page-in-waiting,--or what was still more
commonplace as well as ominous, a detective,--lurked about him, ever
near, ever ready to spring on any unknown intruder, or to answer his
slightest call.

But to the limited extent of the solitude allowed to kings, this man
was alone,--alone for a brief space to consider, as he had informed his
secretary, certain documents awaiting his particular and private
perusal.

The marble pavilion in which he sat had been built by his father, the
late King, for his own pleasure, when pleasure was more possible than
it is now. Its slender Ionic columns, its sculptured friezes, its
painted ceilings, all expressed a gaiety, grace and beauty gone from
the world, perchance for ever. Open on three sides to the living
picture of the ocean, crimson and white roses clambered about it, and
tall plume-like mimosa shook fragrance from its golden blossoms down
every breath of wind. The costly table on which this particular Majesty
of a nation occasionally wrote his letters, would, if sold, have kept a
little town in food for a year,--the rich furs at his feet would have
bought bread for hundreds of starving families,--and every delicious
rose that nodded its dainty head towards him with the breeze would have
given an hour's joy to a sick child. Socialists say this kind of thing
with wildly eloquent fervour, and blame all kings in passionate
rhodomontade for the tables, the furs and the roses,--but they forget--
it is not the sad and weary kings who care for these or any luxuries,--
they would be far happier without them. It is the People who insist on
having kings that should be blamed,--not the monarchs themselves. A
king is merely the people's Prisoner of State,--they chain him to a
throne,--they make him clothe himself in sundry fantastic forms of
attire and exhibit his person thus decked out, for their pleasure,--
they calculate, often with greed and grudging, how much it will cost to
feed him and keep him in proper state on the national premises, that
they may use him at their will,--but they seldom or never seem to
remember the fact that there is a Man behind the King!

It is not easy to govern nowadays, since there is no real autocracy,
and no strong soul likely to create one. But the original idea of
sovereignty was grand and wise;--the strongest man and bravest, raised
aloft on shields and bucklers with warrior cries of approval from the
people who voluntarily chose him as their leader in battle,--their
utmost Head of affairs. Progress has demolished this ideal, with many
others equally fine and inspiring; and now all kings are so, by right
of descent merely. Whether they be infirm or palsied, weak or wise,
sane or crazed, still are they as of old elected; only no more as the
Strongest, but simply as the Sign-posts of a traditional bygone
authority. This King however, here written of, was not deficient in
either mental or physical attributes. His outward look and bearing
betokened him as far more fit to be lifted in triumph on the shoulders
of his battle-heroes, a real and visible Man, than to play a more or
less cautiously inactive part in the modern dumb-show of Royalty. Well-
built and muscular, with a compact head regally poised on broad
shoulders, and finely formed features which indicated in their firm
modelling strong characteristics of pride, indomitable resolution and
courage, he had an air of rare and reposeful dignity which made him
much more impressive as a personality than many of his fellow-
sovereigns. His expression was neither foolish nor sensual,--his clear
dark grey eyes were sane and steady in their regard and had no tricks
of shiftiness. As an ordinary man of the people his appearance would
have been distinctive,--as a King, it was remarkable.

He had of course been called handsome in his childhood,--what heir to
a Throne ever lived that was not beautiful, to his nurse at least?--and
in his early youth he had been grossly flattered for his cleverness as
well as his good looks. Every small attempt at witticism,--every poor
joke he could invent, adapt or repeat, was laughed at approvingly in a
chorus of admiration by smirking human creatures, male and female, who
bowed and bobbed up and down before the lad like strange dolphins
disporting themselves on dry land. Whereat he grew to despise the
dolphins, and no wonder. When he was about seventeen or eighteen he
began to ask odd questions of one of his preceptors, a learned and
ceremonious personage who, considering the extent of his certificated
wisdom, was yet so singularly servile of habit and disposition that he
might have won a success on the stage as Chief Toady in a burlesque of
Court life. He was a pale, thin old man, with a wizened face set well
back amid wisps of white hair, and a scraggy throat which asserted its
working muscles visibly whenever he spoke, laughed or took food. His
way of shaking hands expressed his moral flabbiness in the general
dampness, looseness and limpness of the act,--not that he often shook
hands with his pupil, for though that pupil was only a boy made of
ordinary flesh and blood like other boys, he was nevertheless heir to a
Throne, and in strict etiquette even friendly liberties were not to be
too frequently taken with such an Exalted little bit of humanity. The
lad himself, however, had a certain mischievous delight in making him
perform this courtesy, and being young and vigorous, would often
squeeze the old gentleman's hesitating fingers in his strong clasp so
energetically as to cause him the severest pain. Student of many
philosophies as he was, the worthy pedagogue would have cried out, or
sworn profane oaths in his agony, had it been any other than the 'Heir-
Apparent' who thus made him wince with torture,--but as matters stood,
he merely smiled--and bore it. The young rascal of a prince smiled
too,--taking note of his obsequious hypocrisy, which served an
inquiring mind with quite as good a field for logical speculation as
any problem in Euclid. And he went on with his questions,--questions,
which if not puzzling, were at least irritating enough to have secured
him a rap on the knuckles from his tutor's cane, had he been a grocer's
lad instead of the eldest son of a Royal house.

"Professor," he said on one occasion, "What is man?"

"Man," replied the professor sedately, "is an intelligent and reasoning
being, evolved by natural processes of creation into his present
condition of supremacy."

"What is Supremacy?"

"The state of being above, or superior to, the rest of the animal
creation."

"And is he so superior?"

"He is generally so admitted."

"Is my father a man?"

"Assuredly! The question is superfluous."

"What makes him a King?"

"Royal birth and the hereditary right to his great position."

"Then if man is in a condition of supremacy over the rest of creation,
a king is more than a man if he is allowed to rule men?"

"Sir, pardon me!--a king is not more than a man, but men choose him as
their ruler because he is worthy."

"In what way is he worthy? Simply because he is born as I am, heir to a
throne?"

"Precisely."

"He might be an idiot or a cripple, a fool or a coward,--he would still
be King?"

"Most indubitably."

"So that if he were a madman, he would continue to hold supremacy over
a nation, though his groom might be sane?"

"Your Royal Highness pursues the question with an unwise flippancy;"--
remonstrated the professor with a pained, forced smile. "If an idiot or
a madman were unfortunately born to a throne, a regency would be
appointed to control state affairs, but the heir would, in spite of
natural incapability, remain the lawful king."

"A strange sovereignty!" said the young prince carelessly. "And a still
stranger patience in the people who would tolerate it! Yet over all
men,--kings, madmen, and idiots alike,--there is another ruling force,
called God?"

"There is a force," admitted the professor dubiously--"But in the
present forward state of things it would not be safe to attempt to
explain the nature of that force, and for the benefit of the illiterate
masses we call it God. A national worship of something superior to
themselves has always been proved politic and necessary for the people.
I have not at any time resolved myself as to why it should be so; but
so it is."

"Then man, despite his 'supremacy' must have something more supreme
than himself to keep him in order, if it be only a fetish wherewith to
tickle his imagination?" suggested the prince with a touch of satire,--
"Even kings must bow, or pretend to bow, to the King of kings?"

"Sir, you have expressed the fact with felicity;" replied the professor
gravely--"His Majesty, your august father, attends public worship with
punctilious regularity, and you are accustomed to accompany him. It is
a rule which you will find necessary to keep in practice, as an example
to your subjects when you are called upon to reign."

The young man raised his eyebrows deprecatingly, with a slight ironical
smile, and dropped the subject. But the learned professor as in duty
bound, reported the conversation to his pupil's father; with the
additional observation that he feared, he very humbly and respectfully
feared, that the developing mind of the prince appeared undesirably
disposed towards discursive philosophies, which were wholly unnecessary
for the position he was destined to occupy. Whereupon the King took his
son to task on the subject with a mingling of kindness and humour.

"Do not turn philosopher!" he said--"For philosophy will not so much
content you with life, as with death! Philosophy will chill your best
impulses and most generous enthusiasms,--it will make you over-cautious
and doubtful of your friends,--it will cause you to be indifferent to
women in the plural, but it will hand you over, a weak and helpless
victim to the _one_ woman,--when she comes,--as she is bound to
come. There is no one so hopelessly insane as a philosopher in love!
Love women, but not _a_ woman!"

"In so doing I should follow the wisest of examples,--yours, Sir!"
replied the prince with a familiarity more tender than audacious, for
his father was a man of fine presence and fascinating manner, and knew
well the extent of his power to charm and subjugate the fairer sex,--
"But I have a fancy that love,--if it exists anywhere outside the
dreams of the poets,--is unknown to kings."

The monarch bent his brows frowningly, and his eyes were full of a deep
and bitter melancholy.

"You mistake!" he said slowly--"Love,--and by that name I mean a wholly
different thing from Passion,--comes to kings as to commoners,--but
whereas the commoner may win it if he can, the king must reject it. But
it comes,--and leaves a blank in the proudest life when it goes!"

He turned away abruptly, and the conversation was not again resumed.
But when he died, those who prepared his body for burial, found a gold
chain round his neck, holding the small medallion portrait of a woman,
and a curl of soft fair hair. Needless to say the portrait was not that
of the late Queen-Consort, who had died some years before her Royal
spouse, nor was the hair hers,--but when they brought the relic to the
new King, he laid it back with his own hands on his father's lifeless
breast, and let it go into the grave with him. For, being no longer the
crowned Servant of the State, he had the right as a mere dead man, to
the possession of his love-secret.

So at least thought his son and successor, who at times was given to
wondering whether if, like his father, he had such a secret he would be
able to keep it as closely and as well. He thought not. It would be
scarcely worth while. It can only be the greatest love that is always
silent,--and in the greatest,--that is, the ideal and self-renouncing
love,--he did not believe; though in his own life's experience he had
been given a proof that such love is possible to women, if not to men.
When he was about twenty, he had loved, or had imagined he loved, a
girl,--a pretty creature, who did not know him as a prince at all, but
simply as a college student. He used to walk with her hand in hand
through the fields by the river, and gather wild flowers for her to
wear in her little white bodice. She had shy soft eyes, and a timid,
yet trusting look, full of tenderness and pathos. Moved by a romantic
sense of honour and chivalry, he promised to marry her, and thereupon
wrote an impulsive letter to his father informing him of his intention.
Of course he was summoned home from college at once,--he was reminded
of his high destiny--of the Throne that would be his if he lived to
occupy it,--of the great and serious responsibilities awaiting him,--
and of how impossible it was that the Heir-Apparent to the Crown should
marry a commoner.

"Why not?" he cried passionately--"If she be good and true she is as
fit to be a queen as any woman royally born! She is a queen already in
her own right!"

But while he was being argued with and controlled by all the
authorities concerned in king's business, his little sweetheart herself
put an end to the matter. Her parents told her all unpreparedly, and
with no doubt unnecessary harshness, the real position of the college
lad with whom she had wandered in the fields so confidingly; and in the
bewilderment of her poor little broken heart and puzzled brain, she
gave herself to the river by whose flowering banks she had sworn her
maiden vows,--though she knew it not,--to her future King; and so,
drowning her life and love together, made a piteous exit from all
difficulty. Before she went forth to die, she wrote a farewell to her
Royal lover, posting the letter herself on her way to the river, and,
by the merest chance he received it without a spy's intervention. It
was but one line, scrawled in a round youthful hand, and blotted with
many tears.

"Sir--my love!--forgive me!"

It would be unwise to say what that little scrap of ill-formed writing
cost the heir to a throne when he heard how she had died,--or how he
raged and swore and wept. It was the first Wrong forced on him as
Right, by the laws of the realm; and he was young and generous and
honest, and not hardened to those laws then. Their iniquity and
godlessness appeared to him in plain ugly colours undisguised. Since
that time he had perforce fallen into the habit and routine of his
predecessors, though he was not altogether so 'constitutional' a
sovereign as his father had been. He had something of the spirit of one
who had occupied his throne five hundred years before him; when
strength and valour and wit and boldness, gave more kings to the world
than came by heritage. He did unconventional things now and then; to
the grief of flunkeys, and the alarm of Court parasites. But his
kingdom was of the South, where hot blood is recognized and excused,
and fiery temper more admired than censured, and where,--so far as
social matters went,--his word, whether kind, cold, or capricious, was
sufficient to lead in any direction that large flock of the silly sheep
of fashion who only exist to eat, and to be eaten. Sometimes he longed
to throw himself back into bygone centuries and stand as his earliest
ancestor stood, sword in hand, on a height overlooking the battle-
field, watching the swaying rush of combat,--the glitter of spears and
axes--the sharp flight of arrows--the tossing banners, the grinding
chariots, the flying dust and carnage of men! There was something to
fight for in those days,--there was no careful binding up of wounds,--
no provision for the sick or the mutilated,--nothing, nothing, but
'Victory or Death!' How much grander, how much finer the old fierce
ways of war than now, when any soldier wounded, may write the details
of his bayonet-scratch or bullet-hole to the cheap press, and the
surgeon prys about with Rontgen-ray paraphernalia and scalpel, to
discover how much or how little escape from dissolution a man's soul
has had in the shock of contest with his foe! Of a truth these are
paltry days!--and paltry days breed paltry men. Afraid of sickness,
afraid of death, afraid of poverty, afraid of offences, afraid to
think, afraid to speak, Man in the present era of his boasted
'progress' resembles nothing so much as a whipped child,--cowering
under the outstretched arm of Heaven and waiting in whimpering terror
for the next fall of the scourge. And it is on this point especially,
that the monarch who takes part in this unhesitating chronicle of
certain thoughts and movements hidden out of sight,--yet deeply felt in
the under-silences of the time,--may claim to be unconventional;--he
was afraid of nothing,--not even of himself as King!




CHAPTER II

MAJESTY CONSIDERS AND RESOLVES


The little episode of his first love, combined with his ungovernable
fury and despair at its tragic conclusion, had of course the natural
result common in such a case, to the fate of all who are destined to
occupy thrones. A marriage was 'arranged' for him; and pressing reasons
of state were urged for the quick enforcement and carrying out of the
'arrangement.' The daughter of a neighbouring potentate was elected to
the honour of his alliance,--a beautiful girl with a pale, cold clear-
cut face and brilliant eyes, whose smile penetrated the soul with an
icy chill, and whose very movement, noiseless and graceful as it was,
reminded one irresistibly of slowly drifting snow. She was attended to
the altar, as he was, by all the ministers and plenipotentiaries of
state that could possibly be gathered together from the four quarters
of the globe as witnesses to the immolation of two young human lives on
the grim sacrificial stone of a Dynasty; and both prince and princess
accepted their fate with mutually silent and civil resignation. Their
portraits, set facing each other with a silly smile, or taken in a
linked arm-in-arm attitude against a palatial canvas background,
appeared in every paper published throughout the world, and every
scribbler on the Press took special pains to inform the easily deluded
public that the Royal union thus consummated was 'a romantic love-
match.' For the People still have heart and conscience,--the People,
taken in the rough lump of humanity, still believe in love, in faith,
in the dear sweetness of home affections. The politicians who make
capital out of popular emotion, know this well enough,--and are careful
to play the tune of their own personal interest upon the gamut of
National Sentiment in every stump oration. For how terrible it would be
if the People of any land learned to judge their preachers and teachers
by the lines of fact alone! Inasmuch as fact would convincingly prove
to them that their leaders prospered and grew rich, while they stayed
poor; and they might take to puzzling out reasons for this inadequacy
which would inevitably cause trouble. For this, and divers other
motives politic, the rosy veil of sentiment is always delicately flung
more or less over every new move on the national debating-ground,--and
whether marriageable princes and princesses love or loathe each other,
still, when they come to wed, the words 'romantic love-match' must be
thrown in by an obliging Press in order to satisfy the tender scruples
of a people who would certainly not abide the thought of a Royal
marriage contracted in mutual aversion. Thus much soundness and right
principle there is at least, in what some superfine persons call the
'common' folk,--the folk whose innermost sense of truth and
straightforwardness, not even the proudest statesman dare outrage.

But with what unuttered and unutterable scorn the youthful victims of
the Royal pairing accepted the newspaper-assurances of the devoted
tenderness they entertained for each other! With what wearied
impatience both prince and princess received the 'Wedding Odes' and
'Epithalamiums,' written by first-class and no-class versifiers for the
occasion! What shoals of these were cast aside unread, to occupy the
darkest dingiest corner of one of the Royal 'refuse' libraries! The
writers of such things expected great honours, no doubt, each and every
man-jack of them,--but apart from the fact that the greatest literature
has always lived without any official recognition or endowment from
kings,--being in itself the supremest sovereignty,--poets and
rhymesters alike never seem to realize that no one is, or can be, so
sickened by an 'Ode' as the man or woman to whom it is written!

The brilliant marriage ceremony concluded, the august bride and
bridegroom took their departure, amid frantically cheering crowds, for
a stately castle standing high among the mountains, a truly magnificent
pile, which had been placed at their disposal for the 'honeymoon' by
one of the wealthiest of the King's subjects,--and there, as soon as
equerries, grooms-in-waiting, flunkeys, and every other sort of indoor
and outdoor retainer would consent to leave them alone together, the
Royal wife came to her Royal husband, and asked to be allowed to speak
a few words on the subject of their marriage, 'for the first and last
time,' said she, with a straight glance from the cold moonlight mystery
of her eyes. Beautiful at all times, her beauty was doubly enhanced by
the regal attitude and expression she unconsciously assumed as she made
the request, and the prince, critically studying her form and features,
could not but regard himself as in some respects rather particularly
favoured by the political and social machinery which had succeeded in
persuading so fair a creature to resign herself to the doubtful destiny
of a throne. She had laid aside her magnificent bridal-robes of ivory
satin and cloth-of-gold,--and appeared before him in loose draperies of
floating white, with her rich hair unbound and rippling to her knees.

"May I speak?" she murmured, and her voice trembled.

"Most assuredly!"--he replied, half smiling--"You do me too much honour
by requesting the permission!"

As he spoke, he bowed profoundly, but she, raising her eyes, fixed them
full upon him with a strange look of mingled pride and pain.

"Do not," she said, "let us play at formalities! Let us be honest with
each other for to-night at least! All our life together must from
henceforth be more or less of a masquerade, but let us for to-night be
as true man and true woman, and frankly face the position into which we
have been thrust, not by ourselves, but by others."

Profoundly astonished, the prince was silent. He had not thought this
girl of nineteen possessed any force of character or any intellectual
power of reasoning. He had judged her as no doubt glad to become a
great princess and a possible future queen, and he had not given her
credit for any finer or higher feeling.

"You know,"--she continued--"you must surely know--" here, despite the
strong restraint she put upon herself, her voice broke, and her slight
figure swayed in its white draperies as if about to fall. She looked at
him with a sense of rising tears in her throat,--tears of which she was
ashamed,--for she was full of a passionate emotion too strong for
weeping--a contempt of herself and of him, too great for mere clamour.
Was he so much of a man in the slow thick density of his brain she
thought, as to have no instinctive perception of her utter misery? He
hastened to her and tried to take her hands, but she drew herself away
from him and sank down in a chair as if exhausted.

"You are tired!" he said kindly--"The tedious ceremonial--the still
more tedious congratulations,--and the fatiguing journey from the
capital to this place have been too much for your strength. You must
rest!"

"It is not that!"--she answered--"not that! I am not tired,--but--but--
I cannot say my prayers tonight till you know my whole heart!"

A curious reverence and pity moved him. All day long he had been in a
state of resentful irritation,--he had loathed himself for having
consented to marry this girl without loving her,--he had branded
himself inwardly as a liar and hypocrite when he had sworn his marriage
vows 'before God,' whereas if he truly believed in God, such vows taken
untruthfully were mere blasphemy;--and now she herself, a young thing
tenderly brought up like a tropical flower in the enervating hot-house
atmosphere of Court life, yet had such a pure, deep consciousness of
God in her, that she actually could not pray with the slightest blur of
a secret on her soul! He waited wonderingly.

"I have plighted my faith to you before God's altar to-day," she said,
speaking more steadily,--"because after long and earnest thought, I saw
that there was no other way of satisfying the two nations to which we
belong, and cementing the friendly relations between them. There is no
woman of Royal birth,--so it has been pointed out to me--who is so
suitable, from a political point of view, to be your wife as I. It is
for the sake of your Throne and country that you must marry--and I ask
God to forgive me if I have done wrong in His sight by wedding you
simply for duty's sake. My father, your father, and all who are
connected with our two families desire our union, and have assured me
that, it is right and good for me to give up my life to yours. All
women's lives must be martyred to the laws made by men,--or so it seems
to me,--I cannot expect to escape from the general doom apportioned to
my sex. I therefore accept the destiny which transfers me to you as a
piece of human property for possession and command,--I accept it
freely, but I will not say gladly, because that would not be true. For
I do not love you,--I cannot love you! I want you to know that, and to
feel it, that you may not ask from me what I cannot give."

There were no tears in her eyes; she looked at him straightly and
steadfastly. He, in his turn, met her gaze fully,--his face had paled a
little, and a shadow of pained regret and commiseration darkened his
handsome features.

"You love someone else?" he asked, softly.

She rose from her chair and confronted him, a glow of passionate pride
flushing her cheeks and brow.

"No!" she said--"I would not be a traitor to you in so much as a
thought! Had I loved anyone else I would never have married you,--no!--
though you had been ten times a prince and king! No! You do not
understand. I come to you heartwhole and passionless, without a single
love-word chronicled in my girlhood's history, or a single incident you
may not know. I have never loved any man, because from my very
childhood I have hated and feared all men! I loathe their presence--
their looks--their voices--their manners,--if one should touch my hand
in ordinary courtesy, my instincts are offended and revolted, and the
sense of outrage remains with me for days. My mother knows of this, and
says I am 'unnatural,'--it may be so. But unnatural or not, it is the
truth; judge therefore the extent of the sacrifice I make to God and
our two countries in giving myself to you!"

The prince stood amazed and confounded. Did she rave? Was she mad? He
studied her with a curious, half-doubting scrutiny, and noted the
composure of her attitude, the cold serenity of her expression,--there
was evidently no hysteria, no sur-excitation of nerves about this calm
statuesque beauty which in every line and curve of loveliness silently
mutinied against him, and despised him. Puzzled, yet fascinated, he
sought in his mind for some clue to her meaning.

"There are women" she went on--"to whom love, or what is called love,
is necessary,--for whom marriage is the utmost good of existence. I am
not one of these. Had I my own choice I would live my life away from
all men,--I would let nothing of myself be theirs to claim,--I would
give all I am and all I have to God, who made me what I am. For truly
and honestly, without any affectation at all, I look upon marriage, not
as an honour, but a degradation!"

Had she been less in earnest, he might have smiled at this, but her
beauty, intensified as it was by the fervour of her feeling, seemed
transfigured into something quite supernatural which for the moment
dazzled him.

"Am I to understand--" he began.

She interrupted him by a swift gesture, while the rich colour swept
over her face in a warm wave.

"Understand nothing"--she said,--"but this--that I do not love you,
because I can love no man! For the rest I am your wife; and as your
wife I give myself to you and your nation wholly and in all things--
save love!"

He advanced and took her hands in his.

"This is a strange bargain!" he said, and gently kissed her.

She answered nothing,--only a faint shiver trembled through her as she
endured the caress. For a moment or two he surveyed her in silence,--it
was a singular and novel experience for him, as a future king, to be
the lawful possessor of a woman's beauty, and yet with all his
sovereignty to be unable to waken one thrill of tenderness in the
frozen soul imprisoned in such exquisite flesh and blood. He was
inclined to disbelieve her assertions,--surely he thought, there must
be emotion, feeling, passion in this fair creature, who, though she
seemed a goddess newly descended from inaccessible heights of heaven
was still _only_ a woman? And upon the whole he was not ill-
pleased with the curious revelation she had made of herself. He
preferred the coldness of women to their volcanic eruptions, and would
take more pains to melt the snow of reserve than to add fuel to the
flame of ardour.

"You have been very frank with me," he said at last, after a pause, as
he loosened her hands and moved a little apart from her--"And whether
your physical and mental hatred of my sex is a defect in your nature,
or an exceptional virtue, I shall not quarrel with it. I am myself not
without faults; and the chiefest of these is one most common to all
men. I desire what I may not have, and covet what I do not possess. So!
We understand each other!"

She raised her eyes--those beautiful deep eyes with the moonlight
glamour in them,--and for an instant the shining Soul of her, pure and
fearless, seemed to spring up and challenge to spiritual combat him who
was now her body's master. Then, bending her head with a graceful yet
proud submission, she retired.

From that time forth she never again spoke on this, or any other
subject of an intimate or personal nature, with her Royal spouse. Cold
as an iceberg, pure as a diamond, she accepted both wifehood and
motherhood as martyrdom, with an evident contempt for its humiliation,
and without one touch of love for either husband or children. She bore
three sons, of whom the eldest, and heir to the throne was, at the time
this history begins, just twenty. The passing of the years had left
scarcely a trace upon her beauty, save to increase it from the
sparkling luminance of a star to the glory of a full-orbed moon of
loveliness,--and she had easily won a triumph over all the other women
around her, in the power she possessed to command and retain the
admiration of men. She was one of those brilliant creatures who, like
the Egyptian Cleopatra, never grow old,--for she was utterly exempt
from the wasting of the nerves through emotion. Her eyes were always
bright and clear; her skin dazzling in its whiteness, save where the
equably flowing blood flushed it with tenderest rose,--her figure
remained svelte, lithe and graceful in all its outlines. Finely strung,
yet strong as steel in her temperament, all thoughts, feelings and
events seemed to sweep over her without affecting or disturbing her
mind's calm equipoise. She lived her life with extreme simplicity,
regularity, and directness, thus driving to despair all would-be
scandal-mongers; and though many gifted and famous men fell madly in
love with their great princess, and often, in the extremity of a
passion which amounted to disloyalty, slew themselves for her sake, she
remained unmoved and pitiless.

Her husband occasionally felt some compassion for the desperate fellows
who thus immolated themselves on the High Altar of her perfections,
though it must be admitted that he received the news of their deaths
with tolerable equanimity, knowing them to have been fools, and as
such, better out of the world than in it. During the first two or three
years of his marriage he had himself been somewhat of their
disposition, and as mere man, had tried by every means in his power to
win the affection of his beautiful spouse, and to melt the icy barrier
which she, despite their relations with each other, had resolutely kept
up between herself and him. He had made the attempt, not because he
actually loved her, but simply because he desired the satisfaction of
conquest. Finding the task hopeless, he resigned himself to his fate,
and accepted her at the costly valuation she set upon herself; though
for pastime he would often pay court to certain ladies of easy virtue,
with the vague idea that perhaps the spirit of jealousy might enter
that cold shrine of womanhood where no other demon could force
admission, and wake up the passions slumbering within. But she appeared
not to be at all aware of his many and open gallantries; and only at
stray moments, when her frosty flashing glance fell upon him engaged in
some casual flirtation, would a sudden smarting sense of injury make
him conscious of her contempt.

But he could reasonably find no fault with her, save the fault of being
faultless. She was a perfect hostess, and fulfilled all the duties of
her exalted position with admirable tact and foresight,--she was ever
busy in the performance of good and charitable deeds,--she was an
excellent mother, and took the utmost personal care that her sons
should be healthily nurtured and well brought up,--she never interfered
in any matter of state or ceremony,--she simply seemed to move as a
star moves, shining over the earth but having no part in it.
Irresponsive as she was, she nevertheless compelled admiration,--her
husband himself admired her, but only as he would have admired a statue
or a painting. For his was an impulsive and generous nature, and his
marriage had kept his heart empty of the warmth of love, and his home
devoid of the light of sympathy. Even his children had been born more
as the sons of the nation than his own,--he was not conscious of any
very great affection for them, or interest in their lives. And he had
sought to kindle at many strange fires the heavenly love-beacon which
should have flamed its living glory into his days; so it had naturally
chanced that he had spent by far the larger portion of his time on the
persuasion of mere Whim,--and as vastly inferior women to his wife had
made him spend it.

But at this particular juncture, when the curtain is drawn up on
certain scenes and incidents in his life-drama, a change had been
effected in his opinions and surroundings. For eighteen years after his
marriage, he had lived on the first step of the Throne as its next
heir; and when he passed that step and ascended the Throne itself, he
seemed to have crossed a vast abyss of distance between the Old and the
New. Behind him the Past rolled away like a cloud vanishing, to be seen
no more,--before him arose the dim vista of wavering and uncertain
shadows, which no matter how they shifted and changed,--no matter how
many flashes of sunshine flickered through them,--were bound to close
in the thick gloom of the inevitable end,--Death. This is what he was
chiefly thinking of, seated alone in his garden-pavilion facing the sea
on that brilliant southern summer morning,--this,--and with the
thought came many others no less sad and dubious,--such as whether for
example, his eldest son might not already be eager for the crown?--
whether even now, though he had only reigned three years, his people
were not more or less dissatisfied under his rule?

His father, the late King, had died suddenly,--so suddenly that there
was neither help nor hope for him among the hastily summoned
physicians. Stricken numb and speechless, he kept his anguished eyes
fixed to the last upon his son, as one who should say--"Alas, and to
thee also, falls this curse of a Crown!" Once dead, he was soon
forgotten,--the pomp of the Royal obsequies merely made a gala-day for
the light-hearted Southern populace, who hailed the accession of their
new King with as much gladness as a child, who, having broken one doll,
straightway secures another as good, if not better. As Heir-Apparent
the succeeding sovereign had won great popularity, and was much more
generally beloved than his father had been,--so that it was on an extra
high wave of jubilation and acclamation that he and his beautiful
consort were borne to the Throne.

Three years had passed since then; and so far his reign had been
untroubled by much difficulty. Difficulty there was, but he was kept in
ignorance of it,--troubles were brooding, but he was not informed of
them. Things likely to be disagreeable were not conveyed to his ears,--
and matters which, had he been allowed to examine into them, might have
aroused his indignation and interference, were diplomatically hushed
up. He was known to possess much more than the limited intelligence
usually apportioned to kings; and certainly, as his tutor had said of
him in his youth, he was dangerously "disposed towards discursive
philosophies." He was likewise accredited with a conscience, which many
diplomats consider to be a wholly undesirable ingredient in the moral
composition of a reigning monarch. Therefore, those who move a king, as
in the game of chess, one square at a time and no more,--were
particularly cautious as to the 'way' in which they moved him. He had
shown himself difficult to manage once or twice; and interested persons
could not pursue their usual course of self-aggrandisement with him, as
he was not susceptible to flattery. He had a way of asking straight
questions, and what was still worse, expecting straight answers, such
as politicians never give.

Nevertheless he had, up to the present, ruled his conduct very much on
the lines laid down by his predecessors, and during his brief reign had
been more or less content to passively act in all things as his
ministers advised. He had bestowed honours on fools because his
ministers considered it politic,--he had given his formal consent to
the imposition of certain taxes on his people, because his ministers
had judged such taxes necessary,--in fact he had done everything he
was expected to do, and nothing that he was not expected to do. He had
not taken any close personal thought as to whether such and such a
political movement was, or was not, welcome to the spirit of the
nation, nor had he weighed intimately in his own mind the various
private interests of the members of his Government, in passing, or
moving the rejection of, any important measure affecting the well-being
of the community at large. And he had lately,--perhaps through the
objectionable 'discursive philosophies' before mentioned,--come to
consider himself somewhat of a stuffed Dummy or figure-head; and to
wonder what would be the result, if with caution and prudence, he were
to act more on his own initiative, and speak as he often thought it
would be wise and well to speak? He was but forty-five years old,--in
the prime of life, in the plenitude of health and mental vigour,--was
he to pass the rest of his days guarded by detectives, flunkeys and
physicians, with never an independent word or action throughout his
whole career to mark him Man as well as Monarch? Nay, surely that would
be an insult to the God who made him! But the question which arose in
his mind and perplexed him was, How to begin? How, after passive
obedience, to commence resistance? How to break through the miserable
conventionalism, the sordid commonplace of a king's surroundings? For
it is only in medieval fairy-tales that kings are permitted to be
kingly.

Yet, despite custom and usage, he was determined to make a new
departure in the annals of modern sovereignty. Three years of
continuous slavery on the treadmill of the Throne had been sufficient
to make him thirst for freedom,--freedom of speech,--freedom of action.
He had tacitly submitted to a certain ministry because he had been
assured that the said ministry was popular,--but latterly, rumours of
discontent and grievance had reached him,--albeit indistinctly and
incoherently,--and he began to be doubtful as to whether it might not
be the Press which supported the existing state of policy, rather than
the People. The Press! He began to consider of what material this great
power in his country was composed. Originally, the Press in all
countries, was intended to be the most magnificent institution of the
civilized world,--the voice of truth, of liberty, of justice--a voice
which in its clamant utterances could neither be bribed nor biassed to
cry out false news. Originally, such was meant to be its mission;--but
nowadays, what, in all honesty and frankness, is the Press? What was
it, for example, to this king, who from personal knowledge, was able to
practically estimate and enumerate the forces which controlled it
thus:--Six, or at the most a dozen men, the proprietors and editors of
different newspapers sold in cheap millions to the people. Most of
these newspapers were formed into 'companies'; and the managers issued
'shares' in the fashion of tea merchants and grocers. False news, if of
a duly sensational character, would sometimes send up the shares in the
market,--true information would equally, on occasion, send them down.
These premises granted, might it not follow that for newspaper
speculators, the False would often prove more lucrative than the True?
And, concerning the persons who wrote for these newspapers,--of what
calling and election were they? Male and female, young and old, they
were generally of a semi-educated class lacking all distinctive
ability,--men and women who were, on an average, desperately poor, and
desperately dissatisfied. To earn daily bread they naturally had to
please the editors set in authority over them; hence their expressed
views and opinions on any subject could only be counted as _nil_,
being written, not independently, but under the absolute control of
their employers. Thus meditating, the King summed up the total of his
own mental argument, and found that the vast sounding 'power of the
Press' so far as his own dominion was concerned, resolved itself into
the mere trade monopoly of the aforesaid leading dozen men. What he now
proposed to himself to discover among other things, was,--how far and
how truly these dozen tradesmen voiced the mind of the People over whom
he was elected to reign? Here was a problem, and one not easy to solve.
But what was very plain and paramount to his mind was this,--that he
was thoroughly sick and tired of being no more than a 'social' figure
in the world's affairs. It was an effeminate part to play. It was time,
he considered, that he should intelligently try his own strength, and
test the nation's quality.

"If there is corruption in the state," he said to himself, "I will find
its centre! If I am fooled by my advisers then I will be fooled no
longer. With whatsoever brain and heart and reason and understanding
the Fates have endowed me, I will study the ways, the movements, the
desires of my people, and prove myself their friend, as well as their
king. Suppose they misunderstand me?--What matter!--Let the nation
rise against me an' it will, so that I may, before I die, prove myself
worthy of the mere gift of manhood! To-day"--and, rising from his
chair, he advanced a step or two and faced the sea and sky with an
unconscious gesture of invocation; "To-day shall be the first day of my
real monarchy! To-day I begin to reign! The past is past,--for eighteen
long years as prince and heir to the throne I trifled away my time
among the follies of the hour, and laughed at the easy purchase I could
make of the assumed 'honour' of men and women; and I enjoyed the
liberty and license of my position. Since then, for three years I have
been the prisoner of my Parliament,--but now--now, and for the rest of
the time granted to me on earth, I will live my life in the belief that
its riddle must surely meet with God's own explanation. To me it has
become evident that the laws of Nature make for Truth and Justice;
while the laws of man are framed on deception and injustice. The two
sets of laws contend one against the other, and the finite, after
foolish and vain struggle, succumbs to the infinite,--better therefore,
to begin with the infinite Order than strive with the finite Chaos! I,
a mere earthly sovereign, rank myself on the side of the Infinite,--
and will work for Truth and Justice with the revolving of Its giant
wheel! My people have seen me crowned,--but my real Coronation is to-
day--when I crown myself with my own resolve!"

His eyes flashed in the sunshine;--a rose shook its pink petals on the
ground at his feet. In one of the many pleasure-boats skimming across
the sea, a man was singing; and the words he sang floated distinctly
along on the landward wind.

  "Let me be thine, O love,
  But for an hour! I yield my heart and soul
  Into thy power,--Let me be thine, O Love of mine,
  But for an hour!"

The King listened, and a faint shadow darkened the proud light on his
face.

"'But for an hour!'" he said half aloud--"Yes,--it would be enough!
No woman's love lasts longer!"




CHAPTER III

A NATION OR A CHURCH?


An approaching step echoing on the marble terrace warned him that he
was no longer alone. He reseated himself at his writing-table, and
feigned to be deeply engrossed in perusing various documents, but a
ready smile greeted the intruder as soon as he perceived who it was,--
one Sir Roger de Launay, his favourite equerry and intimate personal
friend.

"Time's up, is it, Roger?" he queried lightly,--then as the equerry
bowed in respectful silence--"And yet I have scarcely glanced at these
papers! All the same, I have not been idle--I have been thinking."

Sir Roger de Launay, a tall handsome man, with an indefinable air of
mingled good-nature and lassitude about him which suggested the
possibility of his politely urging even Death itself not to be so much
of a bore about its business, smiled doubtfully. "Is it a wise
procedure, Sir?" he enquired--"Conducive to comfort I mean?"

The King laughed.

"No--I cannot say that it is! But thought is a tonic which sometimes
restores a man's enfeebled self-respect. I was beginning to lose that
particular condition of health and sanity, Roger!--my self-respect was
becoming a flaccid muscle--a withering nerve;--but a little thought-
exercise has convinced me that my mental sinews are yet on the whole
strong!"

Sir Roger offered no reply. His eyes expressed a certain languid
wonderment; but duty being paramount with him, and his immediate errand
being to remind his sovereign of an appointment then about due, he
began to collect the writing materials scattered about on the table and
put them together for convenient removal. The smile on the King's face
deepened as he watched him.

"You do not answer me, De Launay,"--he resumed, "You think perhaps that
I am talking in parables, and that my mind has been persuaded into a
metaphysical and rambling condition by an hour's contemplation of the
sunlight on the sea! But come now!--have you not yourself felt a
longing to break loose from the trammels of conventional routine,--to
be set free from the slavery of answering another's beck and call,--to
be something more than my attendant and friend----"

"Sir, more than your friend I have never desired to be!" said Sir
Roger, simply.

The King extended his hand with impulsive quickness, and Sir Roger as
he clasped it, bent low and touched it with his lips. There was no
parasitical homage in the act, for De Launay loved his sovereign with a
love little known at courts; loyally, faithfully, and without a
particle of self-seeking. He had long recognized the nobility, truth
and courage which graced and tempered the disposition of the master he
served, and knew him to be one, if not the only, monarch in the world
likely to confer some lasting benefit on his people by his reign.

"I tell you," pursued the King, "that there is something in the mortal
composition of every man which is beyond mortality, something which
clamours to be heard, and seen, and proved. We may call it conscience,
intellect, spirit or soul, and attribute its existence, to God, as a
spark of the Divine Essence, but whatever it is, it is in every one of
us; and there comes a moment in life when it must flame out, or be
quenched forever. That moment has come to me, Roger,--that something in
me must have its way!"

"Your Majesty no doubt desires the impossible!"--said Sir Roger with a
smile, "All men do,--even kings!"

"'Even kings!'" echoed the monarch--"You may well say 'even' kings!
What are kings? Simply the most wronged and miserable men on earth! I
do not myself put in a special claim for pity. My realm is small, and
my people are, for aught I can learn or am told of them, contented. But
other sovereigns who are my friends and neighbours, live, as it were,
under the dagger's point,--with dynamite at their feet and pistols at
their heads,--all for no fault of their own, but for the faults of a
system which they did not formulate. Conspirators on the threshold--
poison in the air,--as in Russia, for example!--where is the joy or the
pride of being a King nowadays?"

"Talking of poison," said Sir Roger blandly, as he placed the last
document of those he had collected, neatly in a leather case and
strapped it--"Your Majesty may perhaps feel inclined to defer giving
the promised audience to Monsignor Del Fords of the Society of Jesus?"

"By Heaven, I had forgotten him!" and the King rose. "This is what you
came to remind me of, Roger? He is here?"

De Launay bowed an assent.

"Well! We have kept a messenger of Mother Church waiting our pleasure,
--and not for the first time in the annals of history! But why do you
associate his name with poison?"

"Really, Sir, the connection is inexplicable,--unless it be the memory
of a religious lesson-book given to me in my childhood. It was an
illustrated treasure, and one picture showed me the Almighty in the
character of an old gentleman seated placidly on a cloud, smiling;--
while on the earth below, a priest, exactly resembling this Del Fortis,
poured a spoonful of something,--poison--or it might have been boiling
lead--down the throat of a heretic. I remember it impressed me very
much with the goodness of God."

He maintained a whimsical gravity as he spoke, and the King laughed.

"De Launay, you are incorrigible! Come!--we will go within and see this
Del Fortis, and you shall remain present during the audience. That will
give you a chance to improve your present impression of him. I
understand he is a very brilliant and leading member of his Order,--
likely to be the next Vicar-General. I know his errand,--the papers
concerning his business are there--," and he waved his hand towards the
leather case Sir Roger had just fastened--"Bring them with you!"

Sir Roger obeyed, and the King, stepping forth from the pavilion,
walked slowly along the terrace, watching the sparkling sea, the
flowering orange-trees lifting their slender tufts of exquisitely
scented bloom against the clear blue of the sky, the birds skimming
lightly from point to point of foliage, and the white-sailed yachts
dipping gracefully as the ocean rose and fell with every wild sweet
breath of the scented wind. Pausing a moment, he presently took out a
field-glass and looked through it at one of the finest and fairest of
these pleasure-vessels, which, as he surveyed it, suddenly swung round,
and began to scud away westward.

"The Prince is on board?" he asked.

"Yes, Sir," replied De Launay--"His Royal Highness intends sailing as
far as The Islands, and remaining there till sunset."

"Alone, as usual?"

"As usual, Sir, alone, save for his captain and crew."

The King walked on in silence for a minute. Then he paused abruptly.

"I do not like it, De Launay!"--he said decisively--"I do not like his
abnormal love of solitude. Books are all very well--poetry is in its
way excellent,--music, as we are told 'hath charms'--but the boy broods
too much, and stays away too much from Court. What woman attracts him?"

Sir Roger's eyes opened wide as the King turned suddenly round upon him
with this question.

"Woman, Sir? I know of none. The Prince is but twenty----"

"At twenty," said the King,--"boys love--the wrong girl. At thirty they
marry--the wrong woman. At forty they meet the only true and fitting
soul's companion,--and cry for the moon till the end! My son is in the
first stage, or I am much mistaken,--he loves--the wrong girl!"

He walked on,--and De Launay followed, with a vague sense of amusement
and disquietude in his mind. What had come to his Royal master, he
wondered? His ordinary manner had changed somewhat,--he spoke with less
than the customary formality, and there was an expression of freedom
and authority, combined with a touch of defiance in his face, that was
altogether new to the observation of the faithful equerry.

Arrived at the palace, and passing through one of the long and spacious
painted corridors, lit by richly coloured mullioned windows from end to
end, the King came face to face with a lady-in-waiting carrying a large
cluster of Madonna lilies. She drew aside, with a deep reverence, to
allow him to pass; but he stopped a moment, looking at the great
gorgeous white flowers faint with fragrance, and at the slight retiring
figure of the woman who held them.

"Are these for the chapel, Madame?" he asked.

"No, Sir! For the Queen."

'For the Queen!' A quick sigh escaped him. He still stood, caught by a
sudden abstraction, looking at the dazzling whiteness of the snowy
blooms, and thinking how fittingly they would companion his beautiful,
cold, pure Queen Consort, who had never from her marriage day uttered a
word of love to him, or given him a glance of tenderness. Their rich
odours crept into his warm blood, and the bitter old sense of
unfulfilled longing, longing for affection, for comprehension, for all
that he had not possessed in his otherwise brilliant life, vexed and
sickened him. He turned away abruptly, and the lady-in-waiting, having
curtsied once more profoundly, passed on with her glistening sheaf of
bloom and disappeared vision-like in a gleam of azure light falling
through one of the further and higher casements. The King watched her
disappear, the meditative line of sadness still puckering his brow,
then, followed by his equerry, he entered a small private audience
chamber, where Sir Roger de Launay notified an attendant gentleman
usher that his Majesty was ready to receive Monsignor Del Fortis.

During the brief interval occupied in waiting for his visitor's
approach, the King selected certain papers from those which Sir Roger
had brought from the garden pavilion and placed them in order on the
table.

"For the past six months," he said "I have had this Jesuit's name
before me, and have been in twenty minds a month about granting or
refusing what his Society demands. The matter has been discussed in the
Press, too, with the usual pros and cons of hesitation, but it is the
People I am thinking of, the People! and I am just now in the humour to
satisfy a Nation rather than a Church!"

De Launay said nothing. His opinion was not asked.

"It is a case in which the temporal overbalances the spiritual,"
continued the King--"Which plainly proves that the spiritual must be
lacking in some essential point somewhere. For if the spiritual were
always truly of God, then would it always be the strongest. The
question which brings Monsignor Del Fortis here as special emissary of
the Vicar-General of the Society of Jesus, is simply this: Whether or
no a certain site in a particularly fertile tract of land belonging
chiefly to the Crown, shall be granted to the Jesuits for the purpose
of building thereon a church and monastery with schools attached. It
seems a reasonable request, set forth with an apparently religious
intention. Yet more than forty petitions have been sent in to me from
the inhabitants of the towns and villages adjacent to the lands,
imploring me to refuse the concession. By my faith, they plead as
eloquently as though asking deliverance from the plague! It is a
curious dilemma. If I grant the people's request I anger the priests;
if I satisfy the priests I anger the people."

"You mentioned a discussion in the Press, Sir--" hinted Sir Roger.

"Oh, the Press is like a weathercock--it turns whichever way the wind
of speculation blows. One day it is 'for,' another 'against.' In this
particular case it is diplomatically indifferent, except in one or two
cases where papal money has found its way into the newspaper offices."

At that moment the door was flung open, and Monsignor Del Fortis was
ceremoniously ushered into the presence of his Majesty. At the first
glance it was evident that De Launay had reasonable cause for
associating the mediaeval priestly torturer pictured in his early
lesson-book with the unprepossessing personage now introduced. Del
Fortis was a dark, resentful-looking man of about sixty, tall and thin,
with a long cadaverous face, very strongly pronounced features and
small sinister eyes, over which the level brows almost met across the
sharp bridge of nose. His close black garb buttoned to the chin,
outlined his wiry angular limbs with an almost painful distinctness,
and the lean right hand which he placed across his breast as he bowed
profoundly to the King, looked more like the shrunken hand of a corpse
than that of a living man. The King observed him attentively, but not
with favour; while thoughts, strange, and for him as a constitutional
monarch audacious, began to move in the undercurrents of his mind,
stirring him to unusual speech and action. Sir Roger, retiring to the
furthest end of the room stood with his back against the door, a fine
upright soldierly figure, as motionless as though cast in bronze,
though his eyes showed keen and sparkling life as they rested on his
Royal master, watching his every gesture, as well as every slightest
movement on the part of his priestly visitor.

"You are welcome, Monsignor Del Fortis,"--said the King, at last
breaking silence.--"To save time and trouble, I may tell you that I
need no explanation of the nature of your business."

The Jesuit bowed with an excessive humility.

"You wish me to grant to your Society," continued the monarch--"that
portion of the Crown lands named in your petition, to be held in your
undisputed possession for a long term of years,--and in order to
facilitate my consent to this arrangement, your Vicar-General has sent
you here to furnish the full details of your building scheme. Am I so
far correct?"

The priest's dark secretive eyes glittered craftily a moment as he
raised them to the open and tranquil countenance of the sovereign,--
then once again he bowed profoundly.

"Your Majesty has, with your customary care and patience, fully studied
the object of my errand"--he replied in a clear thin, somewhat rasping
voice, which he endeavoured to make smooth and conciliatory--"But it is
impossible that your Majesty, immersed every day in the affairs of
state, should have found time to personally go through the various
papers formally submitted to your consideration. Therefore, the Vicar-
General of our Order considered that if the present interview with your
Majesty could be obtained, I, as secretary and treasurer for the
proposed new monastery, might be able to explain the spiritual, as well
as the material advantages to be gained by the use of the lands for the
purpose mentioned."

He spoke slowly, enunciating each word with careful distinctness.

"The spiritual part of the scheme is of course the most important to
you!"--said the King with a slight smile,--"But material advantages
are never entirely overlooked, even by holy men! Now I am merely a
'temporal' sovereign; and as such, I wish to know how your plan will
affect the people of the neighbouring town and district. What are your
intentions towards them? Their welfare is my chief concern; and what I
have to learn from you is,--How do you propose to benefit them by
maintaining a monastery, church and schools in their vicinity?"

Again Del Fortis gave a furtive glance upward. Seeing that the King's
eyes were steadily fixed upon him, he quickly lowered his own, and gave
answer in an evidently prepared manner.

"Sir, the people of the district in question are untaught barbarians.
It is more for their sakes,--more for the love of gathering the lost
sheep into the fold, than for our own satisfaction, that we seek to
pitch our tents in the desert of their ignorance. They, and their
children, are the prey of heathenish modern doctrines, which alas!--
are too prevalent throughout the whole world at this particular time,--
and, as they are at present situated, no restraint is exercised upon
them for the better controlling of their natural and inherited vices.
Unless the gentle hand of Mother Church is allowed to rescue these, her
hapless and neglected ones; unless she has an opportunity afforded her
of leading them out of the darkness of error into the light of eternal
day--"

He broke off, his eloquence being interrupted by a gesture from the
King.

"There is a Government school in the town,"--said the monarch,
referring to one or two documents on the table before him.--"There is
also a Free Public Library, and a Free School of Art. Thus it does not
seem that education is quite neglected."

"Alas, Sir, such education is merely disastrous!" said Del Fortis, with
a deep sigh,--"Like the fruit on the tree of knowledge in the Garden of
Eden, it brings death to the soul!"

"You condemn the Government methods?" asked the King coldly.

The Jesuit moved uneasily, and a dull flush reddened his pale skin.

"Far be it from me, Sir, as a poor servant of the Church, to condemn
lawful authorities,--yet we should not forget that the Government is
temporal and changeable,--the Church is spiritual and changeless. We
cannot look for entire success in a scheme of popular education which
is not formulated under the guidance or the blessing of God!"

The King leaned forward a little in his chair, and surveyed him
fixedly.

"How do you know that it is not formulated under the guidance and
blessing of God?" he asked suddenly--"Has the Almighty given you His
special opinion and confidence on the matter?"

Monsignor Del Fortis started indignantly.

"Sir! Your Majesty----"

De Launay made a step forward, but the King motioned him back.
Accordingly he resumed his former position, but his equable temperament
was for once seriously disturbed. He saw that his Royal master was
evidently bent on speaking his mind; and he knew well what a dangerous
indulgence that is for all men who desire peace and quietness in their
lives.

"I am aware of what you would say," pursued the King--"You would say
that the Church--your Church--is the only establishment of the kind
which receives direct inspiration from the Creator of Universes. But I
do not feel justified in limiting the control of the Almighty to one
special orbit of Creed. You tell me that a government system of
education for the people is a purely temporal movement, and that, as
such, it is not blessed by the guidance of God. Yet the Pope seeks
'temporal' power! It is explained to us of course that he seeks it in
order that he may unite it to the spiritual in his own person,--
theoretically for the good of mankind, if practically for the
advancement of his own particular policy. But have you never thought,
Monsignor, that the marked severance of what you call 'temporal' power,
from what you equally call 'spiritual' power, is God's work? Inasmuch
as nothing can be done without God's will; for even if there is a devil
(which I am inclined to doubt) he owes his unhappy existence to God as
much as I do!"

He smiled; but Del Fortis stood rigidly silent, his head bent, and one
hand folded tight across his breast, an attitude Sir Roger de Launay
always viewed in every man with suspicion, as it suggested the
concealment of a weapon.

"You will admit" pursued the King, "that the action of human thought is
always progressive. Unfortunately your Creed lags behind human thought
in its onward march, thus causing the intelligent world to infer that
there must be something wrong with its teaching. For if the Church had
always been in all respects faithful to the teaching of her Divine
Master, she would be at this present time the supreme Conqueror of
Nations. Yet she is doing no more nowadays than she did in the middle
ages,--she threatens, she intimidates, she persecutes all who dare to
use for a reasonable purpose the brain God gave them,--but she does not
help on or sympathize with the growing fraternity and civilization of
the world. It is impossible not to recognize this. Yet I have a
profound respect for each and every minister of religion who honestly
endeavours to follow the counsels of Christ,"--here he paused,--then
added with slow and marked emphasis--"in whose Holy Name I devoutly
believe for the redemption of whatever there is in me worth redeeming;
--nevertheless my first duty, even in Christ, is plainly to the people
of the country over which I am elected to rule."

The flickering shadow of a smile passed over the Jesuit's dark
features, but he still kept silence.

"Therefore," went on the King--"it is my unpleasant task to be
compelled to inform you, Monsignor, that the inhabitants of the
district your Order seeks to take under its influence, have the
strongest objection to your presence among them. So strong indeed is
their aversion towards your Society, that they have petitioned me in
numerous ways, (and with considerable eloquence, too, for 'untaught
barbarians') to defend them from your visitation. Now, to speak truly,
I find they have all the advantages which modern advancement and social
improvement can give them,--they attend their places of public worship
in considerable numbers, and are on the whole decent, God-fearing,
order-loving subjects to the Throne,--and more I do not desire for them
or for myself. Criminal cases are very rare in the district,--and the
poor are more inclined to help than to defraud each other. All this is
so far good,--and, I should imagine,--not displeasing to God. In any
case, as their merely temporal sovereign, I must decline to give your
Order any control over them."

"You refuse the concession of land, Sir?" said Del Fortis, in a voice
that trembled with restrained passion.

"To satisfy those of my subjects who have appealed to me, I am
compelled to do so," replied the King.

"I pray your Majesty's pardon, but a portion of the land is held by
private persons who are prepared to sell to us----"

A quick anger flashed in the King's eyes.

"They shall sell to me if they sell at all,"--he said,--"I repeat,
Monsignor, the fact that the law-abiding people of the place have
sought their King's protection from priestly interference;--and,--by
Heaven!--they shall have it!"

There was a sudden silence. Sir Roger de Launay drew a sharp breath,--
his habitual languor of mind was completely dissipated, and he studied
the inscrutable face of Del Fortis with deepening suspicion and
disfavour. Not that there was the slightest sign of wrath or dismay on
the priest's well-disciplined countenance;--on the contrary, a chill
smile illumined it as he spoke his next words with a serious, if
somewhat forced composure.

"Your Majesty is, without doubt, all powerful in your own particular
domain of society and politics," he said--"But there is another Majesty
higher than yours,--that of the Church, before which dread and
infallible Tribunal even kings are brought to naught----"

"Monsignor Del Fortis," interrupted the King, "We have not met this
morning, I presume, to indulge in a religious polemic! My power is, as
you very truly suggest, merely temporal--yours is spiritual. Yours
should be the strongest! Go your way now to your Vicar-General with the
straight answer I have given you,--but if by your 'spiritual' power you
can persuade the people who now hate your Society, to love it,--to
demand it,--to beg that you may be permitted to found a colony among
them,--why, in that case, come to me again, and I will grant you the
land. I am not prejudiced one way or the other, but I will not hand
over any of my subjects to the influence of priestcraft, so long as
they desire me to defend them from it."

Del Fortis still smiled.

"Pardon me, Sir, but we of the Society of Jesus are your subjects also,
and we judge you to be a Christian and Catholic monarch----"

"As I am, most assuredly!" replied the King--"Christian and Catholic
are words which, if I understand their meaning, please me well!
'Christian' expresses a believer in and follower of Christ,--'Catholic'
means universal, by which, I take it, is intended wide, universal love
and tolerance without sect, party, or prejudice. In this sense the
Church is not Catholic--it is merely the Roman sect. Nor are you truly
my subjects, since you have only one ruler, the Supreme Pontiff,--with
whom I am somewhat at variance. But, as I have said, we are not here to
indulge in argument. You came to proffer a request; I have given you the
only answer I conceive fitting with my duty;--the matter is concluded."

Del Fortis hesitated a moment,--then bowed low to the ground;--anon,
lifting himself, raised one hand with an invocative gesture of profound
solemnity.

"I commend your Majesty to the mercy of God, that He may in His wisdom,
guard your life and soften your heart towards the ministers of His Holy
Religion, and bring you into the ways of righteousness and peace! For
the rest, I will report your Majesty's decision to the Vicar-General."

"Do so!"--rejoined the King--"And assure him that the decision is
unalterable,--unless the inhabitants of the place concerned desire to
have it revoked."

Again Del Fortis bowed.

"I humbly take my leave of your Majesty!"

The monarch looked at him steadfastly as he made another salutation,
and backed out of the presence-chamber. Sir Roger de Launay opened the
door for him with alacrity, handing him over into the charge of an
usher with the whispered caution to see him well off the Royal
premises; and then returning to his sovereign, stood "at attention."
The King noted his somewhat troubled aspect, and laughed.

"What ails you, De Launay?" he asked--"You seem astonished that for
once I have spoken my mind?"

"Sir, to speak one's mind is always dangerous!"

"Dangerous--danger!--What idle words to make cowards of men! Danger--of
what? There is only one danger--death; and that is sure to come to
every man, whether he be a hero or a poltroon."

"True,--but----"

"But--what? De Launay, if you love me, do not look at me with so
expostulatory an air! It does not become your inches! Now listen!--when
the next press reporter comes nosing round for palace news, let him be
told that the King has refused permission to the Jesuits to build on
any portion of the Crown lands demanded for the purpose. Let this be
made known to Press and People--the sooner the better!"

"Sir," murmured De Launay--"We live in strange times----"

"Why, there you speak most truly!" said the King, with emphasis--"We do
live in strange times--the very strangest perhaps, since Aeneas Sylvius
wrote concerning Christendom. Do you remember the words he set down so
long ago?--'It is a body without a head,--a republic without laws or
magistrates. The pope or the emperor may shine as lofty titles, as
splendid images,--but they are unable to command, and no one is
willing to obey!' History thus repeats itself, De Launay;--and yet with
all its past experience, the Roman Church does not seem to realize that
it is powerless against the attacks of intellectual common sense. Faith
in God,--a high, perfect, pure faith in God, and a simple following of
the Divine Teacher of God's command, Christ;--these things are wise and
necessary for all nations; but, to allow human beings to be coerced by
superstition for political motives, under the disguise of religion, is
an un-Christian business, and I for one will have no part in it!"

"You will lay yourself open to much serious misconstruction, Sir," said
De Launay.

"Let us hope so, Roger!" rejoined the King with a smile--"For if I am
never misunderstood, I shall know myself to be a fool! Come,--do not
look so glum!--I want you to help me."

"To help you, Sir?" exclaimed De Launay eagerly,--"With my life, if
you demand it!"

The King rested one hand familiarly on his shoulder.

"I would rather take my own life than yours, De Launay!" he said--"No,
--whatever difficulties I get myself into, you shall not suffer! But--as
I told you a while ago,--there is something in me that must have its
way. I am sick to death of conventionalities,--you must help me to
break through them! You are right in saying that we live in strange
times;--they are strange times!--and they may perchance be all the
better for a strange King!"




CHAPTER IV

SEALED ORDERS


Some hours later on, Sir Roger de Launay, having left his Sovereign's
presence, and being off duty for a time, betook himself to certain
apartments in the west wing of the palace, where the next most trusted
personage to himself in the confidence of the King, had his domicile,--
Professor von Glauben, resident physician to the Royal Household.
Heinrich von Glauben was a man of somewhat extraordinary character and
individuality. In his youth he had made a sudden meteoric fame for his
marvellous skill and success in surgery, as also for his equally
surprising quickness and correctness in diagnosing obscure diseases and
tracing them to their source. But, after creating a vast amount of
discussion and opposition among his confreres, and almost reaching that
brilliant point of triumph when his originality and cleverness were
proved great enough to win him a host of enemies, he all at once threw
up the game as it were, and, resigning the favourable opportunities of
increasing distinction offered him in his native Germany, accepted the
comparatively retired and private position he now occupied. Some said
it was a disappointment in love which had caused his abrupt departure
from the Fatherland,--others declared it was irritation at the severe
manner in which his surgical successes had been handled by the medical
critics,--but whatever the cause, it soon became evident that he had
turned his back on the country of his birth for ever, and that he was
apparently entirely satisfied with the lot he had chosen. His post was
certainly an easy and pleasant one,--the members of the Royal family to
which his services were attached were exceptionally healthy, as Royal
families go; and he was seldom in more than merely formal attendance,
so that he had ample time and opportunity to pursue those deeper forms
of physiological study which had excited the wrath and ridicule of his
contemporaries, as well as to continue the writing of a book which he
intended should make a stir in the world, and which he had entitled
"The Moral and Political History of Hunger."

"For," said he--"Hunger is the primal civilizer,--the very keystone
and foundation of all progress. From the plain, prosy, earthy fact that
man is a hungry animal, and must eat, has sprung all the civilization
of the world! I shall demonstrate this in my book, beginning with the
scriptural legend of Adam's greed for an apple. Adam was evidently
hungry at the moment Eve tempted him. As soon as he had satisfied his
inner man, he thought of his outer,--and his next idea was, naturally,
tailoring. From this simple conjunction of suggestions, combined with
what 'God' would have to say to him concerning his food-experiment and
fig-leaf apron, man has drawn all his religions, manners, customs and
morals. The proposition is self-evident,--but I intend to point it out
with somewhat emphasised clearness for the benefit of those persons who
are inclined to arrogate to themselves the possession of superior
wisdom. Neither brain nor soul has placed man in a position of
Supremacy,--merely Hunger and Nakedness!"

The Professor was now about fifty-five, but his exceptionally powerful
build and robust constitution gave him the grace in appearance of many
years younger, though perhaps the extreme composure of his temperament,
and the philosophic manner in which he viewed all circumstances,
whether pleasing or disastrous, may have exercised the greatest
influence in keeping his eyes clear and clean, and his countenance free
of unhandsome wrinkles. He was more like a soldier than a doctor, and
was proud of his resemblance to the earlier portraits of Bismarck. To
see him in his own particular 'sanctum' surrounded by weird-looking
diagrams of sundry parts of the human frame, mysterious phials and
stoppered flasks containing various liquids and crystals, and all the
modern appliances for closely examining the fearful yet beautiful
secrets of the living organism, was as if one should look upon a rough
and burly giant engaged in some delicate manipulation of mosaics. Yet
Von Glauben's large hand was gentler than a woman's in its touch and
gift of healing,--no surgeon alive could probe a wound more tenderly,
or with less pain to the sufferer,--and the skill of that large hand
was accompanied by the penetrative quality of the large benevolent
brain which guided it,--a brain that could encompass the whole circle
of the world in its observant and affectionate compassion.

"Ach!--who is there that can be angry with anyone?--impatient with
anyone,--offended with anyone!" he was wont to say--"Everybody suffers
so much and so undeservedly, that as far as my short life goes I have
only time for pity--not condemnation!"

To this individual, as a kind of human calmative and tonic combined,
Sir Roger de Launay was in the habit of going whenever he felt his own
customary tranquillity at all disturbed. The two were great friends;--
friends in their mutual love and service of the King,--friends in their
equally mutual but discreetly silent worship of the Queen,--and friends
in their very differences of opinion on men and matters in general. De
Launay, being younger, was more hasty of judgment and quick in action;
but Von Glauben too had been known to draw his sword with unexpected
rapidity on occasion, to the discomfiture of those who deemed him only
at home with the scalpel. Just now, however, he was in a particularly
non-combative and philosophic mood; he was watching certain animalculae
wriggling in a glass tube, the while he sat in a large easy-chair with
slippered feet resting on another chair opposite, puffing clouds of
smoke from a big meerschaum,--and he did not stir from his indolent
attitude when De Launay entered, but merely looked up and smiled
placidly.

"Sit down, Roger!" he said,--then, as De Launay obeyed the invitation,
he pushed over a box of cigars, and added--"You look exceedingly tired,
my friend! Something has bored you more than usual? Take a lesson from
those interesting creatures!" and he pointed with the stem of his pipe
to the bottled animalculae--"They are never bored,--never weary of doing
mischief! They are just now living under the pleasing delusion that the
glass tube they are in is a man, and that they are eating him up alive.
Little devils! Nothing will exhaust their vitality till they have
gorged themselves to death! Just like a great many human beings!"

"I am not in the mood for studying animalculae," said De Launay
irritably, as he lit a cigar.

"No? But why not? They are really quite as interesting as ourselves!"

"Look here, Von Glauben, I want you to be serious--"

"My friend, I am always serious," declared the Professor--"Even when I
laugh, I laugh seriously. My laughter is as real as myself."

"What would you think,"--pursued De Launay--"of a king who freely
expressed his own opinions?"

"I should say he was a brave man," answered the Professor; "He would
certainly deserve my respect, and he should have it. Even if the laws
of etiquette were not existent, I should feel justified in taking off
my hat to him."

"Never from henceforth wear a hat at all then," said De Launay--"It
will save you the trouble of continually doffing it at every glimpse of
his Majesty!"

Von Glauben drew his pipe from his mouth and gazed blankly at the
ceiling for a few moments in silence. "His Majesty?" he presently
murmured--"Our Majesty?"

"Yes; our Majesty--our King"--replied De Launay--"For some inscrutable
reason or other he has suddenly adopted the dangerous policy of
speaking his mind. What now?"

"What now? Why nothing particular just now,--unless you have something
to tell me. Which, judging from your entangled expression of eye, I
presume you have."

De Launay hesitated a moment. The Professor saw his hesitation.

"Do not speak, my friend, if you think you are committing a breach of
confidence," he said composedly--"In the brief affairs of this life, it
is better to keep trouble on your own mind than impart it to others."

"Oh, there is no breach of confidence;" said De Launay, "The thing is
as public as the day, or if it is not public already, it soon will be
made so. That is where the mischief comes in,--or so I think. Judge for
yourself!" And in a few words he gave the gist of the interview which
had taken place between the King and the emissary of the Jesuits that
morning.

"Nothing surprises me as a rule,"--said the Professor, when he had
heard all--"But if anything could prick the sense of astonishment anew
in me, it would be to think that anyone, king or commoner, should take
the trouble to speak truth to a Jesuit. Why, the very essence of their
carefully composed and diplomatic creed, is to so disguise truth that
it shall be no more recognisable. Myself, I believe the Jesuits to be
the lineal descendants of those priests who served Bel and the Dragon.
The art of conjuring and deception is in their very blood. It is for
the Jesuits that I have invented a beautiful new verb,--'To
hypocrise.' It sounds well. Here is the present tense,--'I hypocrise,
Thou hypocrisest, He hypocrises:--We hypocrise, You hypocrise, They
hypocrise.' Now hear the future. 'I shall hypocrise, Thou shalt
hypocrise, He shall hypocrise; We shall hypocrise, You shall hypocrise,
They shall hypocrise.' There is the whole art of Jesuitry for you, made
grammatically perfect!"

De Launay gave a gesture of impatience, and flung away the end of his
half-smoked cigar.

"Ach! That is a sign of temper, Roger!" said Von Glauben, shaking his
head--"To lift one's shoulders to the lobes of one's ears, and waste
nearly the half of an exceedingly expensive and choice Havana, shows
nervous irritation! You are angry, my friend--and with me!"

"No I am not," replied De Launay, rising from his chair and beginning
to pace the room--"But I do not profess to have your phlegmatic
disposition. I feel what I thought you would feel also,--that the King
is exposing himself to unnecessary danger. And I know what you do not
yet know, but what this letter will no doubt inform you,"--and he drew
an envelope bearing the Royal seal from his pocket and handed it to the
Professor--"Namely,--that his Majesty is bent on rushing voluntarily
into various other perils, unless perhaps, your warning or advice may
hinder him. Mine has no effect,--moreover I am bound to serve him as
he bids."

"Equally am I also bound to serve him;"--said Von Glauben, "And gladly
and faithfully do I intend to perform my service wherever it may lead
me!" Whereupon, shaking himself out of his recumbent position, like a
great lion rolling out of his lair, he stood upright, and breaking the
seal of the envelope he held, read its contents through in silence. Sir
Roger stood opposite to him, watching his face in vain for any sign of
astonishment, regret or dismay.

"We must do as he commands,"--he said simply as he finished reading the
letter and folded it up for safe keeping--"There is no other way; not
for me at least. I shall most assuredly be at the appointed place, at
the appointed hour, and in the appointed manner. It will be a change;
certainly lively, and possibly beneficial!"

"But the King's life--"

"Is in God's keeping!" said Von Glauben,--"Believe me, Roger, no harm
comes undeservedly to a brave man with a good conscience! It is a bad
conscience which invites mischief. I am a great believer in the law of
attraction. The good attracts the good,--the bad, the bad. That is why
truthful persons are generally lonely--because nearly all the world's
inhabitants are liars!"

"But the King--" again began Sir Roger.

"The King is a man!" said Von Glauben, with a flash of pride in his
eyes--"Which is more than I will say for most kings! Who shall blame
him for asserting his manhood? Not I! Not you! Who shall blame him for
seeking to know the real position of things in the country he governs?
Not I! Not you! Our business is to guard and defend him--with our own
lives, if necessary,--we shall do that with a will, Roger, shall we
not?" And with an impulsive quickness of action, he took a sword from a
stand of weapons near him, drew it from its scabbard and kissing the
hilt, held it out to De Launay who did the same--"That is understood!
And for the rest, Roger my friend, take it all lightly and easily--as a
farce!--as a bit of human comedy, with a great actor cast for the chief
role. We are only supers, you and I, but we shall do well to stand near
the wings in case of fire!"

He drew himself up to his great height and squared his shoulders,--then
smiled benevolently.

"I believe it will be all very amusing, Roger; and that your fears for
the safety of his Majesty will be proved groundless. Remember, Court
life is excessively dull,--truly the dullest form of existence on
earth,--it is quite natural that he who is the most bored by it should
desire some break in the terrible monotony!"

"The monotony will certainly be broken with a vengeance, if the King
continues in his present humour!"--said De Launay grimly.

"Possibly! And let us hope the comfortable self-assurance and
complacency of a certain successful Minister may be somewhat seriously
disturbed!" rejoined Von Glauben,--"For myself, I assure you I see
sport!"

"And I scent danger,"--said De Launay--"For if any mischance happen to
the King, the Prince is not ripe enough to rule."

A slight shadow darkened the Professor's open countenance. He looked
fixedly at Sir Roger, who met his gaze with equal fixity.

"The Prince,"--he said slowly--"is young--"

"And rash--" interposed De Launay.

"No. Pardon me, my friend! Not rash. Merely honest. That is all! He is
a very honest young man indeed. It is unfortunate that he is so; a
ploughman may be honest if he likes, but a prince--never!"

De Launay was silent.

"I will now destroy a world"--continued Von Glauben, "Kings, emperors,
popes, councillors and common folk, can all perish incontinently,--as--
being myself for the present the free agent of the Deity concerned in
the matter,--I have something else to do than to look after them,"--and
he took up the glass vessel containing the animalculae he had been
watching, and cast it with its contents into a small stove burning
dimly at one end of the apartment,--"Gone are their ambitions and
confabulations for ever! How easy for the Creator to do the same thing
with us, Roger! Let us not talk of any special danger for the King or
for any man, seeing that we are all on the edge of an eternal volcano!"

De Launay stood absorbed for a moment, as if in deep thought. Then
rousing himself abruptly he said:--

"You will not see the King, and speak with him before to-morrow night?"

"Why should I?" queried the Professor. "His wish is a command which I
must obey. Besides, my good Roger, all the arguments in the world will
not turn a man from having his own way if he has once made up his own
mind. Advice from me on the present matter would be merely taken as an
impertinence. Moreover I have no advice to give,--I rather approve of
the plan!"

Sir Roger looked at him; and noting the humorous twinkle in his eyes
smiled, though somewhat gravely.

"I hope, with you, that the experiment may only prove an amusing one,"
he said--"But life is not always a farce!"

"Not always, but often! When it is not a farce it is a tragedy. And
such a tragedy! My God! Horrible--monstrous--cruel beyond conception,
and enough to make one believe in Hell and doubt Heaven!"

He spoke passionately, in a voice vibrating with strong emotion. De
Launay glanced at him wonderingly, but did not speak.

"When you see tender young children tortured by disease," he went on,--
"Fair and gentle women made the victims of outrage and brutality--
strong men killed in their thousands to gain a little additional gold,
an extra slice of empire,--then you see the tragic, the inexplicable,
the crazy cruelty of putting into us this little pulse called Life. But
I try not to think of this--it is no use thinking!"

He paused,--then in his usual quiet tone said:

"To-morrow night, then, my friend?"

"To-morrow night," rejoined De Launay,--"Unless you receive further
instructions from the King."

At that moment the clear call of a trumpet echoing across the
battlements of the palace denoted the hour for changing the sentry.
"Sunset already!" said Von Glauben, walking to the window and throwing
back the heavy curtain which partially shaded it, "And yonder is Prince
Humphry's yacht on its homeward way."

De Launay came and stood beside him, looking out. Before them the sea
glistened with a thousand tints of lustrous opal in the light of the
sinking sun, which, surrounded by mountainous heights of orange and
purple cloud, began to touch the water-line with a thousand arrowy
darts of flame. The white-sailed vessel on which their eyes were fixed,
came curtseying over the waves through a perfect arch of splendid
colour, like a fairy or phantom ship evoked from a poet's dream.

"Absent all day, as he has been," said De Launay, "his Royal Highness
is punctual to the promised hour of his return."

"He is, as I told you, honest;" said Von Glauben, "and it is possible
his honesty will be his misfortune."

De Launay muttered something inaudible in answer, and turned to leave
the apartment.

Von Glauben looked at him with an affectionate solicitude.

"What a lucky thing it is you never married, Roger! Otherwise you would
now be going to tell your wife all about the King's plans! Then she,
sweet creature, would go to confession,--and her confessor would tell a
bishop,--and a bishop would tell a cardinal,--and a cardinal would
tell a confidential monsignor,--and the confidential monsignor would
tell the Supreme Pontiff,--and so all the world would be ringing with
the news started by one little pretty wagging tongue of a woman!"

A faint flush coloured De Launay's bronzed cheek, but he laughed.

"True! I am glad I have never married. I am still more glad--of
circumstances"--he paused,--then went on, "which have so chanced to me
that I shall never marry." He paused again--then added--"I must be
gone, Von Glauben! I have to meet Prince Humphry at the quay with a
message from his Majesty."

"Surely," said the Professor, opening his eyes very wide, "The Prince
is not to be included in our adventure?"

"By no means!" replied De Launay,--"But the King is not pleased with
his son's frequent absences from Court, and desires to speak with him
on the matter."

Von Glauben looked grave.

"There will be some little trouble there," he said, with a half sigh--
"Ach! Who knows! Perhaps some great trouble!"

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Sir Roger,--"We live in times of peace. We
want no dissension with either the King or the people. Till to-morrow
night then?"

"Till to-morrow night!" responded Von Glauben, whereupon Sir Roger with
a brief word of farewell, strode away.

Left to himself, the Professor still stood at his window watching the
approach of the Prince's yacht, which came towards the shore with such
swift and stately motion through the portals of the sunset, over the
sparkling water.

"Unfortunate Humphry!" he muttered,--"What a secret he has entrusted me
with! And yet why do I call him unfortunate? There should be nothing to
regret--and yet--! Well! The mischief was done before poor Heinrich
von Glauben was consulted; and if poor Heinrich were God and the Devil
rolled into one strange Eternal Monster, he could not have prevented
it! What is done, can never be undone!"




CHAPTER V

"IF I LOVED YOU!"


A singular pomp is sometimes associated with the announcement that my
Lord Pedigree, or Mister Nobody has 'had the honour of dining' with
their Majesties the King and Queen. Outsiders read the thrilling line
with awe and envy,--and many of them are foolish enough to wish that
they also were Lords Pedigree or Misters Nobody. As a matter of sad and
sober fact, however, a dinner with royal personages is an extremely
dull affair. 'Do not speak unless you are spoken to,' is a rule which,
however excellent and necessary in Court etiquette, is apt to utterly
quench conversation, and render the brightest spirits dull and inert.
The silent and solemn movements of the Court flunkeys,--the painful
attitudes of those who are _not_ 'spoken to'; the eager yet
laboured smiles of those who _are_ 'spoken to ';--the melancholy
efforts at gaiety--the dread of trespassing on tabooed subjects--these
things tend to make all but the most independent and unfettered minds
shrink from such an ordeal as the 'honour' of dining with kings. It
must, however, be conceded that the kings themselves are fully aware of
the tediousness of their dinner parties, and would lighten the boredom
if they could; but etiquette forbids. The particular monarch whose
humours are the subject of this 'plain unvarnished' history would have
liked nothing better than to be allowed to dine in simplicity and peace
without his conversation being noted, and without having a flunkey at
hand to watch every morsel of food go into his mouth. He would have
liked to eat freely, talk freely, and conduct himself generally with
the ease of a private gentleman.

All this being denied to him, he hated the dinner-hour as ardently as
he hated receiving illuminated addresses, and the freedom of cities.
Yet all things costly and beautiful were combined to make his royal
table a picture which would have pleased the eyes and taste of a
Marguerite de Valois. On the evening of the day on which he had
determined, as he had said to himself, to 'begin to reign,' it looked
more than usually attractive. Some trifling chance had made the floral
decorations more tasteful--some amiable humour of the providence which
rules daily events, had ordained that two or three of the prettiest
Court ladies should be present;--Prince Humphry and his two brothers,
Rupert and Cyprian, were at table,--and though conversation was slow
and scant, the picturesqueness of the scene was not destroyed by
silence. The apartment which was used as a private dining-room when
their Majesties had no guests save the members of their own household,
was in itself a gem of art and architecture,--it had been designed and
painted from floor to ceiling by one of the most famous of the dead and
gone masters, and its broad windows opened out on a white marble loggia
fronting the ocean, where festoons of flowers clambered and hung, in
natural tufts and trails of foliage and blossom, mingling their sweet
odours with the fresh scent of the sea. Amid all the glow and delicacy
of colour, the crowning perfection of the perfect environment was the
Queen-Consort, lovelier in her middle-age than most women in their
teens. An exquisite figure of stateliness and dignity, robed in such
hues and adorned with such jewels as best suited her statuesque beauty,
and attended by ladies of whose more youthful charms she was never
envious, having indeed no cause for envy, she was a living defiance to
the ravages of time, and graced her royal husband's dinner-table with
the same indifferent ease as she graced his throne, unchanging in the
dazzling light of her physical faultlessness. He, looking at her with
mingled impatience and sadness, almost wished she would grow older in
appearance with her years, and lose that perfect skin, white as
alabaster,--that glittering but cold luminance of eye. For experience
had taught him the worthlessness of beauty unaccompanied by tenderness,
and fair faces had no longer the first attraction for him. His eldest
son, Prince Humphry, bore a strong resemblance to himself,--he was tall
and slim, with a fine face, and a well-built muscular figure; the other
two younger princes, Rupert and Cyprian, aged respectively eighteen and
sixteen, were like their mother,--beautiful in form and feature, but as
indifferent to all tenderness of thought and sentiment as they were
full of splendid health and vigour. And, despite the fact that the
composition and surroundings of his household were, to all outward
appearances, as satisfactory as a man in his position could expect them
to be, the King was intellectually and spiritually aware of the
emptiness of the shell he called 'home.'

Love was lacking; his beautiful wife was the ice-wall against which all
waves of feeling froze as they fell into the stillness of death. His
sons had been born as the foals of a racing stud might be born,--merely
to continue the line of blood and succession. They were not the dear
offspring of passion or of tenderness. The coldness of their mother's
nature was strongly engendered in them, and so far they had never shown
any particular affection for their parents. The princes Rupert and
Cyprian thought of nothing all day but sports and games of skill; they
studied serious tasks unwillingly, and found their position as sons of
the reigning monarch, irksome, and even ridiculous. They had caught the
infection of that diseased idea which in various exaggerated forms is
tending to become more or less universal, and to work great mischief to
nations,--namely, that 'sport' is more important than policy, and that
all matters relating to 'sport,' are more worth attention than wisdom
in government. Of patriotism, or love of country they had none; and
laughed to scorn the grand old traditions and sentiments of national
glory and honour, which had formerly inspired the poets of their land
to many a wild and beautiful chant of battle or of victory. How to pass
the day--how best to amuse themselves--this was their first thought on
waking every morning,--football, cricket, tennis and wrestling formed
their chief subjects of conversation; and though they had professors
and tutors of the most qualified and certificated ability, they made no
secret of their utter contempt for all learning and literature. They
were fine young animals; but did less with the brains bestowed upon
them than the working bee who makes provision of honey for the winter,
or the swallow that builds its nest under warmly sheltered eaves.

Prince Humphry, however, was of a different nature. From a shy,
somewhat unmanageable boy, he had developed into a quiet, dreamy youth,
fond of books, music, and romantic surroundings. He avoided the company
of his brothers whenever it was possible; their loud voices, boisterous
spirits and perpetual chatter concerning the champions of this or that
race or match, bored him infinitely, and he was at no pains to disguise
his boredom. During the last year he seemed to have grown up suddenly
into full manhood,--he had begun to assert his privileges as Heir-
Apparent, and to enjoy the freedom his position allowed him. Yet the
manner of his enjoyment was somewhat singular for a young man who
formed a central figure in the circle of the land's Royalty,--he cared
nothing at all for the amusements and dissipations of the time; he
merely showed an abnormal love of solitude, which was highly
unflattering to fashionable society. It was on this subject that the
King had decided to speak with him,--and he watched him with closer
attention than usual on this particular evening when his habit of
absenting himself all day in his yacht had again excited comment. It
was easy to see that the Prince had been annoyed by the message Sir
Roger de Launay had conveyed to him on his arrival home,--a message to
the effect that, as soon as dinner was concluded, he was required to
attend his Majesty in private; and all through the stately and formal
repast, his evident irritation and impatience cast a shadow of vague
embarrassment over the royal party,--with the exception of the princes
Rupert and Cyprian, who were never embarrassed by anything, and who
were more apt to be amused than disquieted by the vexation of others.
Welcome relief was at last given by the serving of coffee,--and the
Queen and all her ladies adjourned to their own apartments. With their
departure the rest of the circle soon dispersed, there being no special
guests present; and at a sign from De Launay, Prince Humphry
reluctantly followed his father into a small private smoking-room
adjacent to the open loggia, where the equerry, bowing low, left the
two together.

For a moment the King kept silence, while he chose a cigar from the
silver box on the table. Then, lighting it, he handed the box
courteously to his son.

"Will you smoke, Humphry?"

"Thanks, Sir,--no."

The King seated himself; Prince Humphry remained standing.

"You had a favourable wind for your expedition today;" said the monarch
at last, beginning to smoke placidly--"I observe that The Islands
appear to have won special notice from you. What is the attraction? The
climate or the scenery?"

The Prince was silent.

"I like fine scenery myself,--" continued the King--"I also like a
change of air. But variation in both is always desirable,--and for
this, it is unwise to go to the same place every day!"

Still the Prince said nothing. His father looked up and studied his
face attentively, but could guess nothing from its enigmatical
expression.

"You seem tongue-tied, Humphry!" he said--"Come, sit down! Let us talk
this out. Can you not trust me, your father, as a friend?"

"I wish I could!" answered the young man, half inaudibly.

"And can you not?"

"No. You have never loved me!"

The King drew his cigar from his mouth, and flicking off a morsel of
ash, looked at its end meditatively.

"Well--no!--I cannot say honestly that I have. Love,--it is a
ridiculous word, Humphry, but it has a meaning on certain occasions!--
love for the children of your mother is an impossibility!"

"Sir, I am not to blame for my mother's disposition."

"True--very true. You are not to blame. But you exist. And that you do
exist is a fact of national importance. Will you not sit down?"

"At your command, Sir!" and the Prince seated himself opposite his
father, who having studied his cigar sufficiently, replaced it between
his lips and went on smoking for a few minutes before he spoke again.
Then he resumed:--

"Your existence, I repeat, Humphry, is a fact of national importance.
To you falls the Throne when I have done with it, and life has done
with me. Therefore, your conduct,--your mode of life--your example in
manners--concern, not me, so much as the nation. You say that you
cannot trust me as a friend, because I have never loved you. Is not
this a somewhat childish remark on your part? We live in a very
practical age--love is not a necessary tie between human beings as
things go nowadays;--the closest bond of friendship rests on the basis
of cash accounts."

"I am perfectly aware of that!" said the Prince, fixing his fine dark
eyes full on his father's face--"And yet, after all, love is such a
vital necessity, that I have only to look at you, in order to realize
the failure and mistake of trying to do without it!"

The King gave him a glance of whimsical surprise.

"So!--you have begun to notice what I have known for years!" he said
lightly--"Clever young man! What fine fairy finger is pointing out to
you my deficiencies, while supplying your own? Do you learn to estimate
the priceless value of love while contemplating the romantic groves and
woodlands of The Islands? Do you read poetry there?--or write it? Or
talk it?"

Prince Humphry coloured,--then grew very pale.

"When I misuse my time, Sir," he said--"Surely it will then be needful
to catechise me on the manner in which I spend it,--but not till then!"

"Fairly put!" answered the King--"But I have an idea--it may be a
mistaken idea,--still I have it--that you _are_ misusing your
time, Humphry! And this is the cause of our present little discussion.
If I knew that you occupied yourself with the pleasures befitting your
age and rank, I should be more at ease."

"What do you consider to be the pleasures befitting my age and rank?"
asked the Prince with a touch of satire; "Making a fool of myself
generally?"

The King smiled.

"Well!--it would be better to make a fool of yourself generally than
particularly! Folly is not so harmful when spread like jam over a whole
slice of bread,--but it may cause a life-long sickness, if swallowed in
one secret gulp of sweetness!"

The Prince moved uneasily.

"You think I am catechising you,--and you resent it--but, my dear boy,
let me again remind you that you are in a manner answerable to the
nation for your actions; and especially to that particular section of
the nation called Society. Society is the least and worst part of the
whole community--but it has to be considered by such servants of the
public as ourselves. You know what James the First of England wrote
concerning the 'domestic regulations' on the conduct of a prince and
future king? 'A king is set as one on a stage, whose smallest, actions
and gestures all the people gazinglie do behold; and, however just in
the discharge of his office, yet if his behaviour be light or
dissolute, in indifferent actions, the people, who see but the outward
part, conceive preoccupied conceits of the king's inward intention,
which although with time, the trier of all truth, will evanish by the
evidence of the contrarie effect, yet, _interim patitur justus_,
and prejudged conceits will, in the meantime, breed contempt, the
mother of rebellion and disorder.' Poor James of the 'goggle eyes and
large hysterical heart' as Carlyle describes him! Do you not agree with
his estimate of a royal position?"

"I am not aware, Sir, that my behaviour can as yet be called light or
dissolute;" replied the Prince coldly, with a touch of hauteur.

"I do not call it so, Humphry"--said the King--"To the best of my
knowledge, your conduct has always been most exemplary. But with all
your excessive decorum, you are mysterious. That is bad! Society will
not endure being kept in the dark, or outside the door of things, like
a bad child! It wants to be in the room, and know everything and
everybody. And this reminds me of another point on which the good
English James offers sound advice. 'Remember to be plaine and sensible
in your language; for besides, it is the tongue's office to be the
messenger of the mind, it may be thought a point of imbecilitie of
spirit, in a king to speak obscurely, much more untrewly, as if he
stood in awe of any in uttering his thoughts.' That is precisely your
mood at the present moment, Humphry,--you stand 'in awe'--of me or of
someone else,--in 'uttering your thoughts.'"

"Pardon me, Sir,--I do not stand in awe of you or of anyone;" said the
Prince composedly--"I simply do not choose to 'utter my thoughts' just
now."

The King looked at him in surprise, and with a touch of admiration. The
defiant air he had unconsciously assumed became him,--his handsome face
was pale, and his dark eyes coldly brilliant, like those of his
beautiful mother, with the steel light of an inflexible resolve.

"You do not choose?" said the King, after a pause--"You decline to give
any explanation of your long hours of absence?--your constant visits to
The Islands, and your neglect of those social duties which should keep
you at Court?"

"I decline to do so for the present," replied the young man decisively;
"I can see no harm in my preference for quietness rather than noise,--
for scenes of nature rather than those of artificial folly. The Islands
are but two hours sail from this port,--little tufts of land set in the
sea, where the coral-fishers dwell. They are beautiful in their natural
adornment of foliage and flower;--I go there to read--to dream--to
think of life as a better, purer thing than what you call 'society'
would make it for me; you cannot blame me for this?"

The King was silent.

"If it is your wish,"--went on the Prince--"that I should stay in the
palace more, I will obey you. If you desire me to be seen oftener in
the capital, I will endeavour to fulfil your command, though the
streets stifle me. But, for God's sake, do not make me a puppet on show
before my time,--or marry me to a woman I hate, merely for the sake of
heirs to a wretched Throne!"

The King rose from his chair, and, walking towards the garden, threw
the rest of his cigar out among the foliage, where the burning morsel
shone like a stray glowworm in the green. Then he turned towards his
son;--his face was grave, almost stern.

"You can go, Humphry!" he said;--"I have no more to say to you at
present. You talk wildly and at random, as if you were, by some means
or other, voluntarily bent upon unfitting yourself for the position you
are destined to occupy. You will do well, I think, to remain more in
evidence at Court. You will also do well to be seen at some of the
different great social functions of the day. But I shall not coerce
you. Only--consider well what I have said!--and if you have a secret"--
he paused, and then repeated with emphasis--"I say, if you have a
secret of any kind, be advised, and confide in me before it is too
late! Otherwise you may find yourself betrayed unawares! Good-night!"

He walked away without throwing so much as a backward glance at the
Prince, who stood amazed at the suddenness and decision with which he
had brought the conversation to a close; and it was not till his tall
figure had disappeared that the young man began to realize the doubtful
awkwardness of the attitude he had assumed towards one who, both as
parent and king, had the most urgent claim in the world upon his
respect and obedience. Impatient and angry with himself, he crossed the
loggia and went out into the garden beyond. A young moon, slender as a
bent willow wand, gleamed in the clear heavens among hosts of stars
more brilliantly visible than itself, and the soft air, laden with the
perfume of thousands of flowers, cooled his brain and calmed his
nerves. The musical low murmur of the sea, lapping against the shore
below the palace walls, suggested a whole train of pleasing and
poetical fancies, and he strolled along the dewy grass paths, under
tangles of scented shrubs and arching boughs of pine, giving himself up
to such idyllic dreams of life and life's fairest possibilities, as
only youthful and imaginative souls can indulge in. He was troubled and
vexed by his father's warning, but not sufficiently to pay serious heed
to it. His 'secret' was safe so far;--and all he had to do, so he
considered, was to exercise a little extra precaution.

"There is only Von Glauben,"--he thought, "and he would never betray
me. Besides it is a mere question of another year--and then I can make
all the truth known."

The lovely long-drawn warble of a nightingale broke the stillness
around him with a divine persistence of passion. He listened, standing
motionless, his eyes lifted towards the dark boughs above him, from
whence the golden notes dropped liquidly; and his heart beat quickly as
he thought of a voice sweeter than that of any heavenly-gifted bird, a
face fairer than that of the fabled goddess who on such a night as this
descended from her silver moon-car to enchant Endymion;--and he
murmured half aloud--

"Who would not risk a kingdom--ay! a thousand kingdoms!--for such
happiness as I possess! It is a foolish, blind world nowadays, that
forgets the glory of its youth,--the glow, the breath, the tenderness
of love!--all for amassing gold and power! I will not be of such a
world, nor with it;--I will not be like my father, the slave of pomp
and circumstance;--I will live an unfettered life--yes!--even if I have
to resign the throne for the sake of freedom, still I will be free!"

He strolled on, absorbed in romantic reverie, and the nightingale's
song followed him through the winding woods down to the shore, where
the waves made other music of their own, which harmonised with the
dreamy fancies of his mind.

Meanwhile, the King had sought his consort in her own apartments.
Walking down the great corridor which led to these, the most beautiful
rooms in the palace, he became aware of the silvery sound of stringed
instruments mingling with harmonious voices,--though he scarcely heeded
the soft rush of melody which came thus wafted to his ears. He was full
of thoughts and schemes,--his son's refusal to confide in him had not
seriously troubled him, because he knew he should, with patience, find
out in good time all that the young Prince had declined to explain,--
and his immediate interest was centred in his own immediate plans.

On reaching the ante-room leading to the Queen's presence-chamber, he
was informed that her Majesty was listening to a concert in the rosery.
Thither he went unattended,--and passing through a long suite of
splendid rooms, each one more sumptuously adorned than the last, he
presently stepped out on the velvet greensward of one of the most
perfect rose gardens in the world--a garden walled entirely round with
tall hedges of the clambering flowers which gave it its name, and which
were trailed up on all sides, so as to form a ceiling or hanging canopy
above. In the centre of this floral hall, now in full blossom, a
fountain tossed up one tall column of silver spray; and at its upper
end, against a background of the dainty white roses called "Felicite
perpetuelle" sat the Queen, in a high chair of carved ivory, surrounded
by her ladies. Delicious music, performed by players and singers who
were hidden behind the trees, floated in voluptuous strains upon the
air, and the King, looking at the exquisite grouping of fair women and
flowers, lit by the coloured lamps which gleamed here and there among
the thick foliage, wondered to himself how it chanced, that amid
surroundings which were calculated to move the senses to the most
refined and delicate rapture, he himself could feel no quickening
pulse, no touch of admiration. These open-air renderings of music and
song were the Queen's favourite form of recreation;--at such times
alone would her proud face soften and her eyes grow languid with an
unrevealed weight of dreams. But should her husband, or any one of his
sex break in upon the charmed circle, her pleasure was at once
clouded,--and the cold hauteur of her beautiful features became again
inflexibly frozen. Such was the case now, when perceiving the King, she
waved her hand as a sign for the music to cease; and with a glance of
something like wonderment at his intrusion, saluted him profoundly as
he entered the precincts of her garden Court. But for once he did not
pause as usual, on his way to where she sat,--but lightly acknowledging
the deep curtseys of the ladies in attendance, he advanced towards her
and raising her hand in courtly homage to his lips, seated himself
carelessly in a low chair at her feet.

"Let the music go on!" he said; "I am here to listen."

The Queen looked at him,--he met her eyes with an expression that she
had never seen on his face before.

"Suffer me to have my way!" he said to her in a low tone--"Let your
singers finish their programme; afterwards do me the favour to dismiss
your women, for I must speak with you alone."

She bent her head in acquiescence; and re-seated herself on her ivory
throne. The sign was given for the continuance of the music, and the
King, leaning back in his chair, half closed his eyes as he listened
dreamily to the harmonious throbbing of harps and violins around him,
in the stillness of the languid southern night. His hand almost brushed
against his wife's jewelled robes--the scent of the great lilies on her
breast was wafted to him with every breath of air, and he thought--"All
this would be Paradise,--with any other woman!" And while he so
thought, the clear tenor voice of one of the unseen singers rang out in
half gay, half tender tones:

 If I loved you, and you loved me,
  How happy this little world would be--
  The light of the day, the dancing hours,
  The skies, the trees, the birds and flowers,
  Would all be part of our perfect gladness;--
  And never a note of pain or sadness
  Would jar life's beautiful melody
  If I loved you, and you loved me!

  'If I loved you!' Why, I scarcely know
  How if I did, the time would go!--
  I should forget my dreary cares,
  My sordid toil, my long despairs,
  I should watch your smile, and kneel at your feet,
  And live my life in the love of you, Sweet!--
  So mad, so glad, so proud I should be,
  If I loved you, and you loved me!

  'If you loved me!' Ah, nothing so strange
  As that could chance in this world of change!--
  As well expect a planet to fall,
  Or a Queen to dwell in a beggar's hall--
  But if you did,--romance and glory
  Might spring from our lives' united story,
  And angels might be less happy than we--
  If I loved you and you loved me!

  'If I loved you and you loved me!'
  Alas, 't is a joy we shall never see!
  You are too fair--I am too cold;--
  We shall drift along till we both grow old,
  Till we reach the grave, and gasping, die,
  Looking back on the days that have passed us by,
  When 'what might have been,' can no longer be,--
  When I lost you, and you lost me!

The song concluded abruptly, and with passion;--and the King, turning
on his elbow, glanced with a touch of curiosity at the face of his
Queen. There was not a flicker of emotion on its fair cold calmness,--
not a quiver on the beautiful lips, or a sigh to stir the quiet breast
on which the lilies rested, white and waxen, and heavily odorous. He
withdrew his gaze with a half smile at his own folly for imagining that
she could be moved by a mere song to any expression of feeling,--even
for a moment,--and allowed his glance to wander unreservedly over the
forms and features of the other ladies in attendance who, conscious of
his regard, dropped their eyelids and blushed softly, after the fashion
approved by the heroines of the melodramatic stage. Whereat he began to
think of the tiresome sameness of women generally; and their irritating
habit of living always at two extremes,--either all ardour, or all
coldness.

"Both are equally fatiguing to a man's mind," he thought impatiently--
"The only woman that is truly fascinating is the one who is never in
the same mind two days together. Fair on Monday, plain on Tuesday,
sweet on Wednesday, sour on Thursday, tender on Friday, cold on
Saturday, and in all moods at once on Sunday,--that being a day of
rest! I should adore such a woman as that if I ever met her, because I
should never know her mind towards me!"

A soft serenade rendered by violins, with a harp accompaniment, was
followed by a gay mazurka, played by all the instruments together,--and
this finished the musical programme.

The Queen rose, accepting the hand which the King extended to her, and
moved with him slowly across the rose-garden, her long snowy train
glistering with jewels, and held up from the greensward by a pretty
page, who, in his picturesque costume of rose and gold, demurely
followed his Royal lady's footsteps,--and so amid the curtseying
ladies-in-waiting and other attendants, they passed together into a
private boudoir, at the threshold of which the Queen's train-bearer
dropped his rich burden of perfumed velvet and gems, and bowing low,
left their Majesties together.

Shutting the door upon him with his own hand, the King drew a heavy
portiere across it,--and then walking round the room saw that every
window was closed,--every nook secure. The Queen's boudoir was one of
the most sacred corners in the whole palace,--no one, not even the most
intimate lady of the Court in personal attendance on her Majesty, dared
enter it without special permission; and this being the case, the Queen
herself was faintly moved to surprise at the extra precaution her
husband appeared to be taking to ensure privacy. She stood silently
watching his movements till he came up to her, and bowing courteously,
said:--

"I pray you, be seated, Madam! I will not detain you long."

She obeyed his gesture, and sank down in a chair with that inimitable
noiseless grace which made every attitude of hers a study for an
artist, and waited for his next words; while he, standing opposite to
her, bent his eyes upon her face with a certain wistfulness and appeal.

"I have never asked you a favour," he began--"and--since the day we
married,--I have never sought your sympathy. The years have come and
gone, leaving no visible trace on either you or me, so far as outward
looks go,--and if they have scarred and wrinkled us inwardly, only God
can see those scars! But as time moves on with a man,--I know not how
it is with a woman,--if he be not altogether a fool, he begins to
consider the way in which he has spent, or is spending his life,--
whether he has been, or is yet likely to be of any use to the world he
lives in,--or if he is of less account than the blown froth of the sea,
or the sand on the shore. Myriads and myriads of men and women are no
more than this--no more than midges or ants or worms;--but every now
and then in the course of centuries, one man does stand forth from the
million,--one heart does beat courageously enough to send the firm echo
of its pulsations through a long vista of time,--one soul does so exalt
and inspire the rest of the world by its great example that we are,
through its force reminded of something divine,--something high and
true in a low wilderness of shams!"

He paused; the Queen raised her beautiful eyes, and smiled strangely.

"Have you only just now thought of this?" she said.

He flushed, and bit his lip.

"To be perfectly honest with you, Madam, I have thought of nothing
worth thinking about for many years! Most men in my position would
probably make the same confession. Perhaps had you given me any great
work to do for your sake I should have done it! Had _you_ inspired
me to achieve some great conquest, either for myself or others, I
should no doubt have conquered! But I have lived for twenty-one years
in your admirable company without being commanded by you to do anything
worthy of a king;--I am now about to command Myself!--in order to leave
some notable trace of my name in history."

While he thus spoke, a faint flush coloured the Queen's cheeks, but it
quickly died away, leaving her very pale. Her fingers strayed among the
great jewels she wore, and toyed unconsciously with a ruby talisman cut
in the shape of a heart, and encircled with diamonds. The King noted
the flash of the gems against the whiteness of her hand, and said:

"Your heart, Madam, is like the jewel you hold!--clear crimson, and
full of fire,--but it is not the fire of Heaven, though you may
perchance judge it to be so. Rather is it of hell!--(I pray you to
pardon me for the roughness of this suggestion!)--for one of the chief
crimes of the devil is unconquerable hatred of the human race. You
share Satan's aversion to man!--and strange indeed it is that even the
most sympathetic companionship with your own sex cannot soften that
aversion! However, we will not go into this;--the years have proved you
true to your own temperament, and there is nothing to be said on the
matter, either of blame or of praise. As I said, I have never asked a
favour of you, nor have I sought the sympathy which it is not in your
nature to give. I have not even claimed your obedience in any
particular strictness of form; but that is my errand to you to-night,--
indeed it is the sole object of this private interview,--to claim your
entire, your unfaltering, your implicit obedience!"

She raised her head haughtily.

"To what commands, Sir?" she asked.

"To those I have here written,--" and he handed her a paper folded in
two, which she took wonderingly, as he extended it. "Read this
carefully!--and if you have any objections to urge, I am willing to
listen to you with patience, though scarcely to alter the conditions
laid down."

He turned away, and walked slowly through the room, pausing a moment to
whistle to a tiny bird swinging in a gilded cage, that perked up its
pretty head at his call and twittered with pleasure.

"So you respond to kindness, little one!" he said softly,--"You are
more Christ-like in that one grace than many a Christian!"

He started, as a light touch fell on his shoulder, and he saw the Queen
standing beside him. She held the paper he had given her in one hand,
and as he looked at her enquiringly she touched it with her lips, and
placed it in her bosom.

"I swear my obedience to your instructions, Sir!" she said,--"Do not
fear to trust me!"

Gently he took her hands and kissed them.

"I thank you!" he said simply.

For a moment they confronted each other. The beautiful cold woman's
eyes drooped under the somewhat sad and searching gaze of the man.

"But--your life!--" she murmured.

"My life!" He laughed and dropped her hands. "Would you care, Madam, if
I were dead? Would you shed any tears? Not you! Why should you? At this
late hour of time, when after twenty-one years passed in each other's
close company we are no nearer to each other in heart and soul than if
the sea murmuring yonder at the foot of these walls were stretching its
whole width between us! Besides--we are both past our youth! And,
according to certain highly instructed scientists and philosophers, the
senses and affections grow numb with age. I do not believe this theory
myself--for the jejune love of youth is as a taper's flame to the great
and passionate tenderness of maturity, when the soul, and not the body,
claims its due; when love is not dragged down to the vulgar level of
mere cohabitation, after the fashion of the animals in a farmyard, but
rises to the best height of human sympathy and intelligent
comprehension. Who knows!--I may experience such a love as that yet,--
and so may you!"

She was silent.

"Talking of love,"--he went on--"May I ask whether our son,--or rather
the nation's son, Humphry,--ever makes you his confidante?"

"Never!" she replied.

"I thought not! We do not seem to be the kind of parents admired in
moral story-books, Madam! We are not the revered darlings of our
children. In fact, our children have the happy disposition of animal
cubs,--once out of the nursing stage, they forget they ever had
parents. It is quite the natural and proper thing, born as they were
born,--it would never do for them to have any over-filial regard for
us. Imagine Humphry weeping for my death, or yours! What a grotesque
idea! And as for Rupert and Cyprian,--it is devoutly to be hoped that
when we die, our funerals may be well over before the great cricket
matches of the year come on, as otherwise they will curse us for having
left the world at an inconvenient season!" He laughed. "How sentiment
has gone out nowadays, or how it seems to have gone out! Yet it
slumbers in the heart of the nation,--and if it should ever awaken,--
well!--it will be dangerous! I asked you about Humphry, because I
imagine he is entangled in some love-affair. If it should be agreeable
to your humour to go with me across to The Islands one day this week,
we may perhaps by chance discover the reason of his passion for that
particular kind of scenery!"

The Queen's eyes opened wonderingly.

"The Islands!" she repeated,--"The Islands? Why, only the coral-fishers
live there,--they have a community of their own, and are jealous of all
strangers. What should Humphry do there?"

"That is more than I can tell you," answered the King,--"And it is more
than he will himself explain. Nevertheless, he is there nearly every
day,--some attraction draws him, but what, I cannot discover. If
Humphry were of the soul of me, as he is of the body of me, I should
not even try to fathom his secret,--but he is the nation's child--heir
to its throne--and as such, it is necessary that we, for the nation's
sake, should guard him in the nation's interests. If you chance to
learn anything of the object of his constant sea-wanderings, I trust
you will find it coincident with your pleasure to inform me?"

"I shall most certainly obey you in this, Sir, as in all other things!"
she replied.

He moved a step or two towards her.

"Good-night!" he said very gently, and detaching one of the lilies from
her corsage, took it in his own hand. "Good-night! This flower will
remind me of you;--white and beautiful, with all the central gold deep
hidden!"

He looked at her intently, with a lingering look, half of tenderness,
half of regret, and bowing in the courtliest fashion of homage, left
her presence.

She remained alone, the velvet folds of her train flowing about her
feet, and the jewels on her breast flashing like faint sparks of flame
in the subdued glow of the shaded lamplight. She was touched for the
first time in her life by the consciousness of something infinitely
noble, and altogether above her in her husband's nature. Slowly she
drew out the paper he had given her from her bosom and read it through
again--and yet once again. Almost unconsciously to herself a mist
gathered in her eyes and softened into two bright tears, which dropped
down her fair cheeks, and lost themselves among her diamonds.

"He is brave!" she murmured--"Braver than I thought he could ever be--"

She roused herself sharply from her abstraction. Emotions which were
beyond her own control had strangely affected her, and the humiliating
idea that her moods had for a moment escaped beyond her guidance made
her angry with herself for what she considered mere weakness. And
passing quickly out of the boudoir, in the vague fear that solitude
might deepen the sense of impotence and failure which insinuated itself
slowly upon her, like a dull blight creeping through her heart and
soul, she rejoined her ladies, the same great Queen as ever, with the
same look of indifference on her face, the same chill smile, the same
perfection of loveliness, unwithered by any visible trace of sorrow or
of passion.




CHAPTER VI

SERGIUS THORD


The next day the heavens were clouded; and occasional volleys of heavy
thunder were mingled with the gusts of wind and rain which swept over
the city, and which lashed the fair southern sea into a dark semblance
of such angry waves as wear away northern coasts into bleak and rocky
barrenness. It was disappointing weather to multitudes, for it was the
feast-day of one of the numerous saints whose names fill the calendar
of the Roman Church,--and a great religious procession had been
organized to march from the market-place to the Cathedral, in which two
or three hundred children and girls had been chosen to take part. The
fickle bursts of sunshine which every now and again broke through the
lowering sky, decided the priests to carry out their programme in spite
of the threatening storm, in the hope that it would clear off
completely with the afternoon. Accordingly, groups of little maidens,
in white robes and veils, began to assemble with their flags and
banners at the appointed hour round the old market cross, which,--grey
and crumbling at the summit,--bent over the streets like a withered
finger, crook'd as it were, in feeble remonstrance at the passing of
time,--while glimpses of young faces beneath the snowy veils, and
chatter of young voices, made brightness and music around its frowning
and iron-bound base. Shortly before three o'clock the Cathedral bells
began to chime, and crowds of people made their way towards the sacred
edifice in the laughing, pushing, gesticulating fashion of southerners,
to whom a special service at the Church is like a new comedy at the
theatre,--women with coloured kerchiefs knotted over their hair or
across their bosoms--men, more or less roughly clad, yet all paying
compliment to the Saint's feast-day by some extra smart touch in their
attire, if it were only a pomegranate flower or orange-blossom stuck in
their hats, or behind their ears. It was a mixed crowd, all of the
working classes, who are proverbially called 'the common,' as if those
who work, are not a hundred times more noble than those who do nothing!
A few carriages, containing some wealthy ladies of the nobility, who,
to atone for their social sins, were in the habit of contributing
largely to the Church, passed every now and again through the crowd,
but taken as a spectacle it was simply a 'popular' show, in which the
children of the people took part, and where the people themselves were
evidently more amused than edified.

While the bells were ringing the procession gradually formed;--a dozen
or more priests leading,--incense-bearers and acolytes walking next,--
and then the long train of little children and girls carrying their
symbolic banners, following after. The way they had to walk was a
steep, winding ascent, through tortuous streets, to the Cathedral,
which stood in the centre of a great square on an eminence which
overlooked the whole city, and as soon as they started they began to
sing,--softly at first, then more clearly and sweetly, till gradually
the air grew full of melody, rising and falling on the capricious gusts
of wind which tore at the gilded and emblazoned banners, and tossed the
white veils of the maidens about like wreaths of drifting snow. Two men
standing on the Cathedral hill, watched the procession gradually
ascending--one tall and heavily-built, with a dark leonine head made
more massive-looking by its profusion of thick and unmanageable hair--
the other lean and narrow-shouldered, with a peaked reddish-auburn
beard, which he continually pulled and twitched at nervously as though
its growth on his chin was more a matter of vexation than convenience.
He was apparently not so much interested in the Church festival as he
was in his companion's face, for he was perpetually glancing up at that
brooding countenance, which, half hidden as it was in wild hair and
further concealed by thick moustache and beard, showed no expression at
all, unless an occasional glimpse of full flashing eyes under the bushy
brows, gave a sudden magnetic hint of something dangerous and not to be
trifled with.

"You do not believe anything you hear or read, Sergius Thord!" he said
--"Will you twist your whole life into a crooked attitude of suspicion
against all mankind?" He who was named Sergius Thord, lifted himself
slowly from the shoulders upwards, the action making his great height
and broad chest even more apparent than before. A gleam of white teeth
shone under his black moustache.

"I do not twist my life into a crooked attitude, Johan Zegota," he
replied. "If it is crooked, others have twisted it for me! Why should I
believe what I hear, since it is the fashion to lie? Why should I
accept what I read, since it is the business of the press to deceive
the public? And why do you ask me foolish questions? You should be
better instructed, seeing that your creed is the same as mine!"

"Have I ever denied it?" exclaimed Zegota warmly--"But I have said, and
I say again that I believe the news is true,--and that these howling
hypocrites,--" this with an angry gesture of his hand towards the open
square where the chanting priests who headed the procession were coming
into view--"have truly received an unlooked-for check from the King!"

Sergius Thord laid one hand heavily on his shoulder.

"When the King--when any king--does anything useful in the world, then
you may hang me with your own hands, Zegota! When did you ever hear,
except in myths of the past, of a monarch who cared for his people more
than his crown? Tell me that! Tell me of any king who so truly loved
the people he was called upon to govern, that he sacrificed his own
money, as well as his own time, to remedy their wrongs?--to save them
from unjust government, to defend them from cruel taxation?--to see
that their bread was not taken from their mouths by foreign
competition?--and to make it possible for them to live in the country
of their birth in peace and prosperity? Bah! There never was such a
king! And that this man,--who has for three years left us to the mercy
of the most accursed cheat and scoundrel minister that ever was in
power,--has now declared his opposition to the Jesuits', is more than I
will or can believe."

"If it were true?"--suggested Zegota, with a more than usually vicious
tug at his beard.

"If it were true, it would not alter my opinion, or set aside my
intention," replied Thord,--"I would admit that the King had done one
good deed before going to hell! Look! Here come the future traitresses
of men--girls trained by priests to deceive their nearest and dearest!
Poor children! They know nothing as yet of the uses to which their
lives are destined! If they could but die now, in their innocent faith
and stupidity, how much better for all the world!"

As he spoke, the wind, swooping into the square, and accompanied by a
pattering gust of rain, fell like a fury upon the leaders of the
religious procession and tore one of the great banners out of the hands
of the priest who held it, beating it against his head and face with so
much force that he fell backward to the ground under its weight, while
from a black cloud above, a flash of lightning gleamed, followed almost
instantaneously by a loud clap of thunder, which shook the square with
a mighty reverberation like that of a bursting bomb. The children
screamed,--and ran towards the Cathedral pellmell; and for a few
moments there ensued indescribable confusion, the priests, the people,
and the white-veiled girls getting mixed together in a wild hurly-
burly. Sergius Thord suddenly left his companion's side, and springing
on a small handcart that stood empty near the centre of the square, his
tall figure rose up all at once like a dark apparition above the heads
of the assembled crowd, and his voice, strong, clear, and vibrating
with passion, rang out like a deep alarm bell, through all the noise of
the storm.

"Whither are you going, O foolish people? To pray to God? Pray to Him
here, then, under the flash of His lightning!--in the roll of His
thunder!--beneath His cathedral-canopy of clouds! Pray to Him with all
your hearts, your brains, your reason, your intelligence, and leave
mere lip-service and mockery to priests; and to these poor children,
who, as yet, know no better than to obey tyrants! Would you find out
God? He is here--with me,--with you!--in the earth, in the sky, in the
sun and storm! Whenever Truth declares a living fact, God speaks,--
whenever we respond to that Truth, God hears! No church, no cathedral
contains His presence more than we shall find it here--with us--where
we stand!"

The people heard, and a great silence fell upon them. All faces were
turned toward the speaker, and none appeared to heed the great drops of
fast-falling rain. One of the priests who was trying to marshal the
scattered children into their former order, so that they might enter
the Cathedral in the manner arranged for the religious service, looked
up to see the cause of the sudden stillness, and muttered a curse under
his breath. But even while the oath escaped his lips, he gave the
signal for the sacred chanting to be resumed, and in another moment the
'Litany of the Virgin' was started in stentorian tones by the leaders
of the procession. Intimidated by the looks, as well as by the commands
of the priests, the girls and children joined in the chanting with
tremulous voices, as they began to file through the Cathedral doors and
enter the great nave. But a magnetic spell, stronger than any
invocation of the Church, had fallen upon the crowd, and they all stood
as though caught in the invisible web of some enchanter, their faces
turned upwards to where Thord's tall figure towered above them. His
eyes glittered as he noted the sudden hush of attention which
prevailed, and lifting his rough cap from his head, he waved it towards
the open door of the Cathedral, through which the grand strains of the
organ rolling out from within gave forth solemn invitation:--

"Sancta Dei Genitrix, Ora pro nobis!"

sang the children, as they passed in line under the ancient porch,
carved with the figures of forgotten saints and bishops, whose stone
countenances had stared at similar scenes through the course of long
centuries.

"Sancta Dei Genitrix, ora pro nobis!" echoed Sergius Thord--"Do you
hear it, O men? Do you hear it, O women? What does it teach you? 'Holy
Mother of God!' Who was she? Was she not merely a woman to whom God
descended? And what is the lesson she gives you? Plainly this--that men
should be as gods, and women as the mothers of gods! For every true and
brave man born into the world has God within him,--is made of God, and
must return to God! And every woman who gives birth to one such, true,
brave man, has given a God-incarnated being to the world! 'Sancta Dei
Genitrix!' Be all as mothers of gods, O women! Be as gods, O men! Be as
gods in courage, in truth, in wisdom, in freedom! Suffer not devils to
have command of you! For devils there are, as there are gods;--evil
there is, as there is good. Fiends are born of women as gods are--and
yet evil itself is of God, inasmuch as without God there can be neither
evil nor good. Let us help God, we His children, to conquer evil by
conquering it in ourselves--and by refusing to give it power over us!
So shall God show us all goodness,--all pity! So shall He cease to
afflict His children; so will He cease to torture us with undeserved
sorrows and devilish agonies, for which we are not to blame!"

He paused. The singing had ceased; the children's procession had
entered the Cathedral, and the doors still stood wide open. But the
people remained outside, crowded in the square, and gathering
momentarily in greater numbers.

"Look you!" cried Sergius Thord--"The building which is called the
Sanctuary of God, stands open--why do you not all enter there? Within
are precious marbles, priceless pictures, jewels and relics--and a
great altar raised up by the gifts of wicked dead kings, who by money
sought to atone for their sins to the people. There are priests who
fast and pray in public, and gratify all the lusts of appetite in
private. There are poor and ignorant women who believe whatsoever these
priests tell them--all this you can see if you go inside yonder. Why do
you not go? Why do you remain with me?"

A faint murmur, like the rising ripple of an angry sea, rose from the
crowd, but quickly died away again into silence.

"Shall I tell you why you stay?" went on Thord,--"Because you know I
am your friend--and because you also know that the priests are your
enemies! Because you know that I tell you the truth, and that the
priests tell you lies! Because you feel that all the promises made to
you of happiness in Heaven cannot explain away to your satisfaction the
causes of your bitter suffering and poverty on earth! Because you are
gradually learning that the chief business of priestcraft is to deceive
the people and keep them down,--down, always down in a state of
wretched ignorance. Learn, learn all you can, my brothers--take the
only good thing modern government gives you--Education! Education is
thrown at us like a bone thrown to a dog, half picked by others and
barely nourishing--but take it, take it, friends, for in it you shall
find the marrow of vengeance on your tyrants and oppressors! The
education of the masses means the downfall of false creeds,--the ruin
of all false priests! For it is only through the ignorance of the many
that tyrannical dominion is given into the hands of the few! Slavish
submission to a corrupt government would be impossible if we all
refused to be slaves. O friends, O brothers, throw off your chains!
Break down your prison doors! Some good you have done already--be brave
and strong to do more! Press forward fearlessly and strive for liberty
and justice! To-day we are told that the King has refused crown-lands
to the Jesuits. Shall we be told to-morrow that the King has dismissed
Carl Perousse from office?"

A long wild shout told how this suggestion had gone straight home to
the throng.

"Shall we be told this, I ask? No! Ten thousand times no! The refusal
of the King to grant the priests any wider dominion over us is merely
an act of policy inspired by terror. The King is afraid! He fears the
people will revolt against the Church, and so takes part with them lest
there should be trouble in the land, but he never seems to think there
may be another kind of revolt against himself! His refusal to concede
more place for the accursed practice of Jesuitry is so far good; but
his dismissal of Perousse would be still better!"

A perfect hurricane of applause from the people gave emphatic testimony
to the truth of these words.

"What is this man, Carl Perousse?" he went on--"A man of the people--
whose oaths were sworn to the people,--whom the people themselves
brought into power because he promised to remain faithful to them! He
is false,--a traitor and political coward! A mere manufacturer of
kitchen goods, who through our folly was returned to this country's
senate;--and through our still further credulity is now set in almost
complete dominion over us. Well! We have suffered and are suffering for
our misplaced belief in him;--the question is, how long shall we
continue to suffer? How long are we to be governed by the schemes of
Carl Perousse, the country's turncoat,--the trafficker in secret with
Jew speculators? It is for you to decide! It is for you to work out
your own salvation! It is for you to throw off tyranny, and show
yourselves free men of reason and capacity! Just as the priests chant
long prayers to cover their own iniquity, so do the men of government
make long speeches to disguise their own corruption. You know you
cannot believe their promises. Neither can you believe the press, for
if this is not actually bought by Perousse, it is bribed. And you
cannot trust the King; for he is as a house divided against itself
which must fall! Slave of his own passions, and duped by women, what is
he but a burden to the State? Justice and power should be on the side
of kings,--but the days are come when self-interest and money can even
buy a throne! O men, O women, rouse up your hearts and minds to work
for yourselves, to redress wrongs,--to save your country! Rouse up in
your thousands, and with your toil-worn hands pull down the pillars of
iniquity and vice that overshadow and darken the land! Fight against
the insolent pride of wealth which strives to crush the poor; rouse,
rouse your hearts!--open your eyes and see the evils which are
gathering thick upon us!--and like the lightnings pent up in yonder
clouds, leap forth in flame and thunder, and clear the air!"

A burst of frantic acclamation from the crowd followed this wild
harangue, and while the loud roar of voices yet echoed aloft, a band of
armed police came into view, marching steadily up from the lower
streets of the city. Sergius Thord smiled as he saw them approach.

"Yonder comes the Law!" he said--"A few poor constables, badly paid,
who if they could find anything better to do than to interfere with
their fellow-men would be glad of other occupation! Before they come
any nearer, disperse yourselves, my friends, and so save them trouble!
Go all to your homes and think on my words;--or enter the Cathedral
and pray, those who will--but let this place be as empty of you in five
minutes as though you never had been here! Disperse,--and farewell! We
shall meet again!"

He leaped down from his position and disappeared, and in obedience to
his command the crowd began to melt away with almost miraculous speed.
Before the police could reach the centre of the square, there were only
some thirty or forty people left, and these were quietly entering the
Cathedral where the service for the saint whose feast day was being
celebrated was now in full and solemn progress.

For one instant, on the first step of the great porch, Sergius Thord
and his companion, Johan Zegota, met,--but making a rapid sign to each
other with the left hand, they as quickly separated,--Zegota to enter
the Cathedral, Thord to walk rapidly down one of the narrowest and most
unfrequented streets to the lower precincts of the city.

The afternoon grew darker, and the weather more depressing, and by the
time evening closed in, the rain was pouring persistently. The wind had
ceased, and the thunder had long since died away, its force drenched
out by the weight of water in the clouds. The saint's day had ended
badly for all concerned;--many of the children who had taken part in
the procession had been carried home by their parents wet through, all
the pretty white frocks and veils of the little girls having been
completely soaked and spoilt by the unkind elements. A drearier night
had seldom gloomed over this fair city of the southern sea, and down in
the quarters of the poor, where men and women dwelt all huddled
miserably in overcrowded tenements, and sin and starvation kept hideous
company together, the streets presented as dark and forbidding an
aspect as the heavy skies blackly brooding above. Here and there a gas-
lamp flared its light upon the drawn little face of some child
crouching asleep in a doorway, or on the pinched and painted features
of some wretched outcast wending her way to the den she called 'home.'
The loud brutal laughter of drunken men was mingled with the wailing of
half-starved and fretful infants, and the mean, squalid houses swarmed
with the living spawn of every vice and lust in the calendar of crime.
Deep in the heart of the so-called civilized, beautiful and luxurious
city, this 'quarter of the poor,' the cancer of the social body,
throbbed and ate its destructive way slowly but surely on, and Sergius
Thord, who longed to lay a sharp knife against it and cut it out, for
the health of the whole community, was as powerless as Dante in hell to
cure the evils he witnessed. Yet it was not too much to say that he
would have given his life to ease another's pain,--as swiftly and as
readily as he would have taken life without mercy, in the pursuit of
what he imagined to be a just vengeance.

"How vain, after all, is my labour!" he thought--"How helpless I am to
move the self-centred powers of the Government and the Throne! Even
were all these wretched multitudes to rise with me, and make havoc of
the whole city, should we move so much as one step higher out of the
Gehenna of poverty and crime? Almost I doubt it!"

He walked on past dark open doorways, where some of the miserable
inhabitants of the dens within, stood to inhale the fresh wet air of
the rainy night. His tall form was familiar to most of them,--if they
were considered as wolves of humanity in the sight of the law, they
were all faithful dogs to him; doing as he bade, running where he
commanded, ready at any moment to assemble at any given point and burn
and pillage, or rob and slay. There were no leaders in the political
government,--but this one leader of the massed poor could, had he
chosen, have burned down the city. But he did not choose. He had a far-
sighted, clear brain,--and though he had sworn to destroy abuses
wherever he could find them, he moved always with caution; and his
plans were guided, not by impulse alone, but by earnest consideration
for the future. He was marked out by the police as a dangerous
Socialist; and his movements were constantly tracked and dodged, but so
far, he had done nothing which could empower his arrest. He was a free
subject in a free country; and provided he created no open disturbance
he had as much liberty as a mission preacher to speak in the streets to
those who would stop to listen. He paused now in his walk at the door
of one house more than commonly dingy and tumble-down in appearance,
where a man lounged outside in his shirt-sleeves, smoking.

"Is all well with you, Matsin?" he asked gently.

"All is well!" answered the man called Matsin,--"better than last
night. The child is dead."

"Dead!" echoed Thord,--"And the mother----"

"Asleep!" answered Matsin. "I gave her opium to save her from madness.
She was hungry, too--the opium fed her and made her forget!"

Thord pushed him gently aside, and went into the house. There on the
floor lay the naked body of a dead child, so emaciated as to be almost
a skeleton; and across it, holding it close with one arm, was stretched
a woman, half clothed, her face hidden in her unbound dark hair,
breathing heavily in a drugged sleep. Great tears filled Thord's eyes.

"God exists!" he said,--"And He can bear to look upon a sight like
this! If I were God, I should hate myself for letting such things be!"

"Perhaps He does hate Himself!" said the man Matsin, who had also come
in, and now looked at the scene with sullen apathy--"That may be the
cause of all our troubles! I don't understand the ways of God; or the
ways of man either. I have done no harm. I married the woman--and we
had that one child. I worked hard for both. I could not get sufficient
money to keep us going; I did metal work--very well, so I was told. But
they make it all abroad now by machinery--I cannot compete. They don't
want new designs they say--the old will serve. I do anything now that I
can--but it is difficult. You, too,--you starve with us!"

"I am poor, if that is what you mean," said Thord,--"but take all I
have to-night, Matsin--" and he emptied a small purse of silver coins
into the man's hand. "Bury the poor little innocent one;--and comfort
the mother when she wakes. Comfort her!--love her!--she needs love! I
will be back again to-morrow."

He strode away quickly, and Matsin remained at his door turning over
the money in his hand.

"He will sacrifice something he needs himself, for this," he muttered.
"Yet that is the man they say the King would hang if ever he got hold
of him! By Heaven!--the King himself should hang first!"

Meanwhile Sergius Thord went on, slackening his pace a little as he
came near his own destination, a tall and narrow house at the end of
the street, with a single light shining in one of the upper windows.
There was a gas-lamp some few paces off, and under this stood a man
reading, or trying to read, a newspaper by its flickering glare. Thord
glanced at him with some suspicion--the stranger was too near his own
lodging for his pleasure, for he was always on his guard against spies.
Approaching more closely, he saw that though the man was shabbily
attired in a rough pilot suit, much the worse for wear, he nevertheless
had the indefinable look and bearing of a gentleman. Acting on impulse,
as he often did, Thord spoke to him.

"A rough night for reading by lamplight, my friend!" he said.

The man looked up, and smiled.

"Yes, it is, rather! But I have only just got the evening paper."

"Any special news?"

"No--only this--" and he pointed to a bold headline--"The King
_versus_ The Jesuits."

"Ah!" said Thord, and he studied the looks and bearing of the stranger
with increasing curiosity. "What do you think of it?"

"What do I think? May I ask, without offence, what _you_ think?"

"I think," said Thord slowly, "that the King has for once in his life
done a wise thing."

"'For once in his life!'" repeated the stranger dubiously--"Then I
presume your King is, generally speaking, a fool?"

"If you are a subject of his--" began Thord slowly----

"Thank Heaven, I am not! I am a mere wanderer--a literary loafer--a
student of men and manners. I read books, and I write them too,--this
will perhaps explain the eccentricity of my behaviour in trying to read
under the lamplight in the rain!"

He smiled again, and the smile was irresistibly pleasant. Something
about him attracted Thord, and after a pause he asked:

"If you are, as you say, a wanderer and a stranger in this town, can I
be of service to you?"

"You are very kind!" said the other, turning a pair of deep, dark, grey
meditative eyes upon him,--"And I am infinitely obliged to you for the
suggestion. But I really want nothing. As a matter of fact, I am
waiting for two friends of mine who have just gone into one of the foul
and filthy habitations here, to see what they can do for a suddenly
bereaved family. The husband and father fell dead in the street before
our eyes,--and those who picked him up said he was drunk, but it turned
out that he was merely starved,--_merely_!--you understand? Merely
starved! We found his home,--and the poor widow is wailing and weeping,
and the children are crying for food. I confess myself quite unable to
bear the sight, and so I have sent all the money I had about me to help
them for to-night at least. By my faith, they are most hopelessly,
incurably miserable!"

"Their lot is exceedingly common in these quarters," said Thord,
sorrowfully. "Day after day, night after night, men, women and children
toil, suffer and die here without ever knowing what it is to have one
hour of free fresh air, one day of rest and joy! Yet this is a great
city,--and we live in a civilized country!" He smiled bitterly, then
added--"You have done a good action; and you need no thanks, or I would
thank you; for my life's work lies among these wretched poor, and I am
familiar with their tragic histories. Good-night!"

"Pray do not go!" said the stranger suddenly--"I should like to talk to
you a little longer, if you have no objection. Is there not some place
near, where we can go out of this rain and have a glass of wine
together?"

Sergius Thord stood irresolute,--gazing at him, half in liking, half in
distrust.

"Sir," he said at last, "I do not know you--and you do not know me. If
I told you my name, you would probably not seek my company!"

"Will you tell it?" suggested the stranger cheerfully--"Mine is at
your service--Pasquin Leroy. I fear my fame as an author has not
reached your ears!"

Thord shook his head.

"No. I have never heard of you. And probably you have never heard of
me. My name is Sergius Thord."

"Sergius Thord!" echoed the stranger; "Now that is truly remarkable! It
is a happy coincidence that we should have met to-night. I have just
seen your name in this very paper which you caught me reading--see!--
the next heading under that concerning the King and the Jesuits--
'Thord's Rabble.' Are not you that same Thord?"

"I am!" said Thord proudly, his eyes shining as he took the paper and
perused quickly the few flashy lines which described the crowd outside
the Cathedral that afternoon, and set him down as a crazy Socialist,
and disturber of the peace, "And the 'rabble' as this scribbling fool
calls it, is the greater part of this city's population. The King may
intimidate his Court; but I, Sergius Thord, with my 'rabble' can
intimidate both Court and King!"

He drew himself up to his full majestic height--a noble figure of a man
with his fine heroic head and eagle-like glance of eye,--and he who had
called himself Pasquin Leroy, suddenly held out his hand.

"Let me see more of you, Sergius Thord!" he said,--"You are the very
man for me! They say in this paper that you spoke to a great multitude
outside the Cathedral this afternoon, and interfered with the religious
procession; they also say you are the head of a Society called the
Revolutionary Committee;--now let me work for you in some department of
_that_ business!"

"Let you work for me?" echoed Thord astonished--"But how?"

"In this way--" replied the other--"I write Socialistic works,--and for
this cause have been expelled from my native home and surroundings. I
have a little money--and some influence,--and I will devote both to
your Cause. Will you take me, and trust me?"

Thord caught his extended hand, and looked at him with a kind of fierce
intentness.

"You mean it?" he said in thrilling tones--"You mean it positively and
truly?"

"Positively and truly!" said Leroy--"If you are working to remedy the
frightful evils abounding in this wretched quarter of the poor, I will
help you! If you are striving to destroy rank abuses, I ask nothing
better than to employ my pen in your service. I will get work on the
press here--I will do all I can to aid your purposes and carry out your
intentions. I have no master, so am free to do as I like; and I will
devote myself to your service so long as you think I can be of any use
to you."

"Wait!" said Thord--"You must not be carried away by a sudden generous
impulse, simply because you have witnessed one scene of the continual
misery that is going on here daily. To belong to our Committee means
much more than you at present realize, and involves an oath which you
may not be willing to take! And what of the friends you spoke of?"

"They will do what I do," replied Leroy--"They share my fortunes--
likewise my opinions;--and here they come,--so they can speak for
themselves," this, as two men emerged from a dark street on the left,
and came full into the lamplight's flare--"Axel Regor, Max Graub--come
hither! Fortune has singularly favoured us to-night! Let me present to
you my friend--" and he emphasized the word, "Sergius Thord!"

Both men started ever so slightly as the introduction was performed,
and Thord looked at them with fresh touches of suspicion here and there
lurking in his mind. But he was brave; and having once proceeded in a
given direction was not in the habit of turning back. He therefore
saluted both the new-comers with grave courtesy.

"I trust you!" he then said curtly to Leroy, "and I think you will not
betray my trust. If you do, it will be the worse for you!"

His lips parted in a slight sinister smile, and the two who were
respectively called Axel Regor and Max Graub, exchanged anxious
glances. But Leroy showed no sign of hesitation or alarm.

"Your warning is quite unnecessary, Sergius Thord," he said,--"I pledge
you my word with my friendship--and my word is my bond! I will also
hold myself responsible for my companions."

Thord bent his head in silent recognition of this assurance.

"Then follow me, if such is your desire," he said--"Remember, there is
yet time to go in another direction, and to see me no more; but if you
once do cast in your lot with mine the tie between us is indissoluble!"

He paused, as though expecting some recoil or hesitation on the part of
those to whom he made this statement, but none came. He therefore
strode on, and they followed, till arriving at the door of the tall,
narrow house, where the light in the highest window gleamed like a
signal, he opened it with a small key and entered, holding it back
courteously for his three new companions to enter with him. They did
so, and he closed the door. At the same moment the light was
extinguished in the upper window, and the outside of the house became a
mere wall of dense blackness in the driving rain.




CHAPTER VII

THE IDEALISTS


Up a long uncarpeted flight of stairs, and into a large lofty room on
the second storey, Thord led the way for his newly-found disciples to
follow. It was very dark, and they had to feel the steps as they went,
their guide offering neither explanation nor apology for the Cimmerian
shades of gloom. Stumbling on hands and knees they spoke not a word;
though once Max Graub uttered something like an oath in rough German;
but a whisper from Leroy rebuked and silenced him, and they pursued
their difficult ascent until, arriving at the room mentioned, they
found themselves in the company of about fifteen to twenty men, all
sitting round a table under two flaring billiard lamps, suspended
crookedly from the ceiling. As Thord entered, these men all rose, and
gave him an expressive sign of greeting with the left hand, the same
kind of gesture which had passed between him and Zegota on the
Cathedral steps in the morning. Zegota himself was one of their number.
There was also another personage in the room who did not rise, and who
gave no sign whatever. This was a woman, who sat in the embrasure of a
closed and shuttered window with her back to the whole company. It was
impossible to say whether she was young or old, plain or handsome, for
she was enveloped in a long black cloak which draped her from shoulder
to heel. All that could be distinguished of her was the white nape of
her neck, and a great twist of dead gold hair. Her presence awakened
the liveliest interest in Pasquin Leroy, who found it impossible to
avoid nudging his companions, and whispering--

"A woman! By Heaven, this drama becomes interesting!"

But Axel Regor and Max Graub were seemingly not disposed to levity, and
they offered no response to their lighter minded comrade beyond vague
hasty side-looks of alarm, which appeared to amuse him to an extent
that threatened to go beyond the limits of caution. Sergius Thord,
however, saw nothing of their interchange of glances for the moment,--
he had other business to settle. Addressing himself at once to the men
assembled, he said.--

"Friends and brothers! I bring you three new associates! I have not
sought them; they have sought me. On their own heads be their
destinies! They offer their names to the Revolutionary Committee, and
their services to our Cause!"

A low murmur of approbation from the company greeted this announcement.
Johan Zegota advanced a little in front of all the rest.

"Every man is welcome to serve us who will serve us faithfully," he
said. "But who are these new comrades, Sergius Thord? What are they?"

"That they must declare for themselves," said Thord, taking a chair at
the head of the table which was evidently his accustomed place--"Put
them through their examination!"

He seated himself with the air of a king, his whole aspect betokening
an authority that would not be trifled with or gainsaid.

"Gott in Himmel!"

This exclamation burst suddenly from the lips of the man called Max
Graub.

"What ails you?" said Thord, turning full upon him his glittering eyes
that flashed ferocity from under their shaggy brows--"Are you afraid?"

"Afraid? Not I!" protested Graub--"But, gentlemen, think a moment! You
speak of putting us--myself and my friends--through an examination! Why
should you examine us? We are three poor adventurers--what can we have
to tell?"

"Much, I should imagine!" retorted Zegota--"Adventurers are not such
without adventures! Your white hairs testify to some experience of
life."

"My white hairs--_my_ white hairs!" exclaimed Graub, when a touch
from Axel Regor apparently recalled something to his mind for he began
to laugh--"True, gentlemen! Very true! I had forgotten! I have had some
adventures and some experiences! My good friend there, Pasquin Leroy,
has also had adventures and experiences,--so have we all! Myself, I am
a poor German, grown old in the service of a bad king! I have been
kicked out of that service--Ach!--just for telling the truth; which is
very much the end of all truth telling, is it not? Tell lies,--and
kings will reward you and make you rich and great!--but tell truth,
and see what the kings will give you for it! Kicks, and no halfpence!
Pardon! I interrupt this so pleasant meeting!"

All the men present looked at him curiously, but said nothing in
response to his outburst. Johan Zegota, seating himself next to Sergius
Thord, opened a large parchment volume that lay on the table, and
taking up a pen addressed himself to Thord, saying--

"Will you ask the questions, or shall I?"

"You, by all means! Proceed in the usual manner."

Whereupon Zegota began.--

"Stand forth, comrades!"

The three strangers advanced.

"Your names? Each one answer separately, please!"

"Pasquin Leroy!"

"Axel Regor!"

"Max Graub!"

"Of what nationality, Pasquin Leroy?"

Leroy smiled. "Truly I claim none!" he said; "I was born a slave."

"A slave!"

The words were repeated in tones of astonishment round the room.

"Why, yes, a slave!" repeated Leroy quietly. "You have heard of black
slaves,--have you not heard of white ones too? There are countries
still, where men purchase other men of their own blood and colour;--
tyrannous governments, which force such men to work for them, chained
to one particular place till they die. I am one of those,--though
escaped for the present. You can ask me more of my country if you will;
but a slave has no country save that of his master. If you care at all
for my services, you will spare me further examination on this
subject!"

Zegota looked enquiringly at Thord.

"We will pass that question," said the latter, in a low tone.

Zegota resumed--

"You, Axel Regor--are you a slave too?"

Axel Regor smiled languidly.

"No! I am what is called a free-born subject of the realm. I do what I
like, though not always how I like, or when I like!"

"And you, Max Graub?"

"German!" said that individual firmly; "German to the backbone--
Socialist to the soul!--and an enemy of all ruling sovereigns,--
particularly the one that rules _me_!"

Thord smiled darkly.

"If you feel inclined to jest, Max Graub, I must warn you that jesting
is not suited to the immediate moment."

"Jesting! I never was more in earnest in my life!" declared Graub,--
"Why have I left my native country? Merely because it is governed by
Kaiser Wilhelm!"

Thord smiled again.

"The subject of nationality seems to excite all three of you," he said,
"and though we ask you the question _pro forma_, it is not
absolutely necessary that we should know from whence you come. We
require your names, and your oath of fealty; but before binding
yourselves, I will read you our laws, and the rules of membership for
this society; rules to which, if you join us, you are expected to
conform."

"Suppose, for the sake of argument," said Pasquin Leroy,--"that after
hearing the rules we found it wisest to draw back? Suppose my friends,
--if not myself,--were disinclined to join your Society;--what would
happen?"

As he asked the question a curious silence fell upon the company, and
all eyes were turned upon the speaker. There was a dead pause for a
moment, and then Thord replied slowly and with emphasis:--

"Nothing would happen save this,--that you would be bound by a solemn
oath never to reveal what you had heard or seen here to-night, and that
you would from henceforth be tracked every day and hour of your life by
those who would take care that you kept your oath!"

"You see!" exclaimed Axel Regor excitedly, "There is danger----"

"Danger? Of what?" asked Pasquin Leroy coldly;--"Of death? Each one of
us, and all three of us would fully merit it, if we broke our word!
Gentlemen both!"--and he addressed his two companions, "If you fear
any harm may come to yourselves through joining this society, pray
withdraw while there is yet time! My own mind is made up; I intend to
become familiar with the work of the Revolutionary Committee, and to
aid its cause by my personal service!"

A loud murmur of applause came from the company. Axel Regor and Max
Graub glanced at Leroy, and saw in his face that his decision was
unalterable.

"Then we will work for the Cause, also," said Max Graub resignedly.
"What you determine upon, we shall do, shall we not, Axel?"

Axel Regor gave a brief assent.

Sergius Thord looked at them all straightly and keenly.

"You have finally decided?"

"We have!" replied Leroy. "We will enrol ourselves as your associates
at once."

Whereupon Johan Zegota rose from his place, and unlocking an iron safe
which stood in one corner of the room, took out a roll of parchment and
handed it to Thord, who, unfolding it, read in a clear though low voice
the following:--

"We, the Revolutionary Committee, are organized as a Brotherhood, bound
by all the ties of life, death, and our common humanity, to destroy the
abuses, and redress the evils, which self-seeking and tyrannous
Governments impose upon the suffering poor.

"_Firstly:_ We bind ourselves to resist all such laws as may in
any degree interfere with the reasonable, intellectual, and spiritual
freedom of man or woman.

"_Secondly:_ We swear to agitate against all forms of undue and
excessive taxation, which, while scarcely affecting the rich, make life
more difficult and unendurable to the poor.

"_Thirdly:_ We protest against the domination of priestcraft, and
the secret methods which are employed by the Church to obtain undue
influence in Governmental matters.

"_Fourthly:_ We are determined to stand firmly against the
entrance of foreign competitors in the country's trade and business.
All heads and ruling companies of firms employing foreigners instead of
native workmen, are marked out by us as traitors, and are reserved for
traitors' punishment.

"_Fifthly:_ We are sworn to exterminate the existing worthless
Government, and to replace it by a working body of capable and
intelligent men, elected by the universal vote of the entire country.
Such elections must take place freely and openly, and no secret
influence shall be used to return any one person or party to power.
Those attempting to sway opinion by bribery and corruption, will be
named to the public, and exposed to disgrace and possible death.

"_Sixthly:_ We are resolved to unmask to the public the duplicity,
treachery, and self-interested motives of the Secretary of State, Carl
Perousse.

"_Seventhly:_ We are sworn to bring about such changes as shall
elevate a Republic to supreme power, and for this purpose are solemnly
pledged to destroy the present Monarchy."

"These," said Sergius Thord, "are the principal objects of our
Society's work. There are other points to be considered, but these are
sufficient for the present. I will now read the rules, which each
member of our Brotherhood must follow if he would serve us faithfully."

He turned over another leaf of the parchment scroll he held, and
continued, reading very slowly and distinctly:

"_Rule 1_.--Each member of the Revolutionary Committee shall swear
fidelity to the Cause, and pledge himself to maintain inviolable
secrecy on all matters connected with his membership and his work for
the Society.

"_Rule 2_.--No member shall track, follow, or enquire into the
movements of any other member.

"_Rule 3_.--Once in every month all members are expected to meet
together at a given place, decided upon by the Chief of the Committee
at the previous meeting, when business will be discussed, and lots
drawn, to determine the choice of such members as may be fitted to
perform such business.

"_Rule_ 4.--No member shall be bound to give his address, or to
state where he travels, or when or how he goes, as in all respects save
that of his membership he is a free man.

"_Rule_ 5.--In this same respect of his membership, he is bound
to appear, or to otherwise report himself once a month at the meeting
of the Committee. Should he fail to do so either by person, or by
letter satisfactorily explaining his absence, he will be judged as a
traitor, and dealt with accordingly.

"_Rule_6.--In the event of any member being selected to perform
any deed involving personal danger or loss to himself, the rest of the
members are pledged to shelter him from the consequences of his act,
and to provide him with all the necessaries of life, till his escape
from harm is ensured and his safety guaranteed."

"You have heard all now," said Thord, as he laid aside the parchment
scroll; "Are you still willing to take the oath?"

"Entirely so!" rejoined Pasquin Leroy cheerfully; "You have but to
administer it."

Here a man, who had been sitting in a dark corner apart from the table,
with his head buried in his hands, suddenly looked up, showing a thin,
fine, eager face, a pair of wild eyes, and a tumbled mass of dark curly
hair, plentifully sprinkled with grey.

"Ah!" he cried,--"Now comes the tragic moment, when the spectators hold
their breath, and the blue flame is turned on, and the man manages the
lime-light so that its radiance shall fall on the face of the chief
actor--or Actress! And the bassoons and 'cellos grumble inaudible
nothings to the big drum! Administer the oath, Sergius Thord!"

A smile went the round of the company.

"Have you only just wakened up from sleep, Paul Zouche?" asked Zegota.

"I never sleep," answered Zouche, pushing his hair back from his
forehead;--"Unless sleep compels me, by force, to yield to its coarse
and commonplace persuasion. To lie down in a shirt and snore the hours
away! Faugh! Can anything be more gross or vulgar! Time flies so
quickly, and life is so short, that I cannot afford to waste any moment
in such stupid unconsciousness. I can drink wine, make love, and kill
rascals--all these occupations are much more interesting than sleeping.
Come, Sergius! Play the great trick of the evening! Administer the
oath!"

A frowning line puckered Thord's brows, but the expression of vexation
was but momentary. Turning to Leroy again he said:

"You are quite ready?"

"Quite," replied Leroy.

"And your friends----?"

Leroy smiled. "They are ready also!"

There followed a pause. Then Thord called in a clear low tone--

"Lotys!"

The woman sitting in the embrasure of the window rose, and turning
round fully confronted all the men. Her black cloak falling back on
either side, disclosed her figure robed in dead white, with a scarlet
sash binding her waist. Her face, pale and serene, was not beautiful;
yet beauty was suggested in every feature. Her eyes seemed to be half
closed in a drooping indifference under the white lids, which were
fringed heavily with dark gold lashes. A sculptor might have said, that
whatever claim to beauty she had was contained in the proud poise of
her throat, and the bounteous curve of her bosom, but though in a
manner startled by her appearance, the three men who had chanced upon
this night's adventure were singularly disappointed in it. They had
somehow expected that when that mysterious cloaked feminine figure
turned round, a vision of dazzling beauty would be disclosed; and at
the first glance there was nothing whatever about this woman that
seemed particularly worthy of note. She was not young or old--possibly
between twenty-eight or thirty. She was not tall or short; she was
merely of the usual medium height,--so that altogether she was one of
those provoking individuals, who not seldom deceive the eye at first
sight by those ordinary looks which veil an extraordinary personality.

She stood like an automatic figure, rigid and silent,--till Sergius
Thord signed to his three new associates to advance. Then with a
movement, rapid as a flash of lightning, she suddenly drew a dagger
from her scarlet girdle, and held it out to them. Nerved as he was to
meet danger, Pasquin Leroy recoiled slightly, while his two companions
started as if to defend him. As she saw this, the woman raised her
drooping eyelids, and a pair of wonderful eyes shone forth, dark blue
as iris-flowers, while a faint scornful smile lifted the corners of her
mouth. But she said nothing.

"There is no cause to fear!" said Sergius Thord, glancing with a touch
of derision in his looks from one to the other, "Lotys is the witness
of all our vows! Swear now after me upon this drawn dagger which she
holds,--lay your right hands here upon the blade!"

Thus adjured, Pasquin Leroy approached, and placed his right hand upon
the shining steel.

"I swear in the name of God, and in the presence of Lotys, that I will
faithfully work for the Cause of the Revolutionary Committee,--and that
I will adhere to its rules and obey its commands, till all shall be
done that is destined to be done! And may the death I deserve come
suddenly upon me if ever I break my vow!"

Slowly and emphatically Pasquin Leroy repeated this formula after
Sergius Thord, and his two companions did the same, though perhaps less
audibly. This ceremony performed, the woman called Lotys looked at them
steadfastly, and the smile that played on her lips changed from scorn
to sweetness. The dark blue iris-coloured eyes deepened in lustre, and
flashed brilliantly from under their drowsy lids,--a rosy flush tinted
the clear paleness of her skin, and like a statue warming to life she
became suddenly beautiful.

"You have sworn bravely!" she said, in a low thrilling voice. "Now sign
and seal!"

As she spoke she lifted her bare left arm, and pricked it with the
point of the dagger. A round, full drop of blood like a great ruby
welled up on the white skin. All the men had risen from their places,
and were gathered about her;--this 'taking of the oath' was evidently
the dramatic event of their existence as a community.

"The pen, Sergius!" she said.

Thord approached with a white unused quill, and a vellum scroll on
which the names of all the members of the Society were written in
ominous red. He handed these writing implements to Leroy.

"Dip your pen here," said Lotys, pointing to the crimson drop on her
arm, and eyeing him still with the same half-sweet, half-doubting
smile--"But when the quill is full, beware that you write no
treachery!"

For one second Leroy appeared to hesitate. He was singularly unnerved
by the glances of those dark blue eyes, which like searchlights seemed
to penetrate into every nook and cranny of his soul. But his
recklessness and love of adventure having led him so far, it was now
too late to retract or to reconsider the risks he might possibly be
running. He therefore took the quill and dipped it into the crimson
drop that welled from that soft white flesh.

"This is the strangest ink I have ever used!" he said lightly,--"but--
at your command, Madame----!"

"At my command," rejoined Lotys, "your use of it shall make your oath
indelible!"

He smiled, and wrote his name boldly 'Pasquin Leroy' and held out the
pen for his companions to follow his example.

"Ach Gott!" exclaimed Max Graub, as he dipped the pen anew into the
vital fluid from a woman's veins--"I write my name, Madame, in words of
life, thanks to your condescension!"

"True!" she answered,--"And only by your own falsehood can you change
them into words of death!"

Signing his name 'Max Graub,' he looked up and met her searching gaze.
Something there was in the magnetic depth of her eyes that strangely
embarrassed him, for he stepped back hastily as though intimidated.
Axel Regor took the pen from his hand, and wrote his name, or rather
scrawled it carelessly, almost impatiently,--showing neither hesitation
nor repugnance to this unusual method of subscribing a document.

"You are acting on compulsion!" said Lotys, addressing him in a low
tone; "Your compliance is in obedience to some other command than ours!
And--you will do well to remain obedient!"

Axel Regor gave her an amazed glance,--but she paid no heed to it, and
binding her arm with her kerchief, let her long white sleeve fall over
it.

"So, you are enrolled among the sons of my blood!" she said, "So are
you bound to me and mine!" She moved to the further end of the table
and stood there looking round upon them all. Again the slow, sweet,
half-disdainful smile irradiated her features. "Well, children!--what
else remains to do? What next? What next can there be but drink--smoke
--talk! Man's three most cherished amusements!"

She sat down, throwing back her heavy cloak on either side of her. Her
hair had come partly unbound, and noticing a tress of it falling on her
shoulder, she drew out the comb and let it fall altogether in a mass of
gold-brown, like the tint of a dull autumn leaf, flecked here and there
with amber. Catching it dexterously in one hand, she twisted it up
again in a loose knot, thrusting the comb carelessly through.

"Drink--smoke--talk, Sergius!" she repeated, still smiling; "Shall I
ring?"

Sergius Thord stood looking at her irresolutely, with the half-angry,
half-pleading expression of a chidden child.

"As you please, Lotys!" he answered. Whereupon she pressed an invisible
spring under the table, which set a bell ringing in some lower quarter
of the house.

"Pasquin Leroy, Axel Regor, Max Graub!" she said--"Take your places
for to-night beside me--newcomers are always thus distinguished! And
all of you sit down! You are grouped at present like hungry wolves
waiting to spring. But you are not really hungry, except for something
which is not food! And you are not waiting for anything except for
permission to talk! I give it to you--talk, children! Talk yourselves
hoarse! It will do you good! And I will personate supreme wisdom by
listening to you in silence!"

A kind of shamed laugh went round the company,--then followed the
scuffling of feet, and grating of chairs against the floor, and
presently the table was completely surrounded, the men sitting close up
together, and Sergius Thord occupying his place at their head.

When they were all seated, they formed a striking assembly of
distinctly marked personalities. There were very few mean types among
them, and the stupid, half-vague and languid expression of the modern
loafer or 'do nothing' creature, who just for lack of useful work plots
mischief, was not to be seen on any of their countenances. A certain
moroseness and melancholy seemed to brood like a delayed storm among
them, and to cloud the very atmosphere they breathed, but apart from
this, intellectuality was the dominant spirit suggested by their
outward looks and bearing. Plebeian faces and vulgar manners are,
unfortunately, not rare in representative gatherings of men whose
opinions are allowed to sway the destinies of nations, and it was
strange to see a group of individuals who were sworn to upset existing
law and government so distinguished by refined and even noble
appearance. Their clothes were shabby,--their aspect certainly
betokened long suffering and contention with want and poverty, but they
were, taken all together, a set of men who, if they had been members of
a recognized parliament or senate, would have presented a fine
collection of capable heads to an observant painter. As soon as they
were gathered round the table under the presidency of Sergius Thord at
one end, and the tranquil tolerance of the mysterious Lotys at the
other, they broke through the silence and reserve which they had
carefully maintained till their three new comrades had been
irrecoverably enrolled among them, and conversation went on briskly.
The topic of 'The King _versus_ the Jesuits' was one of the first
they touched upon, Sergius Thord relating for the benefit of all his
associates, how he had found Pasquin Leroy reading by lamplight the
newspaper which reported his Majesty's refusal to grant any portion of
Crown lands to the priests, and which also spoke of 'Thord's Rabble.'

"Here is the paper!" said Leroy, as he heard the narration; "Whoever
likes to keep it can do so, as a memento of my introduction to this
Society!"

And he tossed it lightly on the table.

"Good!" exclaimed Paul Zouche; "Give it to me, and I will cherish it as
a kind of birthday card! What a rag it is! 'Thord's Rabble' eh!
Sergius, what have you been doing that this little flea of an editor
should jump out of his ink-pot and bite you? Does he hurt much?"

"Hurt!" Thord laughed aloud. "If I had money enough to pay the man ten
golden coins a week where his present employer gives him five, he would
dance to any tune I whistled!"

"Is that so?" asked Leroy, with interest.

"Do you not know that it is so?" rejoined Thord. "You tell me you write
Socialistic works--you should know something concerning the press."

"Ah!" said Max Graub, nodding his head sagely, "He does know much, but
not all! It would need more penetration than even _he_ possesses,
to know all! Alas!--my friend was never a popular writer!"

"Like myself!" exclaimed Zouche, "I am not popular, and I never shall
be. But I know how to make myself reputed as a great genius, and all
the very respectable literary men are beginning to recognize me as
such. Do you know why?"

"Because you drink more than is good for you, my poor Zouche!" said
Lotys tranquilly; "That is one reason!"

"Hear her!" cried Zouche,--"Does she not always, like the Sphinx,
propound enigmas! Lotys,--little, domineering Lotys, why in the name of
Heaven should I secure recognition as a poet, through drunkenness?"

"Because your vice kills your genius," said Lotys; "Therefore you are
quite safe! If you were less of a scamp you would be a great man,--
perhaps the greatest in the country! That would never do! Your rivals
would never forgive you! But you are a hopeless rascal, incapable of
winning much honour; and so you are compassionately recognized as
somebody who might do something if he only would--that is all, my
Zouche! You are an excellent after-dinner topic with those who are more
successful than yourself; and that is the only fame you will ever win,
believe me!"

"Now by all the gods and goddesses!" cried Paul--"I do protest----"

"After supper, Zouche!" interrupted Lotys, as the door of the room
opened, and a man entered, bearing a tray loaded with various eatables,
jugs of beer, and bottles of spirituous liquors,--"Protest as much as
you like then,--but not just now!"

And with quick, deft hands she helped to set the board. None of the men
offered to assist her, and Leroy watching her, felt a sudden sense of
annoyance that this woman should seem, even for a moment, to be in the
position of a servant to them all.

"Can I do nothing for you?" he said, in a low tone--"Why should you
wait upon us?"

"Why indeed!" she answered--"Except that you are all by nature awkward,
and do not know how to wait properly upon yourselves!"

Her eyes had a gleam of mischievous mockery in them; and Leroy was
conscious of an irritation which he could scarcely explain to himself.
Decidedly, he thought, this Lotys was an unpleasant woman. She was
'extremely plain,' so he mentally declared, in a kind of inward huff,--
though he was bound to concede that now and then she had a very
beautiful, almost inspired expression. After all, why should she not
set out jugs and bottles, and loaves of bread, and hunks of ham and
cheese before these men? She was probably in their pay! Scarcely had
this idea flashed across his mind than he was ashamed of it. This
Lotys, whoever she might actually be, was no paid hireling; there was
something in her every look and action that set her high above any
suspicion that she would accept the part of a salaried _comedienne_
in the Socialist farce. Annoyed with himself, though he knew not why,
he turned his gaze from her to the man who had brought in the supper,
--a hunchback, who, notwithstanding his deformity, was powerfully built,
and of a countenance which, marked as it was with the drawn pathetic
look of long-continued physical suffering, was undeniably handsome.
His large brown eyes, like those of a faithful dog, followed every
movement of Lotys with anxious and wistful affection, and Leroy,
noticing this, began to wonder whether she was his wife or daughter?
Or was she related in either of these ways to Sergius Thord? His
reflections were interrupted by a slight touch from Max Graub who was
seated next to him.

"Will you drink with these fellows?" said Graub, in a cautious whisper
--"Expect to be ill, if you do!"

"You shall prescribe for me!" answered Leroy in the same low tone--"I
faithfully promise to call in your assistance! But drink with them I
must, and will!"

Graub gave a short sigh and a shrug, and said no more. The hunchback
was going the round of the table, filling tall glasses with light
Bavarian beer.

"Where is the little Pequita?" asked Zouche, addressing him--"Have you
sent her to bed already, Sholto?"

Sholto looked timorously round till he met the bright reassuring glance
of Lotys, and then he replied hesitatingly--

"Yes!--no--I have not sent the little one to bed;--she returned from
her work at the theatre, tired out--quite tired out, poor child! She
is asleep now."

"Ha ha! A few years more, and she will not sleep!" said Zouche--"Once
in her teens--"

"Once in her teens, she leaves the theatre and comes to me," said
Lotys, "And you will see very little of her, Zouche, and you will know
less! That will do, Sholto! Good-night!"

"Good-night!" returned the hunchback--"I thank you, Madame!--I thank
you, gentlemen!"

And with a slight salutation, not devoid of grace, he left the room.

Zouche was sulky, and pushing aside his glass of beer, poured out for
himself some strong spirit from a bottle instead.

"You do not favour me to-night, Lotys," he said irritably--"You
interrupt and cross me in everything I say!"

"Is it not a woman's business to interrupt and cross a man?" queried
Lotys, with a laugh,--"As I have told you before, Zouche, I will not
have Sholto worried!"

"Who worries him?" grumbled Zouche--"Not I!"

"Yes, you!--you worry him on his most sensitive point--his daughter,"
said Lotys;--"Why can you not leave the child alone? Sholto is an
Englishman," she explained, turning to Pasquin Leroy and his companions
--"His history is a strange one enough. He is the rightful heir to a
large estate in England, but he was born deformed. His father hated
him, and preferred the second son, who was straight and handsome. So
Sholto disappeared."

"Disappeared!" echoed Leroy--"You mean----"

"I mean that he left his father's house one morning, and never
returned. The clothes he wore were found floating in the river near by,
and it was concluded that he had been drowned while bathing. The second
son, therefore, inherited the property; and poor Sholto was scarcely
missed; certainly not mourned. Meanwhile he went away, and got on board
a Spanish trading boat bound for Cadiz. At Cadiz he found work, and
also something that sweetened work--love! He married a pretty Spanish
girl who adored him, and--as often happens when lovers rejoice too much
in their love--she died after a year's happiness. Sholto is all alone
in the world with the little child his Spanish wife left him, Pequita.
She is only eleven years old, but her gift of dancing is marvellous,
and she gets employment at one of the cheap theatres here. If an
influential manager could see her performance, she might coin money."

"The influential manager would probably cheat her," said Zouche,--
"Things are best left alone. Sholto is content!"

"Are you content?" asked Johan Zegota, helping himself from the bottle
that stood near him.

"I? Why, no! I should not be here if I were!"

"Discontent, then, is your chief bond of union?" said Axel Regor,
beginning to take part in the conversation.

"It is the very knot that ties us all together!" said Zouche with
enthusiasm.--"Discontent is the mother of progress! Adam was
discontented with the garden of Eden,--and found a whole world outside
its gates!"

"He took Eve with him to keep up the sickness of dissatisfaction," said
Zegota; "There would certainly have been no progress without
_her_!"

"Pardon,--Cain was the true Progressivist and Reformer," put in Graub;
"Some fine sentiment of the garden of Eden was in his blood, which
impelled him to offer up a vegetable sacrifice to the Deity, whereas
Abel had already committed murder by slaying lambs. According to the
legend, God preferred the 'savour' of the lambs, so perhaps,--who
knows!--the idea that the savour of Abel might be equally agreeable to
Divine senses induced Cain to kill him as a special 'youngling.' This
was a Progressive act,--a step beyond mere lambs!"

Everyone laughed, except Sergius Thord. He had fallen into a heavy,
brooding silence, his head sunk on his breast, his wild hair falling
forward like a mane, and his right hand clenched and resting on the
table.

"Sergius!" called Lotys.

He did not answer.

"He is in one of his far-away moods,"--said one of the men next to Axel
Regor,--"It is best not to disturb him."

Paul Zouche, however, had no such scruples. "Sergius!" he cried,--"Come
out of your cloud of meditation! Drink to the health of our three new
comrades!"

All the members of the company filled their glasses, and Thord, hearing
the noise and clatter, looked up with a wild stare.

"What are you doing?" he asked slowly;--"I thought some one spoke of
Cain killing Abel!"

"It was I," said Graub--"I spoke of it--irreverently, I fear,--but the
story itself is irreverent. The notion that 'God,' should like roast
meat is the height of blasphemy!"

Zouche burst into a violent fit of laughter. But Thord went on talking
in a low tone, as though to himself.

"Cain killing Abel!" he repeated--"Always the same horrible story is
repeated through history--brother against brother,--blood crying out
for blood--life torn from the weak and helpless body--all for what? For
a little gold,--a passing trifle of power! Cain killing Abel! My God,
art Thou not yet weary of the old eternal crime!"

He spoke in a semi-whisper which thrilled through the room. A momentary
hush prevailed, and then Lotys called again, her voice softened to a
caressing sweetness.

"Sergius!"

He started, and shook himself out of his reverie this time. Raising his
hand, he passed it in a vague mechanical way across his brow as though
suddenly wakened from a dream.

"Yes, yes! Let us drink to our three new comrades," he said, and rose
to his feet. "To your health, friends! And may you all stand firm in
the hour of trial!"

All the company sprang up and drained their glasses, and when the toast
was drunk and they were again seated, Pasquin Leroy asked if he might
be allowed to return thanks.

"I do not know," he said with a courteous air, "whether it is
permissible for a newly-enrolled associate of this Brotherhood to make
a speech on the first night of his membership,--but after the cordial
welcome I and my comrades, strangers as we are, have received at your
hands, I should like to say a few words--if, without breaking any rules
of the Order, I may do so."

"Hear, hear!" shouted Zouche, who had been steadily drinking for the
last few moments,--"Speak on, man! Whoever heard of a dumb Socialist!
Rant--rant! Rant and rave!--as I do, when the fit is on me! Do I not,
Thord? Do I not move you even to tears?"

"And laughter!" put in Zegota. "Hold your tongue, Zouche! No other man
can talk at all, if you once begin!"

Zouche laughed, and drained his glass.

"True!--my genius is of an absorbing quality! Silence, gentlemen!
Silence for our new comrade! 'Pasquin' stands for the beginning of a
jest--so we may hope he will be amusing,--'Leroy' stands for the king,
and so we may expect him to be non-political!"




CHAPTER VIII

THE KING'S DOUBLE


As Leroy rose to speak, there was a little commotion. Max Graub upset
his glass, and seemed to be having a struggle under the table with Axel
Regor.

"What ails you?" said Leroy, glancing at his friends with an amazed
air--"Are you quarrelling?"

"Quarrelling!" echoed Max Graub, "Why, no--but what man will have his
beer upset without complaint? Tell me that!"

"You upset it!" said Regor angrily--"I did not."

"You did!" retorted Graub, "and because I pushed you for it, you showed
me a pistol in your pocket! I object to be shown a pistol. So I have
taken it away. Here it is!" and he laid the weapon on the table in
front of him.

A look of anger darkened Leroy's brows.

"I was not aware you carried arms," he said coldly.

Sergius Thord noticed his annoyance.

"There is nothing remarkable in that, my friend!" he interposed--"We
all carry arms,--there is not one of us at this table who has not a
loaded pistol,--even Lotys is no exception to this rule."

"Now by my word!" said Graub, "_I_ have no loaded pistol,--and I
will swear Leroy is equally unarmed!"

"Entirely so!" said Leroy quietly--"I never suspect any man of evil
intentions towards me."

As he said this, Lotys leaned forward impulsively and stretched out her
hand,--a beautiful hand, well-shaped and white as a white rose petal.

"I like you for that!"--she said--"It is the natural attitude of a
brave man!"

A slight colour warmed his bronzed skin as he took her hand, pressed it
gently, and let it go again. Axel Regor looked up defiantly.

"Well, I _do_ suspect every man of evil intentions!" he said, "So
you may all just as well know the worst of me at once! My experience of
life has perhaps been exceptionally unpleasant; but it has taught me
that as a rule no man is your friend till you have made it worth his
while!"

"By favours bestowed, or favours to come?" queried Thord, smiling,--
"However, without any argument, Axel Regor, I am inclined to think you
are right!"

"Then a weapon is permissible here?" asked Graub.

"Not only permissible, but necessary," replied Thord. "As members of
this Brotherhood we live always prepared for some disaster,--always on
our guard against treachery. Comrades!" and raising his voice he
addressed the whole party. "Lay down your arms, all at once and
together!"

In one instant, as if in obedience to a military order, the table was
lined on either side with pistols. Beside these weapons, there was a
goodly number of daggers, chiefly of the small kind such as are used in
Corsica, encased in leather sheaths. Pasquin Leroy smiled as he saw
Lotys lay down one of those tiny but deadly weapons, together with a
small silver-mounted pistol.

"Forewarned is forearmed!" he said gaily;--"Madame, if I ever offend, I
shall look to you for a happy dispatch! Gentlemen, I have still to make
my speech, and if you permit it, I will speak now,--unarmed as I am,--
with all these little metal mouths ready to deal death upon me if I
happen to make any observation which may displease you!"

"By Heaven! A brave man!" cried Zouche; "Thord, you have picked up a
trump card! Speak, Pasquin Leroy! We will forgive you, even if you
praise the King!"

Leroy stood silent for a moment, as if thinking. His two companions
looked up at him once or twice in unquestionable alarm and wonderment,
but he did not appear to be conscious of their observation. On the
contrary, some very deeply seated feeling seemed to be absorbing his
soul,--and it was perhaps this suppressed emotion which gave such a
rich vibrating force to his accents when he at last spoke.

"Friends and Brothers!" he said;--"It is difficult for one who has
never experienced the three-fold sense of Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity until to-night, to express in the right manner the sense of
gratitude which I, a complete stranger to you, feel for the readiness
and cordiality of the welcome you have extended to me and my
companions, accepting us without hesitation, as members of your
Committee, and as associates in the work of the Cause you have
determined to maintain. It is an Ideal Cause,--I need not tell you
that! To rescue and protect the poor from the tyranny of the rich and
strong, was the mission of Christ when He visited this earth; and it
would perhaps be unwise on my part, and discouraging to yourselves, to
remind you that even He has failed! The strong, the selfish, and the
cruel, still delight in oppressing their more helpless fellows, despite
the theories of Christianity. And it is perfectly natural that it
should be so, seeing that the Christian Church itself has become a mere
system of money-making and self-advancement."

A burst of applause interrupted him. Eyes lightened with eager
enthusiasm, and every face was turned towards him. He went on:--

"To think of the great Founder of a great Creed, and then to consider
what his pretended followers have made of Him and His teaching, is
sufficient to fill the soul with the sickness of despair and
humiliation! To remember that Christ came to teach all men the Gospel
of love,--and to find them after eighteen hundred years still
preferring the Gospel of hate,--is enough to make one doubt the truth
of religion altogether! The Divine Socialist preached a creed too good
and pure for this world; and when we try to follow it, we are beaten
back on all sides by the false conventionalities and customs of a
sacerdotal system grown old in self-seeking, not in self-sacrifice.
Were Christ to come again, the first thing He would probably do would
be to destroy all the churches, saying: 'I never knew you: depart from
me ye that work iniquity!' But till He does come again, it rests with
the thinkers of the time to protest against wrongs and abuses, even if
they cannot destroy them,--to expose falsehood, even if they cannot
utterly undo its vicious work. Seeing, however, that the greater
majority of men are banded on the side of wealth and material self-
interest, it is unfortunately only a few who remain to work for the
cause of the poor, and for such equal rights of justice as you--as we--
in our present Association claim to be most worthy of man's best
efforts. It may be asked by those outside such a Fraternity as ours,--
'What do they want? What would they have that they cannot obtain?' I
would answer that we want to see the end of a political system full of
bribery and corruption,--that we desire the disgrace and exposure of
such men as those, who, under the pretence of serving the country,
merely line their own coffers out of the taxes they inflict upon the
people;--and that if we see a king inclined to favour the overbearing
dominance of a political party governed by financial considerations
alone,--a party which has no consideration for the wider needs of the
whole nation, we from our very hearts and souls desire the downfall of
that king!"

A low, deep murmur responded to his words,--a sound like the snarl of
wolves, deep, fierce, and passionate. A close observer might perhaps
have detected a sudden pallor on Leroy's face as he heard this ominous
growl, and an involuntary clenching of the hand on the part of Axel
Regor. Max Graub looked up.

"Ah so, my friends! You hate the King?"

No answer was vouchsafed to this query. The interruption was evidently
unwelcome, all eyes being still fixed on Leroy. He went on tranquilly:

"I repeat--that wherever and whenever a king--any king--voluntarily and
knowingly, supports iniquity and false dealing in his ministers, he
lays himself open to suspicion, attack, and dethronement! I speak with
particular feeling on this point, because, apart from whatever may be
the thoughts and opinions of these who are assembled here to-night, I
have a special reason of my own for hating the King! That reason is
marked on my countenance! I bear an extraordinary resemblance to him,
--so great indeed, that I might be taken for his twin brother if he had
one! And I beg of you, my friends, to look at me long and well, that
you make no error concerning me, for, being now your comrade, I do not
wish to be mistaken for your enemy!"

He drew himself up, lifting his head with an air of indomitable pride
and grace which well became him. An exclamation of surprise broke from
all present, and Sergius Thord bent forward to examine his features
with close attention. Every man at the table did the same, but none
regarded him more earnestly or more searchingly than Lotys. Her
wonderful eyes seemed to glow and burn with strange interior fires, as
she kept them steadily fixed upon his face.

"Yes--you are strangely like the King!" she said--"That is,--so far as
I am able to judge by his portraits and coins. I have never seen him."

"I _have_ seen him,"--said Sergius Thord, "though only at a
distance. And I wonder I did not notice the strange resemblance you
bear to him before you called my attention to it. Are you in any way
related to him?"

"Related to him!" Leroy laughed aloud. "No! If the late King had any
bastard sons, I am not one of them! But I pray you again all to
carefully note this hateful resemblance,--a resemblance I would fain
rid me of--for it makes me seem a living copy of the man I most
despise!"

There was a pause,--during which he stood quietly, submitting himself
to the fire of a hundred wondering, questioning, and inquisitorial eyes
without flinching.

"You are all satisfied?" he then asked; "You, Sergius Thord,--my chief
and commander,--you, and all here present are satisfied?"

"Satisfied?--Yes!" replied Thord; "But sorry that your personality
resembles that of a fool and a knave!"

A strange grimace distorted the countenance of Max Graub, but he
quickly buried his nose and his expression together in a foaming glass
of beer.

"You cannot be so sorry for me as I am for myself!" said Leroy, "And
now to finish the few words I have been trying to say. I thank you from
my heart for your welcome, and for the trust you have reposed in me and
my companions. I am proud to be one of you; and I promise that you
shall all have reason to be glad that I am associated with your Cause!
And to prove my good faith, I undertake to set about working for you
without a day's delay; and towards this object, I give you my word that
before our next meeting something shall be done to shake the political
stronghold of Carl Perousse!"

Sergius Thord sprang up excitedly.

"Do that," he said, "and were you a thousand times more like the King
than you are, you shall be the first to command our service and
honour!"

Loud acclamation followed his words, and all the men gathered close up
about Leroy. He looked round upon them, half-smiling, half-serious.

"But you must tell me what to do!" he said. "You must explain to me why
you consider Perousse a traitor, and how you think it best his
treachery should be proved. For, remember, I am a stranger to this part
of the country, and my accidental resemblance to the King does not make
me his subject!"

"True!" said Paul Zouche,--his eyes were feverishly bright and his
cheeks flushed--"To be personally like a liar does not oblige one to
tell lies! To call oneself a poet does not enable one to write poetry!
And to build a cathedral does not make one a saint! To know all the
highways and byways of the Perousse policy, you must penetrate into the
depths and gutter-slushes of the great newspaper which is subsidised by
the party to that policy! And this is difficult--exceedingly difficult,
let me assure you, my bold Pasquin! And if you can perform such a
'pasquinade' as shall take you into these Holy of Holy purlieus of
mischief and money-making, you will deserve to be chief of the
Committee, instead of Sergius! Sergius talks--he will talk your head
off!--but he does nothing!"

"I do what I can,"--said Thord, patiently. "It is true I have no access
to the centres of diplomacy or journalism. But I hold the People in the
hollow of my hand!"

He spoke with deep and concentrated feeling, and the power of his soul
looked out eloquently from the darkening flash of his eyes. Leroy
studied his features with undisguised interest.

"If you thus hold the People," he said,--"Why not bid them rise against
the evil and tyranny of which they have cause to complain?"

Thord shook his head.

"To rouse the People," he replied, "would be worse than to rouse a herd
of starving lions from their forest dens, and give them freedom to slay
and devour! Nay!--the time is not yet! All gentle means must be tried;
and if these fail--why then--!"

He broke off, but his clenched hand and expressive glance said the
rest.

"Why do you not use the most powerful of all the weapons ever invented
for the destruction of one's enemies--the Pen?" asked Max Graub. "Start
a newspaper, for example, and gibbet your particular favourite Carl
Perousse therein!"

"Bah! He would get up a libel case, and advertise himself a little more
by that method!" said Zegota contemptuously; "And besides, a newspaper
needs unlimited capital behind it. We have no rich friends."

"Rich friends!" exclaimed Lotys suddenly; "Who speaks of them--who
needs them? Rich friends expect you to toady to them; to lick the
ground under their feet; to fawn and flatter and lie, and be anything
but honest men! The rich are the vulgar of this world;--no one who has
heart, or soul, or sense, would condescend to seek friendships among
those whose only claim to precedence is the possession of a little more
yellow metal than their neighbours."

"Nevertheless, they and their yellow metal are the raw material, which
Genius may as well use to pave its way through life," said Zegota.
"Lotys, you are too much of an idealist!"

"Idealist! And you call yourself a realist, poor child!" said Lotys
with a laugh; "I tell you I would sooner starve than accept favour or
assistance from the merely rich!"

"Of course you would!" said Zouche, "And is not that precisely the
reason why you are set in dominion over us all? We men are not sure of
ourselves--but--Heaven knows why!--we are sure of You! I suppose it is
because you are sure of yourself! For example, we men are such wretched
creatures that we cannot go long without our food,--but you, woman, can
fast all day, and scorn the very idea of hunger. We men cannot bear
much pain,--but you,--woman,--can endure suffering of your own without
complaint, while attending to our various lesser hurts and scratches.
Wherefore, just because we feel you are above us in this and many other
things, we have set you amongst us as a warning Figurehead, which cries
shame upon us if we falter, and reminds us that you, a woman, can do,
and probably will do, what we men cannot. Imagine it! You would bear
all things for love's sake!--and, frankly speaking, we would bear
nothing at all, except for our own immediate and particular pleasure.
For that, of course, we would endure everything till we got it, and
then--pouf!--we would let it go again in sheer weariness and desire for
something else! Is it not so, Sergius?"

"I am glad you know yourself so well!" said Thord gloomily.
"Personally, I am not prepared to accept your theory."

"Men are children!" said Lotys, still smiling; "And should be treated
as children always, by women! Come, little ones! To bed, all of you! It
is growing late, and the rain has ceased."

She went to the window, and unbarring the shutters, opened it. The
streets were wet and glistening below, but the clouds had cleared, and
a pale watery moon shone out fitfully from the misty sky.

"Say good-night, and part;" she continued. "It is time! This day month
we will meet here again,--and our new comrades will then report what
progress they have made in the matter of Carl Perousse."

"Tell me," said Leroy, approaching her, "What would you do, Madame, if
you had determined, on proving the corruption and falsehood of this at
present highly-honoured servant of the State?"

"I should gain access to his chief tool, David Jost, by means of the
Prime Minister's signet," said Lotys,--"If I could get the signet!--
which I cannot! Nor can you! But if I could, I should persuade Jost to
talk freely, and so betray himself. He and Carl Perousse move the
Premier and the King whichever way they please."

"Is that so--?" began Leroy, when he was answered by a dozen voices at
once:--

"The King is a fool!"

"The King is a slave!"

"The King accepts everything that is set before him as being rightly
and wisely ordained,--and never enquires into the justice of what is
done!"

"The King assumes to be the friend of the People, but if you ask him to
do anything for the People, you only get the secretary's usual answer--
'His Majesty regrets that it is impossible to take any action in the
matter'!"

"Wait!--wait!--" said Leroy, with a gesture which called for a moment's
silence; "The question is,--_Could_ the King do anything if he
would?"

"I will answer that!" said Lotys, her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving,
and her whole figure instinct with pride and passion; "The King could
do everything! The King could be a man if he chose, instead of a dummy!
The King could cease to waste his time on fools and light women!--and
though he is, and must be a constitutional Monarch, he could so rule
all social matters as to make them the better,--not the worse for his
influence! There is nothing to prevent the King from doing his most
kingly duty!"

Leroy looked at her for a moment in silence.

"Madame, if the King heard your words he might perhaps regret his many
follies!" he said courteously;--"But where Society is proved worse,
instead of better for a king's influence, is it not somewhat too late
to remedy the evil? What of the Queen?"

"The Queen is queen from necessity, not from choice!" said Lotys;--"She
has never loved her husband. If she had loved him, perhaps he might,--
through her,--have loved his people more!"

There was a note of pathos in her voice that was singularly tender and
touching. Anon, as if impatient with herself, she turned to Sergius
Thord.

"We must disperse!" she said abruptly; "Daybreak will be upon us before
we know it, and we have done no business at all this evening. To enrol
three new associates is a matter of fifteen minutes; the rest of our
time has been wasted!"

"Do not say so, Madame!" interposed Max Graub, "You have three new
friends--three new 'sons of your blood,' as you so poetically call
them,--though, truly, I for one am more fit to be your grandfather! And
do you consider the time wasted that has been spent in improving and
instructing your newly-born children?"

Lotys turned upon him with a look of disdain.

"You are a would-be jester;" she said coldly; "Old men love a jest, I
know, but they should take care to make it at the right time, and in
the right place. They should not play with edge-tools such as I am,
though I suppose, being a German, you think little or nothing of
women?"

"Madame!" protested Graub, "I think so much of women that I have never
married! Behold me, an unhappy bachelor! I have spared any one of your
beautiful sex from the cruel martyrdom of having to endure my life-long
company!"

She laughed--a pretty low laugh, and extended her hand with an air of
queenly condescension.

"You are amusing!" she said,--"And so I will not quarrel with you!
Good-night!"

"Auf wiedersehn!" and Graub kissed the white hand he held. "I shall
hope you will command me to be of service to you and yours, ere long!"

"In what way, I wonder," she asked dubiously; "What can you do best?
Write? Speak? Or organize meetings?"

"I think," said Graub, speaking very deliberately, "that of all my
various accomplishments, which are many--as I shall one day prove to
you--I can poison best!"

"Poison!"

The exclamation broke simultaneously from all the company. Graub looked
about him with a triumphant air.

"Ah so,--I know I shall be useful," he said; "I can poison so very
beautifully and well! One little drop--one, little microbe of
mischief--and I can make all your enemies die of cholera, typhoid,
bubonic plague, or what you please! I am what is called a Christian
scientific poisoner--that is a doctor! You will find me a most
invaluable member of this Brotherhood!"

He nodded his head wisely, and smiled. Sergius Thord laid one hand
heavily on his shoulder.

"We shall find you useful, no doubt!" he said, "But mark me well,
friend! Our mission is not to kill, but to save!--not to poison, but to
heal! If we find that by the death of one traitor we can save the lives
of thousands, why then that traitor must die. If we know that by
killing a king we destroy a country's abuses, that king is sent to his
account. But never without warning!--never without earnest pleading
that he whom the laws of Truth condemn, may turn from the error of his
ways and repent before it is too late. We are not murderers;--we are
merely the servants of justice."

"Exactly!" put in Paul Zouche; "You understand? We try to be what God
is not,--just!"

"Blaspheme not, Zouche!" said Thord; "Justice is the very eye of God!--
the very centre and foundation of the universe."

Zouche laughed discordantly.

"Excellent Sergius! Impulsive Sergius!--with big heart, big head and no
logic! Prove to me this eternal justice! Where does it begin? In the
creation of worlds without end, all doomed to destruction, and
therefore perfectly futile in their existence? In the making of man,
who lives his little day with the utmost difficulty, pain and struggle,
and is then extinguished, to be heard of no more? The use of it, my
Sergius!--point out the use of it! No,--there is no man can answer me
that! If I could see the Creator, I would ask Him the question
personally--but He hides Himself behind the great big pendulum He has
set swinging--tick--tock!--tick--tock! Life--Death!--Life--Death!--and
never a reason why the clock is set going! And so we shall never have
justice,--simply because there is none! It is not just or reasonable to
propound a question to which there is no answer; it is not just or
reasonable to endow man with all the thinking powers of brain, and all
the imaginative movements of mind, merely to turn him into a pinch of
dust afterwards. Every generation, every country strives to get justice
done, but cannot,--merely for the fact that God Himself has no idea of
it, and therefore it is naturally lacking in His creature, man. Our
governing-forces are plainly the elements. No Divine finger stops the
earthquake from engulfing a village full of harmless inhabitants,
simply because of the injustice of such utter destruction! See now!--
look at the eyes of Lotys reproaching me! You would think they were the
eyes of an angel, gazing at a devil in the sweet hope of plucking him
out of hell!"

"Such a hope would be vain in your case, Zouche," said Lotys
tranquilly; "You make your own hell, and you must live in it!
Nevertheless, in some of the wild things you say, there is a grain of
truth. If I were God, I should be the most miserable of all beings, to
look upon all the misery I had myself created! I should be so sorry for
the world, that I should put an end to all hope of immortality by my
own death."

She made this strange remark with a simplicity and wistfulness which
were in striking contrast to the awful profundity of the suggestion,
and all her auditors, including the half-tipsy Zouche, were silent.

"I should be so sorry!" she repeated; "For even as a mortal woman my
pity for the suffering world almost breaks my heart;--but if I were
God, I should have all the griefs of all the worlds I had made to
answer for,--and such an agony would surely kill me. Oh,--the pain,
the tears, the mistakes, the sins, the anguish of humanity! All these
are frightful to me! I do not understand why such misery should exist!
I think it must be that we have not enough love in the world; if we
only loved each other faithfully, God might love us more!"

Her eyes were wet; she caught her breath hard, and smiled a little
difficult smile. Something in her soul transfigured her face, and made
it for the moment exquisitely lovely, and the men around her gazed at
her in evidently reverential silence. Suddenly she stretched out both
her hands:

"Good-night, children!"

One by one the would-be-fierce associates of the Revolutionary
Committee bent low over those fair hands; and then quietly saluting
Sergius Thord, as quietly left the room, like schoolboys retiring from
a class where the lessons had been more or less badly done. Paul Zouche
was not very steady on his feet, and two of his comrades assisted him
to walk as he stumbled off, singing somewhat of a ribald rhyme in
_mezza-voce_. Pasquin Leroy and his two friends were the last to
go. Lotys looked at them all three meditatively.

"You will be faithful?" she said.

"Unto death!" answered Leroy.

She came close up to him, placing one hand on his arm, and glanced
meaningly towards Sergius Thord, who was standing at the threshold
watching Zouche stumbling down the dark stairs.

"Sergius is a good man!" she said; "One of the mistaken geniuses of
this world,--savage as a lion, yet simple as a child! Whoever, and
whatever you are, be true to him!"

"He is dear to you?" said Leroy on a sudden impulse, catching her hand;
"He is more to you than most men?"

She snatched away her hand, and her eyes lightened first with wrath,
then with laughter.

"Dear to me!" she echoed,--"to Me? No one man on earth is dearer to me
than another! All are alike in my estimation,--all the same barbaric,
foolish babes and children--all to be loved and pitied alike! But
Sergius Thord picked me out of the streets when I was no better than a
stray and starving dog,--and like a dog I serve him--faithfully! Now
go!"

She stretched out her hand in an attitude of command, and there was
nothing for it but to obey. They therefore repeated their farewells,
and in their turn, went out, one by one, down the tortuous staircase.
Sholto, the hunchback, was below, and he let them out without a word,
closing and barring the door carefully behind them. Once in the street
and under the misty moonlight, Pasquin Leroy nodded a careless
dismissal to his companions.

"You will return alone?" enquired Max Graub.

"Quite alone!" was the reply.

"May I not follow you at a distance?" asked Axel Regor.

Leroy smiled. "You forget! One of the rules we have just sworn to
conform to, is--'No member shall track, follow or enquire into the
movements of any other member.' Go your ways! I will thank you both for
your services to-morrow."

He turned away rapidly and disappeared. His two friends remained gazing
somewhat disconsolately after him.

"Shall we go?" at last said Max Graub.

"When you please," replied Axel Regor irritably,--"The sooner the
better for me! Here we are probably watched,--we had best go down to
the quay, and from thence----"

He did not finish his sentence, but Graub evidently understood its
conclusion--and they walked quickly away together in quite an opposite
direction to that in which Leroy had gone.

Meanwhile, up in the now closed and darkened house they had left behind
them, Lotys stood looking at Sergius Thord, who had thrown himself into
a chair and sat with his elbows resting on the table, and his head
buried in his hands.

"You make no way, poor Sergius!" she said gently. "You work, you write,
you speak to the people, but you make no way!"

He looked up fiercely.

"I do make way!" he said; "How can you doubt it? A word from me, and
the massed millions would rise as one man!"

"And of what use would that be?" enquired Lotys. "The soldiers would
fire on the people, and there would be riot and bloodshed, but no
actual redress for wrong. You work vainly, Sergius!"

"If I could but kill the King!" he muttered.

"Another king would succeed him," she said. "And after all, if you only
knew it, the King may be a miserable man enough--far more miserable,
perhaps, than any of us imagine ourselves to be. No, Sergius!--I repeat
it, you work vainly! You have made me the soul of an Ideal which you
will never realise? Tell me, what is it you yourself would have, out of
all your work and striving?"

He looked at her with great, earnest, burning eyes.

"Power!" he said. "Power to change the mode of government; power to put
down the tyranny of priestcraft--power to relieve the oppressed, and
reward the deserving--power to make of you, Lotys, a queen among
women!"

She smiled.

"I am a queen among men, Sergius, and that suffices me! How often must
I tell you to do nothing for my sake, if it is for my sake only? I am a
very simple, plain woman, past my youth, and without beauty--I deserve
and demand nothing!"

He raised himself, and stretched out his arms towards her with a
gesture of entreaty.

"You deserve all that a man can give you!" he said passionately. "I
love you, Lotys! I have always loved you ever since I found you a
little forsaken child, shivering and weeping on the cold marble steps
of the Temesvar place in Buda. I love you!--you know I have always
loved you!--I have told you so a hundred times,--I love you as few men
love women!"

She regarded him compassionately, and with a touch of wistful sorrow in
her eyes. Her black cloak fell away on either side of her in two
shadowy folds, disclosing her white-robed form and full bosom, like a
pearl in a dark shell.

"Good-night, Sergius!" she said simply, and turned to go.

He gave an exclamation of anger and pain.

"That is all you say--'Good-night'!" he muttered. "A man gives you his
heart, and you set it aside with a cold word of farewell! And yet--and
yet--you hold all my life!"

"I am sorry, Sergius," she said, in a gentle voice; "very sorry that it
is so. You have told me all this before; and I have answered you often,
and always in the same way. I have no love to give you, save that which
is the result of duty and gratitude. I do not forget!--I know that you
rescued me from starvation and death--though sometimes I question
whether it would not have been better to have let me die. Life is worth
very little at its utmost best; nevertheless, I admit I have had a
certain natural joy in living, and for that I have to thank you. I have
tried to repay you by my service--"

"Do not speak of that," he said hurriedly; "I have done nothing! You
are a genius in yourself, and would have made your way anywhere,--
perhaps better without me."

She smiled doubtfully.

"I am not sure! The trick of oratory does not carry one very far,--not
when one is a woman! Good-night again, Sergius! Try to rest,--you look
worn out. And do not think of winning power for my sake; what power I
need I will win for myself!"

He made no answer, but watched her with jealous eyes, as she moved
towards the door. On the threshold she turned.

"Those three new associates of yours--are they trustworthy, think you?"

He gave a gesture of indifference.

"I do not know! Who is there we can absolutely trust save ourselves?
That man, Leroy, is honest,--of that I am confident,--and he has
promised to be responsible for his friends."

"Ah!" She paused a moment, then with another low breathed 'good-night'
she left the room.

He looked at the door as it closed behind her--at the chair she had
left vacant.

"Lotys!" he whispered.

His whisper came hissing softly back to him in a fine echo on the empty
space, and with a great sigh he rose, and began to turn out the flaring
lamps above his head.

"Power!--Power!" he muttered--"She could not resist it! She would never
be swayed by gold,--but power! Her genius would rise to it--her beauty
would grow to it like a rose unfolding in the sun! 'Past youth, and
without beauty' as she says of herself! My God! Compare the tame pink-
and-white prettiness of youth with the face of Lotys,--and that
prettiness becomes like a cheap advertisement on a hoarding or a match-
box! Contrast the perfect features, eyes and hair of the newest social
'beauty,'--with the magical expression, the glamour in the eyes of
Lotys,--and perfection of feature becomes the rankest ugliness! Once in
a hundred centuries a woman is born like Lotys, to drive men mad with
desire for the unattainable--to fire them with such ambition as should
make them emperors of the world, if they had but sufficient courage to
snatch their thrones--and yet,--to fill them with such sick despair at
their own incompetency and failure, as to turn them into mere children
crying for love--for love!--only love! No matter whether worlds are
lost, kings killed, and dynasties concluded, love!--only love!--and
then death!--as all sufficient for the life of a man! And only just so
long as love is denied--just so long we can go on climbing towards the
unreachable height of greatness,--then--once we touch love, down we
fall, broken-hearted; but--we have had our day!"

The room was now in darkness, save for the glimmer of the pale moon
through the window panes, and he opened the casement and looked out.
There was a faint scent of the sea on the air, and he inhaled its salty
odour with a sense of refreshment.

"All for Lotys!" he murmured. "Working for Lotys, plotting, planning,
scheming for Lotys! The government intimidated,--the ministry cast
out,--the throne in peril,--the people in arms,--the city in a blaze,--
Revolution and Anarchy doing their wild work broad-cast together,--
all for Lotys! Always a woman in it! Search to the very depth of every
political imbroglio,--dig out the secret reason of every war that ever
was begun or ended in the world,--and there we shall find the love or
the hate of a woman at the very core of the business! Some such secrets
history knows, and has chronicled,--and some will never be known,--but
up to the present there is not even a religion in the world where a
Woman is not made the beginning of a God!"

He smiled somewhat grimly at his own fanciful musings, and then,
shutting the window, retired. The house was soon buried in profound
silence and darkness, and over the city tuneful bells rang the half-
hour after midnight. Four miles distant from the 'quarter of the poor,'
and high above the clustering houses of the whole magnificent
metropolis, the Royal palace towered whitely on its proud eminence in
the glimmer of the moon, a stately pile of turrets and pinnacles; and
on the battlements the sentries walked, pacing to and fro in regular
march, with regular changes, all through the night hours. Half after
midnight! 'All's well!' Three-quarters, and still 'All's well' sounded
with the clash of steel and a tinkle of silvery chimes. One o'clock
struck,--and the drifting clouds in heaven cleared fully, showing many
brilliant stars in the western horizon,--and a sentry passing, as
noiselessly as his armour and accoutrements would permit, along the
walled battlement which protected and overshadowed the windows of the
Queen's apartments, paused in his walk to look with an approving eye at
the clearing promise of the weather. As he did so, a tall figure,
wrapped in a thick rain-cloak, suddenly made its unexpected appearance
through a side door in the wall, and moved rapidly towards a turret
which contained a secret passage leading to the Queen's boudoir,--a
private stairway which was never used save by the Royal family. The
sentry gave a sharp warning cry.

"Halt! Who goes there?"

The figure paused and turned, dropping its cloak. The pale moonlight
fell slantwise on the features, disclosing them fully.

"T is I! The King!"

The soldier recoiled amazed,--and quickly saluted. Before he could
recover from his astonishment he was alone again. The battlement was
empty, and the door to the turret-stairs,--of which only the King
possessed the key,--was fast locked; and for the next hour or more the
startled sentry remained staring at the skies in a sort of meditative
stupefaction, with the words still ringing like the shock of an alarm-
bell in his ears:

"'T is I! The King!"




CHAPTER IX

THE PREMIER'S SIGNET


The next day the sun rose with joyous brightness in a sky clear as
crystal. Storm, wind, and rain had vanished like the flying phantoms of
an evil dream, and all the beautiful land sparkled with light and life
in its enlacing girdle of turquoise blue sea. The gardens of the Royal
palace, freshened by the downpour of the past night, wore their most
enchanting aspect,--roses, with leaves still wet, dropped their scented
petals on the grass,--great lilies, with their snowy cups brimming with
rain, hung heavily on their slim green stalks, and the air was full of
the deliciously penetrating odour of the mimosa and sweetbriar. Down
one special alley, where the white philadelphus, or 'mock orange' grew
in thick bushes on either side, intermingled with ferns and spruce
firs, whose young green tips exhaled a pungent, healthy scent that
entered into the blood like wine and invigorated it, Sir Roger de
Launay was pacing to and fro with a swinging step which,
notwithstanding its ease and soldierly regularity, suggested something
of impatience, and on a rustic seat, above which great clusters of the
philadelphus-flowers hung like a canopy, sat Professor von Glauben,
spectacles on nose, sorting a few letters which he had just taken from
his pocket for the purpose of reading them over again carefully one by
one. He was a very particular man as regarded his correspondence. All
letters that required answering he answered at once,--the others, as he
himself declared, 'answered themselves' in silence.

"There is no end to the crop of fools in this world," he was fond of
saying;--"Glorious, precious fools! I love them all! They make life
worth living--but sometimes I am disposed to draw the line at letter-
writing fools. These persons chance to read a book--my book for
example,--that particularly clever one I wrote on the possibilities of
eternal life in this world. They at once snatch their pens and write to
say that they are specially deserving of this boon, and wish to live
for ever--will I tell them how? And these are the very creatures I
will not tell how--because their perpetual existence would be a mistake
and a nuisance! The individuals whose lives are really valuable never
ask anyone how to make them so."

He looked over his letters now with a leisurely indifference. The
morning's post had brought him nothing of special importance. He
glanced from his reading now and again at De Launay marching up and
down, but said nothing till he had quite finished with his own
immediate concerns. Then he removed his spectacles from his nose and
put them by.

"Left--Right--Left--Right--Left--Right! Roger, you remind me of my
drilling days on a certain flat and dusty ground at Coblentz! The
Rhine!--the Rhine! Ah, the beautiful Rhine! So dirty--so dull--with its
toy castles, and its big, ugly factory chimneys, and its atrociously
bad wine! Roger, I beseech you to have mercy upon me, and leave off
that marching up and down,--it gets on my nerves!"

"I thought nothing ever got on your nerves," answered Sir Roger,
stopping abruptly--"You seem to take serious matters coolly enough!"

"Serious matters demand coolness," replied Von Glauben. "We should only
let steam out over trifles. Have you seen his Majesty this morning?"

"Yes. I am to see him again at noon."

"When do you go off duty?"

"Not for a month, at least."

"Much may happen in that month," said the Professor sententiously;
"_Your_ hair may grow white with the strangeness of your experiences!"

Sir Roger met his eyes, and they both laughed.

"Though it is no laughing matter," resumed Von Glauben. "Upon my soul
as a German,--if I have any soul of that nationality,--I think it may
be a serious business!"

"You have come round to my opinion then," said De Launay. "I told you
from the first that it was serious!"

"The King does not think it so," rejoined Von Glauben. "I was summoned
to his presence early this morning, and found him in the fullest health
and highest spirits."

"Why did he send for you then?" enquired De Launay.

"To feel his pulse and look at his tongue! To make a little game of me
before he stepped out of his dressing-gown! And I enjoyed it, of
course,--one must always enjoy Royal pleasantries! I think, Roger, his
Majesty wishes this entire affair treated as a pleasantry,--by us at
any rate, however seriously he may regard it himself."

De Launay was silent for a minute or two, then he said abruptly:

"The Premier is summoned to a private audience of the King at noon."

"Ah!" And Von Glauben drew a cluster of the overhanging philadelphus
flowers down to his nose and smelt them approvingly.

"And"--went on De Launay, speaking more deliberately, "this afternoon
their Majesties sail to The Islands----"

Von Glauben jumped excitedly to his feet.

"Not possible!"

Sir Roger looked at him with a dawning amusement beginning to twinkle
in his clear blue eyes.

"Quite possible! So possible, that the Royal yacht is ordered to be in
readiness at three o'clock. Their Majesties and suite will dine on
board, in order to enjoy the return sail by moonlight."

The Professor's countenance was a study. Anxiety and vexation struggled
with the shrewd kindness and humour of his natural expression, and his
suppressed feelings found vent in a smothered exclamation, which
sounded very much like the worst of blasphemous oaths used in dire
extremity by the soldiers of the Fatherland.

"What ails you?" demanded De Launay; "You seem strangely upset for a
man of cool nerve!"

"Upset? Who--what can upset me? Nothing! Roger, if I did not respect
you so much, I should call you an ass!"

Sir Roger laughed.

"Call me an ass, by all means," he said, "if it will relieve your
feelings;--but in justice to me, let me know why you do so! What is my
offence? I give you a piece of commonplace information concerning the
movements of the Court this afternoon, and you jump off your seat as if
an adder had bitten you. Why?"

"I have the gout," said Von Glauben curtly.

"Oh!" And again Sir Roger laughed. "That last must have been a sharp
twinge!"

"It was--it was! Believe me, my excellent Roger, it was exceedingly
severe!" His brow smoothed, and he smiled. "See here, my dear friend!--
you know, do you not, that boys will be boys, and men will be men?"

"Both are recognised platitudes," replied Sir Roger, his eyes still
twinkling merrily; "And both are frequently quoted to cover our various
follies!"

"True, true! But I wish to weigh more particularly on the fact that men
will be men! I am a man, Roger,--not a boy!"

"Really! Well, upon my word, I should at this moment take you for a raw
lad of about eighteen,--for you are blushing, Von Glauben!--actually
blushing!"

The Professor drew out a handkerchief, and wiped his brow.

"It is a warm morning, Roger," he said, with a mildly reproachful air;
"I suppose I am permitted to feel the heat?" He paused--then with a
sudden burst of impatience he exclaimed: "By the Emperor's head! It is
of no use denying it--I am very much put out, Roger! I must get a boat,
and slip off to The Islands at once!"

Sir Roger stared at him in complete amazement.

"You? You want to slip off to The Islands? Why, Von Glauben----!"

"Yes--yes,--I know! You cannot possibly imagine what I want to go there
for! You wouldn't suppose, would you, that I had any special secrets--
an old man like me;--for instance, you would not suspect me of any love
secrets, eh?" And he made a ludicrous attempt to appear sentimental.
"The fact is, Roger,--I have got into a little scrape over at The
Islands--" here he looked warmer and redder than ever;--"and I want to
take precautions! You understand--I want to take care that the King
does not hear of it--Gott in Himmel! What a block of a man you are to
stand there staring open-mouthed at me! Were you never in love
yourself?

"In love? In love!--you,--Professor? Pray pardon me--but--in love? Am I
to understand that there is a lady in your case?"

"Yes!--that is it," said Von Glauben, with an air of profound relief;
"There is a lady in my case;--or my case, speaking professionally, is
that of a lady. And I shall get any sort of a sea-tub that is
available, and go over to those accursed Islands without any delay!"

"If the King should send for you while you are absent--" began De
Launay doubtfully.

"He will not send. But if he should, what of it? I am known to be
somewhat eccentric--particularly so in my love of hard work, fresh air
and exercise--besides, he has not commanded my attendance. He will not,
therefore, be surprised at my absence. I tell you, Roger,--I
_must_ go! Who would have expected the King to take it into his
head to visit The Islands without a moment's warning! What a freak!"

"And here comes the reason of the freak, if I am not very much
mistaken," said De Launay, lowering his voice as an approaching figure
flung its lengthy shadow on the path,--"Prince Humphry!"

Von Glauben hastily drew back, De Launay also, to allow the Prince to
pass. He was walking slowly, and reading as he came. Looking up from
his book he saw, them, and as they saluted him profoundly, bade them
good-day.

"You are up betimes, Professor," he said lightly; "I suppose your
scientific wisdom teaches you the advantage of the morning air."

"Truly, Sir, it is more healthful than that of the evening," answered
Von Glauben in somewhat doleful accents.--"For example, a sail across
the sea with the morning breeze, is better than the same sort of
excursion in the glamour of the moon!"

Prince Humphry looked steadfastly at him, and evidently read something
of a warning, or a suggestion, in his face, for he coloured slightly
and bit his lip.

"Do you agree with that theory, Sir Roger," he said, turning to De
Launay.

"I have not tested it, Sir," replied the equerry, "But I imagine that
whatever Professor von Glauben asserts must be true!"

The young man glanced quickly from one to the other, and then with a
careless air turned over the pages of the book he held.

"In the earlier ages of the world," he said,--"men and women, I think,
must have been happier than they are now, if this book may be believed.
I find here written down--What is it, Professor? You have something to
say?"

"Pardon me, Sir," said Von Glauben,--"But you said--'If this book may
be believed.' I humbly venture to declare that no book may be
believed!"

"Not even your own, when it is written?" queried the Prince with a
smile; "You would not like the world to say so! Nay, but listen,
Professor,--here is a thought very beautifully expressed--and it was
written in an ancient language of the East, thousands of years before
we, in our quarter of the world, ever dreamt of civilization.--'Of all
the sentiments, passions or virtues which in their divers turns affect
the life of a man, the influence and emotion of Love is surely the
greatest and highest. We do not here speak of the base and villainous
craving of bodily appetite; but of that pure desire of the unfettered
soul which beholding perfection, straightway and naturally flies to the
same. This love doth so elevate and instruct a man, that he seeketh
nothing better than to be worthy of it, to attempt great deeds and
valiantly perform them, to confront foul abuses, and most potently
destroy them,--and to esteem the powers and riches of this world as
dross, weighed against this rare and fiery talisman. For it is a jewel
which doth light up the heart, and make it strong to support all sorrow
and ill fortune with cheerfulness, knowing that it is in itself of so
lasting a quality as to subjugate all things and events unto its
compelling sway.' What think you of this? Sir Roger, there is a whole
volume of comprehension in your face! Give some word of it utterance!"

Sir Roger looked up.

"There is nothing to say, Sir," he replied; "Your ancient writer merely
expresses a truth we are all conscious of. All poets, worthy the name,
and all authors, save and except the coldest logicians, deem the world
well lost for love."

"More fools they!" said Von Glauben gruffly; "Love is a mere illusion,
which is generally destroyed by one simple ceremony--Marriage!"

Prince Humphry smiled.

"You have never tried the cure, Professor," he said, "But I daresay you
have suffered from the disease! Will you walk with me?"

Von Glauben bowed a respectful assent; and the Prince, with a kindly
nod of dismissal to De Launay, went on his way, the Professor by his
side. Sir Roger watched them as they disappeared, and saw, that at the
furthest end of the alley, when they were well out of ear-shot, they
appeared to engage in very close and confidential conversation.

"I wonder," he mused, "I wonder what it all means? Von Glauben is
evidently mixed up in some affair that he wishes to keep secret from
the King. Can it concern Prince Humphry? And The Islands! What can Von
Glauben want over there?"

His brief meditation was interrupted by a soft voice calling.

"Roger!"

He started, and at once advanced to meet the approaching intruder, his
sister, Teresa de Launay, a pretty brunette, with dark sparkling eyes,
one of the favourite ladies of honour in attendance on the Queen.

"What were you dreaming about?" she asked, as he came near, "And what
is the Prince doing with old Von Glauben?"

"Two questions at once, Teresa!" he said, stooping his tall head to
kiss her; "I cannot possibly answer both in a breath! But answer me
just one--What are you here for?"

"To summon _you_!" she answered. "The Queen desires you to wait
upon her immediately."

She fixed her bright eyes upon him as she spoke, and an involuntary
sigh escaped her, as she noted the touch of pallor that came on his
face at her words.

"Where is her Majesty?" he asked.

"Here--close at hand--in the arbour. She spied you at a distance
through the trees, and sent me to fetch you."

"You had best return to her at once, and say that I am coming."

His sister looked at him again, and hesitated--he gave a slight, vexed
gesture of impatience, whereupon she hurried away, with flying
footsteps as light as those of a fabled sylph of the woodlands. He
watched her go, and for a moment an expression came into his eyes of
intense suffering--the look of a noble dog who is suddenly struck
undeservedly by an unkind master.

"She sends for me!" he muttered; "What for? To amuse herself by reading
every thought of my life with her cold eyes? Why can she not leave me
alone?"

He walked on then, with a quiet, even pace, and presently reaching the
end of the alley, came out on a soft stretch of greensward facing a
small ornamental lake and fountain. Here grew tall rushes, bamboos and
flag-flowers--here, too, on the quiet lake floated water-lilies, white
and pink, opening their starry hearts to the glory of the morning sun.
A quaintly shaped, rustic arbour covered with jasmine, faced the pool,
and here sat the Queen alone and unattended, save by Teresa de Launay,
who drew a little apart as her brother, Sir Roger, approached, and
respectfully bent his head in the Royal presence. For quite a minute he
stood thus in dumb attention, his eyes lowered, while the Queen glanced
at him with a curious expression, half of doubt, half of commiseration.
Suddenly, as if moved by a quick impulse, she rose--a stately,
exquisite figure, looking even more beautiful in her simple morning
robe of white cashmere and lace, than in all the glory of her Court
attire,--and extended her hand. Humbly and reverentially he bent over
it, and kissed the great jewel sparkling like a star on the central
finger. As he then raised his eyes to her face she smiled;--that smile
of hers, so dazzling, so sweet, and yet so cold, had sent many men to
their deaths, though she knew it not.

"I see very little of you, Sir Roger," she said slowly,
"notwithstanding your close attendance on my lord the King. Yet I know
I can command your service!"

"Madam," murmured De Launay, "my life----"

"Oh, no," she rejoined quickly, "not your life! Your life, like mine,
belongs to the King and the country. You must give all, or not at all!"

"Madam, I do give all!" he answered, with a look in his eyes of mingled
pain and passion; "No man can give more!"

She surveyed him with a little meditative, almost amused air.

"You have strong feelings, Sir Roger," she said; "I wonder what it is
like--to _feel_?"

"If I may dare to say so, Madam, I should wish you to experience the
sensation," he returned somewhat bitterly; "Sometimes we awaken to
emotions too late--sometimes we never awaken. But I think it is wisest
to experience the nature of a storm, in order to appreciate the value
of a calm!"

"You think so?" She smiled indulgently. "Storm and calm are to me
alike! I am affected by neither. Life is so exceedingly trivial an
affair, and is so soon over, that I have never been able to understand
why people should ever trouble themselves about anything in it."

"You may not always be lacking in this comprehension, Madam," said Sir
Roger, with a certain harshness in his tone, yet with the deepest
respect in his manner; "I take it that life and the world are but a
preparation for something greater, and that we shall be forced to learn
our lessons in this preparatory school before we leave it, whether we
like it or no!"

The slight smile still lingered on her beautiful mouth,--she pulled a
spray of jasmine down from the trailing clusters around her, and set it
carelessly among the folds of her lace. Sir Roger watched her with
moody eyes. Could he have followed his own inclination, he would have
snatched the flower from her dress and kissed it, in a kind of fierce
defiance before her very eyes. But what would be the result of such an
act? Merely a little contemptuous lifting of the delicate brows--a
slight frown on the fair forehead, and a calm gesture of dismissal. No
more--no more than this; for just as she could not be moved to love,
neither could she be moved to anger. The words of an old song rang in
his ears:--

   She laughs at the thought of love--
  Pain she scorns, and sorrow she sets aside--
  My heart she values less than her broidered glove,
    She would smile if I died!

"You are a man, Sir Roger de Launay," she said after a pause, "And man-
like, you propound any theory which at the moment happens to fit your
own particular humour. I am, however, entirely of your opinion that
this life is only a term of preparation, and with this conviction I
desire to have as little to do with its vile and ugly side as I can. It
is possible to accept with gratitude the beautiful things of Nature,
and reject the rest, is it not?"

"As you ask me the question point-blank, Madam, I say it is possible,--
it can be done,--and you do it. But it is wrong!"

She raised her languid eyelids, showing no offence.

"Wrong?"

"Wrong, Madam!" repeated Sir Roger bluntly; "It is wrong to shut from
your sight, from your heart, from your soul the ugly side of Nature;--
to shut your ears to the wants--the pains--the tortures--the screams--
the tears, and groans of humanity! Oh, Madam, the ugly side has a
strange beauty of its own that you dream not of! God makes ugliness as
he makes beauty; God created the volcano belching forth fire and molten
lava, as He created the simple stream bordered with meadow flowers! Why
should you reject the ugly, the fierce, the rebellious side of things?
Rather take it into your gracious thoughts and prayers, Madam, and help
to make it beautiful!"

He spoke with a force which surprised himself--he was carried away by a
passion that seemed almost outside his own identity. She looked at him
curiously.

"Does the King teach you to speak thus to me?" she asked.

De Launay started,--the hot colour mounting to his cheeks and brow.

"Madam!"

"Nay, no excuse! I understand! It is your own thought; but a thought
which is no doubt suddenly inspired by the King's actions," she went on
tranquilly; "You are in his confidence. He is adopting new measures of
domestic policy, in which, perchance, I may or may not be included--as
it suits my pleasure! Who knows!" Again the little musing smile crossed
her countenance. "It is of the King I wish to speak to you."

She glanced around her, and saw that her lady-in-waiting, Teresa de
Launay, had discreetly wandered by herself to the edge of the water-
lily pool, and was bending over it, a graceful, pensive figure in the
near distance, within call, but certainly not within hearing.

"You are in his confidence," she repeated, drawing a step nearer to
him, "and--so am I! You will not disclose his movements--nor shall I!
But you are his close attendant and friend,--I am merely--his wife! I
make you responsible for his safety!"

"Madam, I pray you pardon me!" exclaimed De Launay; "His Majesty has a
will of his own,--and his sacred life is not in my hands. I will defend
him to the utmost limit of human possibility,--but if he voluntarily
runs into danger, and disregards all warning, I, as his poor servant,
am not to blame!"

Her eyes, brilliant and full of a compelling magnetism, dwelt upon him
steadfastly.

"I repeat my command," she said deliberately, "I make you responsible!
You are a strong man and a brave one. If the King is rash, it is the
duty of his servants to defend him from the consequences of his
rashness; particularly if that rashness leads him into danger for a
noble purpose. Should any mischance befall him, let me never see your
face again! Die yourself, rather than let your King die!"

As she spoke these words she motioned him away with a grand gesture of
dismissal, and he retired back from her presence in a kind of stunned
amazement. Never before in all the days of her social sway as Crown-
Princess, had she ever condescended to speak to him on any matter of
confidence,--never during her three years of sovereignty as Queen-
Consort had she apparently taken note, or cared to know any of the
affairs connected with the King, her husband. The mere fact that now
her interest was roused, moved De Launay to speechless wonderment. He
hardly dared raise his eyes to look at her, as she turned from him and
went slowly, with her usual noiseless, floating grace of movement,
towards the water-lily pool, there to rejoin her attendant, Teresa de
Launay, who at the same time advanced to meet her Royal mistress. A
moment more, and Queen and lady of honour had disappeared together, and
De Launay was left alone. A little bird, swinging on a branch above his
head, piped a few tender notes to the green leaves and the sunlit sky,
but beyond this, and the measured plash of the fountain, no sound
disturbed the stillness of the garden.

"Upon my word, Roger de Launay," he said bitterly to himself, "you are
an ass sufficiently weighted with burdens! The love of a Queen, and the
life of a King are enough for one man's mind to carry with any degree
of safety! If it were not for the King, I think I should leave this
country and seek some other service--but I owe him much,--if only by
reason of my own heart's folly!"

Impatient with himself, he strode away, straight across the lawn and
back to the palace. Here he noticed just the slightest atmosphere of
uneasiness among some of the retainers of the Royal household,--a vague
impression of flurry and confusion. Through various passages and
corridors, attendants and pages were either running about with extra
haste, or else strolling to and fro with extra slowness. As he turned
into one of the ante-chambers, he suddenly confronted a tall, military-
looking personage in plain civilian attire, whom he at once recognized
as the Chief of the Police.

"Ah, Bernhoff!" he said lightly, "any storms brewing?"

"None that call for particular attention, Sir Roger," replied the
individual addressed; "But I have been sent for by the King, and am
here awaiting his pleasure."

Sir Roger showed no sign of surprise, and with a friendly nod passed
on. He began to find the situation rather interesting.

"After all," he argued inwardly, "there is nothing to hinder the King
from being a social autocrat, even if he cannot by the rules of the
Constitution be a political one. And we should do well to remember that
politics are governed entirely by social influence. It is the same
thing all over the world--a deluded populace--a social movement which
elects a parliament and ministry--and then the result,--which is, that
this or that party hold the reins of government, on whichever side
happens to be most advantageous to the immediate social and financial
whim. The people are the grapes crushed into wine for their rulers'
drinking; and the King is merely the wine-cup on the festal board. If
he once begins to be something more than that cup, there will be an end
of revelry!"

His ideas were not without good foundation in fact. Throughout all
history, where a strong man has ruled a nation, whether for good or
ill, he has left his mark; and where there has been no strong man, the
annals of the time are vapid and uninteresting. Governments emanate
from social influences. The social rule of the Roman Emperors bred
athletes, heroes, and poets, merely because physical strength and
courage, combined with heroism and poetic perception were encouraged by
Roman society. The social rule of England's Elizabeth had its result in
the brilliant attainments of the many great men who crowded her Court--
the social rule of Victoria, until the death of the Prince Consort,
bred gentle women and chivalrous men. In all these cases, the reigning
monarchs governed society, and society governed politics. Politics,
indeed, can scarcely be considered apart from society, because on the
nature and character of society depend the nature and character of
politics. If society is made up of corrupt women and unprincipled men,
the spirit of political government will be as corrupt and unprincipled
as they. If any King, beholding such a state of things, were to
suddenly cut himself clear of the corruption, and to make a straight
road for his own progress--clean and open--and elect to walk in it,
society would follow his lead, and as a logical consequence politics
would become honourable. But no monarchs have the courage of their
opinions nowadays,--if only one sovereign of them all possessed such
courage, he could move the world!

The long bright day unwound its sunny hours, crowned with blue skies
and fragrant winds, and the life and movement of the fair city by the
sea was gay, incessant and ever-changing. There was some popular
interest and excitement going on down at the quay, for the usual idle
crowd had collected to see the Royal yacht being prepared for her
afternoon's cruise. Though she was always kept ready for sailing, the
King's orders this time had been sudden and peremptory, and,
consequently, all the men on board were exceptionally hard at work
getting things in immediate readiness. The fact that the Queen was to
accompany the King in the afternoon's trip to The Islands, where up to
the present she had never been, was a matter of lively comment,--her
extraordinary beauty never failing to attract a large number of sight-
seers.

In the general excitement, no one saw Professor von Glauben quietly
enter a small and common sailing skiff, manned by two ordinary
fishermen of the shore, and scud away with the wind over the sea
towards the west, where, in the distance on this clear day, a gleaming
line of light showed where The Islands lay, glistening like emerald and
pearl in the midst of the dark blue waste of water. His departure was
unnoticed, though as a rule the King's private physician commanded some
attention, not only by reason of his confidential post in the Royal
household, but also on account of certain rumours which were circulated
through the country concerning his wonderful skill in effecting
complete cures where all hope of recovery had been abandoned. It was
whispered, indeed, that he had discovered the 'Elixir of Life,' but
that he would not allow its properties to be made known, lest as the
Scripture saith, man should 'take and eat and live for ever.' It was
not advisable--so the Professor was reported to have said--that all men
should live for ever,--but only a chosen few; and he, at present, was
apparently the privileged person who alone was fitted to make the
selection of those few. For this and various other reasons, he was
generally looked at with considerable interest, but this morning, owing
to the hurried preparations for the embarking of their Majesties on
board the Royal yacht, he managed to escape from even chance
recognition,--and he was well over the sea, and more than half-way to
his destination before the bells of the city struck noon.

Punctual to that hour, a close carriage drove up to the palace. It
contained no less a personage than the Prime Minister, the Marquis de
Lutera,--a dark, heavy man, with small furtive eyes, a ponderous jaw,
and a curious air of seeming for ever on an irritable watch for
offences. His aspect was intellectual, yet always threatening; and his
frigid manner was profoundly discouraging to all who sought to win his
attention or sympathy. He entered the palace now with an easy, not to
say assertive deportment, and as he ascended the broad staircase which
led to the King's private apartments, he met the Chief of the Police
coming down. This latter saluted him, but he barely acknowledged the
courtesy, so taken by surprise was he at the sight of this
administrative functionary in the palace at so early an hour. However,
it was impossible to ask any questions of him on the grand staircase,
within hearing of the Royal lackeys; so he continued on his way
upstairs, with as much dignity as his heavily-moulded figure would
permit him to display, till he reached the upper landing known as the
'King's Corridor,' where Sir Roger de Launay was in waiting to conduct
him to his sovereign's presence. To him the Marquis addressed the
question:

"Bernhoff has been with the King?"

"Yes. For more than an hour."

"Any robbery in the palace?"

De Launay smiled.

"I think not! So far as I am permitted to be cognisant of events, there
is nothing wrong!"

The Marquis looked slightly perplexed.

"The King is well?"

"Remarkably well--and in excellent humour! He is awaiting you,
Marquis,--permit me to escort you to him!"

The carved and gilded doors of the Royal audience-chamber were
thereupon flung back, and the Marquis entered, ushered in by De Launay.
The doors closed again upon them both; and for some time there was
profound silence in the King's corridor, no intruder venturing to
approach save two gentlemen-at-arms, who paced slowly up and down at
either end on guard. At the expiration of about an hour, Sir Roger came
out alone, and, glancing carelessly around him, strolled to the head of
the grand staircase, and waited patiently there for quite another
thirty minutes. At last the doors were flung open widely again, and the
King himself appeared, clad in easy yachting attire, and walking with
one hand resting on the arm of the Marquis de Lutera, who, from his
expression, seemed curiously perturbed.

"Then you will not come with us, Marquis?" said the King, with an air
of gaiety; "You are too much engrossed in the affairs of Government to
break loose for an afternoon from politics for the sake of pleasure?
Ah, well! You are a matchless worker! Renowned as you are for your
studious observation of all that may tend to the advancement of the
nation's interests--admired as you are for the complete sacrifice of
all your own advantages to the better welfare of the country, I will
not (though I might as your sovereign), command your attendance on this
occasion! I know the affairs you have in hand are pressing and
serious!"

"They will be more than usually so, Sir," said the Marquis in a low
voice; "for if you persist in maintaining your present attitude, the
foreign controversy in which we are engaged can scarcely go on. But
your action will be questioned by the Government!"

The King laughed.

"Good! By all means question it, my dear Marquis! Prove me an
unconstitutional monarch, if you like, and put Humphry on the throne in
my place,--but ask the People first! If they condemn me, I am satisfied
to be condemned! But the present political difference between ourselves
and a friendly nation must be arranged without offence. There does not
exist at the moment any reasonable cause for fanning the dispute into a
flame of war."--He paused, then resumed--"You will not come with us?"

"Sir, if you will permit me to refuse the honour on this occasion----"

"The permission is granted!" replied the King, still smiling;
"Farewell, Marquis! We are not in the habit of absenting ourselves from
our own country, after the fashion of certain of our Royal neighbours,
who shall be nameless; and we conceive it our duty to make ourselves
acquainted with the habits and customs of all our subjects in all
quarters of our realm. Hence our resolve to visit The Islands, which,
to our shame be it said, we have neglected until now. We expect to
derive both pleasure and instruction from the brief voyage!"

"Are the islanders aware of your intention, Sir?" enquired the Marquis.

"Nay--to prepare them would have spoilt our pleasure!" replied the
King. "We will take them by surprise! We have heard of certain
countries, whose villages and towns have never seen the reigning
sovereign,--and though we have been but three years on the throne, we
have resolved that no corner of our kingdom shall lack the sunlight of
our presence!" He gave a mirthful side-glance at De Launay. Then,
extending his hand cordially, he added: "May all success attend your
efforts, Marquis, to smooth over this looming quarrel between ourselves
and our friendly trade-rivals! I, for one, would not have it go
further. I shall see you again at the Council during the week."

As the premier's hand met that of his Sovereign, the latter exclaimed
suddenly:

"Ah!--I thought I missed a customary friend from my finger; I have
forgotten my signet-ring! Will you lend me yours for to-day, Marquis?"

"Sir, if you will deign to wear it!" replied the Marquis readily, and
at once slipping off the ring in question, he handed it to the King,
who smilingly accepted it and put it on.

"A fine sapphire!" he said approvingly; "Better, I think, than my
ruby!"

"Sir, your praise enhances its value," said De Lutera bowing
profoundly; "I shall from henceforth esteem it priceless!"

"Well said!" returned the King, "And rightly too!--for diplomacy is
wise in flattering a king to the last, even while meditating on his
possible downfall! Adieu, Marquis! When we next meet, I shall expect
good news!"

He descended the staircase, closely attended by De Launay, and passed
at once into a larger room of audience, where some notable persons of
foreign distinction were waiting to be received. On the way thither,
however, he turned to Sir Roger for a moment, and held up the hand on
which the Marquis de Lutera's signet flashed like a blue point of
flame.

"Behold the Premier's signet!" he said with a smile; "Methinks, for
once, it suits the King!"




CHAPTER X

THE ISLANDS


Surrounded by a boundless width of dark blue sea at all visible points
of view, The Islands, lovely tufts of wooded rock, trees, and full-
flowering meadowlands, were situated in such a happy position as to be
well out of all possibility of modern innovation or improvement. They
were too small to contain much attraction for the curious tourist; and
though they were only a two-hours' sail from the mainland, the distance
was just sufficiently inconvenient to keep mere sight-seers away. For
more than a hundred years they had been almost exclusively left to the
coral-fishers, who had made their habitation there; and the quaint,
small houses, and flowering vineyards and gardens, dotted about in the
more fertile portions of the soil, had all been built and planned by a
former race of these hardy folk, who had handed their properties down
from father to son. They were on the whole, a peaceable community.
Coral-fishing was one of the chief industries of the country, and the
islanders passed all their days in obtaining the precious product,
cleansing, and preparing it for the market. They were understood to be
extremely jealous of strangers and intruders, and to hold certain
social traditions which had never been questioned or interfered with by
any form of existing government, because in themselves they gave no
cause for interference, being counted among the most orderly and law-
abiding subjects of the realm. Very little interest was taken in their
doings by the people of the mainland,--scarcely as much interest,
perhaps, as is taken by Londoners in the inhabitants of Orkney or
Shetland. One or two scholars, a stray botanist here and there, or a
few students fond of adventure, had visited the place now and again,
and some of these had brought back enthusiastic accounts of the
loveliness of the natural scenery, but where a whole country is
beautiful, little heed is given to one small corner of it, particularly
if that corner is difficult of access, necessitating a two hours' sail
across a not always calm sea. Vague reports were current that there was
a strange house on The Islands, built very curiously out of the timbers
and spars of wrecked vessels. The owner of this abode was said to be a
man of advanced age, whose history was unknown, but who many years ago
had been cast ashore from a great shipwreck, and had been rescued and
revived by the coral-fishers, since when, he had lived among them, and
worked with them. No one knew anything about him beyond that since his
advent The Islands had been more cultivated, and their inhabitants more
prosperous; and that he was understood to be, in the language or
dialect of the country, a 'life-philosopher.' Whereat, hearing these
things by chance now and then, or seeing a scrappy line or two in the
daily press when active reporters had no murders or suicides to enlarge
upon, and wanted to 'fill up space,' the gay aristocrats or 'smart set'
of the metropolis laughed at their dinner-parties and balls, and asked
one another inanely, "What is a 'life-philosopher'?"

In the same way, when a small volume of poetry, burning as lava, wild
as a storm-wind, came floating out on the top of the seething soup of
current literature, bearing the name of Paul Zouche, and it was said
that this person was a poet, they questioned smilingly, "Is he dead?"
for, naturally, they could not imagine these modern days were capable
of giving birth to a living specimen of the _genus_ bard. For
they, too, had their motor-cars from France and England;--they, too,
had their gambling-dens secreted in private houses of high repute,--
they, too, had their country-seats specially indicated as free to such
house-parties as wished to indulge in low intrigue and unbridled
licentiousness; they, too, weary of simple Christianity, had their own
special 'religions' of palmistry, crystal-gazing, fortune-telling by
cards, and Esoteric 'faith-healing.' The days were passing with them--
as it passes with many of their 'set' in other countries,--in complete
forgetfulness of all the nobler ambitions and emotions which lift Man
above the level of his companion Beast. For the time is now upon us
when what has formerly been known as 'high' is of its own accord
sinking to the low, and what has been called the 'low' is rising to the
high. Strange times!--strange days!--when the tradesman can scorn the
duchess on account of her 'dirty mind'--when a certain nobleman can get
no honest labourers to work on his estate, because they suspect him of
'rooking' young college lads;--and when a church in a seaport town
stands empty every Sunday, with its bells ringing in vain, because the
congregation which should fill it, know that their so-called 'holy man'
is a rascal! All over the world this rebellion against Falsehood,--this
movement towards Truth is felt,--all over the world the people are
growing strong on their legs, and clear in their brains;--no longer
cramped and stunted starvelings, they are gradually developing into
full growth, and awaking to intelligent action. And wherever the
dominion of priestcraft has been destroyed, there they are found at
their best and bravest, with a glimmering dawn of the true Christian
spirit beginning to lighten their darkness,--a spirit which has no race
or sect, but is all-embracing, all-loving, and all-benevolent;--which
'thinketh no evil,' but is so nobly sufficing in its tenderness and
patience, as to persuade the obstinate, govern the unruly, and recover
the lost, by the patient influence of its own example. On the reverse
side of the medal, wherever we see priestcraft dominant, there we see
ignorance and corruption, vice and hypocrisy, and such a low standard
of morals and education as is calculated to keep the soul a slave in
irons, with no possibility of any intellectual escape into the
'glorious liberty of the free.'

The afternoon was one of exceptional brilliance and freshness, when,
punctually at three o'clock, the Royal yacht hoisted sail, and dipped
gracefully away from the quay with their Majesties on board, amid the
cheers of an enthusiastic crowd. A poet might have sung of the scene in
fervid rhyme, so pretty and gay were all the surroundings,--the bright
skies, the dancing sea, the flying flags and streamers, and the soft
music of the Court orchestra, a band of eight players on stringed
instruments, which accompanied the Royal party on their voyage of
pleasure. The Queen stood on deck, leaning against the mast, her eyes
fixed on the shore, as the vessel swung round, and bore away towards
the west;--the people, elbowing each other, and climbing up on each
other's shoulders and on the posts of the quay, merely to get a passing
glimpse of her beauty, all loyally cheering and waving their hats and
handkerchiefs, were as indifferent to her sight and soul as an ant-heap
in a garden walk. She had accustomed her mind to dwell on things beyond
life, and life itself had little interest for her. This was because she
had been set among the shams of worldly state and ceremonial from her
earliest years, and being of a profound and thoughtful nature, had
grown up to utterly despise the hollowness and hypocrisy of her
surroundings. In extenuation of the coldness of her temperament, it may
be said that her rooted aversion to men arose from having studied them
too closely and accurately. In her marriage she had fulfilled, or
thought she had fulfilled, a mere duty to the State--no more; and the
easy conduct of her husband during his apprenticeship to the throne as
Heir-Apparent, had not tended in any way to show her anything
particularly worthy of admiration or respect in his character. And so
she had gone on her chosen way, removed and apart from his,--and the
years had flown by, and now she was,--as she said to herself with a
little touch of contempt,--'old--for a woman!'--while the King
remained 'young,--for a man! 'This was a mortifying reflection. True,
her beauty was more perfect than in her youth, and there were no signs
as yet of its decay. She knew well enough the extent of her charm,--she
knew how easily she could command homage wherever she went,--and
knowing, she did not care. Or rather--she had not cared. Was it
possible she would ever care, and perhaps at a time when it was no use
caring? A certain irritability, quite foreign to her usual composure,
fevered her blood, and it arose from one simple admission which she had
been forced to make to herself within the last few days, and this was,
that her husband was as much her kingly superior in heart and mind as
he was in rank and power. She had never till now imagined him capable
of performing a brave deed, or pursuing an independently noble course
of action. Throughout all the days of his married life he had followed
the ordinary routine of his business or pleasure with scarce a break,--
in winter to his country seat on the most southern coast of his
southern land,--in spring to the capital,--in full summer to some
fashionable 'bath' or 'cure,'--in autumn to different great houses for
the purpose of shooting other people's game by their obsequious
invitation,--and in the entire round he had never shown himself capable
of much more than a flirtation with the prettiest or the most pushing
new beauty, or a daring ride on the latest invention for travelling at
lightning speed. She had noticed a certain change in him since he had
ascended the throne, but she had attributed this to the excessive
boredom of having to attend to State affairs.

Now, however, all at once and without warning, this change had
developed into what was evidently likely to prove a complete
transformation--and he had surprised her into an involuntary, and more
or less reluctant admiration of qualities which she had never hitherto
suspected in him. She had consented to join him on this occasion in his
trip to The Islands, in order to try and fathom the actual drift of his
intentions,--for his idea that their son, Prince Humphry, had yielded
to some particular feminine attraction there, piqued her curiosity even
more than her interest. She turned away now from her observation of the
shore, as it receded on the horizon and became a mere thin line of
light which vanished in its turn as the vessel curtsied onward; and she
moved to the place prepared for her accommodation--a sheltered corner
of the deck, covered by silken awnings, and supplied with luxurious
deck chairs and footstools. Here two of her ladies were waiting to
attend upon her, but none of the rougher sex she so heartily abhorred.
As she seated herself among her cushions with her usual indolent grace,
she raised her eyes and saw, standing at a respectful distance from
her, a distinguished personage who had but lately arrived at the Court,
from England,--Sir Walter Langton, a daring traveller and explorer in
far countries,--one who had earned high distinction at the point of
the sword. He had been presented to her some evenings since, among a
crowd of other notabilities, and she had, as was her usual custom with
all men, scarcely given him a passing glance. Now as she regarded him,
she suddenly decided, out of the merest whim, to call him to her side.
She sent one of her ladies to him, charged with her invitation to
approach and take his seat near her. He hastened to obey, with some
surprise, and no little pleasure. He was a handsome man of about forty,
sun-browned and keen of eye, with a grave intellectual face after the
style of a Vandyk portrait, and a kindly smile; and he was happily
devoid of all that unbecoming officiousness and obsequiousness which
some persons affect when in the presence of Royalty. He bowed
profoundly as the Queen received him, saying to him with a smile:--

"You are a stranger here, Sir Walter Langton!--I cannot allow you to
feel solitary in our company!"

"Is it possible for anyone to feel solitary when you are near, Madam?"
returned Sir Walter gallantly, as he obeyed the gesture with which she
motioned him to be seated;--"You must be weary of hearing that even
your silent presence is sufficient to fill space with melody and charm!
And I am not altogether a stranger; I know this country well, though I
have never till now had the honour of visiting its ruling sovereign."

"It is very unlike England," said the Queen, slowly unfurling her fan
of soft white plumage and waving it to and fro.

"Very unlike, indeed!" he agreed, and a musing tenderness darkened his
fine hazel eyes as he gazed out on the sparkling sea.

"You like England best?" resumed the Queen.

"Madam, I am an Englishman! To me there is no land so fair, or so much
worth living and dying for, as England!"

"Yet--I suppose, like all your countrymen, you are fond of change?"

"Yes--and no, Madam!" replied Langton.--"In truth, if I am to speak
frankly, it is only during the last thirty or forty years that my
countrymen have blotted their historical scutcheons by this fondness
for change. Where travelling is necessary for the attainment of some
worthy object, then it is wise and excellent,--but where it is only for
the purpose of distracting a self-satiated mind, it is of no avail, and
indeed frequently does more harm than good."

"Self-satiated!" repeated the Queen,--"Is not that a strange word?"

"It is the only compound expression I can use to describe the
discontented humour in which the upper classes of English society exist
to-day," replied Sir Walter. "For many years the soul of England has
been held in chains by men whose thoughts are all of Self,--the honour
of England has been attainted by women whose lives are moulded from
first to last on Self. To me, personally, England is everything,--I
have no thought outside it--no wish beyond it. Yet I am as ashamed of
some of its leaders of opinion to-day, as if I saw my own mother
dragged in the dust and branded with infamy!"

"You speak of your Government?" began the Queen.

"No, Madam,--I have no more quarrel with my country's present
Government than I could have with a child who is led into a ditch by
its nurse. It is a weak and corrupted Government; and its actual rulers
are vile and abandoned women."

The Queen's eyes opened in a beautiful, startled wonderment;--this
man's clear, incisive manner of speech interested her.

"Women!" she echoed, then smiled; "You speak strongly, Sir Walter! I
have certainly heard of the 'advanced' women who push themselves so
much forward in your country, but I had no idea they were so
mischievous! Are they to be admired? Or pitied?"

"Pitied, Madam,--most sincerely pitied!" returned Sir Walter;--"But
such misguided simpletons as these are not the creatures who rule, or
play with, or poison the minds of the various members who compose our
Government. The 'advanced' women, poor souls, do nothing but talk
platitudes. They are perfectly harmless. They have no power to persuade
men, because in nine cases out of ten, they have neither wit nor
beauty. And without either of these two charms, Madam, it is difficult
to put even a clever cobbler, much less a Prime Minister, into leading
strings! No,--it is the spendthrift women of a corrupt society that I
mean,--the women who possess beauty, and are conscious of it,--the
women who have a mordant wit and use it for dangerous purposes--the
women who give up their homes, their husbands, their children and their
reputations for the sake of villainous intrigue, and the feverish
excitement of speculative money-making;--with these--and with the
stealthy spread of Romanism,--will come the ruin of my country!"

"So grave as all that!" said the Queen lightly;--"But, surely, Sir
Walter, if you see ruin and disaster threatening so great an Empire in
the far distance, you and other wise men of your land are able to stave
it off?"

"Madam, I have no power!" he returned bitterly. "Those who have thought
and worked,--those who are able to see what is coming by the light of
past experience, are seldom listened to, or if they get a hearing, they
are not seldom ridiculed and 'laughed down.' Till a strong man speaks,
we must all remain dumb. There is no real Government in England at
present, just as there is no real Church. The Government is made up of
directly self-interested speculators and financiers rather than
diplomatists,--the Church, for which our forefathers fought, is
yielding to the bribery of Rome. It is a time of Sham,--sham politics,
and sham religion! We have fallen upon evil days,--and unless the
people rise, as it is to be hoped to God they will, serious danger
threatens the glory and the honour of England!"

"Would you desire revolution and bloodshed, then?" enquired the Queen,
becoming more and more interested as she saw that this Englishman did
not, like most of his sex, pass the moments in gazing at her in
speechless admiration,--"Surely not!"

"I would have revolution, Madam, but not bloodshed," he replied;--"I
think my countrymen are too well grounded in common-sense to care for
any movement which could bring about internal dissension or riot,--
but, at the same time, I believe their native sense of justice is great
enough to resist tyranny and wrong and falsehood, even to the death. I
would have a revolution--yes--but a silent and bloodless one!"

"And how would you begin?" asked the Queen.

"The People must begin, Madam!" he answered;--"All reforms must begin
and end with the People only! For example, if the People would decline
to attend any church where the incumbent is known to encourage
practices which are disloyal to the faith of the land, such disloyalty
would soon cease. If the majority of women would refuse to know, or to
receive, any woman of high position who had voluntarily disgraced
herself, they would soon put a stop to the lax morality of the upper
classes. If our builders, artisans and mechanics would club together,
and refuse to make guns or ships for our enemies in foreign countries,
we should not run the risk of being one day hoisted with our own
petard. In any case, the work of Revolution rests with the people,
though it is quite true they need teachers to show them how to begin."

"And are these teachers forthcoming?"

"I think so!" said Sir Walter meditatively. "Throughout all history, as
far back as we can trace it, whenever a serious reform has been needed
in either society or government, there has always been found a leader
to head the movement."

The Queen's beautiful eyes rested upon him with a certain curiosity.

"What of your King?" she said.

"Madam, he is my King!" he replied,--"And I serve him faithfully!"

She was silent. She began to wonder whether he had any private motive
to gain, any place he sought to fill, that he should assume such a
touch-me-not air at this stray allusion to his Sovereign.

"Lese-majeste is so common nowadays!" she mused;--"It is such an
ordinary thing to hear vulgar _parvenus_ talk of their king as if
he were a public-house companion of theirs, that it is somewhat
remarkable to find one who speaks of his monarch with loyalty and
respect. I suppose, however, like everyone else, he has his own ends to
serve!--Kings are the last persons in the world who can command
absolute fidelity!"

She glanced dreamily over the sea, and perceiving a slight shade of
weariness on her face, Sir Walter discreetly rose, craving her
permission to retire to the saloon, where he had promised to join the
King. When he had left her, she turned to one of her ladies, the
Countess Amabil, and remarked:

"A very personable gentleman, is he not?"

"Madam," rejoined the Countess, who was very lovely in herself, and of
a bright and sociable disposition;--"I have often thought it would be
more pleasant and profitable for all of us if we had many such
personable gentlemen with us oftener!"

A slight frown of annoyance crossed the Queen's face. The Countess was
a very charming lady; very fascinating in her own way, but her decided
predilection for the sterner sex often led her to touch on dangerous
ground with her Royal mistress. This time, however, she escaped the
chilling retort her remark might possibly, on another occasion, have
called down upon her. The Queen said nothing. She sat watching the
sea,--and now and again took up her field-glass to study the
picturesque coast of The Islands, which was rapidly coming into view.
Teresa de Launay, the second lady in attendance on her, was reading,
and, seeing her quite absorbed in her book, the Queen presently asked
her what it contained.

"You have smiled twice over that book, Teresa," she said kindly;--"What
is it about?"

"Madam, it speaks of love!" replied Teresa, still smiling.

"And love makes you smile?"

"I would rather smile than weep over it, Madam!" replied Teresa, with a
slight colour warming her fair face;--"But as concerns this book, I
smile, because it is full of such foolish verses,--as light and sweet--
and almost as cloying,--as French _fondants_!"

"Let me hear!" said the Queen; "Read me a few lines."

"This one, called 'A Canzonet' is brief enough for your Majesty's
immediate consideration," replied Teresa;--"It is just such a thing as
a man might scribble in his note-book after a bout of champagne, when
he is in love for ten minutes! He would not mean a word of it,--but it
might sound pretty by moonlight!" Whereupon she read aloud:--

 My Lady is pleased to smile,
    And the world is glad and gay;
  My Lady is pleased to weep;--
    And it rains the livelong day!

  My Lady is pleased to hate,
    And I lose my life and my breath;
  My Lady is pleased to love,--
    And I am the master of Death!

  I know that my Lady is Love,
    By the magical light about her;
  I know that my Lady is Life,
    For I cannot live without her!

"And you do not think any man would truly mean as much love as this?"
queried the Queen.

"Oh, Madam, you know he would not! If he had written such lines about
the joys of dining, or the flavour of an excellent cigar, they might
then indeed be taken as an expression of his truest and deepest
feeling! But his 'Lady'! Bah! She is a mere myth,--a temporary peg to
hang a stray emotion on!"

She laughed, and her laughter rippled merrily on the air.

"I do not think the men who write so easily about love can ever truly
feel it," she went on;--"Those who really love must surely be quite
unable to express themselves. This man who sings about his 'Lady' being
pleased to do this or do that, was probably trying to obtain the good
graces of some pretty housemaid or chorus girl!"

A slight contemptuous smile crossed the Queen's face; from her
expression it was evident that she agreed in the main with the opinion
of her vivacious lady-in-waiting. Just at that moment the King and his
suite, with Sir Walter Langton and one or two other gentlemen, who had
been invited to join the party, came up from the saloon, and the
conversation became general.

"Have you seen Humphry at all to-day?" enquired the King aside of De
Launay. "I sent him an early message asking him to join us, and was
told he had gone out riding. Is that true?"

"I have not seen his Royal Highness since the morning, Sir," replied
the equerry; "He then met me,--and Professor von Glauben also--in the
gardens. He gave me no hint as to whether he knew of your intention to
sail to The Islands this afternoon or not; he was reading, and with
some slight discussion on the subject of the book he was interested in,
he and the Professor strolled away together."

"But where is Von Glauben?" pursued the King; "I sent for him likewise,
but he was absent."

"I understood him to say that you had not commanded his attendance
again to-day, Sir," replied Sir Roger;--"He told me he had already
waited upon you."

"Certainly I did not command his attendance when I saw him the first
thing this morning," replied the King; "I summoned him then merely to
satisfy his scruples concerning my health and safety, as he seemed last
night to have doubts of both!" He smiled, and his eyes twinkled
humourously. "Later on, I requested him to join us in this excursion,
but his servant said he had gone out, leaving no word as to when he
would return. An eccentricity! I suppose he must be humoured!"

Sir Roger was silent. The King looked at him narrowly, and saw that
there was something in his thoughts which he was not inclined to utter,
and with wise tact and discretion forbore to press any more questions
upon him. It was not a suitable time for cross-examination, even of the
most friendly kind; there were too many persons near at hand who might
be disposed to listen and to form conjectures; moreover the favouring
wind had so aided the Royal yacht in her swift course that The Islands
were now close at hand, and the harbour visible, the run across from
the mainland having been accomplished under the usual two hours.

The King scanned the coast through his glass with some interest.

"We shall obtain amusement from this unprepared trip," he said,
addressing the friends who were gathered round him; "We have forbidden
any announcement of our visit here, and, therefore, we shall receive no
recognition, or welcome. We shall have to take the people as we find
them!"

"Let us hope they will prove themselves agreeable, Sir," said one of
the suite, the Marquis Montala, a somewhat effeminate elegant-looking
man, with small delicate features and lazily amorous eyes,--"And that
the women of the place will not be too alarmingly hideous."

"Women are always women." said the King gaily; "And you, Montala, if
you cannot find a pretty one, will put up with an ugly one for the
moment rather than have none at all! But beauty exists everywhere, and
I daresay we shall find it in as good evidence here as in other parts
of the kingdom. Our land is famous for its lovely women,"--and turning
to Sir Walter Langton he added--"I think, Sir Walter, we can almost
beat your England in that one particular!"

"Some years ago, Sir, I should have accepted that challenge," returned
Sir Walter, "And with the deepest respect for your Majesty, I should
have ventured to deny the assertion that any country in the world could
surpass England for the beauty of its women. But since the rage for
masculine sports and masculine manners has taken hold of English girls,
I am not at all disposed to defend them. They have, unhappily, lost all
the soft grace and modesty for which their grandmothers were renowned,
and one begins to remark that their very shapes are no longer feminine.
The beautiful full bosoms, admired by Gainsborough and Romney, are
replaced by an unbecoming flatness--the feet and hands are growing
large and awkward, instead of being well-shaped, white and delicate--
the skin is becoming coarse and rough of texture, and there is very
little complexion to boast of, if we except the artificial make-up of
the women of the town. Some few pretty and natural women remain in the
heart of the forest and the country, but the contamination is
spreading, and English women are no longer the models of womanhood for
all the world."

"Are you married, Sir Walter?" asked the King with a smile.

"To no woman, Sir! I have married England--I love her and work for her
only!"

"You find that love sufficient to fill your heart?"

"Perhaps," returned Sir Walter musingly--"perhaps if I speak personally
and selfishly--no! But when I argue the point logically, I find this--
that if I had a wife she might probably occupy too much of my time,--
certes, if I had children, I should be working for them and their
future welfare;--as it is, I give all my life and all my work to my
country, and my King!"

"I hope you will meet with the reward you merit," said the Queen
gently; "Kings are not always well served!"

"I seek no reward," said Sir Walter simply; "The joy of work is always
its own guerdon."

As he spoke the yacht ran into harbour, and with a loud warning cry the
sailors flung out the first rope to a man on the pier, who stood gazing
in open-mouthed wonder at their arrival. He seemed too stricken with
amazement to move, for he failed to seize the rope, whereat, with an
angry exclamation as the rope slipped back into the water, and the
yacht bumped against the pier, a sailor sprang to land, and as it was
thrown a second time, seized it and made it fast to the capstan. A few
more moments and the yacht was safely alongside, the native islander
remaining still motionless and staring. The captain of the Royal vessel
stepped on shore and spoke to him.

"Are there any men about here?"

The individual thus addressed shook his head in the negative.

"Are you alone to keep the pier?"

The head nodded in the affirmative. A voice, emanating from a thickly
bearded mouth was understood to growl forth something about 'no strange
boats being permitted to harbour there.' Whereupon the Captain walked
up to the uncouth-looking figure, and said briefly.

"We are here by the King's order! That vessel is the Royal yacht, and
their Majesties are on board."

For one instant the islander stared more wildly than ever, then with a
cry of amazement and evident alarm, ran away as fast as his legs could
carry him and disappeared. The captain returned to the yacht and
related his experience to Sir Roger de Launay. The King heard and was
amused.

"It seems, Madam," he said, turning to the Queen, "That we shall have
The Islands to ourselves; but as our visit will be but brief, we shall
no doubt find enough to interest us in the mere contemplation of the
scenery without other human company than our own. Will you come?"

He extended his hand courteously to assist her across the gangway of
the vessel, and in a few minutes the Royal party were landed, and the
yacht was left to the stewards and servants, who soon had all hands at
work preparing the dinner which was to be served during the return
sail.




CHAPTER XI

"GLORIA--IN EXCELSIS!"


The King and Queen, followed by their suite and their guests, walked
leisurely off the pier, and down a well-made road, sparkling with
crushed sea-shells and powdered coral, towards a group of tall trees
and green grass which they perceived a little way ahead of them. There
was a soothing quietness everywhere,--save for the singing of birds and
the soft ripple of the waves on the sandy shore, it was a silent land:

    "In which it seemed always afternoon--
    All round the coast the languid air did swoon--
    Breathing like one that hath a weary dream."

The Queen paused once or twice to look around her; she was vaguely
touched and charmed by the still beauty of the scene.

"It is very lovely!" she said, more to herself than to any of her
companions; "The world must have looked something like this in the
first days of creation,--so unspoilt and fresh and simple!"

The Countess Amabil, walking with Sir Walter Langton, glanced
coquettishly at her cavalier and smiled.

"It is idyllic!" she said;--"A sort of Arcadia without Corydon or
Phyllis! Do all the inhabitants go to sleep or disappear in the
daytime, I wonder?"

"Not all, I imagine," replied Sir Walter; "For here comes one, though,
judging from the slowness of his walk, he is in no haste to welcome his
King!"

The personage he spoke of was indeed approaching, and all the members
of the Royal party watched his advance with considerable curiosity. He
was tall and upright in bearing, but as he came nearer he was seen to
be a man of great age, with a countenance on which sorrow and suffering
had left their indelible traces. There were furrows on that face which
tears had hollowed out for their swifter flowing, and the high
intellectual brow bore lines and wrinkles of anxiety and pain, which
were the soul's pen-marks of a tragic history. He was attired in simple
fisherman's garb of rough blue homespun, and when he was within a few
paces of the King, he raised his cap from his curly silver hair with an
old-world grace and deferential courtesy. Sir Roger de Launay went
forward to meet him and to explain the situation.

"His Majesty the King," he said, "has wished to make a surprise visit
to his people of The Islands,--and he is here in person with the Queen.
Can you oblige him with an escort to the principal places of interest?"

The old man looked at him with a touch of amusement and derision.

"There are no places here of interest to a King," he said; "Unless a
poor man's house may serve for his curious comment! I am not his
Majesty's subject--but I live under his protection and his laws,--and I
am willing to offer him a welcome, since there is no one else to do
so!"

He spoke with a refined and cultured accent, and in his look and
bearing evinced the breeding of a gentleman.

"And your name?" asked Sir Roger courteously.

"My name is Rene Ronsard," he replied. "I was shipwrecked on this coast
years ago. Finding myself cast here by the will of God, here I have
remained!"

As he said this, Sir Roger remembered what he had casually heard at
times about the 'life-philosopher' who had built for himself a dwelling
on The Islands out of the timbers of wrecked vessels. This must surely
be the man! Delighted at having thus come upon the very person most
likely to provide some sort of diversion for their Majesties, and
requesting Ronsard to wait at a distance for a moment, he hastened back
to the King and explained the position. Whereupon the monarch at once
advanced with alacrity, and as he approached the venerable personage
who had offered him the only hospitality he was likely to receive in
this part of his realm, he extended his hand with a frank and kindly
cordiality. Rene Ronsard accepted it with a slight but not over-
obsequious salutation.

"We owe you our thanks," said the King, "for receiving us thus readily,
and without notice; which is surely the truest form of hospitable
kindness! That we are strangers here is entirely our own fault, due to
our own neglect of our Island subjects; and it is for this that we have
sought to know something of the place privately, before visiting it
with such public ceremonial and state as it deserves. We shall be
indebted to you greatly if you will lend us your aid in this
intention."

"Your Majesty is welcome to my service in whatever way it can be of use
to you," replied Ronsard slowly; "As you see, I am an old man and poor
--I have lived here for well-nigh thirty years, making as little demand
as possible upon the resources of either rough Nature or smooth
civilization to provide me with sustenance. There is poor attraction
for a king in such a simple home as mine!"

"More than all men living, a king has cause to love simplicity,"
returned the monarch, as with his swift and keen glance he noted the
old man's proud figure, fine worn features, and clear, though deeply-
sunken eyes;--"for the glittering shows of ceremony are chiefly
irksome to those who have to suffer their daily monotony. Let me
present you to the Queen--she will thank you as I do, for your kindly
consent to play the part of host to us to-day."

"Nay,"--murmured Ronsard--"No thanks--no thanks!" Then, as the King
said a few words to his fair Consort, and she received the old man's
respectful salutation in the cold, grave way which was her custom, he
raised his eyes to her face, and started back with an involuntary
exclamation.

"By Heaven!" he said suddenly and bluntly, "I never thought to see any
woman's beauty that could compare with that of my Gloria!"

He spoke more to himself than to any listener, but the King hearing his
words, was immediately on the alert, and when the whole Royal party
moved on again, he, walking in a gracious and kindly way by the old
man's side, and skilfully keeping up the conversation at first on mere
generalities, said presently:--

"And that name of Gloria;--may I ask you who it is that bears so
strange an appellation?"

Ronsard looked at him somewhat doubtingly.

"Your Majesty considers it strange? Had you ever seen her, you would
think it the only fitting name for her," he answered,--"For she is
surely the most glorious thing God ever made!"

"Your wife--or daughter?" gently hinted the King.

The old man smiled bitterly.

"Sir, I have never owned wife or child! For aught I know Gloria may
have been born like the goddess Aphrodite, of the sunlight and the sea!
No other parents have ever claimed her."

He checked himself, and appeared disposed to change the subject. The
King looked at him encouragingly.

"May I not hear more of her?" he asked.

Ronsard hesitated--then with a certain abruptness replied--

"Nay--I am sorry I spoke of her! There is nothing to tell. I have said
she is beautiful--and beauty is always stimulating--even to Kings! But
your Majesty will have no chance of seeing her, as she is absent from
home to-day."

The King smiled;--had the rumours of his many gallantries reached The
Islands then?--and was this 'life-philosopher' afraid that 'Gloria '--
whoever she was--might succumb to his royal fascinations? The thought
was subtly flattering, but he disguised the touch of amusement he felt,
and spoke his next words with a kindly and indulgent air.

"Then, as I shall not see her, you may surely tell me of her? I am no
betrayer of confidence!"

A pale red tinged Ronsard's worn features--anon he said:--

"It is no question of confidence, Sir,--and there is no secret or
mystery associated with the matter. Gloria was, like myself, cast up
from the sea. I found her half-drowned, a helpless infant tied to a
floating spar. It was on the other side of these Islands--among the
rocks where there is no landing-place. There is a little church on the
heights up there, and every evening the men and boys practise their
sacred singing. It was sunset, and I was wandering by myself upon the
shore, and in the church above me I heard them chant 'Gloria! Gloria!
Gloria in excelsis Deo!' And while they were yet practising this line I
came upon the child,--lying like a strange lily, in a salt pool,--
between two shafts of rock like fangs on either side of her, bound fast
with rope to a bit of ship's timber. I untied her little limbs, and
restored her to life; and all the time I was busy bringing her back to
breath and motion, the singing in the church above me was 'Gloria!' and
ever again 'Gloria!' So I gave her that name. That was nineteen years
ago. She is married now."

"Married!" exclaimed the King, with a curious sense of mingled relief
and disappointment. "Then she has left you?"

"Oh, no, she has not left me!" replied Ronsard; "She stays with me till
her husband is ready to give her a home. He is very poor, and lives in
hope of better days. Meanwhile poverty so far smiles upon them that
they are happy;--and happiness, youth and beauty rarely go together.
For once they have all met in the joyous life of my Gloria!"

"I should like to see her!" said the King, musingly; "You have
interested me greatly in her history!"

The old man did not reply, but quickening his pace, moved on a little
in advance of the King and his suite, to open a gate in front of them,
which guarded the approach to a long low house with carved gables and
lattice windows, over which a wealth of roses and jasmine clambered in
long tresses of pink and white bloom. Smooth grass surrounded the
place, and tall pine trees towered in the background; and round the
pillars of the broad verandah, which extended to the full length of the
house front, clematis and honeysuckle twined in thick clusters, filling
the air with delicate perfume. The Royal party murmured their
admiration of this picturesque abode, while Ronsard, with a nimbleness
remarkable for a man of his age, set chairs on the verandah and lawn
for his distinguished guests. Sir Walter Langton and the Marquis
Montala strolled about the garden with some of the ladies, commenting
on the simple yet exquisite taste displayed in its planting and
arrangement; while the King and Queen listened with considerable
interest to the conversation of their venerable host. He was a man of
evident culture, and his description of the coral-fishing community,
their habits and traditions, was both graphic and picturesque.

"Are they all away to-day?" asked the King.

"All the men on this side of The Islands--yes, Sir," replied Ronsard;
"And the women have enough to do inside their houses till their
husbands return. With the evening and the moonlight, they will all be
out in their fields and gardens, making merry with innocent dance and
song, for they are very happy folk--much happier than their neighbours
on the mainland."

"Are you acquainted with the people of the mainland, then?" enquired
the King.

"Sufficiently to know that they are dissatisfied;" returned Ronsard
quietly,--"And that, deep down among the tangled grass and flowers of
that brilliant pleasure-ground called Society, there is a fierce and
starving lion called the People, waiting for prey!"

His voice sank to a low and impressive tone, and for a moment his
hearers looked astonished and disconcerted. He went on as though he had
not seen the expression of their faces.

"Here in The Islands there was the same discontent when I first came.
Every man was in heart a Socialist,--every young boy was a budding
Anarchist. Wild ideas fired their brains. They sought Equality. No man
should be richer than another, they said. Equal lots,--equal lives.
They had their own secret Society, connected with another similar one
across the sea yonder. They were brave, clever and desperate,--moved by
a burning sense of wrong,--wrong which they had not the skill to
explain, but which they felt. It was difficult to persuade or soothe
such men, for they were men of Nature,--not of Shams. But fierce and
obstinate as they were, they were good to me when I was cast up for
dead on their seashore. And I, in turn, have tried to be good to them.
That is, I have tried to make them happy. For happiness is what we all
work for and seek for,--from the beginning to the end of life. We go
far afield for it, when it oftener lies at our very doors. Well!--they
are a peaceful community now, and have no evil intentions towards
anyone. They grudge no one his wealth--I think if the truth were known,
they rather pity the rich man than envy him. So, at any rate, I have
taught them to do. But, formerly, they were, to say the least of it,
dangerous!"

The King heard in silence, although the slightest quizzical lifting of
his eyebrows appeared to imply that 'dangerous' was perhaps too strong
a term by which to designate a handful of Socialistic coral-fishers.

"It is curious," went on Ronsard slowly, "how soon the sense of wrong
and injustice infects a whole community. One malcontent makes a host of
malcontents. This is a fact which many governments lose sight of. If I
were the ruler of a country--"

Here he suddenly paused--then added with a touch of brusqueness--

"Pardon me, Sir; I have never known the formalities which apply to
conversation with a king, and I am too old to learn now. No doubt I
speak too boldly! To me you are no more than man; you should be more by
etiquette--but by simple humanity you are not!"

The King smiled, well pleased. This independent commoner, with his
rough garb and rougher simplicity of speech, was a refreshing contrast
to the obsequious personages by whom he was generally surrounded; and
he felt an irresistible desire to know more of the life and
surroundings of one who had gained a position of evident authority
among the people of his own class.

"Go on, my friend!" he said. "Honest expression of thought can offend
none but knaves and fools; and though there are some who say I have a
smack of both, yet I flatter myself I am wholly neither of the twain!
Continue what you were saying--if you were ruler of a country, what
would you do?"

Rene Ronsard considered for a moment, and his furrowed brows set in a
puzzled line.

"I think," he said slowly, at last, "I should choose my friends and
confidants among the leaders of the people."

"And is not that precisely what we all do?" queried the King lightly;
"Surely every monarch must count his friends among the members of the
Government?"

"But the Government does not represent the actual people, Sir!" said
Ronsard quietly.

"No? Then what does it represent?" enquired the King, becoming amused
and interested in the discussion, and holding up his hand to warn back
De Launay, and the other members of his suite who were just coming
towards him from their tour of inspection through the garden--"Every
member of the Government is elected by the people, and returned by the
popular vote. What else would you have?"

"Ministers have not always the popular vote," said Ronsard; "They are
selected by the Premier. And if the Premier should happen to be shifty,
treacherous or self-interested, he chooses such men as are most likely
to serve his own ends. And it can hardly be said, Sir, that the People
truly return the members of Government. For when the time comes for one
such man to be elected, each candidate secures his own agent to bribe
the people, and to work upon them as though they were so much soft
dough, to be kneaded into a political loaf for his private and
particular eating. Poor People! Poor hard-working millions! In the main
they are all too busy earning the wherewithal to Live, to have any time
left to Think--they are the easy prey of the party agent, except--
except when they gather to the voice of a real leader, one who though
not in Government, governs!"

"And is there such an one?" enquired the King, while as he spoke his
glance fell suddenly, and with an unpleasant memory, on the flashing
blue of the sapphire in the Premier's signet he wore; "Here, or
anywhere?"

"Over there!" said Ronsard impressively, pointing across the landscape
seawards; "On the mainland there is not only one, but many! Women,--as
well as men. Writers,--as well as speakers. These are they whom Courts
neglect or ignore,--these are the consuming fire of thrones!" His old
eyes flashed, and as he turned them on the statuesque beauty of the
Queen, she started, for they seemed to pierce into the very recesses of
her soul. "When Court and Fashion played their pranks once upon a time
in France, there was a pen at work on the '_Contrat Social_'--the
pen of one Rousseau! Who among the idle pleasure-loving aristocrats
ever thought that a mere Book would have helped to send them to the
scaffold!" He clenched his hand almost unconsciously--then he spoke
more quietly. "That is what I mean, when I say that if I were ruler of
a country, I should take special care to make friends with the people's
chosen thinkers. Someone in authority"--and here he smiled quizzically
--"should have given Rousseau an estate, and made him a marquis--_in
time_! The leaders of an advancing Thought,--and not the leaders of
a fixed Government are the real representatives of the People!"

Something in this last sentence appeared to strike the King very
forcibly.

"You are a philosopher, Rene Ronsard," he said rising from his chair,
and laying a hand kindly on his shoulder. "And so, in another way am I!
If I understand you rightly, you would maintain that in many cases
discontent and disorder are the fermentation in the mind of one man,
who for some hidden personal motive works his thought through a whole
kingdom; and you suggest that if that man once obtained what he wanted
there would be an end of trouble--at any rate for a time till the next
malcontent turned up! Is not that so?"

"It is so, Sir," replied Ronsard; "and I think it has always been so.
In every era of strife and revolution, we shall find one dissatisfied
Soul--often a soul of genius and ambition--at the centre of the
trouble."

"Probably you are right," said the monarch indulgently; "But evidently
the dissatisfied soul is not in _your_ body! You are no Don
Quixote fighting a windmill of imaginary wrongs, are you?"

A dark red flush mounted to the old man's brow, and as it passed away,
left him pale as death.

"Sir, I have fought against wrongs in my time; but they were not
imaginary. I might have still continued the combat but for Gloria!"

"Ah! She is your peace-offering to an unjust world?"

"No Sir; she is God's gift to a broken heart," replied Ronsard gently.
"The sea cast her up like a pearl into my life; and so for her sake I
resolved to live. For her only I made this little home--for her I
managed to gain some control over the rough inhabitants of these
Islands, and encouraged in them the spirit of peace, mirth and
gladness. I soothed their discontent, and tried to instil into them
something of the Greek love of beauty and pleasure. But after all, my
work sprang from a personal, I may as well say a selfish motive--merely
to make the child I loved, happy!"

"Then do you not regret that she is married, and no longer yours to
cherish entirely?"

"No, I regret nothing!" answered Ronsard; "For I am old and must soon
die. I shall leave her in good and safe hands."

The King looked at him thoughtfully, and seemed about to ask another
question, then suddenly changing his mind, he turned to his Consort and
said a few words to her in a low tone, whereupon as if in obedience to
a command, she rose, and with all the gracious charm which she could
always exert if she so pleased, she enquired of Ronsard if he would
permit them to see something of the interior of his house.

"Madam," replied Ronsard, with some embarrassment; "All I have is at
your service, but it is only a poor place."

"No place is poor that has peace in it," returned the Queen, with one
of those rare smiles of hers, which so swiftly subjugated the hearts of
men. "Will you lead the way?"

Thus persuaded, Rene Ronsard could only bow a respectful assent, and
obey the request, which from Royalty was tantamount to a command.
Signing to the other members of the party, who had stood till now at a
little distance, the Queen bade them all accompany her.

"The King will stay here till we return," she said, "And Sir Roger will
stay with him!"

With these words, and a flashing glance at De Launay, she stepped
across the lawn, followed by her ladies-in-waiting, with Sir Walter
Langton and the other gentlemen; and in another moment the brilliant
little group had disappeared behind the trailing roses and clematis,
which hung in profusion from the oaken projections of the wide verandah
round Ronsard's picturesque dwelling. Standing still for a moment, with
Sir Roger a pace behind him, the King watched them enter the house--
then quickly turning round on his heel, faced his equerry with a broad
smile.

"Now, De Launay," he said, "let us find Von Glauben!"

Sir Roger started with surprise, and not a little apprehension.

"Von Glauben, Sir?"

"Yes--Von Glauben! He is here! I saw his face two minutes ago, peering
through those trees!" And he pointed down a shadowy path, dark with the
intertwisted gloom of untrained pine-boughs. "I am not dreaming, nor am
I accustomed to imagine spectres! I am on the track of a mystery,
Roger! There is a beautiful girl here named Gloria. The beautiful girl
is married--possibly to a jealous husband, for she is apparently hidden
away from all likely admirers, including myself! Now suppose Von
Glauben is that husband!"

He broke off and laughed. Sir Roger de Launay laughed with him; the
idea was too irresistibly droll. But the King was bent on mischief, and
determined to lose no time in compassing it.

"Come along!" he said. "If this tangled path holds a secret, it shall
be discovered before we are many minutes older! I am confident I saw
Von Glauben; and what he can be doing here passes my comprehension!
Follow me, Roger! If our worthy Professor has a wife, and his wife is
beautiful, we will pardon him for keeping her existence a secret from
us so long!"

He laughed again; and turning into the path he had previously
indicated, began walking down it rapidly, Sir Roger following closely,
and revolving in his own perplexed mind the scene of the morning, when
Von Glauben had expressed such a strong desire to get away to The
Islands, and had admitted that there was "a lady in the case."

"Really, it is most extraordinary!" he thought. "The King no sooner
decides to break through conventional forms, than all things seem
loosened from their moorings! A week ago, we were all apparently fixed
in our orbits of exact routine and work--the King most fixed of all--
but now, who can say what may happen next!"

At that moment the monarch turned round.

"This path seems interminable, Roger," he said; "It gets darker, closer
and narrower. It thickens, in fact, like, the mystery we are probing!"

Sir Roger glanced about him. A straight band of trees hemmed them in on
either side, and the daylight filtered through their stems pallidly,
while, as the King had said, there seemed to be no end to the path they
were following. They walked on swiftly, however, exchanging no further
word, when suddenly an unexpected sound came sweeping up through the
heavy branches. It was the rush and roar of the sea,--a surging,
natural psalmody that filled the air, and quivered through the trees
with the measured beat of an almost human chorus.

"This must be another way to the shore," said the King, coming to a
standstill; "And there must be rocks or caverns near. Hark how the
waves thunder and reverberate through some deep hollow!"

Sir Roger listened, and heard the boom of water rolling in and rolling
out again, with the regularity and rhythm of an organ swell, but he
caught an echo of something else besides, which piqued his curiosity
and provoked him to a touch of unusual excitement,--it was the sweet
and apparently quickly suppressed sound of a woman's laughter. He
glanced at his Royal master, and saw at once that he, too, had sharp
ears for that silvery cadence of mirth, for his eyes flashed into a
smile.

"On, Roger," he said softly; "We are close on the heels of the
problem!"

But they had only pressed forward a few steps when they were again
brought to a sudden pause. A voice, whose gruffly mellow accents were
familiar to both of them, was speaking within evidently close range,
and the King, with a warning look, motioned De Launay back a pace or
two, himself withdrawing a little into the shadow of the trees.

"Ach! Do not sing, my princess!" said the voice; "For if you open your
rosy mouth of music, all the birds of the air, and all the little
fishes of the sea will come to listen! And, who knows! Someone more
dangerous than either a bird or a fish may listen also!"

The King grasped De Launay by the arm.

"Was I not right?" he whispered. "There is no mistaking Von Glauben's
accent!"

Sir Roger looked, as he felt, utterly bewildered. In his own mind he
felt it very difficult to associate the Professor with a love affair.
Yet things certainly seemed pointing to some entanglement of the sort.
Suddenly the King held up an admonitory finger.

"Listen!" he said.

Another voice spoke, rich and clear, and sweet as honey.

"Why should I not sing?" and there was a thrill of merriment in the
delicious accents. "You are so afraid of everything to-day! Why? Why
should I stay here with nothing to do? Because you tell me the King is
visiting The Islands. What does that matter? What do I care for the
King? He is nothing to me!"

"You would be something, perhaps, to him if he saw you," replied the
guttural voice of Von Glauben. "It is safer to be out of his way. You
are a very wilful princess this afternoon! You must remember your
husband is jealous!"

The King started.

"Her husband! What the devil does Von Glauben know about her husband!"

De Launay was dumb. A nameless fear and dismay began to possess him.

"My husband!" And the sweet voice laughed out again. "It would be
strange indeed for a poor sailor to be jealous of a king!"

"If the poor sailor had a beautiful wife he worshipped, and the King
should admire the wife, he might have cause to be jealous!" replied Von
Glauben; "And with some ladies, a poor sailor would stand no chance
against a king! Why are you so rebellious, my princess, to-day? Have I
not brought a letter from your beloved which plainly asks you to keep
out of the sight of the King? Have I not been an hour with you here,
reading the most beautiful poetry of Heine?"

"That is why I want to sing," said the sweet voice, with a touch of
wilfulness in its tone. "Listen! I will give you a reading of Heine in
music!" And suddenly, rich and clear as a bell, a golden cadence of
notes rang out with the words:

  "Ah, Hast thou forgotten, That I possessed thy heart?"

The King sprang lightly out of his hiding-place, and with De Launay
moved on slowly and cautiously through the trees.

"Ach, mein Gott!" they heard Von Glauben exclaim--"That is a bird-call
which will float on wings to the ears of the King!"

A soft laugh rippled on the air.

"Dear friend and master, why are you so afraid?" asked the caressing
woman's voice again;--"We are quite hidden away from the Royal
visitors,--and though you have been peeping at the King through the
trees, and though you know he is actually in our garden, he will never
find his way here! This is quite a secret little study and schoolroom,
where you have taught me so much!--yes--so much!--and I am very
grateful! And whenever you come to see me you teach me something more--
you are always good and kind!--and I would not anger you for the world!
But what is the good of knowing and feeling beautiful things, if I may
not express them?"

"You do express them,--in yourself,--in your own existence and
appearance!" said the Professor gruffly; "but that is a physiological
accident which I do not expect you to understand!"

There was a moment's silence. Then came a slight movement, as of quick
feet clambering among loose pebbles, and the voice rang out again.

"There! Now I am in my rocky throne! Do you remember--Ah, no!--you know
nothing about it,--but I will tell you the story! It was here, in this
very place, that my husband first saw me!"

"Ach so!" murmured Von Glauben. "It is an excellent place to make a
first appearance! Eve herself could not have chosen more picturesque
surroundings to make a conquest of Adam!"

Apparently his mild sarcasm fell on unheeding ears.

"He was walking slowly all alone on the shore," went on the voice,
dropping into a more plaintive and tender tone; "The sun had sunk, and
one little star was sparkling in the sky. He looked up at the star--
and--"

"Then he saw a woman's eye," interpolated Von Glauben; "Which is always
more attractive to weak man than an impossible-to-visit planet! What
does Shakespeare say of women's eyes?

  'Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
  Having some business, do entreat her eyes
  To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
  What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
  The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
  As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
  Would through the airy regions stream so bright,
  That birds would sing and think it were not night!'

Ach! That is so!"

As the final words left his lips, a rich note of melody stirred the
air, and a song in which words and music seemed thoroughly welded
together, rose vibratingly up to the quiet sky:

        "Here by the sea,
        My Love found me!
  Seagulls over the waves were swinging;
  Mermaids down in their caves were singing,--
  And one little star in the rosy sky
  Sparkled above like an angel's eye!
        My Love found me,
        And I and he
    Plighted our troth eternally!
        Oh day of splendour,
        And self-surrender!
    The day when my Love found me!

        Here, by the sea,
        My King crown'd me!
  Wild ocean sang for my Coronation,
  With the jubilant voice of a mighty nation!--
  'Mid the towering rocks he set my throne,
  And made me forever and ever his own!
        My King crown'd me,
        And I and he
    Are one till the world shall cease to be!
        Oh sweet love story!
        Oh night of glory!
    The night when my King crown'd me!"

No language could ever describe the marvellous sweetness of the voice
that sung these lines; it was so full of exquisite triumph, tenderness
and passion, that it seemed more supernatural than human. When the song
ceased, a great wave dashed on the shore, like a closing organ chord,
and Von Glauben spoke.

"There! You wanted your own way, my princess, and you have had it! You
have sung like one of the seraphim;--do not be surprised if mortals are
drawn to listen. Sst! What is that?"

There was a pause. The King had inadvertently cracked a twig on one of
the pine-boughs he was holding back in an endeavour to see the
speakers. But he now boldly pushed on, beckoning De Launay to follow
close, and in another minute had emerged on a small sandy plateau,
which led, by means of an ascending path, to a rocky eminence,
encircled by huge boulders and rocky pinnacles, which somewhat
resembled peaks of white coral,--and here, on a height above him,--with
the afternoon sun-glow bathing her in its full mellow radiance, sat a
visibly enthroned goddess of the landscape,--a girl, or rather a
perfect woman, more beautiful than any he had ever seen, or even
imagined. He stared up at her in dazzled wonder, half blinded by the
brightness of the sun and her almost equally blinding loveliness.

"Gloria!" he exclaimed breathlessly, hardly conscious of his own
utterance; "You are Gloria!"

The fair vision rose, and came swiftly forward with an astonished look
in her bright deep eyes.

"Yes!" she said, "I am Gloria!"




CHAPTER XII

A SEA PRINCESS


Scarcely had she thus declared herself, when the Bismarckian head and
shoulders of Von Glauben appeared above the protecting boulders; and
moving with deliberate caution, the rest of his body came slowly after,
till he stood fully declared in an attitude of military 'attention.' He
showed neither alarm nor confusion at seeing the King; on the contrary,
the fixed, wooden expression of his countenance betokened some deeply-
seated mental obstinacy, and he faced his Royal master with the utmost
composure, lifting the slouched hat he wore with his usual stiff and
soldierly dignity, though carefully avoiding the amazed stare of his
friend, Sir Roger de Launay.

The King glanced him up and down with a smiling air of amused
curiosity.

"So this is how you pursue your scientific studies, Professor!" he said
lightly; "Well!"--and he turned his eyes, full of admiration, on the
beautiful creature who stood silently confronting him with all that
perfect ease which expresses a well-balanced mind,--"Wisdom is often
symbolised to us as a marble goddess,--but when Pallas Athene takes so
fair a shape of flesh and blood as this, who shall blame even a veteran
philosopher for sitting at her feet in worship!"

"Pardon me, Sir," returned Von Glauben calmly; "There is no goddess of
Wisdom here, so please you, but only a very simple and unworldly young
woman. She is--" Here he hesitated a moment, then went on--"She is
merely the adopted child of a fisherman living on these Islands."

"I am aware of that!" said the King still smiling. "Rene Ronsard is his
name. He is my host to-day; and he has told me something of her. But,
certes, he did not mention that you had adopted her also!"

Von Glauben flushed vexedly.

"Sir," he stammered, "I could explain--"

"Another time!" interrupted the King, with a touch of asperity.
"Meanwhile, present your--your pupil in the poesy of Heine,--to me!"

Thus commanded, the Professor, casting a vexed glance at De Launay, who
did not in the least comprehend his distress, went to the girl, who
during their brief conversation had stood quietly looking from one to
the other with an expression of half-amused disdain on her lovely
features.

"Gloria," he began reluctantly--then whispering in her ear, he
muttered--"I told you your voice would do mischief, and it has done
it!" Then aloud--"Gloria,--this--this is the King!"

She smiled, but did not change her erect and easy attitude.

"The King is welcome!" she said simply.

She had evidently no intention of saluting the monarch; and Sir Roger
de Launay gazed at her in mingled surprise and admiration. She was
certainly wonderfully beautiful. Her complexion had the soft clear
transparency of a pink sea-shell--her eyes, large and lustrous, were as
densely blue as the dark azure in the depths of a wave,--and her hair,
of a warm bronze chestnut, caught back with a single band of red coral,
seemed to have gathered in its rich curling clusters all the deepest
tints of autumn leaves flecked with a golden touch of the sun. Her
figure, clad in a straight garment of rough white homespun, was the
model of perfect womanhood. She stood a little above the medium height,
her fair head poised proudly on regal shoulders, while the curve of the
full bosom would have baffled the sculptural genius of a Phidias. The
whole exquisite outline of her person was the expressed essence of
beauty, from the lightest wave of her hair, down to her slender ankles
and small feet; and the look that irradiated her noble features was
that of child-like happiness and repose,--the untired expression of one
who had never known any other life than the innocent enjoyment bestowed
upon her by God and divine Nature. Beautiful as his Queen-Consort was
and always had been, the King was forced to admit to himself that here
was a woman far more beautiful,--and as he looked upon her critically,
he saw that there was a light and splendour about her which only the
happiness of Love can give. Her whole aspect was as of one uplifted
into a finer atmosphere than that of earth,--she seemed to exhale
purity from herself, as a rose exhales perfume, and her undisturbed
serenity and dignity, when made aware of the Royal presence, were
evidently not the outcome of ill-breeding or discourtesy, but of mere
self-respect and independence. He approached her with a strange
hesitation, which for him was quite a new experience.

"I am glad I have been fortunate enough to meet you!" he said gently;--
"Some kindly fate guided my steps down the path which brought me to
this part of the shore, else I might have gone away without seeing
you!"

"That would have been no loss to your Majesty," answered Gloria
calmly;--"For to see me, is of no use to anyone!"

"Would your husband say so?" hazarded the King with a smile.

Her eyes flashed.

"My husband would say what is right," she replied. "He would know
better how to talk to you than I do!"

He had insensibly drawn nearer to her as he spoke; meanwhile Von
Glauben, with a disconsolate air, had joined Sir Roger de Launay, who,
by an enquiring look and anxious uplifting of his eyebrows, dumbly
asked what was to be the upshot of this affair,--only to receive a
dismal shake of the head in reply.

"Possibly I know your husband," went on the King, anxious to continue
conversation with so beautiful a creature. "If I do, and he is in my
personal service, he shall not lack promotion! Will you tell me his
name?"

A startled look came into the girl's eyes, and a deep blush swept over
her fair cheeks.

"I dare not!" she said;--"He has forbidden me!"

"Forbidden you!" The King recoiled a step--a vague suspicion rankled in
his mind. "Then, though your King asks you a friendly question, you
refuse to answer it?"

Von Glauben here gripped Sir Roger so fiercely by the arm, that the
latter nearly cried out with pain.

"She must not tell," he muttered--"She must not--she will not!"

But Gloria was looking straight at her Royal questioner.

"I have no King but my husband!" she said firmly. "I have sworn before
God to obey him in all things, and I will not break my vow!"

"Good girl! Wise girl!" exclaimed Von Glauben. "Ach, if all the
beautiful women so guarded their tongues and obeyed their husbands,
what a happy world it would be!"

The King turned upon him.

"True! But you are not bound by the confidences of marriage,
Professor,--so that while in our service our will must be your law!
You, therefore, can perhaps tell me the name of the fortunate man who
has wedded this fair lady?"

The Professor's countenance visibly reddened.

"Sir," he stammered--"With every respect for your Majesty, I would
rather lose my much-to-be-appreciated post with you than betray my
friends!"

The King suddenly lost patience.

"By Heaven!" he exclaimed, "Is my command to be slighted and set aside
as if it were naught? Not while I am king of this country! What mystery
is here that I am not to know?"

Gloria laughed outright, and the pretty ripple of mirth, so unforced
and natural, diverted the monarch's irritation.

"Oh, you are angry!" she said, her lovely eyes twinkling and sparkling
like diamonds:--"So! Then your Majesty is no more than a very common
man who loses temper when he cannot have his own way!" She laughed
again, and the King stared at her unoffended,--being spellbound, both
by her regal beauty, and her complete indifference to himself. "I will
speak like the prophets do in the Bible and say, 'Lo! there is no
mystery, O King!' I am only poor Gloria, a sailor's wife,--and the
sailor has a place on board your son the Crown Prince's yacht, and he
does not want his master to know that he is married lest he lose that
place! Is not that plain and clear, O King? And why should I disobey my
beloved in such a simple matter?"

The King was still in something of a fume.

"There is no reason why you should disobey," he said more quietly, but
still with vexation;--"But, equally, there is no reason why your
husband should be dismissed from the Crown Prince's service, because he
has chosen to marry. If you tell me his name, I will make all things
easy for him, for you, and your future. Can you not trust me?"

With wonderful grace and quickness Gloria suddenly sprang forward,
caught the King's hand, kissed it, and then threw it lightly away from
her.

"No!" she said, with a pretty defiance; "I kiss the hand of the
country's King--but I have my own King to serve!"

And pausing for no more words, she turned away, sprang lightly up the
rocks as swiftly as a roe-deer, and disappeared. And from some hidden
corner, clear and full and sweet, her voice rang out above the peaceful
plashing of the waves:


           "My King crown'd me!
            And I and he
  Are one till the world shall cease to be!"

Stricken dumb and confused by the suddenness of her action, and the
swiftness of her departure, the King stood for a moment inert, gazing
up the rocky height with the air of one who has seen a vision of heaven
withdrawn again into its native element. Some darkening doubt troubled
his mind, and it was with an altogether changed and stern countenance
that he confronted Von Glauben.

"Last night, Professor, you were somewhat anxious for our health and
safety," he said severely; "It is our turn now to be equally anxious
for yours! We are of opinion that you, like ourselves, run some risk of
danger by meddling in affairs which do not concern you! Silence!" This,
as the Professor, deeply moved by his Royal master's evident
displeasure, made an attempt to speak. "We will hear all you have to
say to-morrow. Meanwhile--follow your fair charge!" And he pointed up
in the direction whither Gloria had vanished. "Her husband"--and he
emphasized the word,--"whoever he is, appears to have entrusted her
safety to you;--see that you do not betray his trust, even though you
have betrayed mine!"

At this remark Von Glauben was visibly overcome.

"Sir, you have never had reason to complain of any lack of loyalty in
me to you and to your service," he said with an earnest dignity which
became him well;--"In the matter of the poor child yonder, whose beauty
would surely be a fatal snare to any man, there is much to be told,--
which if told truly, will prove that I am merely the slave of
circumstances which were not created by me,--and which it is possible
for a faithful servant of your Majesty to regret! But a betrayer of
trust I have never been, and I beseech your Majesty to believe me when
I say that the acuteness of that undeserved reproach cuts me to the
heart! I yield to no man in the respect and affection I entertain for
your Royal person, not even to De Launay here--who knows--who knows--"

He broke off, unable through strong emotion to proceed.

"'Who knows'--What?" enquired the King, turning his steadfast eyes on
Sir Roger.

"Nothing, Sir! Absolutely nothing!" replied the equerry, opening his
eyes as widely as their habitual langour would permit; "I am absolutely
ignorant of everything concerning Von Glauben except that he is an
honest man! That I certainly do know!"

A slight smile cleared away something of the doubt and displeasure on
the King's face. Approaching the disconsolate Professor, he laid one
hand on his shoulder and looked him steadily in the eyes.

"By my faith, Von Glauben, if I thought positively that you could play
me false in any matter, I would never believe a man again! Come!
Forgive my hasty speech, and do not look so downcast! Honest I have
always known you to be,--and that you will prove your honesty, I do not
doubt! But--there is something in this affair which awakens grave
suspicion in my mind. For to-day I press no questions--but to-morrow I
must know all! You understand? _All_! Say this to the girl,
Gloria,--say it to her husband also--as, of course, you know who her
husband is. If he serves on Prince Humphry's yacht, that is enough to
say that Humphry himself has probably seen her. Under all the
circumstances, I confess, my dear Von Glauben, that your presence here
is a riddle which needs explanation!"

"It shall be explained, Sir--" murmured the Professor.

"Naturally! It must, of course be explained. But I hope you give me
credit for not being altogether a fool; and I have an idea that my
son's frequent mysterious visits to The Islands have something to do
with this fair Gloria of Glorias!" Von Glauben started involuntarily.
"You perhaps think it too? Or know it? Well, if it is so, I can hardly
blame him overmuch,--though I am sorry he should have selected a poor
sailor's wife as a subject for his secret amours! I should have
thought him possessed of more honour. However--to-morrow I shall look
to you for a full account of the matter. For the present, I excuse
your attendance, and permit you to remain with her whom you call
'princess'!"

He stepped back, and, taking De Launay's arm, turned round at once, and
walked away back to Ronsard's house by the path he had followed with
such eagerness and care.

Von Glauben watched the two tall figures disappear, and then with a
troubled look, began to climb slowly up the rocks in the direction
where Gloria had gone. His reflections were not altogether as
philosophical as usual, because as he said to himself--"One can never
tell how a woman is going to meet misfortune! Sometimes she takes it
well; and then the men who have ruthlessly destroyed her happiness go
on their way rejoicing; but more often she takes it ill, and there is
the devil to pay! Yet--Gloria is not like any ordinary woman--she is a
carefully selected specimen of her sex, which a kindly Nature has
produced as an example of what women were intended to be when they were
first created. I wonder where she has hidden herself?"

Arriving at the summit of the ascent, he peered down towards the sea.
Slopes of rank grass and sea-daisies tufted the rocks on this side,
divided by certain deep hollows which the action of the waves had
honeycombed here and there; and below the grass was the shore, powdered
thickly with sand, of a fine, light, and sparkling colour, like gold
dust. Here in the full light of the sinking sun lay Gloria, her head
pillowed against a rough stone, on the top of which a tall cluster of
daisies, sometimes called moon-flowers, waved like white plumes.

"Gloria!" called Von Glauben.

She looked up, smiling.

"Has Majesty gone?" she asked.

"Gone for the present," replied the Professor, beginning to put one
foot cautiously before the other down a roughly hewn stairway in the
otherwise almost inaccessible cliff. "But, like the sun which is
setting to-night, he will rise again to-morrow!"

"Shall I come and help you down?" enquired the girl, turning on her
elbow as she lay, and lifting her lovely face, radiant as a flower,
towards him.

"Whether down or up, you shall never help me, my princess!" he replied.
"When I can neither climb nor fall without the assistance of a woman's
hand, I shall take a pistol and tell it to whisper in my ear--'Good-
bye, Heinrich Von Glauben! You are all up--finish--gone!'"

Here, with a somewhat elephantine jump, he alighted beside her and
threw himself on the warm sand with a deep sigh of mingled exhaustion
and relief.

"You would be very wicked to put a pistol to your ear," said Gloria
severely;--"It is only a coward who shoots himself!"

"Ach so! And it is a brave man who shoots others! That is curious, is
it not, princess? It is a little bit of man's morality; but we have no
time to discuss it now. We have something more serious to consider,--
your husband!"

She looked at him wonderingly.

"My husband? Do you really think he will be very angry that the King
saw me?"

The Professor appeared to be considering the question; but in reality
he was studying the exquisite delicacy of the face turned so wistfully
upon him, and the lovely lines of the slim throat and rounded chin--"So
beautiful a creature"--he was saying within himself--"And must she also
suffer pain and disillusion like all the rest of her unfortunate sex!"
Aloud he replied.

"My princess, it is not for me to say he will be 'angry,'--for how
could he be angry with the one he loves to such adoration! He will be
sorry and troubled--it will put him into a great difficulty! Ach!--a
whole nest of difficulties!"

"Why?" And Gloria's eyes filled with sudden tears. "I would not grieve
him for the world! I cannot understand why it should matter at all,
even if the King does find out that he is married. Are the rules so
strict for all the men who serve on board the Royal vessels?"

Von Glauben bit his lips to hide an involuntary smile. But he answered
her with quite a martinet air.

"Yes, they are strict--very strict! Particularly so in the case of your
husband. You see, my child--you do not perhaps quite understand--but he
is a sort of superior officer on board; and in close personal
attendance on the Crown Prince."

"He did not tell me that!" said the girl a little anxiously; "Yet
surely it would not matter if he loses one place; can he not easily get
another?"

Von Glauben was looking at her with a grave, almost melancholy
intentness.

"Listen, my princess,--listen to your poor old friend, who means you so
much good, and no harm at all! Your husband--and I too, for that
matter,--wished much to prevent the King from seeing you--for--for many
reasons. When I heard he was coming to The Islands, I resolved to
arrive here before him, and so I did. I said nothing to Ronsard, not
even to warn him of the King's impending visit. I took you just
quietly, as I have often done, for a walk, with a book to read and to
explain to you, because you tell me you want to study; though in my
opinion you know quite enough--for a woman. I gave you a letter from
your husband, and you know he asked you in that letter to avoid all
possibility of meeting with the King. Good! Well, now, what happens?
You sing--and lo! his Majesty, like a fish on a hook, is drawn up open-
mouthed to your feet! Now, who is to blame? You or I?"

A little perplexed line appeared on the girl's fair brows. "I am, I
suppose!" she said somewhat plaintively,--"But yet, even now, I do not
understand. What is the King? He is nothing! He does nothing for
anybody! People make petitions to him, and he never answers them--they
try to point out errors and abuses, and he takes no trouble to remedy
them--he is no better than a wooden idol! He is not a real man, though
he looks like one."

"Oh, you think he looks like one?" murmured Von Glauben; "That is to
say you are not altogether displeased with his appearance?"

Gloria's eyes darkened a moment with thought,--then flashed with
laughter.

"No," she said frankly--"He is more kingly than I thought a king could
be. But he should not lose temper. That spoils all dignity!"

Von Glauben smiled.

"Kings are but mortal," he said, "and never to lose temper would be
impossible to any man."

"It is such a waste of time!" declared Gloria--"Why should anyone lose
self-control? It is like giving up a sword to an enemy."

"That is one of Rene Ronsard's teachings,"--said the Professor--"It is
excellent in theory! But in practice I have seen Rene give way to
temper himself, with considerable enjoyment of his own mental
thunderstorm. As for the King, he is generally a very equable
personage; and he has one great virtue--that is courage. He is brave as
a lion--perhaps braver than many lions!"

She raised her eyes enquiringly.

"Has he proved it?"

Rather taken aback by the question, he stared at her solemnly.

"Proved it? Well! He has had no chance. The country has been at peace
for many years--but if there should ever be a war----"

"Would he go and fight for the country?" enquired Gloria.

"In person? No. He would not be allowed to do that. His life would be
endangered----"

"Of course!" interrupted the girl with a touch of contempt; "But if he
would allow himself to be ruled by others in such a matter, I do not
call him brave!"

The Professor drew out his spectacles, and fixing them on his nose with
much care, regarded her through them with bland and kindly interest.

"Very simple and primitive reasoning, my princess!" he said; "And from
an early historic point of view, your idea is correct. In the olden
times kings went themselves to battle, and led their soldiers on to
victory in person. It was very fine; much finer than our modern ways of
warfare. But it has perhaps never occurred to you that a king's life
nowadays is always in danger? He can do nothing more completely
courageous than to show himself in public!"

"Are kings then so hated?" she asked.

"They are not loved, it must be confessed," returned Von Glauben,
taking off his spectacles again; "But that is quite their own fault.
They seldom do anything to deserve the respect,--much less the
affection of their subjects. But this king--this man you have just
seen--certainly deserves both."

"Why, what has he done?" asked Gloria wonderingly. "I have heard people
say he is very wicked--that he takes other men's wives away from them--"

The Professor coughed discreetly.

"My princess, let me suggest to you that he could scarcely take other
men's wives away from them, unless those wives were perfectly willing
to go!"

She gave an impatient gesture.

"Oh, there are weak women, no doubt; but then a king should know better
than to put temptation in their way. If a man undertakes to be strong,
he should also be honourable. Then,--what of the taxes the King imposes
on the people? The sufferings of the poor over there on the mainland
are terrible!--I know all about them! I have heard Sergius Thord!"

The Professor gave an uncomfortable start.

"You have heard Sergius Thord? Where?"

"Here!" And Gloria smiled at his expression of wonderment. "He has
spoken often to our people, and he is father Rene's friend."

"And what does he talk about when he speaks here?" enquired Von
Glauben. "When does he come, and how does he go?"

"Always at night," answered Gloria; "He has a sailing skiff of his own,
and on many an evening when the wind sets in our quarter, he arrives
quite suddenly, all alone, and in a moment, as if by magic, the
Islanders all seem to know he is here. On the shore, or in the fields
he assembles them round him, and tells them many things that are plain
and true. I have heard him speak often of the shortness of life and its
many sorrows, and he says we could all make each other happy for the
little time we have to live, if we would. And I think he is right; it
is only wicked and selfish people who make others unhappy!"

The Professor was silent. Gloria, watching him, wondered at his
somewhat perturbed expression.

"Do you know the King very well?" she asked suddenly. "He seemed very
cross with you!"

Von Glauben roused himself from a fit of momentary abstraction.

"Yes,--he was cross!" he rejoined. "I, like your husband, am in his
service--and I ought to have been on duty to-day. It will be all right,
however--all right! But--" He paused for a moment, then went on--"You
say that only wicked and selfish people make others unhappy. Now suppose
your husband were wicked and selfish enough to make _you_ unhappy;
what would you say?"

A sweet smile shone in her eyes.

"He could not make me unhappy!" she said. "He would not try! He loves
me, and he will always love me!"

"But, suppose," persisted the Professor--"Just for the sake of argument
--suppose he had deceived you?"

With a low cry she sprang up.

"Impossible!" she exclaimed; "He is truth itself! He could not deceive
anyone!"

"Come and sit down again," said Von Glauben tranquilly; "It is
disturbing to my mind to see you standing there pronouncing your faith
in the integrity of man! No male creature deserves such implicit trust,
and whenever a woman gives it, she invariably finds out her mistake!"

But Gloria stood still, The rich colour had faded from her cheeks--her
eyes were dilated with alarm, and her breath came and went quickly.

"You must explain," she said hurriedly; "You must tell me what you mean
by suggesting such a wicked thought to me as that my husband could
deceive me! It is not right or kind of you,--it is cruel!"

The Professor scrambled up hastily out of his sandy nook, and
approaching her, took her hand very gently and respectfully in his own
and kissed it.

"My dear--my princess--I was wrong! Forgive me!" he murmured, and there
was a little tremor in his voice; "But can you not understand the
possibility of a man loving a woman very much, and yet deceiving her
for her good?"

"It could never be for her good," said Gloria firmly; "It would not be
for mine! No lie ever lasts!"

Von Glauben looked at her with a sense of reverence and something like
awe. The after-glow of the sinking sun was burning low down upon the
sea, and turning it to fiery crimson, and as she stood bathed in its
splendour, the white rocks towering above her, and the golden sands
sparkling at her feet, she appeared like some newly descended angel
expressing the very truth of Heaven itself in her own presence on
earth. As they stood thus, the sudden boom of a single cannon echoed
clear across the waves.

"There goes the King!" said Von Glauben; "Majesty departs for the
present, having so far satisfied his curiosity! That gun is the signal.
Child!"--and turning towards her again, he took both her hands in his,
and spoke with emphatic gravity and kindness--"Remember that I am your
friend always! Whatever chances to you, do not forget that you may
command my service and devotion till death! In this strange life, we
never know from day to day what may happen to us, for constant change
is the law of Nature and the universe,--but after all, there is
something in the soul of a true man which does not change with the
elements,--and that is--loyalty to a sworn faith! In my heart, I have
sworn an oath of fealty to you, my beautiful little princess of the
sea!--and it is a vow that shall never be broken! Do you understand?
And will you remember?"

Her large dark blue eyes looked trustingly into his.

"Indeed, I will never forget!" she said, with a touch of wistfulness in
her accents; "But I do not know why you should be anxious for me--there
is nothing to fear for my happiness. I have all the love I care for in
the world!"

"And long may you keep it!" said the Professor earnestly; "Come! It
will soon be time for me to leave you, and I must see Rene before I go.
If you follow my advice, you will say nothing to him of having met the
King--not for the present, at any rate."

She agreed to this, though with some little hesitation,--then they
ascended the cliff, and walking by way of the pine-wood through which
the King had come, arrived at Ronsard's house, to find the old man
quite alone, and peacefully engaged in tying up the roses and jessamine
on the pillars of his verandah. His worn face lighted up with animation
and tenderness as Gloria approached him and threw her arms around his
neck, and to her he related the incident of the King and Queen's
unexpected visit, as a sort of accidental, uninteresting, and wholly
unimportant occurrence. The Queen, he said, was very beautiful; but too
cold in her manner, though she had certainly taken much interest in
seeing the house and garden.

"It was just as well you were absent, child," he added--"Royalty brings
an atmosphere with it which is not wholesome. A king never knows what
it is to be an honest man!"

"Those are your old, discarded theories, Ronsard!" said Von Glauben,
shaking his head;--"You said you would never return to them!"

"Aye!" rejoined Ronsard;--"I have tried to put away all my old thoughts
and dreams for her sake"--and his gaze rested lovingly on Gloria as,
standing on tiptoe to reach a down-drooping rose, she gathered it and
fastened it in her bosom. "There should only be peace and contentment
where _she_ dwells! But sometimes my life's long rebellion against
sham and injustice stirs in my blood, and I long to pull down the
ignorant people's idols of wood and straw, and set up men in place of
dummies!"

"A Mumbo-Jumbo of some kind has always been necessary in the world, my
friend," said the Professor calmly; "Either in the shape of a deity or
a king. A wood and straw Nonentity is better than an incarnated fleshly
Selfishness. Will you give me supper before I leave?"

Ronsard smiled a cheery assent, and Gloria preceding them, and singing
in a low tone to herself as she went, they all entered the house
together.

Meanwhile, the Royal yacht was scudding back to the mainland over crisp
waters on the wings of a soft breeze, with a bright moon flying through
fleecy clouds above, and silvering the foam-crests of the waves below.
There was music on board,--the King and Queen dined with their guests,
--and laughter and gay converse intermingled with the sound of song.
They talked of their day's experience--of the beauty of The Islands--of
Ronsard,--his quaint house and quainter self,--so different to the
persons with whom they associated in their own exclusive and brilliant
Court 'set,' and the pretty Countess Amabil flirting harmlessly with
Sir Walter Langton, suggested that a 'Flower Feast' or Carnival should
be held during the summer, for the surprise and benefit of the
Islanders, who had never yet seen a Royal pageant of pleasure on their
shores.

But Sir Roger de Launay, ever watching the Queen, saw that she was very
pale, and more silent even than was her usual habit, and that her eyes
every now and again rested on the King, with something of wonder, as
well as fear.




CHAPTER XIII

SECRET SERVICE


In one of the ultra-fashionable quarters of the brilliant and
overcrowded metropolis which formed the nucleus and centre of
everything notable or progressive in the King's dominions, there stood
a large and aggressively-handsome house, over-decorated both outside
and in, and implying in its general appearance vulgarity, no less than
wealth. These two things go together very much nowadays; in fact one
scarcely ever sees them apart. The fair, southern city of the sea was
not behind other modern cities in luxury and self-aggrandisement, and
there were certain members of the population who made it their business
to show all they were worth in their domestic and home surroundings.
One of the most flagrant money-exhibitors of this kind was a certain
Jew named David Jost. Jost was the sole proprietor of the most
influential newspaper in the kingdom, and the largest shareholder in
three other newspaper companies, all apparently differing in party
views, but all in reality working into the same hands, and for the same
ends. Jost and his companies virtually governed the Press; and what was
euphoniously termed 'public opinion' was the opinion of Jost. Should
anything by chance happen to get into his own special journal, or into
any of the other journals connected with Jost, which Jost did not
approve of, or which might be damaging to Jost's social or financial
interests, the editor in charge was severely censured; if the fault
occurred again he was promptly dismissed. 'Public opinion' had to be
formed on Jost's humour; otherwise it was no opinion at all. A few
other newspapers led a precarious existence in offering a daily feeble
opposition to Jost; but they had not cash enough to carry on the
quarrel. Jost secured all the advertisers, and as a natural consequence
of this, could well afford to be the 'voice of the people' ad libitum.
He was immensely wealthy, openly vicious, and utterly unscrupulous; and
made brilliant speculative 'deals' in the unsuspecting natures of those
who were led, by that bland and cheery demeanour which is generally
associated with a large paunch, to consider him a 'good fellow' with
his 'heart in the right place.' With regard to this last assertion, it
may be doubted whether he had a heart at all, in any place, right or
wrong. He was certainly not given to sentiment. He had married for
money, and his wife had died in a mad-house. He was now anxious to
marry again for position; and while looking round the market for a
sufficiently perfect person of high-breeding, he patronized the theatre
largely, and 'protected' several ballet-girls and actresses. Everyone
knew that his life was black with villainy and intrigue of the most
shameless kind, yet everyone swore that he was a good man. Such is the
value of a limitless money-bag!

It was very late in the evening of the day following that on which the
King had paid his unexpected visit to The Islands,--and David Jost had
just returned from a comic opera-house, where he had supped in private
with two or three painted heroines of the footlights. He was in an
excellent humour with himself. He had sprung a mine on the public; and
a carefully-concocted rumour of war with a foreign power had sent up
certain stocks and shares in which he had considerable interest. He
smiled, as he thought of the general uneasiness he was creating by a
few headlines in his newspaper; and he enjoyed to the full the tranquil
sense of having flung a bone of discord between two nations, in order
to watch them from his arm-chair fighting like dogs for it tooth and
claw, till one or the other gave in.

"Lutera will have to thank me for this," he said to himself; "And he
will owe me both a place and a title!"

He sat down at his desk in his warm and luxuriously-furnished study,--
turned over a few letters, and then glanced up at the clock. Its hands
pointed to within a few minutes of midnight. Taking up a copy of his
own newspaper, he frowned slightly, as he saw that a certain leading
article in favour of the Jesuit settlement in the country had not
appeared.

"Crowded out, I suppose, for want of space," he said; "I must see that
it goes in to-morrow. These Jesuits know a thing or two; and they are
not going to plank down a thousand pounds for nothing. They have paid
for their advertisement, and they must have it. They ought to have had
it to-day. Lutera must warn the King that it will not do to offend the
Church. There's a lot of loose cash lying idle in the Vatican,--we may
as well have some of it! His Majesty has acted most unwisely in
refusing to grant the religious Orders the land they want. He must be
persuaded to yield it to them by degrees,--in exchange of course for
plenty of cash down, without loss of dignity!"

At that moment the door-bell rang softly, as if it were pulled with
extreme caution. A servant answered it, and at once came to his
master's room.

"A gentleman to see you, sir, on business," he said.

Jost looked up.

"On business? At this time of night? Say I cannot see him--tell him to
come again to-morrow!"

The servant withdrew, only to return again with a more urgent
statement.

"The gentleman says he must see you, sir; he comes from the Premier."

"From the Premier?"

"Yes, sir; his business is urgent, he says, and private. He sent in his
card, sir."

Here he handed over the card in question, a small, unobtrusive bit of
pasteboard, laid in solitary grandeur on a very large silver salver.

David Jost took it up, and scanned it with some curiosity. "'Pasquin
Leroy'! H'm! Don't know the name at all. 'Urgent business; bear private
credentials from the Marquis de Lutera'!" He paused again, considering,
--then turned to the waiting attendant. "Show him in.".

"Yes, sir!"

Another moment and Pasquin Leroy entered,--but it was an altogether
different Pasquin Leroy to the one that had recently enrolled himself
as an associate of Sergius Thord's Revolutionary Committee. _That_
particular Pasquin had seemed somewhat of a dreamer and a visionary,
with a peculiar and striking resemblance to the King; _this_
Pasquin Leroy had all the alertness and sharpness common to a practised
journalist, press-reporter or commercial traveller. Moreover, his
countenance, adorned with a black mustache, and small pointed beard,
wore a cold and concentrated air of business--and he confronted the
Jew millionaire without the slightest embarrassment or apology for
having broken in upon his seclusion at so unseasonable an hour. He used
a pince-nez, and was constantly putting it to his eyes, as though
troubled with short-sightedness.

"I presume your matter cannot wait, sir," said Jost, surveying him
coolly, without rising from his seat,--"but if it can--"

"It cannot!" returned Leroy, bluntly.

Jost stared.

"So! You come from the Marquis de Lutera?"

"I do."

"Your credentials?"

Leroy stepped close up to him, and with a sudden movement, which was
somewhat startling, held up his right hand.

"This signet is, I believe, familiar to you,--and it will be enough to
prove that I come on confidential business which cannot be trusted to
writing!"

Jost gazed at the flashing sapphire on the stranger's hand with a sense
of deadly apprehension. He recognised the Premier's ring well enough;
and he also knew that it would never have been sent to him in this
mysterious way unless the matter in question was almost too desperate
for whispering within four walls. An uneasy sensation affected him; he
pulled at his collar, looked round the room as though in search of
inspiration, and then finally bringing his small, swine-like eyes to
bear on the neat soldierly figure before him, he said with a careless
air:

"You probably bring news for the Press affecting the present policy?"

"That remains to be seen!" replied Leroy imperturbably; "From a
perfectly impartial standpoint, I should imagine that the present
policy may have to alter considerably!"

Jost recoiled.

"Impossible! It cannot be altered!" he said roughly,--then suddenly
recollecting himself, he assumed his usual indolent equanimity, and
rising slowly, went to a side door in the room and threw it open.

"Step in here," he said; "We can talk without fear of interruption.
Will you smoke?"

"With pleasure!" replied Leroy, accepting a cigar from the case Jost
extended--then glancing with a slight smile at the broad, squat Jewish
countenance which had, in the last couple of minutes, lost something of
its habitual redness, he added--"I am glad you are disposed to discuss
matters with me in a friendly, as well as in a confidential way. It is
possible my news may not be altogether agreeable to you;--but of course
you would be more willing to suffer personally, than to jeopardise the
honour of Ministers."

He uttered the last sentence more as a question than a statement.

Jost shifted one foot against the other uneasily.

"I am not so sure of that," he said after a pause, during which he had
drawn himself up, and had endeavoured to look conscientious; "You see I
have the public to consider! Ministers may fall; statesmen may be
thrown out of office; but the Press is the same yesterday, to-day, and
for ever!"

"Except when a great Editor changes his opinions," said Leroy
tranquilly,--"Which is, of course, always a point of reason and
conscience, as well as of--advantage! In the present case I think--but
--shall we not enter the sanctum of which you have so obligingly opened
the door? We can scarcely be too private when the King's name is in
question!"

Jost opened his furtive eyes in amazement.

"The King? What the devil has he to do with anything but his women and
his amusements?"

A very close observer might have seen a curious expression flicker over
Pasquin Leroy's face at these words,--an expression half of laughter,
half of scorn,--but it was slight and evanescent, and his reply was
frigidly courteous.

"I really cannot inform you; but I am afraid his Majesty is departing
somewhat from his customary routine! He is, in fact, taking an active,
instead of a passive part in national affairs."

"Then he must be warned off the ground!" said Jost irritably; "He is a
Constitutional monarch, and must obey the laws of the Constitution."

"Precisely!" And Leroy looked carefully at the end of his cigar; "But
at present he appears to have an idea that the laws of the Constitution
are being tampered with by certain other kings;--for example,--the
kings of finance!"

Jost muttered a half-inaudible oath.

"Come this way," he said impatiently;--"Bad news is best soon over!"

Leroy gave a careless nod of acquiescence,--then glancing round the
room, up at the clock, and down again to Jost's desk, strewn with
letters and documents of every description, he smiled a little to
himself, and followed the all-powerful editor into the smaller
adjoining apartment. The door closed behind them both, and Jost turned
the key in the lock from within.

For a long time all was very silent. Jost's valet and confidential
servant, sleepy and tired, waited in the hall to let his master's
visitor out,--and hearing no sound, ventured to look into the study now
and then,--but to no purpose. He knew the sanctity of that inner
chamber beyond; he knew that when the Premier came to see the great
Jost,--as he often did,--it was in that mysterious further room that
business was transacted, and that it was as much as his place was worth
to venture even to knock at the door. So, yawning heavily, he dozed on
his bench in the hall,--woke with a start and dozed again,--while the
clock slowly ticked away the minutes till with a dull clang the hour
struck One. Then on again went the steady and wearisome tick-tick of
the pendulum, for a quarter of an hour, half an hour,--and three-
quarters,--till the utterly fatigued valet was about to knock down a
few walking-sticks and umbrellas, and make a general noise of reminder
to his master as to how the time was going, when, to his great relief,
he heard the inner door open at last, and the voice of the mysterious
visitor ring out in clear, precise accents.

"Nothing will be done publicly, of course,--unless Parliament insists
on an enquiry!" The speaker came towards the hall, and the valet
sprang up from his bench, and stood ready to show the stranger out.

Jost replied, and his accents were thick and unsteady.

"Enquiry cannot be forced! The Marquis himself can burk any such
attempt."

"But--if the King should insist?"

"He would be breaking all the rules of custom and precedent," said
Jost,--"And he would deserve to be dethroned!"

Pasquin Leroy laughed.

"True! Good-night, Mr. Jost! Can I do anything for you in Moscow?" The
two men now came into the full light shed by the great lamp in the
hall. Jost looked darkly red in the face--almost apoplectic; Leroy was
as cool, imperturbable and easy of manner as a practised detective or
professional spy.

"In Moscow," Jost repeated--"You are going straight to Russia?"

"I think so."

"I suppose you are in the secret service?"

"Exactly! A curious line of business, too, which the outside world
knows very little of. Ah!--if the excellent people--the masses as we
call them--knew what rogues had the ruling of their affairs in some
countries--not in this country, of course!" he added with a quizzical
smile,--"but in some others, not very far away, I wonder how many
revolutions would break out within six months! Good-night, Mr. Jost!"

"Good-night!" responded Jost briefly. "You will let me know any further
developments?"

"Most assuredly!"

The servant opened the door, and Pasquin Leroy slipped a gold coin
worth a sovereign into his hand, whereupon, of course, the worthy
domestic considered him to be a 'real gentleman.' As soon as he had
passed into the street, and the door was shut and barred for the night,
Jost bade his man go to bed, a command which was gladly obeyed; and re-
entering his study, passed all the time till the breaking of dawn in
rummaging out letters and documents from various desks, drawers and
despatch-boxes, and burning them carefully one by one in the open
grate. While thus employed, he had a truly villainous aspect,--each
flame he kindled with each paper seemed to show up a more unpleasing
expression on his countenance, till at last,--when such matter was
destroyed as he had at present determined on,--he drew himself up and
stood for a moment surveying the pile of light black ashes, which was
all that was left of about a hundred or more incriminating paper
witnesses to certain matters in which he had more than a lawful
interest.

"It will be difficult now to trace my hand in the scheme!" he said to
himself, frowning heavily, as he considered various uncomfortable
contingencies arising out of his conversation with his late visitor.
"If the thunderbolt falls, it will crush Carl Perousse--not me. Yes! It
means ruin for him--ruin and disgrace--but for me--well! I shall find
it as easy to damn Perousse as it has been to support him, for he
cannot involve me without adding tenfold to his own disaster! I think
it will be safe enough for me--possibly not so safe for the Premier.
However, I will write to him to-morrow, just to let him know I received
his messenger."

In the meantime, while David Jost was thus cogitating unpleasant and
even dangerous possibilities, which were perhaps on the eve of
occurring to himself and certain of his associates in politics and
journalism, Pasquin Leroy was hurrying along the city streets under the
light of a clear, though pallid and waning moon. Few wanderers were
abroad; the police walked their various rounds, and one or two
miserable women passed him, like flying ghosts in the thin air of
night. His mind was in a turmoil of agitation; and the thoughts that
were tossing rapidly through his brain one upon the other, were such as
he had never known before. He had fathomed a depth of rascality and
deception, which but a short month ago, he could scarcely have believed
capable of existence. The cruel injury and loss preparing for thousands
of innocent persons through the self-interested plotting of a few men,
was almost incalculable,--and his blood burned with passionate
indignation as he realized on what a verge of misery, bloodshed,
disaster and crime the unthinking people of the country stood, pushed
to the very edge of a fall by the shameless and unscrupulous designs of
a few financiers, playing their gambling game with the public
confidence,--and cheating nations as callously as they would have
cheated their partners at cards.

"Thank God, it is not too late!" he murmured; "Not quite too late to
save the situation!--to rescue the people from long years of undeserved
taxation, loss of trade and general distress! It is a supreme task that
has been given me to accomplish!--but if there is any truth and right
in the laws of the Universe, I shall surely not be misjudged while
accomplishing it!"

He quickened his pace;--and to avoid going up one of the longer
thoroughfares which led to the citadel and palace, he decided to cross
one of the many picturesque bridges, arched over certain inlets from
the sea, and forming canals, where barges and other vessels might be
towed up to the very doors of the warehouses which received their
cargoes. But just as he was about to turn in the necessary direction,
he halted abruptly at sight of two men, standing at the first corner in
the way of his advance, talking earnestly. He recognized them at once
as Sergius Thord and the half-inebriated poet, Paul Zouche. With
noiseless step he moved cautiously into the broad stretch of black
shadow cast by the great facade of a block of buildings which occupied
half the length of the street in which he stood, and so managing to
slip into the denser darkness of a doorway, was able to hear what they
were saying. The full, mellow, and persuasive tone of Thord's voice had
something in it of reproach.

"You shame yourself, Zouche!" he said; "You shame me; you shame us all!
Man, did God put a light of Genius in your soul merely to be quenched
by the cravings of a bestial body? What associate are you for us? How
can you help us in the fulfilment of our ideal dream? By day you mingle
with litterateurs, scientists, and philosophers,--report has it that
you have even managed to stumble your way into my lady's boudoir;--but
by night you wander like this,--insensate, furious, warped in soul,
muddled in brain, and only the heart of you alive,--the poor
unsatisfied heart--hungering and crying for what itself makes
impossible!"

Zouche broke into a harsh laugh. Turning up his head to the sky, he
thrust back his wild hair, and showed his thin eager face and
glittering eyes, outlined cameo-like by the paling radiance of the
moon.

"Well spoken, my Sergius!" he exclaimed. "You always speak well! Your
thoughts are of flame--your speech is of gold; the fire melts the ore!
And then again you have a conscience! That is a strange possession!--
quite useless in these days, like the remains of the tail we had when
we were all happy apes in the primeval forest, pelting the Megatherium
or other such remarkable beasts with cocoanuts! It was a much better
life, Sergius, believe me! A Conscience is merely a mental
Appendicitis! There should be a psychical surgeon with an airy lancet
to cut it out. Not for me!--I was born perfect--without it!"

He laughed again, then with an abrupt change of manner he caught Thord
violently by the arm.

"How can you speak of shame?" he said--"What shame is left in either
man or woman nowadays? Naked to the very skin of foulness, they flaunt
a nudity of vice in every public thoroughfare! Your sentiments, my
grand Sergius, are those of an old world long passed away! You are a
reformer, a lover of truth--a hater of shams--and in the days when the
people loved truth,--and wanted justice,--and fought for both, you
would have been great! But greatness is nowadays judged as 'madness'--
truth as 'want of tact'--desire for justice is 'clamour for notoriety.'
Shame? There is no shame in anything, Sergius, but honesty! That is a
disgrace to the century; for an honest man is always poor, and poverty
is the worst of crimes." He threw up his arms with a wild gesture,--
"The worst of crimes! Do I not know it!"

Thord took him gently by the shoulder.

"You talk, Zouche, as you always talk, at random, scarcely knowing, and
certainly not half meaning what you say. There is no real reason in
your rages against fate and fortune. Leave the accursed drink, and you
may still win the prize you covet--Fame."

"Not I!" said Zouche scornfully,--"Fame in its original sense belonged
also to the growing-time of the world--when, proud of youth and the
glow of life, the full-fledged man judged himself immortal. Fame now is
adjudged to the biped-machine who drives a motor-car best,--or to the
fortunate soap-boiler who dines with a king! Poetry is understood to be
the useful rhyme which announces the virtues of pills and boot-
blacking! Mark you, Sergius!--my latest volume was 'graciously accepted
by the King'! Do you know what that means?"

"No," replied Thord, a trifle coldly; "And if it were not that I know
your strange vagaries, I should say you wronged your election as one of
us, to send any of your work to a crowned fool!"

Zouche laughed discordantly.

"You would? No, you would not, my Sergius, if you knew the spirit in
which I sent it! A spirit as wild, as reckless, as ranting, as defiant
as ever devil indulged in! The humility of my presentation letter to
his Majesty was beautiful! The reply of the flunkey-secretary was
equally beautiful in smug courtesy: 'Sir, I am commanded by the King to
thank you for the book of poems you have kindly sent for his
acceptance!' I say again, Thord, do you know what it means?"

"No; I only wish that instead of talking here, you would let me see you
safely home."

"Home! I have no home! Since _she_ died--" He paused, and a grey
shadow crossed his face like the hue of approaching sickness or death.
"I killed her, poor child! Of course you know that! I neglected her,--
deserted her--left her to die! Well! She is only one more added to the
list of countless women martyrs who have been tortured out of an unjust
world--and now--now I write verses to her memory!" He shivered as with
cold, still clinging to Thord's arm. "But I did not tell you what great
good comes of sending a book to the King! It means less to a writer
than to a boot-maker. For the boot-maker can put up a sign: 'Special
Fitter for the ease of His Majesty's Corns'--but if a poet should say
his verse is 'accepted' by a monarch, the shrewd public take it at once
to be bad verse, and will have none of it! That is the case with my
book to-day!"

"Why did you send it?" asked Thord, with grave patience. "Your business
with kings is to warn, not to flatter!"

"Just so!" cried Zouche; "And if His Most Gracious and Glorious had
been pleased to look inside the volume, he would have seen enough to
startle him! It was sent in hate, my Sergius,--not in humility,--just
as the flunkey-secretary's answer was penned in derision, aping
courtesy! How you look, under this wan sky of night! Reproachful, yet
pitying, as the eyes of Buddha are your eyes, my Sergius! You are a
fine fellow--your brain is a dome decorated with glorious ideals!--and
yet you are like all of us, weak in one point, as Achilles in the heel.
One thing could turn you from man into beast--and that would be if
Lotys loved--not you--she never will love you--but another!"--Thord
started back as though suddenly stabbed, and angrily shook off his
companion, who only laughed again,--a shrill, echoing laugh in which
there was a note of madness and desolation. "Bah!" he exclaimed; "You
are a fool after all! You work for a woman as I did--once! But mark
you!--do not kill her--as I did--once! Be patient! Watch the light
shine, even though it does not illumine your path; be glad that the
rose blooms for itself, if not for you! It will be difficult!--
meanwhile you can live on hope--a bitter fruit to eat; but gnaw it to
the last rind, my Sergius! Hope that Lotys may melt in your fire, as a
snowflake in the sun! Come! Now take the poor poet home,--the drunken
child of inspiration--take him home to his garret in the slums--the
poet whose book has been accepted by the King!"

Pulling himself up from his semi-crouching position, he seized Thord's
arm again more tightly, and began to walk along unsteadily. Presently
he paused, smiling vacantly up at the gradually vanishing stars.

"Lotys speaks to our followers on Saturday," he said; "You know that?"

Thord bent his head in acquiescence.

"You will be there, of course. I shall be there! What a voice she has!
Whether we believe what she says or not, we must hear,--and hearing, we
must follow. Where shall we drink in the sweet Oracle this time?"

"At the People's Assembly Rooms," responded Thord; "But remember,
Zouche, she does not speak till nine o'clock. That means that you will
be unfit to listen!"

"You think so?" responded Zouche airily, and leaning on Thord he
stumbled onward, the two passing close in front of the doorway where
Pasquin Leroy stood concealed. "But I am more ready to understand
wisdom when drunk, than when sober, my Sergius! You do not understand.
I am a human eccentricity--the result of an _amour_ between a
fiend and an angel! Believe me! I will listen to Lotys with all my
devil-saintly soul,--you will listen to her with all your loving,
longing heart--and with us two thus attentive, the opinions of the rest
of the audience will scarcely matter! How the street reels! How the old
moon dances! So did she whirl pallidly when Antony clasped his Egyptian
Queen, and lost Actium! Remember the fate of Antony, Sergius! Kingdoms
would have been seized and controlled by men such as you are, long
before now--if there had not always been a woman in the case--a
Cleopatra--or a Lotys!"

Still laughing foolishly, he reeled onwards, Sergius Thord half-
supporting, half-leading him, with grave carefulness and brotherly
compassion. They were soon out of sight; and Pasquin Leroy, leaving his
dark hiding-place, crossed the bridge with an alert step, and mounted a
steep street leading to the citadel. From gaps between the tall leaning
houses a glimpse of the sea, silvered by the dying moonlight, flashed
now and again; and in the silence of the night the low ripple of small
waves against the breakwater could be distinctly heard. A sense of holy
calm impressed him as he paused a moment; and the words of an old
monkish verse came back to him from some far-off depth of memory:

  Lord Christ, I would my soul were clear as air,
  With only Thy pure radiance falling through!

He caught his breath hard--there was a smarting sense as of tears in
his eyes.

"So proudly throned, and so unloved!" he muttered. "Yet,--has not the
misprisal and miscomprehension been merited? Whose is the blame? Not
with the People, who, despite the prophet's warning, 'still put their
trust in princes'--but with the falsity and hollowness of the system!
Sovereignty is like an old ship stuck fast in the docks, and unfit for
sailing the wide seas--crusted with barnacles of custom and prejudice,
--and in every gale of wind pulling and straining at a rusty chain
anchor. But the spirit of Change is in the world; a hurrying movement
that has wings of fire, and might possibly be called Revolution! It is
better that the torch should be lighted from the Throne than from the
slums!"

He went on his way quickly,--till reaching the outer wall of the
citadel, he was challenged by a sentinel, to whom he gave the password
in a low tone. The man drew back, satisfied, and Leroy went on,
mounting from point to point of the cliff, till he reached a private
gate leading into the wide park-lands which skirted the King's palace.
Here stood a muffled and cloaked figure evidently watching for him; for
as soon as he appeared the gate was noiselessly opened for his
admittance, and he passed in at once. Then he and the person who had
awaited his coming, walked together through the scented woods of pine
and rhododendrons, and talking in low and confidential voices, slowly
disappeared.




CHAPTER XIV

THE KING'S VETO


The Marquis de Lutera was a heavy sleeper, and for some time had been
growing stouter than was advisable for the dignity of a Prime Minister.
He had been defeated of late years in one or two important measures;
and his colleague, Carl Perousse, had by gradual degrees succeeded in
worming himself into such close connection with the rest of the members
of the Cabinet, that he, Lutera, felt himself being edged out, not only
from political 'deals,' but from the profits appertaining thereto. So,
growing somewhat indifferent, as well as disgusted at the course
affairs were taking, he had made up his mind to retire from office, as
soon as he had carried through a certain Bill which, in its results,
would have the effect of crippling the people of the country, while
helping on his own interests to a considerable degree. At the immediate
moment he had a chance of looming large on the political horizon. Carl
Perousse could not do anything of very great importance without him;
they were both too deeply involved together in the same schemes. In
point of fact, if Perousse could bring the Premier to a fall, the
Premier could do the same by Perousse. The two depended on each other;
and Lutera, conscious that if Perousse gained any fresh accession of
power, it would be to his, Lutera's, advantage, was gradually preparing
to gracefully resign his position in the younger and more ambitious
man's favour. But he was not altogether comfortable in his mind since
his last interview with the King. The King had shown unusual signs of
self-will and obstinacy. He had presumed to give a command affecting
the national policy; and, moreover, he had threatened, if his command
were not obeyed, to address Parliament himself on the subject in hand,
from the Throne. Such an unaccustomed, unconstitutional idea was very
upsetting to the Premier's mind. It had cost him a sleepless night; and
when he woke to a new day's work, he was in an extremely irritable
humour. He was doubtful how to act;--for to complain of the King would
not do; and to enlighten the members of the Cabinet as to his Majesty's
declared determination to dispose amicably of certain difficulties with
a foreign power, which the Ministry had fully purposed fanning up into
a flame of war, might possibly awaken a storm of dissension and
discussion.

"We all want money!" said the Marquis gloomily, as he rose from his
tumbled bed to take his first breakfast, and read his early morning
letters--"And to crush a small and insolent race, whose country is rich
in mineral product, is simply the act of squeezing an orange for the
necessary juice. Life would be lost, of course, but we are over-
populated; and a good war would rid the country of many scamps and
vagabonds. Widows and orphans could be provided for by national
subscriptions, invested as the Ministry think fit, and paid to
applicants after about twenty years' waiting!" He smiled sardonically.
"The gain to ourselves would be incalculable; new wealth, new schemes,
new openings for commerce and speculation in every way! And now the
King sets himself up as an obstacle to progress! If he were fond of
money, we could explain the whole big combine, and offer him a share;--
but with a character such as he possesses, I doubt if it would work!
With some monarchs whom I could name, it would be perfectly easy. And
yet,--for the three years he has been on the throne, he has been
passive enough,--asking no questions,--signing such documents as he has
been told to sign,--uttering such speeches as have been written for
him,--and I was never more shocked and taken aback in my life than
yesterday morning, when he declared he had decided to think and act for
himself! Simply preposterous! An ordinary man who presumes to think and
act for himself is always a danger to the community--but a king! Good
Heavens! We should have the old feudal system back again."

He sipped his coffee leisurely, and opened a few letters; there were
none of very pressing importance. He was just about to glance through
the morning's newspaper, when his man-servant entered bearing a note
marked 'Private and Immediate.' He recognized the handwriting of David
Jost.

"Anyone waiting for an answer?" he enquired.

"No, Excellency."

The man retired. The Marquis broke the large splotchy seal bearing the
coat-of-arms which Jost affected, but to which he had no more right
than the man in the moon, and read what seemed to him more inexplicable
than the most confusing conundrum ever invented.

"MY DEAR MARQUIS,--I received your confidential messenger last night,
and explained the entire situation. He left for Moscow this morning,
but will warn us of any further developments. Sorry matters look so
grave for you. Should like a few minutes private chat when you can
spare the time.--

"Yours truly, DAVID JOST."

Over and over again the Marquis read this brief note, staring at its
every word and utterly unable to understand its meaning.

"What in the world is the fellow driving at!" he exclaimed angrily--
"'My messenger'! 'Explained the entire situation'! The devil! 'Left for
Moscow'! Upon my soul, this is maddening!" And he rang the bell
sharply.

"Who brought this note?" he asked, as his servant entered.

"Mr. Jost's own man, Excellency."

"Has he gone?"

"Yes, Excellency."

"Wait!" And sitting down he wrote hastily the following lines:

"DEAR SIR,--Your letter is inexplicable. I sent no messenger to you
last night. If you have any explanation to offer, I shall be disengaged
and alone till 11.30 this morning.

"Yours truly,--DE LUTERA."

Folding, sealing, and addressing this, he marked it 'Private' and gave
it to his man.

"Take this yourself," he said, "and put it into Mr. Jost's own hands.
Trust no one to deliver it. Ask to see him personally, and then give it
to him. You understand?"

"Yes, Excellency."

His note thus despatched, the Marquis threw himself down in his arm-
chair, and again read Jost's mysterious communication.

"Whatever messenger has passed himself off as coming from me, Jost must
have been crazy to receive him without credentials," he said. "There
must be a mistake somewhere!"

A vague alarm troubled him; he was not moved by conscientious scruples,
but the idea that any of his secret moves should be 'explained' to a
stranger was, to say the least of it, annoying, and not conducive to
the tranquillity of his mind. A thousand awkward possibilities
suggested themselves at once to his brain, and as he carried a somewhat
excitable disposition under his heavy and phlegmatic exterior, he fumed
and fretted himself for the next half hour into an impatience which
only found vent in the prosaic and everyday performance of dressing
himself. Ah!--if those who consider a Prime Minister great and exalted,
could only see him as he pulls on his trousers, and fastens his shirt
collar, what a disillusion would be promptly effected! Especially if,
like the Marquis de Lutera, he happened to be over-stout, and difficult
to clothe! This particular example of Premiership was an ungainly man;
his proud position could not make him handsome, nor lend true dignity
to his deportment. Old Mother Nature has a way of marking her
specimens, if we will learn to recognize the signs she sets on certain
particular 'makes' of man. The Marquis de Lutera was 'made' to be a
stock-jobber, not a statesman. His bent was towards the material gain
and good of himself, more than the advantage of his country. His
reasoning was a slight variation of Falstaff's logical misprisal of
honour. He argued; "If I am poor, then what is it to me that others are
rich? If I am neglected, what do I care that the people are prosperous?
Let me but secure and keep those certain millions of money which shall
ensure to me and my heritage a handsome endowment, not only for my
life, but for all lives connected with mine which come after me,--and
my 'patriotism' is satisfied!"

He had just finished insinuating himself by degrees into his morning
coat, when his servant entered.

"Well!" he asked impatiently.

"Mr. Jost is coming round at once, Excellency. He ordered his carriage
directly he read your note."

"He sent no answer?"

"None, Excellency."

"When he arrives, show him into the library."

"Yes, Excellency."

The Marquis thereupon left his sleeping apartment, and descended to the
library himself. The sun was streaming brilliantly into the room, and
the windows, thrown wide open, showed a cheerful display of lawn and
flower-garden, filled with palms and other semi-tropical shrubs, for
though the Premier's house was in the centre of the fashionable quarter
of the city, it had the advantage of extensive and well-shaded grounds.
A law had been passed in the late King's time against the felling of
trees, it having been scientifically proved that trees in a certain
quantity, not only purify the air from disease germs affecting the
human organization, but also save the crops from many noxious insect-
pests and poisonous fungi. Having learned the lesson at last, that the
Almighty may be trusted to know His own business, and that trees are
intended for wider purposes than mere timber, the regulations were
strict concerning them. No one could fell a tree on his own ground
without, first of all, making a statement at the National Office of
Aboriculture as to the causes for its removal; and only if these causes
were found satisfactory, could a stamped permission be obtained for
cutting it down or 'lifting' it to other ground. The result of this
sensible regulation was that in the hottest days of summer the city was
kept cool and shady by the rich foliage branching out everywhere, and
in some parts running into broad avenues and groves of great thickness
and beauty. The Marquis de Lutera's garden had an additional charm in a
beautiful alley of orange trees, and the fragrance wafted into his room
from the delicious blossoms would have refreshed and charmed anyone
less troubled, worried and feverish, than he was at the time. But this
morning the very sunshine annoyed him;--never a great lover of Nature,
the trees and flowers forming the outlook on which his heavy eyes
rested were almost an affront. The tranquil beauty of an ever renewed
and renewing Nature is always particularly offensive to an uneasy
conscience and an exhausted mind.

The sound of wheels grinding along the outer drive brought a faint
gleam of satisfaction on his brooding features, and he turned sharply
round, as the door of the library was thrown open to admit Jost, whose
appearance, despite his jaunty manner, betokened evident confusion and
alarm.

"Good-morning, Mr. Jost!" said the Marquis stiffly, as his confidential
man ushered in the visitor,--then when the servant had retired and
closed the door, he added quickly--"Now what does this mean?"

Jost dropped into a chair, and pulling out a handkerchief wiped the
perspiration from his brow.

"I don't know!" he said helplessly; "I don't know what it means! I have
told you the truth! A man came to see me late last night, saying he was
sent by you on urgent business. He said you wished me to explain the
position we held, and the amount of the interests we had at stake, as
there were grave discoveries pending, and complexities likely to ensue.
He gave his name--there is his card!"

And with a semi-groan, he threw down the bit of pasteboard in question.

The Marquis snatched it up.

"'Pasquin Leroy'! I never heard the name in my life," he said fiercely.
"Jost, you have been done! You mean to tell me you were such a fool as
to trust an entire stranger with the whole financial plan of campaign,
and that you were credulous enough to believe that he came from me--me
--De Lutera,--without any credentials?"

"Credentials!" exclaimed Jost; "Do you suppose I would have received
him at all had credentials been lacking? Not I! He brought me the most
sure and confidential sign of your trust that could be produced--your
own signet-ring!"

The Marquis staggered back, as though Jost's words had been so many
direct blows on the chest,--his countenance turned a livid white.

"My signet-ring!" he repeated,--and almost unconsciously he looked at
the hand from which the great jewel was missing; "My signet!"--Then he
forced a smile--"Jost, I repeat, you have been done!--doubly fooled!--
no one could possibly have obtained my signet,--for at this very
moment it is on the hand of the King!"

Jost rose slowly out of his chair, his eyes protruding out of his head,
his jaw almost dropping in the extremity of his amazement.

"The King!"--he gasped--"The King!"

"Yes, man, the King!" repeated De Lutera impatiently,--"Only yesterday
morning his Majesty, having mislaid his own ring for the moment,
borrowed mine just before starting on his yachting cruise. How you
stare! You have been fooled!--that is perfectly plain and evident!"

"The King!" repeated Jost stupidly--"Then the man who came to me last
night--" He broke off, unable to find any words for the expression of
the thoughts which began to terrify him.

"Well!--the man who came to you last night," echoed the Marquis,--"He
was not the King, I suppose, was he?" And he laughed derisively.

"No--he was not the King," said Jost slowly; "I know _him_ well
enough! But it might have been someone in the King's service! For he
knew, or said he knew, the King's intentions in a certain matter
affecting both you and Carl Perousse,--and in a more distant way,
myself--and warned me of a coming change in the policy. Ah!--it is
now your turn to stare, Marquis! You had best be on your guard, for if
the person who came to me last night was not your messenger, he was the
King's spy! And, in that case, we are lost!"

The Marquis paced the room with long uneven strides,--his mind was
greatly agitated, but he had no wish to show his perturbation too
openly to one whom he considered as a mere tool in his service.

"I know," went on Jost emphatically, "that the ring he wore was yours!
I noticed it particularly while I was talking to him. It would take a
long time and exceptional skill to make any imitation of that sapphire.
There is no doubt that it was your signet!"

The Premier halted suddenly in his nervous walk.

"You told him the whole scheme, you say?"

"I did."

"And his reply?"

"Was, that the King had discovered it, and proposed insisting on an
enquiry."

"And then?"

"Well! Then he warned me to look out for myself,--as anyone connected
with Carl Perousse's financial deal would inevitably be ruined during
the next few weeks."

"Who is going to work the ruin?" asked the Marquis with a sneer; "Do
you not know that if the King dared to give an opinion on a national
crisis, he would be dethroned?"

"There are the People--" began Jost.

"The People! Human emmets--born for crushing under the heel of power! A
couple of 'leaders' in your paper, Jost, can guide the fool-mob any
way!"

"That depends!" said Jost hesitatingly; "If what the fellow said last
night be true--"

"It is not true!" said the Premier authoritatively. "We are going on in
precisely the same course as originally arranged. Neither King nor
People can interfere! Go home, and write an article about love of
country, Jost! You look in the humour for it!"

The Jew's expression was anything but amiable.

"What is to be done about last night?" he asked sullenly.

"Nothing at present. I am going to the palace at two o'clock--I shall
see the King, and find out whether my signet is lost, stolen or
strayed. Meanwhile, keep your own counsel! If you have been betrayed
into giving your confidence to a spy in the foreign service, as I
imagine--(for the King has never employed a spy, and is not likely to
do so), and he makes known his information, it can be officially
denied. The official denial of a Government, Jost, like charity, has
before now covered a multitude of sins!"

An instinctive disinclination for further conversation brought the
interview between them abruptly to a close, and Jost, full of a
suspicious alarm, which he was ashamed to confess, drove off to his
newspaper offices. The Premier, meantime, though harassed by secret
anxiety, managed to display his usual frigid equanimity, when, after
Jost's departure, his private secretary arrived at the customary time,
to transact under his orders the correspondence and business of the
day. This secretary, Eugene Silvano by name, was a quiet self-contained
young man, highly ambitious, and keenly interested in the political
situation, and, though in the Premier's service, not altogether of his
way of thinking. He called the Marquis's attention now to a letter that
had missed careful reading on the previous day. It was from the Vicar-
General of the Society of Jesus, expressing surprise and indignation
that the King should have refused the Society's request for such land
as was required to be devoted to religious and educational purposes,
and begging that the Premier would exert his influence with the monarch
to persuade him to withdraw or mitigate his refusal.

"I can do nothing;" said the Marquis irritably,--"the lands they want
belong to the Crown. The King can dispose of them as he thinks best."

The secretary set the letter aside.

"Shall I reply to that effect?" he enquired.

The Marquis nodded.

"I know," said Silvano presently with a slight hesitation, "that you
never pay any attention to anonymous communications. Otherwise, there
is one here which might merit consideration."

"What does it concern?"

"A revolutionary meeting," replied Silvano, "where it appears the
woman, Lotys, is to speak."

The Premier shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "You must enlighten me!
Who is the woman Lotys?"

"Ah, that no one exactly knows!" replied the secretary. "A strange
character, without doubt, but--" He paused and spoke more
emphatically--"She has power!"

Lutera gave a gesture of irritation.

"Bah! Over whom does she exercise it. Over one man or many?"

"Over one half the population at least," responded Silvano, quietly,
turning over a few papers without looking up.

The Marquis stared at him, slightly amused.

"Have you taken statistics of the lady's followers," he asked; "Are you
one of them yourself?"

Silvano raised his eyes,--clear dark eyes, deep-set and steady in their
glance.

"Were I so, I should not be here;" he replied--"But I know how she
speaks; I know what she does! and from a purely political point of view
I think it unwise to ignore her."

"What is this anonymous communication you speak of?" asked the Premier,
after a pause.

"Oh, it is brief enough," answered Silvano unfolding a paper, and he
read aloud:

"To the Marquis de Lutera, Premier.

"Satisfy yourself that those who meet on Saturday night where Lotys
speaks, have already decided on your downfall!"

"Oracular!" said the Marquis carelessly;--"To decide is one thing--to
fulfil the decision is another! Lotys, whoever she may be, can preach
to her heart's content, for all I care! I am rather surprised, Silvano,
that a man of your penetration and intelligence should attach any
importance to revolutionary meetings, which are always going on more or
less in every city under the sun. Why, it was but the other day, the
police were sent to disperse a crowd which had gathered round the
fanatic, Sergius Thord; only the people had sufficient sense to
disperse themselves. A street-preacher or woman ranter is like a cheap-
jack or a dispenser of quack medicines;--the mob gathers to such
persons out of curiosity, not conviction."

The secretary made no reply, and went on with other matters awaiting
his attention.

At a few minutes before two o'clock the Marquis entered his carriage,
and was driven to the palace. There he learned that the King was
receiving, more or less unofficially, certain foreign ambassadors and
noblemen of repute in the Throne-room. A fine band was playing military
music in the great open quadrangle in front of the palace, where
pillars of rose-marble, straight as the stems of pine-trees, held up
fabulous heraldic griffins, clasping between their paws the country's
shield. Flags were flying,--fountains flashing,--gay costumes gleamed
here and there,--and the atmosphere was full of brilliancy and gaiety,
--yet the Marquis, on his way to the audience-chamber, was rendered
uncomfortably aware of one of those mysterious impressions which are
sometimes conveyed to us, we know not how, but which tend to prepare us
for surprise and disappointment. Some extra fibre of sensitiveness in
his nervous organization was acutely touched, for he actually fancied
he saw slighting and indifferent looks on the faces of the various
flunkeys and retainers who bowed him along the different passages, or
ushered him up the state stairway, when--as a matter of fact,--all was
precisely the same as usual, and it was only his own conscience that
gave imaginary hints of change. Arrived at the ante-chamber to the
Throne-room, he was surprised to find Prince Humphry there, talking
animatedly to the King's physician, Professor Von Glauben. The Prince
seemed unusually excited; his face was flushed, and his eyes
extraordinarily brilliant, and as he saw the Premier, he came forward,
extending his hand, and almost preventing Lutera's profound bow and
deferential salutation.

"Have you business with the King, Marquis?" enquired the young man with
a light laugh. "If you have, you must do as I am doing,--wait his
Majesty's pleasure!"

The Premier lifted his eyebrows, smiled deprecatingly, and murmuring
something about pressure of State affairs, shook hands with Von
Glauben, whose countenance, as usual, presented an impenetrable mask to
his thoughts.

"It is rather a new experience for me," continued the Prince, "to be
treated as a kind of petitioner on the King's favour, and kept in
attendance,--but no matter!--novelty is always pleasing! I have been
cooling my heels here for more than an hour. Von Glauben, too, has been
waiting;--contrary to custom, he has not even been permitted to enquire
after his Majesty's health this morning!"

Lutera maintained his former expression of polite surprise, but said
nothing. Instinct warned him to be sparing of words lest he should
betray his own private anxiety.

The Prince went on carelessly.

"Majesty takes humours like other men, and must, more than other men, I
suppose, be humoured! Yet there is to my mind something unnatural in a
system which causes several human beings to be dependent on another's
caprice!"

"You will not say so, Sir, when you yourself are King," observed the
Marquis.

"Long distant be the day!" returned the Prince. "Indeed, I hope it may
never be! I would rather be the simplest peasant ploughing the fields,
and happy in my own way, than suffer the penalties and pains
surrounding the possession of a Throne!"

"Only," put in Von Glauben sententiously, "you would have to take into
consideration, Sir, whether the peasant ploughing the fields is happy
in his own way. I have made 'the peasant ploughing the fields' a
special form of study,--and I have always found him a remarkably
discontented, often ill-fed--and therefore unhealthy individual."

"We are all discontented, if it comes to that!" said Prince Humphry
with a light laugh,--"Except myself! I am perfectly contented!"

"You have reason to be, Sir," said Lutera, bowing low.

"You are quite right, Marquis!--I have! More reason than perhaps you
are aware of!"

His eyes lightened and flashed; he looked unusually handsome, and the
Premier's shifty glance rested on him for a moment with a certain
curiosity. But he had not been accustomed to pay very much attention to
the words or actions of the Heir-Apparent, considering him to be a very
'ordinary' young man, without either the brilliancy or the ambition
which should mark him out as worthy of his exalted station. And before
any further conversation could take place, Sir Roger de Launay entered
the room and announced to the Marquis that the King was ready to
receive him. Prince Humphry turning sharply round, faced the equerry.

"I am still to wait?" he enquired, with a slight touch of hauteur.

Sir Roger bowed respectfully.

"Your instant desire to see the King, your father, Sir, was
communicated to his Majesty at once," he replied. "The present delay is
by his Majesty's own orders. I much regret----"

"Regret nothing, my dear Sir Roger," he said. "My patience does not
easily tire! Marquis, I trust your business will not take long?"

"I shall endeavour to make it as brief as possible, Sir," replied the
Premier deferentially as he withdrew.

It was with a certain uneasiness, however, in his mind that he followed
Sir Roger to the Throne-room. There was no possibility of exchanging so
much as a word with the equerry; besides, De Launay was not a talking
man. Passing between the lines of attendants, pages, lords-in-waiting
and others, he was conscious of a certain loss of his usual self-
possession as he found himself at last in the presence of the King,--
who, attired in brilliant uniform, was conversing graciously and
familiarly with a select group of distinguished individuals whose
costume betokened them as envoys or visitors from foreign courts in the
diplomatic service. Perceiving the Premier, however, he paused in his
conversation, and standing quite still awaited his approach. Then he
extended his hand, with his usual kindly condescension. Instinctively
Lutera's eyes searched that hand, with the expression of a guilty soul
searching for a witness to its innocence. There shone the great
sapphire--his own signet--and to his excited fancy its blue glimmer
emitted a witch-like glow of menace. Meanwhile the King was speaking.

"You are just a few minutes late, Marquis!" he said; "Had you come a
little earlier, you would have met M. Perousse, who has matters of
import to discuss with you." Here he moved aside from those immediately
in hearing. "It is perhaps as well you should know I have 'vetoed' his
war propositions. It will rest now with you, to call a Council to-
morrow,--the next day,--or,--when you please!"

Completely taken aback, the Premier was silent for a moment, biting his
lips to keep down the torrent of rage and disappointment that
threatened to break out in violent and unguarded speech.

"Sir!--Your Majesty! Pardon me, but surely you cannot fail to
understand that in a Constitution like ours, the course decided upon by
Ministers _cannot_ be vetoed by the King?"

The monarch smiled gravely.

"'Cannot' is a weak word, Marquis! I do not include it in my
vocabulary! I fully grant you that a plan of campaign decided upon by
Ministers as you say, has _not_ been 'vetoed' by a reigning
sovereign for at least a couple of centuries,--and the custom has
naturally fallen into desuetude,--but if it should be found at any
time,--(I do not say it _has_ been found) that Ministers are
engaged in a seriously mistaken policy, and are being misled by the
doubtful propositions of private financial speculators, so much as to
consider their own advantage more important and valuable than the
prosperity of a country or the good of a people,--then a king who does
_not_ veto the same is a worse criminal than those he tacitly
supports and encourages!"

Lutera turned a deadly white,--his eyes fell before the clear, straight
gaze of his Sovereign,--but he said not a word.

"A king's 'veto' has before now brought about a king's dethronement,"
went on the monarch; "Should it do so in my case, I shall not greatly
care,--but if things trend that way, I shall lay my thoughts openly
before the People for their judgment. They seldom or never hear the
Sovereign whom they pay to keep, speak to them on a matter gravely
affecting their national destinies,--but they shall hear _me_,--if
necessary!"

The Marquis moistened his dry lips, and essayed to pronounce a few
words.

"Your Majesty will run considerable risk----"

"Of being judged as something more than a mere dummy," said the King--
"Or a fool set on a throne to be fooled! True! But the risk can only
involve life,--and life is immaterial when weighed in the balance
against Honour. By the way, Marquis, permit me to return to you this
valuable gem";--Here drawing off the Premier's sapphire signet, he
handed it to him--"Almost I envy it! It is a fine stone!--and worthy of
its high service!"

"Your Majesty has increased its value by wearing it," said Lutera,
recovering a little of his strayed equanimity in his determination to
probe to the bottom of the mystery which perplexed his mind. "May I
ask----"

"Anything in reason, my dear Marquis," returned the King lightly, and
smiling as he spoke. "A thousand questions if you like!"

"One will suffice," answered the Premier. "I had an unpleasant dream
last night about this very ring----"

"Ah!" ejaculated the King; "Did you dream that I had dropped it in the
sea on my way to The Islands yesterday?"

He spoke jestingly, yet with a kindly air, and Lutera gained courage to
look boldly up and straight into his eyes.

"I did not dream that you had lost it, Sir," he answered--"but that it
had been stolen from your hand, and used by a spy for unlawful
purposes!"

A strange expression crossed the King's face,--a look of inward
illumination; he smiled, but there was a quiver of strong feeling under
the smile. Advancing a step, he laid his hand with a light, half-
warning pressure on the Premier's shoulder.

"Dreams always go by contraries, Marquis!" he said;--"I assure you, on
my honour as a king and a gentleman, that from the moment you lent it
to me, till now,--when I return it to you,--_that ring has never left
my finger_!"




CHAPTER XV

"MORGANATIC" OR--?


The Royal 'at home' was soon over. Many of those who had the felicity
of breathing in the King's presence that afternoon remarked upon his
Majesty's evident good health and high spirits, while others as freely
commented on the unapproachableness and irritability of the Marquis de
Lutera. Sir Walter Langton, the great English traveller, who was taking
his leave of the Sovereign that day, being bound on an expedition to
the innermost recesses of Africa, was not altogether agreeably
impressed by the Premier, whom he met on this occasion for the first
and only time. They had begun their acquaintance by talking
generalities,--but drifted by degrees into the dangerous circle of
politics, and were skirting round the edge of various critical
questions of the day, when the Marquis said abruptly:

"An autocracy would not flourish in your country, I presume, Sir
Walter? The British people have been too long accustomed to sing that
they 'never, never will be slaves.' Your Government is really more or
less of a Republic."

"All Governments are so in these days, I imagine," replied Langton.
"Autocracy on the part of a monarch is nowhere endured, save in
Russia,--and what is Russia? A huge volcano, smouldering with fire, and
ever threatening to break out in flame and engulf the Throne! Monarchs
were not always wisdom personified in olden times,--and I venture to
consider them nowadays less wise and more careless than ever. Only a
return to almost barbaric ignorance and superstition would tolerate any
complete monarchical authority in these present times of progress. It
is only the long serfdom of Russia that hinders the triumph of Liberty
there, as elsewhere."

The Marquis listened eagerly, and with evident satisfaction.

"I agree with you!" he said. "You consider, then, that in no country,
under any circumstances, could the people be expected to obey their
monarch blindly?"

"Certainly not! Even Rome, with its visible spiritual Head and
Sovereign, has no real power. It imagines it has; but let it make any
decided step to ensnare the liberties of the people at large, and the
result would be somewhat astonishing! Personally--" and he smiled
gravely--"I have often thought that my own country would be very much
benefited by a couple of years existence under an autocrat--an autocrat
like Cromwell, for example. A man strong and fierce, intelligent and
candid,--who would expose shams and destroy abuses,--who would have no
mercy on either religious, social, or political fraud, and who would
perform the part of the necessary hard broom for sweeping the National
house. But, unfortunately, we have no such man. You have,--in your
Sergius Thord!"

The Premier heard this name with unconcealed amazement.

"Sergius Thord! Why he is a mere fanatic----"

"Pardon me!" interrupted Sir Walter,--"so was Cromwell!"

"But, my dear sir!" remonstrated the Marquis smilingly,--"Is it
possible that you really consider Sergius Thord any sort of an
influence in this country? If you do, I assure you you are greatly
mistaken!"

"I think not," responded Sir Walter quietly; "With every respect for
you, Marquis, I believe I am not mistaken! Books written by Sergius
Thord are circulating in their thousands all over the world--his
speeches are reported not only here, but in journals which probably you
never hear of, in far-off countries,--in short, his propaganda is
simply enormous. He is a kind of new Rousseau, without,--so far as I
can learn,--Rousseau's private vices. He is a man I much wished to see
during my stay here, but I have not had the opportunity of finding him
out. He is an undoubted genius,--but I need not remind you, Marquis,
that a man is never a prophet in his own country! The world's
'celebrity' is always eyed with more or less suspicion as a strange
sort of rogue or vagabond in his own native town or village!"

At that moment, the King, having concluded a conversation with certain
of his guests, who were thereupon leaving the Throne-room, approached
them. He had not spoken a word to the Premier since returning him his
signet-ring, but now he said:

"Marquis, I was almost forgetting a special request I have to make of
you!"

"A request from you is a command, Sir!" replied Lutera with
hypocritical deference and something of a covert sneer, which did not
escape the quick observation of Sir Walter Langton.

"In certain cases it should be so," returned the King tranquilly; "And
in this you will probably make it so! I have received a volume of poems
by one Paul Zouche. His genius appears to me deserving of
encouragement. A grant of a hundred golden pieces a year will not be
too much for his hundred best poems. Will you see to this?"

The Marquis bowed.

"I have never heard of the man in question," he replied hesitatingly.

"Probably not," returned the King smiling;--"How often do Premiers read
poetry, or notice poets? Scarcely ever, if we may credit history! But
in this case----"

"I will make myself immediately acquainted with Paul Zouche, and inform
him of your Majesty's gracious intention," the Marquis hastened to say.

"It is quite possible he may refuse the grant," continued the King;
"Sometimes--though seldom--poets are prouder than Prime Ministers!"

With a brief nod of dismissal he turned away, inviting Sir Walter
Langton to accompany him, and there was nothing more for the Marquis to
do, save to return even as he had come, with two pieces of information
puzzling his brain,--one, that the King's 'veto' had stopped a
declaration of war,--unless,--which was a very remote contingency,--he
and his party could persuade the people to go against the King,--the
other, that some clever spy, with the assistance of a fraudulent
imitation of his signet-ring, had become aware of the financial
interests involved in a private speculation depending on the intended
war, which included himself, Carl Perousse, and two or three other
members of the Ministry. And, out of these two facts might possibly
arise a whole train of misfortune, ruin and disgrace to those
concerned.

It was considerably past three o'clock in the afternoon when the King,
retiring to his own private cabinet, desired Sir Roger de Launay to
inform Prince Humphry that he was now prepared to receive him. Sir
Roger hesitated a moment before going to fulfil the command. The King
looked at him with an indulgent smile.

"Things are moving too quickly, you think, Roger?" he queried. "Upon my
soul, I am beginning to find a new zest in life! I feel some twenty
years younger since I saw the face of the beautiful Gloria yesterday!
We must promote her sailor husband, and bring his pearl of the sea to
our Court!"

"It was on this very subject, Sir, that Von Glauben wished to see your
Majesty the first thing this morning," said Sir Roger;--"But you
refused him so early an audience. Yet you will remember that yesterday
you told him you wished for an explanation of his acquaintance with
this girl. He was ready and prepared to give it, but was prevented,--
not only by your refusal to see him,--but also by the Prince."

Drawing up a chair to the open window, the King seated himself
deliberately, and lit a cigar.

"Presumably the Prince knows more than the Professor!" he said calmly;
"We will hear both, and give Royalty the precedence! Tell Prince
Humphry I am waiting for him."

Sir Roger withdrew, and in another two or three minutes returned,
throwing open the door and ushering in the Prince, who entered with a
quick step, and brief, somewhat haughty salutation. Puffing leisurely
at his cigar, the King glanced his son up and down smilingly, but said
not a word. The Prince stood waiting for his father to speak, till at
last, growing impatient and waiving ceremony, he began.

"I came, Sir, to spare Von Glauben your reproaches,--which he does not
merit. You accused him yesterday, he tells me, of betraying your trust;
he has neither betrayed your trust nor mine! I alone am to blame in
this matter!"

"In what matter?" enquired the King quietly.

Prince Humphry coloured deeply, and then grew pale. There was a ray of
defiance in the light of his fine eyes, but the tumult within his soul
showed itself only in an added composure of his features.

"You wish me to speak plainly, I suppose," he said;--"though you know
already what I mean. I repeat,--I, and I alone, am to blame,--for--for
anything that seemed strange to you yesterday, when you met Von Glauben
at The Islands."

The King's serious face lightened with a gleam of laughter.

"Nothing seemed very strange to me, Humphry," he said, "except the one
fact that I found Von Glauben,--whom I supposed to be studying
scientific problems,--engaged in studying a woman instead! A very
beautiful woman, too, who ought to be something better than a sailor's
wife. And I do not understand, as yet, what he has to do with her,
unless--" Here he paused and went on more slowly--"Unless he is, as I
suspect, acting for you in some way, and trying to tempt the fair
creature with the prospect of a prince's admiration while the sailor
husband is out of the way! Remember, I know nothing--I merely hazard a
guess. You are an habitue of The Islands;--though I learned, on enquiry
of the interesting old gentleman who was good enough to be my host,
Rene Ronsard, that nobody had ever seen you there. They had only seen
your yacht constantly cruising about the bay. This struck me as
curious, I must confess. Some of your men were well known,--
particularly one,--the husband of the pretty girl I saw. Her name, it
seems, is Gloria,--and I must admit that it entirely suits her. I can
hardly imagine that if you have visited The Islands as often as you
seem to have done, you can have escaped seeing her. She is too
beautiful to remain unknown to you--particularly if her husband is, as
they tell me, in your service. I asked her to give me his name, but she
refused it point-blank. I do not wish to accuse you of an amour, which
you are perhaps quite innocent of--but certain things taken in their
conjunction look suspicious,--and I would remind you that honour in
princes,--as in all men,--should come before self-indulgence."

"I entirely agree with you, Sir!" said the Prince, composedly; "And in
the present case honour has been my first thought, as it will be my
last. Gloria is my wife!"

"Your wife!" The King rose, his tall figure looking taller, his eyes
sparkling with anger from under their deep-set brows. "Your wife! Are
you mad, Humphry! You!----the Heir-Apparent to the Throne! You have
married her!"

"I have!" replied the Prince, and the words now came coursing rapidly
from his lips in his excitement--"I love her! I love her with all my
heart and soul!--and I have given her the only shield and safeguard
love in this world can give! I have married her in my own name--the
name of our family,--which neither she nor any of the humble folk out
yonder have ever heard--but she is wedded to me as fast as Church and
Law can make it,--and there is only one wrong connected with my vows to
her--she does not know who I am. I have deceived her there,--but in
nothing else. Had I told her of my rank, she would never have married
me. But now she is mine,--and for her sake I am willing to resign all
pretension to the Throne in favour of my brother Rupert. Let it be so,
I implore you! Let me live my own life of love and liberty in my own
way!"

Rigid as a statue the King stood,--his lips were set hard and his eyes
lowered. Long buried thoughts rose up from the innermost recesses of
his being, and rushed upon his brain in a deluge of remembrance and
regret. What!--after all these years, had the ghost of his first love,
the little self-slain maiden of his boyhood's dream, risen to avenge
herself in the life of his son? The strangeness of the comparison
between himself as he was now, and the eager passionate youth he was
then, smote him with a sense of sharp pain. Away in those far-off days
he had believed in love as the chief glory of existence; he had
considered it as the poets would have us consider it,--a saving,
binding, holding and immortal influence, which leads to all pure and
holy things, even unto God Himself, the Highest and Holiest of all.
When he lost that belief, how great was his loss!--when he ceased to
experience that pure idealistic emotion, how bitter became the monotony
of living! Rapidly the stream of memory swept over his innermost soul
and shook his nerves, and it was only through a strong effort of self-
repression that at last, lifting up his eyes he fixed them on the
flushed face of his son, and said in measured tones.

"This is a very unexpected and very unhappy confession of yours,
Humphry! You have acted most unwisely!--you have been disloyal to me,
who am not only your father, but your King! You have proved yourself
unworthy of the nation's trust,--and you have deceived, more cruelly
than you think, an innocent and too-confiding girl. I shall not dispute
the legality of your marriage;--that would not be worth my while. You
have no doubt taken every step to make it as binding as possible;--
however, that is but a trifling matter in your case. You know that such
a marriage is, and can only be morganatic;--and as the immediate
consequence of your amazing folly, a suitable Royal alliance must be
arranged for you at once. The nuptials can be celebrated with the
attainment of your majority next year."

He spoke coldly and calmly, but his heart was beating with mingled
wrath and pain, and even while he thus pronounced her doom, the
exquisite face of Gloria floated before him like the vision of a
perfect innocence ruined and betrayed. He realised that he possibly had
an unusual character to reckon with in her,--and he had lately become
fully aware that there was as much determination and latent force in
the disposition of his son, as in the mother who had given him birth.
Pale and composed, the young Prince heard him in absolute silence, and
when he had finished, still waited a moment, lest any further word
should fall from the lips of his parent and Sovereign. Then he spoke in
quite as measured, cold and tranquil a manner as the King had done.

"I need not remind you, Sir, that the days of tyranny are over. You
cannot force me into bigamy against my will!"

His father uttered a quick oath.

"Bigamy! Who talks of bigamy?"

"You do, Sir! I have married a beautiful and innocent woman,--she is my
lawful wife in the sight of God and man; yet you coolly propose to give
me a second wife under the 'morganatic' law, which, as I view it, is
merely a Royal excuse for bigamy! Now I have no wish to excuse myself
for marrying Gloria,--I consider she has honoured me far more than I
have honoured her. She has given me all her youth, her life, her love,
her beauty and her trust, and whatever I am worth in this world shall
be hers and hers only. I am quite prepared"--and he smiled somewhat
sarcastically,--"to make it a test case, and appeal to the law of the
realm. If that law tolerates a crime in princes, which it would punish
in commoners, then I shall ask the People to judge me!"

"Indeed!" And the King surveyed him with a touch of ironical amusement
and vague admiration for his audacity. "And suppose the people fail to
appreciate the romance of the situation?"

"Then I shall resign my nationality;" said the young man coolly;
"Because a country that legalises a wrong done to the innocent, is not
worth belonging to! Concerning the Throne,--as I told you before--I am
ready to abandon it at once. I would rather lose all the kingdoms of
the world than lose Gloria!"

There was a pause, during which the King took two or three slow paces
up and down the room. At last he turned and faced his son; his eyes
were softer--his look more kindly.

"You are very much in love just now, Humphry!" he said; "And I do not
wish to be too hard on you in this matter, for there can be no question
as to the extraordinary beauty of the girl you call your wife----"

"The girl who _is_ my wife," interrupted the Prince decisively.

"Very well; so let it be!" said his father calmly; "The girl who
_is_ your wife--for the present! I will give you time--plenty of
time--to consider the position reasonably!"

"I have already considered it," he declared.

"No doubt! You think you have considered it. But if _you_ do not
want to meditate any further upon your marriage problem, you must allow
me the leisure to do so, as one who has seen more of life than you,--as
one who takes things philosophically--and also--as one who was young--
once;--who loved--once;--and who had his own private dreams of
happiness--once!" He rested a hand on his son's shoulder, and looked
him full and fairly in the eyes. "Let me advise you, Humphry, to go
abroad! Travel round the world for a year!"

The Prince was silent,--but his eyes did not flinch from his father's
steady gaze. He seemed to be thinking rapidly; but his thoughts were
not betrayed by any movement or expression that could denote anxiety.
He was alert, calm, and perfectly self-possessed.

"I have no objection," he said at last; "A year is soon past!"

"It is," agreed the King, with a sense of relief at his ready assent;
"But by the end of that time----"

"Things will be precisely as they are now," said the Prince tranquilly;
"Gloria will still be my wife, and I shall still be her husband!"

The King gave a gesture of annoyance.

"Whatever the result," he said, "she cannot, and will not be Crown
Princess!"

"She will not envy that destiny in my brother Rupert's wife," said
Prince Humphry quietly; "Nor shall I envy my brother Rupert!"

"You talk like a fool, Humphry!" said the King impatiently; "You cannot
resign your Heir-Apparency to the Throne, without giving a reason;--and
so making known your marriage."

"That is precisely what I wish to do," returned the young man. "I have
no intention of keeping my marriage secret. I am proud of it! Gloria is
mine--the joy of my soul--the very pulse of my life! Why should I hide
my heart's light under a cloud?"

His voice vibrated with tender feeling,--his handsome features were
softened into finer beauty by the passion which invigorated him, and
his father looking at him, thought for a moment that so might the young
gods of the fabled Parnassus have appeared in the height of their
symbolic power and charm. His own eyes grew melancholy, as he studied
this vigorous incarnation of ardent love and passionate resolve; and a
slight sigh escaped him unconsciously.

"You forget!" he said slowly, "you have, up to the present deceived the
girl. She does not know who you are. When she hears that you have
played a part,--that you are no sailor in the service of the Crown
Prince, as you have apparently represented yourself to be, but the
Crown Prince himself, what will she say to you? Perhaps she will hate
you for the deception, as much as she now loves you!"

A shadow darkened the young Prince's open countenance, but it soon
passed away.

"She will never hate me!" he said,--"For when I do tell her the truth,
it will be when I have resigned all the ridiculous pomp and
circumstance of my position for her sake----"

"Perhaps she will not let you resign it!" said the King; "She may be as
unselfish as she is beautiful!"

There was a slight, very slight note of derision in his voice, and the
Prince caught it up at once.

"You wrong yourself, Sir, more than you wrong my wife by any lurking
misjudgment of her," he said, with singularly masterful and expressive
dignity. "As her husband, and the guardian of her honour, I also claim
her obedience. What I desire is her law!"

The King laughed a little forcedly.

"Evidently you have found the miracle of the ages, Humphry!" he said;
"A woman who obeys her master! Well! Let us talk no more of it. You
have been guilty of an egregious folly,--but nothing can make your
marriage otherwise than morganatic. And when the State considers a
Royal alliance for you advisable, you will be compelled to obey the
country's wish,--or else resign the Throne."

"I shall obey the country's wish most decidedly," said the Prince,
"unless it asks me to commit bigamy,--as you suggest,--in which case I
shall decline! Three or four Royal sinners of this class I know of, who
for all their pains have not succeeded in winning the attachment of
their people, either for themselves or their heirs. Their people know
what they are, well enough, and despise their fraudulent position as
heartily as I do! I am perfectly convinced that if it were put to the
vote of the country, no people in the world would wish their future
monarch to be a bigamist!"

"How you stick to a word and a phrase!" exclaimed the King irritably;
"The morganatic rule does away with the very idea of bigamy!"

"How do you prove it, Sir?" queried the Prince. "Bigamy is the act of
contracting a second marriage while the first partner is alive. It is
punished severely in commoners;--why should Royalty escape?"

The King began to laugh. This boy was developing 'discursive
philosophies' such as his own old tutor had abhorred.

"Upon my life, I do not know, Humphry!" he declared; "You must ask the
departed shades of those who made themselves responsible for kingship
in the first place. Personally, I do not come under the law. I have
only married once myself!"

His son looked full at him;--and the intensity of that look affected
and unsteadied his usual calm nerves. But he was not one to shirk an
unpleasant suggestion.

"You would say, Humphry, if your filial respect permitted you, that my
one marriage has been amplified in various other ways. Perfectly true!
When women lie down and ask you to walk over them, you do it if you are
a man and a king! When, on the contrary, women show you that they do
not care whether you are royal or the reverse, and despise you more
than admire you, you run after them for all you are worth! At least I
do! I always have done so. And, to a certain extent, it has been
amusing. But the limit is reached. I am growing old!" Here he took up
the cigar he had thrown aside when his son had first startled him by
the announcement of his marriage, and relighting it, began to smoke
peaceably. "I am, as I say, growing old. I have never found what is
called love. You have--or think you have! Enjoy your dream, Humphry--
but--take my advice and go abroad! See whether travel does not work a
change in you or,--in her!" He paused a moment, and while the Prince
still regarded him fixedly, added; "Will you tell the Queen?"

"I will leave you to tell her, Sir, with your permission;" replied the
Prince; "I cannot expect her sympathy."

"Von Glauben, then, is the only person you have trusted with your
confidence?"

"Von Glauben was no party to my marriage, Sir. I was married fully
three months before I told him. He was greatly vexed and troubled,--
but when he saw Gloria, he was glad."

"Glad!" echoed the King; "For what reason, pray?"

"I am afraid, Sir," said the young man with a smile, "his gladness was
but a part of his science! He said it was better for a prince to wed a
healthy and beautiful commoner, than the daughter of a hundred
scrofulous kings!"

With a movement of intense indignation, the monarch sprang up from the
chair in which he had just seated himself.

"Now, by Heaven!" he exclaimed; "Von Glauben goes too far! He shall
suffer for this!"

"Why?" queried the Prince calmly; "You know that what he says is
perfectly true. True? Why, there is scarcely a Royal house in the world
save our own, without its hereditary curse of disease or insanity. We
pay more attention to the breeding of horses than the breeding of
kings!"

The plain candour and veracity of the statement, left no room for
denial.

"You have seen Gloria," went on the Prince; "You know she is the most
beautiful creature your eyes ever rested upon! Von Glauben told me you
were stricken dumb, and almost stupefied at sight of her----"

"Damn Von Glauben!" said the King.

His son smiled ever so slightly, but continued.

"You have made yourself acquainted with her history--"

"Yes!" said the King; "That she is a foundling picked up from the sea--
a castaway from a wreck!--no one knows who her father and mother were,
and yet you, in your raving madness and folly of love, would make her
Crown Princess and future Queen!"

The Prince went on unheedingly.

"She is beautiful--and the simple method of her bringing up has left
her unspoilt and innocent. She is ignorant of the world's ways--because
--" and his voice sank to a reverential tenderness--"God's ways are
more familiar to her!" He paused, but his father was silent; he
therefore went on. "She is healthy, strong, simple and true,--more
fit for a throne, if such were her destiny, than any daughter of any
Royal house I know of. Happy the nation that could call such a woman
their Queen!"

"As I have already told you, Humphry," returned the King, "you are in
love!--with the love of a headstrong, passionate boy for a beautiful
and credulous girl. I do not propose to discuss the subject further.
You are willing to go abroad, you tell me,--then make your preparations
at once. I will select one or two necessary companions for you, and you
can start when you please. I would let Von Glauben accompany you, but--
for the present--I cannot well spare him. Your intended voyage must be
made public, and in this way nothing will be known of the manner in
which you have privately chosen to make a fool of yourself. I will
explain the situation to the Queen;--but beyond that I shall say
nothing. Let me know by to-morrow how soon you can arrange your
departure."

The Prince bowed composedly, and was about to retire, when the King
called him back.

"You do not ask my pardon, Humphry, for the offence you have
committed?"

The young man flushed, and bit his lip.

"Sir, I cannot ask pardon for what I do not consider is wrong! I have
married the woman I love; and I intend to be faithful to her. You
married a woman you did not love--and the result, according to my
views, and also according to my experience of my mother and yourself,
is more or less regrettable. If I have offended you, I sincerely beg
your forgiveness, but you must first point out the nature of the
offence. Surely, it must be more gratifying to you to know that I
prefer to be a man of honour than a common seducer?"

The King looked at him, and his own eyes fell under his son's clear
candid gaze.

"Enough! You may go!" he said briefly.

The door opened and closed again;--he was gone.

The King, left alone, fixed his eyes on the sparkling line of the sea,
brightly blue, and the flower-bordered terrace in front of him. Life
was becoming interesting;--the long burdensome monotony of years had
changed into a variety of contrasting scenes and colours,--and in
taking up the problem of human life as lived by others, more than as
lived by himself, he had entered on a new path, untrodden by
conventionalities, and leading, he knew not whither. But, having begun
to walk in it, he was determined to go on--and to use each new
experience as a guide for the rest of his actions. His son's marriage
with a commoner--one who indeed was not only a commoner but a
foundling--might after all lead to good, if properly taken in hand,--
and he resolved not to make the worst of it, but rather to let things
take their own natural course.

"For love," he said to himself somewhat bitterly, "in nine cases out of
ten ends in satiety,--marriage, in separation by mutual consent! Let
the boy travel for a year, and forget, if he can, the fair face which
captivates him,--for it is a fair face,--and more than that,--I
honestly believe it is the reflex of a fair soul!"

His eyes grew dreamy and absorbed; away on the horizon a little white
cloud, shaped like the outspread wings of a dove, hovered over the sea
just where The Islands lay.

"Yes! Let him see new scenes--strange lands, and varying customs; let
him hear modern opinions of life, instead of reading the philosophies
of Aurelius and Epictetus, and the poetry written ages ago by the dead
wild souls of the past;--and so he will forget--and all will be well!
While for Gloria herself,--and the old revolutionist Ronsard--we shall
doubtless find ways and means of consolation for them both!"

Thus he mused,--yet in the very midst of his thoughts the echoing
memory of a golden voice, round and rich with delight and triumph rang
in his ears:

  "My King crown'd me!
    And I and he
  Are one till the world shall cease to be!"




CHAPTER XVI

THE PROFESSOR ADVISES


"I have discovered the secret of successful living, Professor," said the
King, a couple of hours later as, walking in one of the many thickly
wooded alleys of the palace grounds, he greeted Von Glauben, who had
been told to meet him there, and who had been waiting the Royal
approach with some little trepidation,--"It is this,--to draw a
straight line of conduct, and walk in it, regardless of other people's
crooked curves!"

The Professor looked at him, and saw nothing but kindliness expressed
in his eyes and smile,--therefore, taking courage he replied without
embarrassment,--

"Truly, Sir, if a man is brave enough to do this, he may conquer
everything but death, and even face this last enemy without much
alarm."

"I agree with you!" replied the monarch; "And Humphry's line has
certainly been straight enough, taken from the point of his own
perspective! Do you not think so?"

Von Glauben hesitated a moment--then spoke out boldly.

"Sir, as you now know all, I will frankly assure you that I think his
Royal Highness has behaved honourably, and as a true man! Society
pardons a prince for seducing innocence--but whether it will pardon him
for marrying it, is quite another question! And that is why I repeat,
he has behaved well. Though when he first told me he was married, I
suffered a not-to-be-explained misery and horror; 'For,' said he--'I
have married an angel!' Which naturally I thought (deducting a certain
quantity of the enthusiasm of youth for the statement) meant that he
had married a bouncing housemaid with large hands and feet. 'That is
well,' I told him--'For divorce is now made easy in this country, and
you can easily return the celestial creature to her native element!' At
which I resigned myself to hear some oaths, for violent expletives are
always refreshing to the masculine brain-matter. But his Royal Highness
maintained the good breeding which always distinguishes him, and merely
proceeded with his strange confession of romance,--which, as you, Sir,
are now happily aware of it, I need not recapitulate. Your knowledge of
the matter has lifted an enormous burden from my mind; Ach! Enormous!"

He gave a deep breath, and drew himself up to his full height--squared
his shoulders, and then, as it were stood firm, as though waiting
attack.

The King laughed good-naturedly, and took him by the arm.

"Tell me all you know, Von Glauben!" he said; "I am acquainted with the
gist and upshot of the matter,--namely, Humphry's marriage; but I am
wholly ignorant of the details."

"There is little to tell, Sir," said Von Glauben;--"Of the Prince's
constant journeyings to The Islands we were all aware long ago; but the
cause of those little voyages was not so apparent. To avoid the
suspicion with which a Royal visitor would be viewed, the Prince, it
appears, assumed to be merely one of the junior officers on his own
yacht,--and under this disguise became known and much liked by the
Islanders generally. He fell in love at first sight with the beautiful
girl your Majesty saw yesterday--Gloria; 'Glory-of-the-Sea'--as I
sometimes call her, and they were married by the old parish priest in
the little church among the rocks--the very church where, as her
adopted father, Ronsard, tells me, he heard the choristers singing a
'Gloria in Excelsis' on the day he found her cast up on the shore."

"Well!" said the King, seeing that he paused; "And is the marriage
legal, think you?"

"Perfectly so, Sir!" replied Von Glauben; "Registered by law, as well
as sanctified by church. The Prince tells me he married her in his own
name,--but no one,--not even the poor little priest who married them,--
knew the surname of your Majesty's distinguished house, and I believe,
--nay I am sure--" here he heaved an unconscious sigh, "it will bring
a tragedy to the girl when she knows the true rank and title of her
husband!"

"How came _you_ to make her acquaintance? Tell me everything!--you
know I will not misjudge you!"

"Indeed, Sir, I hope you will not!" returned the Professor earnestly;--
"For there was never a man more hopelessly involved than myself in the
net prepared for me by this romantic lover, who has the honour to be
your son. In the first place, directly I heard this confession of
marriage, I was for telling you at once; but as he had bound me by my
word of honour before he began the story, to keep his confidence
sacred, I was unable to disburden myself of it. He said he wanted to
secure me as a friend for his wife. 'That,' said I firmly, 'I will
never be! For there will be difficulty when all is known; and if it
comes to a struggle between a pretty fishwife and the good of a king--
ach!--mein Gott!--I am not for the fishwife!'"

The King smiled; and Von Glauben went on.

"Well, he assured me she was not a fishwife. I said 'What is she then?'
'I tell you,' he replied, 'she is an angel! You will come and see her;
you will pass as an old friend of her sailor husband; and when you have
seen her you will understand!' I was angry, and said I would not go
with him; but afterwards I thought perhaps it would be best if I did,
as I might be able to advise him to some wise course. So I accompanied
him one afternoon in the past autumn to The Islands (he was married
last summer) and saw the girl,--the 'Glory-of-the-Sea.' And I must
confess to your Majesty, my heart went down before her beauty and
innocence in absolute worship! And if you were to kill me for it, I
cannot help it--I am now as devoted to her service as I am to yours!"

"Good!" said the King gently;--"Then you must help me to console her in
Humphry's absence!"

Professor Von Glauben's eyes opened widely, with a vague look of alarm.

"In his absence, Sir?"

"Yes! I am sending him abroad. He is quite willing to go, he tells me.
His departure will make all things perfectly easy for us. The girl must
remain in her present ignorance as to the position of the man she has
really married. The sailor she supposes him to be will accompany the
Prince on his yacht,--and it must be arranged that he never returns!
She is young, and will easily be consoled!"

Von Glauben was silent.

"_You_ will not betray the Prince's identity with her lover," went
on the King, "and no one else knows it. In fact, you will be the very
person best qualified to tell her of his departure, and--in due time,
of his fictitious death!"

They were walking slowly under the heavy shadow of crossed ilex
boughs,--and Von Glauben came to a dead halt.

"Sir," he said, in rather unsteady accents; "With every respect for
your Majesty, I must altogether decline the task of breaking a pure
heart, and ruining a young life! Moreover, if your Majesty, after all
your recent experiences,"--and he laid great emphasis on these last
words, "thinks there is any ultimate good to be obtained by keeping up
a lie, and practising a fraud, the lessons we have learned in these
latter days are wholly unavailing! You began this conversation with me
by speaking of a straight line of conduct, which should avoid other
people's crooked curves. Is this your Majesty's idea of a straight
line?"

He spoke with unguarded vehemence, but the King was not offended. On
the contrary, he looked whimsically interested and amused.

"My dear Von Glauben, you are not usually so inconsistent! Humphry
himself has kept up a lie, and practised a fraud on the girl----"

"Only for a time!" interrupted the Professor hastily.

"Oh, we all do it 'only for a time.' Everything--life itself--is 'only
for a time!' You know as well as I do that this absurd marriage can
never be acknowledged. I explained as much to Humphry; I told him he
could guard himself by the morganatic law, provided he would consent to
a Royal alliance immediately--but the young fool swore it would be
bigamy, and took himself off in a huff."

"He was right! It would be bigamy;--it _is_ bigamy!", said the
Professor; "Call it by what name you like in Court parlance, the act of
having two wives is forbidden in this country. The wisest men have come
to the conclusion that one wife is enough!"

"Humphry's ideas being so absolutely childish," went on the King, "it
is necessary for him to expand them somewhat. That is why I shall send
him abroad. You have a strong flavour of romance in your Teutonic
composition, Von Glauben,--and I can quite sympathise with your
admiration for the 'Glory-of-the-Sea' as you call her. From a man's
point of view, I admire her myself. But I know nothing of her moral or
mental qualities; though from her flat refusal to give me her husband's
name yesterday, I judge her as wilful,--but most pretty women are that.
And as for my line of conduct, it will, I assure you, be perfectly
'straight,'--in the direction of my duty as a King,--apart altogether
from sentimental considerations! And in this, as in other things,--" he
paused and emphasised his words--"I rely on your honour and faithful
service!"

The Professor made no reply. He was, thinking deeply. With a kind of
grim scorn, he pointed out to himself that his imagination was held
captive by the mental image of a woman, whose eyes had expressed trust
in him; and almost as tenderly as the lover in Tennyson's 'Maud' he
could have said that he 'would die, To save from some slight shame one
simple girl.' Presently he braced himself up, and confronted his Royal
master.

"Sir," he said very quietly, yet with perfect frankness; "Your
Majesty must have the goodness to pardon me if I say you must not rely
upon me at all in this matter! I will promise nothing, except to be
true to myself and my own sense of justice. I have given up my own
country for conscience' sake--I can easily give up another which is not
my own, for the same reason. In the matter of this marriage or
'mesalliance' as the worldly would call it,--I have nothing whatever to
do. While the Prince asked me to keep his secret, I kept it. Now that
he has confided it to your Majesty, I am relieved and satisfied; and
shall not in any way, by word or suggestion, interfere with your
Majesty's intentions. But, at the same time, I shall not assist them!
For as regards the trusting girl who has been persuaded that she has
won a great love and complete happiness for all her life,--I have sworn
to be her friend;--and I must respectfully decline to be a party to any
further deception in her case. Knowing what I know of her character,
which is a pure and grand one, I think it would be far better to tell
her the whole truth, and let her be the arbiter of her own destiny. She
will decide well and truly, I am sure!"

He ceased; the King was silent. Von Glauben studied his face
attentively.

"You are a thinker, Sir,--a student and a philosopher. You are not one
of those kings who treat their kingship as a license for the free
exercise of intolerant humours and vicious practices. Were you no
monarch at all, you would still be a sane and thoughtful man. Take my
humble advice, Sir--for once put the unspoilt nature of a pure woman to
the test, and find out what a grand creature God intended woman to be,
in her pristine simplicity and virtue! Send for Gloria to this Court;--
tell her the truth!--and await the result with confidence!"

There was a pause. The King walked slowly up and down; at last he
spoke.

"You may be right! I do not say you are wrong. I will consider your
suggestion. Certainly it would be the straightest course. But first a
complete explanation is due to the Queen. She must know all,--and if
her interest can be awakened by such a triviality as her son's love-
affair--" and he smiled somewhat bitterly,--"perhaps she may agree to
your plan as the best way out of the difficulty. In any case"--here he
extended his hand which the Professor deferentially bowed over--"I
respect your honesty and plain speaking, Professor! I have reason to
approve highly of sincerity,--wherever and however I find it,--at the
present crisis of affairs. For the moment, I will only ask you to be on
your guard with Humphry;--and say as little as possible to him on the
subject of his marriage or intended departure from this country. Keep
everything as quiet as may be;--till--till we find a clear and
satisfactory course to follow, which shall inflict as little pain as
possible on all concerned. And now, a word with you on other matters."

They walked on side by side, through the garden walks and ways,
conversing earnestly,--and by and by penetrating into the deeper
recesses of the outlying woodlands, were soon hidden among the crossing
and recrossing of the trees. Had they kept to the open ground, from
whence the wide expanse of the sea could be viewed from end to end,
their discussions might perhaps have been interrupted, and themselves
somewhat startled,--for they would have seen Prince Humphry's yacht,
with every inch of canvas stretched to the utmost, flying rapidly
before the wind like a wild white bird, winging its swift, straight way
to the west where the sun shot down Apollo-like shafts of gold on the
gleaming purple coast-line of The Islands.




CHAPTER XVII

AN "HONOURABLE" STATESMAN


It is not easy to trace the causes why it so often happens that semi-
educated, and more or less shallow men rise suddenly to a height of
brilliant power and influence in the working of a country's policy.
Sometimes it is wealth that brings them to the front; sometimes the
strong support secretly given to them by others in the background, who
have their own motives to serve, and who require a public
representative; but more often still it is sheer unscrupulousness,--or
what may be described as 'walking over' all humane and honest
considerations,--that places them in triumph at the helm of affairs. To
rise from a statesman to be a Secretary of State augurs a certain
amount of brain, though not necessarily of the highest quality; while
it certainly betokens a good deal of dash and impudence. Carl Perousse,
one of the most prominent among the political notabilities of Europe,
had begun his career by small peddling transactions in iron and timber
manufactures; he came of a very plebeian stock, and had received only a
desultory sort of education, picked up here and there in cheap
provincial schools. But he had a restless, domineering spirit of
ambition. Ashamed of his plebeian origin, and embittered from his
earliest years by a sense of grudge against those who moved in the
highest and most influential circles of the time, the idea was always
in his mind that he would one day make himself an authority over the
very persons, who, in the rough and tumble working-days of his younger
manhood, would not so much as cast him a word or a look. He knew that
the first thing necessary to attain for this purpose was money; and he
had, by steady and constant plod, managed to enlarge and expand all his
business concerns into various, important companies, which he set
afloat in all quarters of the world,--with the satisfactory result that
by the time his years had run well into the forties, he was one of the
wealthiest men in the country. He had from the first taken every
opportunity to insinuate himself into politics; and in exact proportion
to the money he made, so was his success in acquiring such coveted
positions in life as brought with them the masterful control of various
conflicting aims and interests. His individual influence had extended
by leaps and bounds till he had become only secondary in importance to
the Prime Minister himself; and he possessed a conveniently elastic
conscience, which could be stretched at will to suit any party or any
set of principles. In personal appearance he was not prepossessing.
Nature had branded him in her own special way 'Trickster,' for those
who cared to search for her trademark. He was tall and thin, with a
narrow head and a deeply-lined, clean-shaven countenance, the cold
immovability of which was sometimes broken up by an unpleasant smile,
that merely widened the pale set lips without softening them, and
disclosed a crooked row of smoke-coloured teeth, much decayed. He had
small eyes, furtively hidden under a somewhat restricted frontal
development,--his brows were narrow,--his forehead ignoble and
retreating. But despite a general badness, or what may be called a
'smirchiness' of feature, he had learned to assume an air of
superiority, which by its sheer audacity prevented a casual observer
from setting him down as the vulgarian he undoubtedly was; and his
amazing pluck, boldness and originality in devising ways and means of
smothering popular discontent under various 'shows' of apparent public
prosperity, was immensely useful to all such 'statesmen,' whose
statesmanship consisted in making as much money as possible for
themselves out of the pockets of their credulous countrymen. He was
seldom disturbed by opposing influences; and even now when he had just
returned from the palace with the full knowledge that the King was
absolutely resolved on vetoing certain propositions he had set down in
council for the somewhat arbitrary treatment of a certain half-
tributary power which had latterly turned rebellious, he was more
amused than irritated.

"I suppose his Majesty wants to distinguish himself by a melodramatic
_coup d'etat_" he said, leaning easily back in his chair, and
studying the tips of his carefully pared and polished finger-nails;--
"Poor fool! I don't blame him for trying to do something more than walk
about his palace in different costumes at stated intervals,--but he
will find his 'veto' out of date. We shall put it to the country;--and
I think I can answer for that!"

He smiled, as one who knows where and how to secure a triumph, and his
equanimity was not disturbed in the least by the unexpected arrival of
the Premier, who was just then announced, and who, coming in his turn
from the King's diplomatic reception, had taken the opportunity to call
and see his colleague on his way home.

"You seem fatigued, Marquis!" he said, as, rising to receive his
distinguished guest, he placed a chair for him opposite his own. "Was
his Majesty's conversazione more tedious than usual?"

Lutera looked at him with a dubious air.

"No!--it was brief enough so far as I was immediately concerned," he
replied;--"I do not suppose I stayed more than twenty minutes in the
Throne-room altogether. I understand you have been told that our
proposed negotiations are to be vetoed?"

Perousse smiled.

"I have been told--yes!--but I have been told many things which I do
not believe! The King certainly has the right of veto; but he dare not
exercise it."

"Dare not?" echoed the Marquis--"From his present unconstitutional
attitude it seems to me he dare do anything!"

"I tell you he dare not!" repeated Perousse quietly;--"Unless he wishes
to lose the Throne. I daresay if it came to that, we should get on
quite as well--if not better--with a Republic!"

Lutera looked at him with an amazed and reluctant admiration.

"_You_ talk of a Republic? You,--who are for ever making the most
loyal speeches in favour of the monarchy?"

"Why not?" queried Perousse lightly;--"If the monarchy does not do as
it is told, whip it like a naughty child and send it to bed. That has
been easily arranged before now in history!"

The Marquis sat silent,--thinking, or rather brooding heavily. Should
he, or should he not unburden himself of certain fears that oppressed
his mind? He cleared his throat of a troublesome huskiness and began,--

"If the purely business transactions in which you are engaged----"

"And you also," put in Perousse placidly.

The Premier shifted his position uneasily and went on.

"I say, if the purely business transactions of this affair were
publicly known----"

"As well expect Cabinet secrets to be posted on a hoarding in the open
thoroughfare!" said Perousse. "What afflicts you with these sudden
pangs of distrust at your position? You have taken care to provide for
all your own people! What more can you desire?"

Lutera hesitated; then he said slowly:--

"I think there is only one thing for me to do,--and that is to send in
my resignation at once!"

Carl Perousse raised himself a little out of his chair, and opened his
narrow eyes.

"Send in your resignation!" he echoed; "On what grounds? Do me the
kindness to remember, Marquis, that I am not yet quite ready to take
your place!"

He smiled his disagreeable smile,--and the Marquis began to feel
irritated.

"Do not be too sure that you will ever have it to take," he said with
some acerbity; "If the King should by any means come to know of your
financial deal----"

"You seem to be very suddenly afraid of the King!" interrupted
Perousse; "Or else strange touches of those catch-word ideals 'Loyalty'
and 'Patriotism' are troubling your mind! You speak of _my_
financial deal,--is not yours as important? Review the position;--it
is simply this;--for years and years the Ministry have been speculating
in office matters,--it is no new thing. Sometimes they have lost, and
sometimes they have won; their losses have been replaced by the
imposition of taxes on the people,--their gains they have very wisely
said nothing about. In these latter days, however, the loss has been
considerably more than the gain. 'Patriotism,' as stocks, has gone
down. 'Honour' will not pay the piper. We cannot increase taxation just
at present; but by a war, we can clear out some of the useless
population, and invest in contracts for supplies. The mob love
fighting,--and every small victory won, can be celebrated in beer and
illuminations, to expand what is called 'the heart of the People.' It
is a great 'heart,' and always leaps to strong drink,--which is cheap
enough, being so largely adulterated. The country we propose to subdue
is rich,--and both you and I have large investments of land there. With
the success which our arms are sure to obtain, we shall fill not only
the State coffers (which have been somewhat emptied by our
predecessors' peculations), but our own coffers as well. The King
'vetoes' the war; then let us hear what the People say! Of course we
must work them up first; and then get their verdict while they are red-
hot with patriotic excitement. The Press, ordered by Jost, can manage
that! Put it to the country; (through Jost);--but do not talk of
resigning when we are on the brink of success! _I_ will carry this
thing through, despite the King's 'veto'!"

"Wait!" said the Marquis, drawing his chair closer to Perousse, and
speaking in a low uneasy tone; "You do not know all! There is some
secret agency at work against us; and, among other things, I fear that
a foreign spy has been inadvertently allowed to learn the mainspring of
our principal moves. Listen, and judge for yourself!"

And he related the story of David Jost's midnight experience, carefully
emphasising every point connected with his own signet-ring. As he
proceeded with the narration, Perousse's face grew livid,--once or
twice he clenched his hand nervously, but he said nothing till he had
heard all.

"Your ring, you say, had never left the King's possession?"

"So the King himself assured me, this very afternoon."

"Then someone must have passed off an imitation signet on David Jost,"
continued Perousse meditatively. "What name did the spy give?"

"Pasquin Leroy."

Carl Perousse opened a small memorandum book, and carefully wrote the
name down within it.

"Whatever David Jost has said, David Jost alone is answerable for!" he
then said calmly--"A Jew may be called a liar with impunity, and
whatever a Jew has asserted can be flatly denied. Remember, he is in
our pay!"

"I doubt if he will consent to be made the scapegoat in this affair,"
said Lutera; "Unless we can make it exceptionally to his advantage;--he
has the press at his command."

"Give him a title!" returned Perousse contemptuously; "These Jew press-
men love nothing better!"

The Marquis smiled somewhat sardonically.

"Jost, with a patent of nobility would cut rather an extraordinary
figure!" he said; "Still he would probably make good use of it,--
especially if he were to start a newspaper in London! They would accept
him as a great man there!"

Perousse gave a careless nod; his thoughts were otherwise occupied.

"This Pasquin Leroy has gone to Moscow?"

"According to his own words, he was leaving this morning."

"I daresay that statement is a blind. I should not at all wonder if he
is still in the city. I will get an exact description of him from Jost,
and set Bernhoff on his track."

"Do not forget," said the Marquis impressively, "that he told Jost in
apparently the most friendly and well-meaning manner possible, that the
King had discovered the whole plan of our financial campaign. He even
reported _me_ as being ready to resign in consequence----"

"Which apparently you are!" interpolated Perousse with some sarcasm.

"I certainly have my resignation in prospect," returned Lutera coldly--
"And, so far, this mysterious spy has seemingly probed my thoughts. If
he is as correct in his report concerning the King, it is impossible to
say what may be the consequence."

"Why, what can the King do?" demanded Perousse impatiently, and with
scorn for the vacillating humour of his companion; "Granted that he
knew everything from the beginning----"

"Including your large land purchases and contract concessions in the
very country you propose war with," put in the Marquis,--"Say that he
knew you had resolved on war, and had already started a company for the
fabrication of the guns and other armaments, out of which you get the
principal pickings--what then?"

"What then?" echoed Perousse defiantly--"Why nothing! The King is as
powerless as a target in a field, set up for arrows to be aimed at! He
dare not divulge a State secret; he has no privilege of interference
with politics; all he can do is to 'lead' fashionable society--a poor
business at best--and at present his lead is not particularly apparent.
The King must do as We command!"

He rose and paced up and down with agitated steps.

"To-day, when he told me he had resolved to 'veto' my propositions, I
accepted his information without any manifestation of surprise. I
merely said it would have to be stated in the Senate, and that reasons
would have to be given. He agreed, and said that he himself would
proclaim those reasons. I told him it was impossible!"

"And what was his reply?" asked the Marquis.

"His reply was as absurd as his avowed intention. 'Hitherto it has been
impossible,' he said; 'But in Our reign we shall make it possible!' He
declined any further conversation with me, referring me to you and our
chief colleagues in the Cabinet."

"Well?"

"Well! I pay no more attention to a King's sudden caprice than I do to
the veering of the wind! He will alter his mind in a few days, when the
exigency of the matters in hand becomes apparent to him. In the same
way, he will revoke his decision about that grant of land to the
Jesuits. He must let them have their way."

"What benefit do we get by favouring the Jesuits?" asked Lutera.

"Jost gets a thousand a year for putting flattering notices of the
schools, processions, festivals and such nonsense in his various
newspapers; and our party secures the political support of the Vatican
in Europe,--which just now is very necessary. The Pope must give his
Christian benediction not only to our Educational system, but also to
the war!"

"Then the King has set himself in our way already, even in this
matter?"

"He has! Quite unaccountably and very foolishly. But we shall persuade
him still to be of our opinion. The ass that will not walk must be
beaten till he gallops! I have no anxiety whatever on any point; even
the advent of Jost's spy, with an imitation of your signet on his
finger appears to me quite melodramatic, and only helps to make the
general situation more interesting,--to me at least;--I am only sorry
to see that you allow yourself to be so much concerned over these
trifles!"

"I have my family to think of," said the Marquis slowly; "My reputation
as a statesman, and my honour as a minister are both at stake."
Perousse smiled oddly, but said nothing. "If in any way my name became
a subject of popular animadversion, it would entirely ruin the position
I believe I have attained in history. I have always wished,--" and
there was a tinge of pathos in his voice--"my descendants to hold a
certain pride in my career!"

Perousse looked at him with grim amusement.

"It is a curious and unpleasant fact that the 'descendants' of these
days do not care a button for their ancestors," he said; "They
generally try to forget them as fast as possible. What do the
descendants of Robespierre, (if there are any), care about him? The
descendants of Wellington? The descendants of Beethoven or Lord Byron?
Among the many numerous advantages attending the world-wide fame of
Shakespeare is that he has left no descendants. If he had, his memory
would have been more vulgarised by _them,_ than by any Yankee
kicker at his grave! One of the most remarkable features of this
progressive age is the cheerful ease with which sons forget they ever
had fathers! I am afraid, Marquis, you are not likely to escape the
common doom!"

Lutera rose slowly, and prepared to take his departure.

"I shall call a Cabinet Council for Monday," he said; "This is Friday.
You will find it convenient to attend?"

Perousse, rising at the same time, assented smilingly.

"You will see things in a better and clearer light by then," he said.
"Rely on me! I have not involved you thus far with any intention of
bringing you to loss or disaster. Whatever befalls you in this affair
must equally befall me; we are both in the same boat. We must carry
things through with a firm hand, and show no hesitation. As for the
King, his business is to be a Dummy; and as Dummy he must remain."

Lutera made no reply. They shook hands,--not over cordially,--and
parted; and as soon as Perousse heard the wheels of the Premier's
carriage grinding away from his outer gate, he applied himself
vigorously to the handle of one of the numerous telephone wires fitted
up near his desk, and after getting into communication with the quarter
he desired, requested General Bernhoff, Chief of the Police, to attend
upon him instantly. Bernhoff's headquarters were close by, so that he
had but to wait barely a quarter of an hour before that personage,--the
same who had before been summoned to the presence of the King,--
appeared.

To him Perousse handed a slip of paper, on which he had written the
words 'Pasquin Leroy.'

"Do you know that name?" he asked.

General Bernhoff looked at it attentively. Only the keenest and closest
observer could have possibly detected the slight flicker of a smile
under the stiff waxed points of his military moustache, as he read it.
He returned it carefully folded.

"I fancy I have heard it!" he said cautiously; "In any case, I shall
remember it."

"Good! There is a man of that name in this city; trace him if you can!
Take this note to Mr. David Jost"--and while he spoke he hastily
scrawled a few lines and addressed them--"and he will give you an exact
personal description of him. He is reported to have left for Moscow,--
but I discredit that statement. He is a foreign spy, engaged, we
believe, in the work of taking plans of our military defences,--he must
be arrested, and dealt with rigorously at once. You understand?"

"Perfectly," replied Bernhoff, accepting the note handed to him; "If he
is to be discovered, I shall not fail to discover him!"

"And when you think you are on the track, let me have information at
once," went on Perousse; "But be well on your guard, and let no one
learn the object of your pursuit. Keep your own counsel!"

"I always do!" returned Bernhoff bluntly. "If I did not there might be
trouble!"

Perousse looked at him sharply, but seeing the wooden-like
impassiveness of his countenance, forced a smile.

"There might indeed!" he said; "Your tact and discretion, General, do
much to keep the city quiet. But this affair of Pasquin Leroy is a
private matter."

"Distinctly so!" agreed Bernhoff quietly; "I hold the position
entirely!"

He shortly afterwards withdrew, and Carl Perousse, satisfied that he
had at any rate taken precautions to make known the existence of a spy
in the city, if not to secure his arrest, turned to the crowding
business on his hands with a sense of ease and refreshment. He might
not have felt quite so self-assured and complacent, had he seen the
worthy Bernhoff smiling broadly to himself as he strolled along the
street, with the air of one enjoying a joke, the while he murmured,--

"Pasquin Leroy,--engaged in taking plans of the military defences--is
he? Ah!--a very dangerous amusement to indulge in! Engaged in taking
plans!--Ah!--Yes!--Very good,--very good; excellent! Do I know the
name? Yes! I fancy I might have heard it! Oh, yes, very good indeed--
excellent! And this spy is probably still in the city? Yes!--Probably!
Yes--I should imagine it quite likely!"

Still smiling, and apparently in the best of humours with himself and
the world at large, the General continued his easy stroll by the sea-
fronted ways of the city, along the many picturesque terraces, and up
flights of marble steps built somewhat in the fashion of the prettiest
corners of Monaco, till he reached the chief promenade and resort of
fashion, which being a broad avenue running immediately under and in
front of the King's palace facing the sea, was in the late sunshine of
the afternoon crowded with carriages and pedestrians. Here he took his
place with the rest, saluting a fellow officer here, or a friend
there,--and stood bareheaded with the rest of the crowd, when a light
gracefully-shaped landau, drawn by four greys, and escorted by
postillions in the Royal liveries, passed like a triumphal car,
enshrining the cold, changeless and statuesque beauty of the Queen,
upon whom the public were never weary of gazing. She was a curiosity to
them--a living miracle in her unwithering loveliness; for, apparently
unmoved by emotion herself, she roused all sorts of emotions in others.
Bernhoff had seen her a thousand times, but never without a sense of
new dazzlement.

"Always the same Sphinx!" he thought now, with a slight frown shading
the bluff good-nature of his usual expression; "She is a woman who will
face Death as she faces Time,--with that cold smile of hers which
expresses nothing but scorn of all life's little business!"

He proceeded meditatively on his way to the palace itself, where, on
demand, he was at once admitted to the private apartments of the King.




CHAPTER XVIII

ROYAL LOVERS


Silver-white glamour of the moon, and velvet darkness of deep branching
foliage held the quiet breadth of The Islands between them. Low on the
shore the fantastic shapes of one or two tall cliffs were outlined
black on the fine sparkling sand,--tiny waves rose from the bosom of
the calm sea, and cuddling together in baby ripples made bubbles of
their crests, and broke here and there among the pebbles with low
gurgles of laughter, and in the warm silence of the southern night the
nightingales began to tune up their delicate fluty voices with
delicious tremors and pauses in the trying of their song. The under-
scent of hidden violets among moss flowed potently upon the quiet air,
mingled with strong pine-odours and the salt breath of the gently
heaving sea,--and all the land seemed as lonely and as fair as the
fabled Eden might have been, when the first two human mated creatures
knew it as their own. To every soul that loves for the first time, the
vision of that Lost Paradise is granted; to every man and woman who
know and feel the truth of the divine passion is vouchsafed a flashing
gleam of glory from that Heaven which gives them to each other. For the
voluptuary--for the animal man,--who like his four-footed kindred is
only conscious of instinctive desire, this pure expansion of the heart
and ennobling of the thought is as a sealed book,--a never-to-be-
divulged mystery of joy, which, because he cannot experience it, he is
unable to believe in. It is a glory-cloud in which the privileged ones
are 'caught up and received out of sight.' It transfuses the roughest
elements into immortal influences,--it colours the earth with fairer
hues, and fills the days with beauty; every hour is a gem of sweet
thought set in the dreaming soul, and the lover, at certain times of
rapt ecstasy, would smile incredulously were he told that anyone living
could be unhappy. For love goes back to the beginning of things,--to
the time when the world was new. It has its birth in that primeval
light when 'the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God
shouted for joy.' If it is real, deep, passionate and disinterested
love, it sees no difficulties and knows no disillusions. It is a
sufficient assurance of God to make life beautiful. But in these days
of the eld-time of nations, when all things are being mixed and
prepared for casting into a new mould of world-formation, where we and
our civilizations are not, and shall not be,--any more than the
Egyptian Rameses is part of us now,--love in its pristine purity, faith
and simplicity, is rare. Very little romance is left to hallow it; and
it is doubtful whether the white moon, swinging like a silver lamp in
heaven above the peaceful Islands, shed her glory anywhere on any such
lovers in the world, as the two who on this fair night of the southern
springtime, with arms entwined round each other, moved slowly up and
down on the velvet greensward outside Ronsard's cottage,--Gloria and
her 'sailor' husband.

Gloria was happy,--and her happiness made her doubly beautiful. Clad in
her usual attire of white homespun, with her rich hair falling unbound
over her shoulders in girl-fashion, and just kept back by a band of
white coral, she looked like a young goddess of the sea; her lustrous,
starlike eyes gazed up into the tender responsive ones of the handsome
stripling she had so trustfully wedded, and not a shadow of doubt or
fear darkened the heaven of her confidence. She did not know how
beautiful she was,--she did not realise that her body was like one of
the unfettered, graceful and perfectly-proportioned figures of women
left to our wondering reverence by the Greek sculptors,--she had never
thought about herself at all, not even to compare her fair brilliancy
of skin with the bronzed, weather-beaten faces of the fisher-folk among
whom she dwelt. Resting her delicate classic head against the
encircling arm of her lover and lord, her beauty seemed almost
unearthly in its pure transparency of feature, outlined by the silver
glimmer of the moonbeams; and the young man by her side, with his
handsome dark head, tall figure and distinguished bearing, looked the
fitting mate for her fair, blossoming womanhood. No two lovers were
ever more ideally matched in physical perfection; and as they moved
slowly to and fro on the soft dark grass, brushing the dewy scent from
hanging rose-boughs that pushed out inviting tufts of white and pink
bloom here and there from the surrounding foliage, they would have
served many a poet for some sweet idyll, or romance in rhyme, which
should hold in its stanzas the magic of immortality. Yet there was a
shade of uneasiness in the minds of both,--Prince Humphry was more
silent than usual, and seemed absorbed in thought; and Gloria, looking
timidly up from time to time at the dark poetic face of her 'sailor'
lover, felt with a woman's quick instinct that something was troubling
him, and remorsefully concluded that she was to blame,--that he had
heard of her having been seen by the King, and that he was evidently
vexed by it. He had arrived that evening suddenly and unexpectedly; for
she and her 'little father,' as she called Rene Ronsard, had just begun
their frugal supper, when the Crown Prince's yacht swept into the bay
and dropped anchor. Half an hour later he, the much-beloved 'junior
officer' in the Crown Prince's service had appeared at the cottage
door, greatly to their delight, for they did not expect to see him so
soon. They had supped together, and then Ronsard himself had gone to
superintend a meeting at a small social club he had started for the
amusement of the fisher-folk, wisely leaving the young wedded lovers to
themselves. And they had for a long time been very quiet, save for such
little words of love as came into tune with the interchange of
caresses,--and after a pause of anxious inward thought, Gloria ventured
on a timid query.

"Dearest,--are you _very_ angry with me?"

He started,--and stopping in his walk, turned the fair face up between
his two hands, as one might lift a rose on its stem, and kissed it
tenderly.

"Angry? How can I ever be angry with you, Sweet? Besides what cause
have I for anger?"

"I thought, perhaps--" murmured Gloria, "that if the Professor told you
what I did yesterday,--when the King came--"

"He did tell me;" and the Prince still gazed down on that heavenly
beauty which was the light of the world to him. "He told me that you
sang;--and that your golden voice was a musical magnet which drew his
Majesty to your feet! I am not surprised,--it was only natural! But I
could have wished it had not happened just yet; however, it has
happened, and we must make the best of it!"

"It was my fault," said the girl penitently;--"I had the fancy to sing;
and I _would_ sing, though the good Professor told me not to do
so!"

The Prince was silent. He was bracing his mind to the inevitable. He
had determined that on this very night Gloria should know the truth.
For he was instinctively certain that if he went abroad, as his father
wished him to do, some means would be taken to remove her altogether
from the country before his return; and his idea was to tell her all,
and make her accompany him on his travels. As his wife, she was bound
to obey him, he argued within himself; she should, she must go with
him! Unconsciously Gloria's next words supplied him with an opening to
the subject.

"Why did you never tell me that the Professor was in the King's
service?" she asked. "He seemed to know him quite well,--indeed, almost
as a friend!"

"He is the King's physician," answered the Prince abruptly; "And,
therefore, he is very greatly in the King's confidence."

He walked on, still keeping his arm round her, and seemed not to see
the half-frightened glance she gave him.

"The King's physician!" she echoed;--"He does not seem a great person
at all,--he is quite a simple old German man!"

Her lover smiled.

"To be physician to the King, my Gloria, is not a very wonderful
honour! It merely implies that the man so chosen is perhaps the ablest
fencer with sickness and death; the greatness is in the simple old
German himself, not in the King's preference. Von Glauben is a good
man."

"I know it;" said Gloria gently; "He is good,--and very kind. He said
he would always be my friend,--but he was very strange in his manner
yesterday, and almost I was vexed with him. Do you know what he said?
He asked me what I should do if you--my husband, had deceived me? Can
you imagine such a thing?"

Now was the supreme moment. With a violently beating heart the Prince
halted, and putting both arms round her waist, drew her up to him in
such a way that their eyes looked close into each other's, and their
lips were within kissing touch.

"Yes, my sweetest one! I can imagine such a thing! Such a thing is
possible! Consider it to be true! Consider that I _have_ deceived
you!"

She did not move from his clasp, but into her large, lovely trusting
eyes came a look of grief and terror, and her face grew ashy pale.

"In what way?" she whispered faintly; "Tell me! I--I--cannot believe
it!"

"Gloria,--Gloria! My love, my darling! Do not tremble so! Do not fear!
I have not deceived you in any evil way,--what I have done was for your
good and mine; but now--now there is no longer any need of deception,--
you may, and _shall_ know all the truth, my wife, my dearest in
the world! You shall know me as I truly am at last!"

She moved restlessly in his strong clasp,--she was trembling from head
to foot, as if her blood was suddenly chilled.

"As you truly are!" she echoed, with pale lips--"Are you not then what
I have believed you to be?"

And she made an effort to withdraw herself entirely from his embrace.
But he held her fast.

"I am your husband, Gloria!" he said, "and you are my wife! Nothing can
alter that; nothing can change our love or disunite our lives. But I am
not the poor naval officer I have represented myself to be!--though I
am glad I adopted such a disguise, because by its aid I wooed and won
your love! I am not in the service of the Crown Prince,--except in so
far as I serve my own needs! Why, how you tremble!"--and he held her
closer--"Do not be afraid, my darling! Lift up your eyes and look at me
with your own sweet trusting look,--do not turn away from me, because
instead of being the Prince's servant, I am the Prince himself!"

"The Prince!" And with a cry of utter desolation, Gloria wrenched
herself out of his arms, and stood apart, looking at him in wild alarm
and bewilderment. "The Prince! You--you!--my husband! You,--the King's
son! And you have married _me_!--oh, how cruel of you!--how cruel!
--how cruel!"

Covering her face with her hands, she broke into a low sobbing,--and
the Prince, cut to the heart by her distress, caught her again in his
arms.

"Hush, Gloria!" he said, with an accent of authority, though his own
voice was tremulous; "You must not grieve like this! You will break my
heart! Do you not understand? Do you not see that all my life is bound
up in you?--that I give it to you to do what you will with?--that I
care nothing for rank, state or throne without you?--that I will let
all the world go rather than lose you? Gloria, do not weep so!--do not
weep! Every tear of yours is a pang to me! What does it matter whether
I am prince or commoner? I love you!--we love each other!--we are one
in the sight of Heaven!"

He held her passionately in his arms, kissing the soft clusters of hair
that fell against his breast, and whispering all the tenderest words of
endearment he could think of to console and soothe her anguish. By
degrees she grew calmer, and her sobs gradually ceased. Dashing the
tears from her eyes, she looked up,--her face white as marble.

"You must not tell Ronsard!" she said in faint tones that shook with
fear; "He would kill you!"

The Prince smiled indulgently; his only thought was for her, and so
long as he could dry her tears, Ronsard's rage or pleasure was nothing
to him.

"He would kill you!" repeated Gloria, with wide open tear-wet eyes; "He
hates all kings, in his heart!--and if he knew that you--_you_--my
husband,--were what you say you are;--if he thought you had married me
under a disguise, only to leave me and never to want me any more----"

"Gloria, Gloria!" cried the Prince, in despair; "Why will you say such
things! Never to want you any more! I want you all my life, and every
moment of that life! Gloria, you must listen to me--you must not turn
from me at the very time I need you most! Are you not brave? Are you
not true? Do you not love me?"

With a pathetic gesture she stretched out her hands to him.

"Oh, yes, I love you!" she said; "I love you with all my heart! But you
have deceived me!--my dearest, you have deceived me! And if you had
only told me the truth, I would never,--for your own sake,--have
married you!"

"I know that!" said the Prince; "And that is why I determined to win
you under the mask of poverty! Now listen, my Princess and my Queen!--
for you are both! I want all your help--all your love--all your trust!
Do not be afraid of Ronsard; he will, he can do nothing to harm me! You
are my wife, Gloria,--you have promised before God to obey me! I claim
your obedience!"

She stood silent, looking at him,--pale and fair as an ivory statue of
Psyche, seen against the dark background of the heavily-branched trees.
Her mind was stunned and confused; she had not yet grasped the full
consciousness of her position,--but as he spoke, the old primitive
lessons of faith, steadfastness of purpose, and unwavering love and
trust in God, which her adopted father had instilled into her from
childhood, rose and asserted their sway over her startled, but unspoilt
soul.

"You need not claim it!" she said, slowly; "It is yours always! I shall
do whatever you tell me, even if you command me to die for your sake!"

With a swift impulsive action, full of grace and spirit, he dropped on
one knee and kissed her hand.

"And so I pledge my faith to my Queen!" he said joyously. "Gloria! my
'Glory-of-the-Sea'!--you will forgive me for having in this one thing
misled you? Think of me as your sailor lover still!--it is a much
harder thing to be a king's son than a simple, independent seafarer!
Pity me for my position, and help me to make it endurable! Come now
with me down to that rocky nook on the shore where I first saw you,--
and I will tell you exactly how everything stands,--and how I trust to
your love for me and your courage, to clear away all the difficulties
before us. You do not love me less?"

"I could not love you less!" she replied slowly; "but I cannot think of
you as quite the same!"

A shadow of pain darkened his face.

"Gloria," he said sadly; "If your love was as great as mine you would
forgive!"

She stood a moment wavering and uncertain; their eyes were riveted on
each other in a strange spiritual attraction--her soft lips were a
little relaxed from their gravity as she steadfastly regarded him. She
was embarrassed, conscious, and very pale; but he drank in gratefully
the wonder and shy worship of those pure eyes,--and waited. Suddenly
she sprang to him and closed her arms about his neck, kissing him with
simple and loving tenderness.

"I do forgive! Oh, I do forgive!" she murmured; "Because I love you, my
darling--because I love you! Whatever you wish I will do for your
love's sake--believe me!--but I am frightened just now!--it is as if I
did not know you--as if someone had taken you suddenly a long way off!
Give me a little time to recover my courage!--and to know"--here a
faint smile trembled on her beautiful curved mouth--"to know,--and to
_feel_,--that you are still my own!--even though the world may try
to part you from me!--still my very own!"

The warmth of passionate feeling in her face flushed it into a rose-
glow that spread from chin to brow,--and clasping her to his breast, he
gave her the speechless answer that love inscribes on eyes and lips,--
then, keeping his arm tenderly about her, he led her gently into the
path through the pinewood, which wound down to their favourite haunt by
the sea.

The moonlight had now increased in brilliancy, and illumined the
landscape with all the opulence, splendour and superabundance of
radiance common to the south,--the air was soft and balmy, and one
great white cloud floating lazily under the silver orb, moved slowly to
the centre of the heavens,--the violet-blue of night falling around it
like an imperial robe of state. The two youthful figures passed under
the pine-boughs, which closed over them odorously in dark arches of
shadow, and wended their slow way down to the seashore, from whence
they could see the Royal yacht lying at anchor, every tapering line of
her fair proportions distinctly outlined against the sky, and all her
masts shining as if they had been washed with silver dew; and the Heir-
Apparent to a throne was,--for once in the history of Heir-Apparents,--
happy--happy in knowing that he was loved as princes seldom or never
are loved,--not for his power, not for his rank, but simply for himself
alone, by one of the most beautiful women in the world, who,--if she
knew neither the ways of a Court, nor the wiles of fashion,--had
something better than either of these,--the sanctity of truth and the
strength of innocence.

Rene Ronsard, coming back from his pleasurable duties as host and
chairman to his fishermen-friends, found the cottage deserted, and
smiled, as he sat himself down in the porch to smoke, and to wait for
the lover's return.

"What a thing it is to be young!" he sighed, as he gazed meditatively
at the still beauty of the night around him;--"To be young,--and in
love with the right person! Hours go like moments--the grass is never
damp--the air is never cold--there is never time enough to give all the
kisses that are waiting to be given; and life is so beautiful, that we
are almost able to understand why God created the universe! The rapture
passes very quickly, unfortunately--with some people;--but if I ever
prayed for anything--which I do not--I should pray that it might remain
with Gloria! It surely cannot offend the Supreme Being who is
responsible for our existence, to see one woman happy out of all the
tortured millions of them! One exception to the universal rule would
not make much difference! The law that the strong should prey on the
weak, nearly always prevails,--but it is possible to hope and believe
that on rare occasions the strong may be magnanimous!"

He smoked on placidly, considering various points of philosophic
meditation, and by and by fell into a gentle doze. The doze deepened
into a dream which grew sombre and terrible,--and in it he thought he
saw himself standing bareheaded on a raised platform above surging
millions of people who all shouted with one terrific uproar of unison--
"Regicide! Regicide!" He looked down upon his hands, and saw them red
with blood!--he looked up to the heavens, and they were flushed with
the same ominous hue. Blood!--blood!--the blood of kings,--the dust of
thrones!--and he, the cause! Choked and tormented with a parching
thirst, it seemed in the dream that he tried to speak,--and with all
his force he cried out--"For her sake I did it! For her sake!" But the
clamour of the crowd drowned his voice,--and then it was as if the
coldness of death crept slowly over him,--slowly and cruelly, as though
his whole body were being enclosed within an iceberg,--and he saw
Gloria, the child of his love and care, laid out before him dead,--but
robed and crowned like a queen, and placed on a great golden bier of
state, with purple velvet falling about her, and tall candles blazing
at her head and feet. And voices sang in his ears--"Gloria! Gloria in
excelsis Deo!"--mingling with the muffled chanting of priests at some
distant altar; and he thought he made an attempt to touch the royal
velvet pall that draped her beautiful lifeless body, when he was
roughly thrust back by armed men with swords and bayonets who asked him
"What do you here? Are you not her murderer?"--and he cried out wildly
"No, no! Never could I have harmed the child of my love! Never could I
hurt a hair of her head, or cause her an hour's sorrow! She is all I
had in the world!--I loved her!--I loved her! Let me see her!--let me
touch her!--let me kiss her once again!" And then the scene suddenly
changed,--and it was found that Gloria was not dead at all, but walking
peacefully alone in a garden of flowers, with lilies crowning her, and
all the sunshine about her; and that the golden bier of state had
changed into a ship at sea which was floating, floating westward
bearing some great message to a far country, and that all was well for
him and his darling. The troubled vision cleared from his brain, and
his sleep grew calmer; he breathed more easily, and flitting glimpses
of fair scenes passed before his dreaming eyes,--scenes in some
peaceful and beautiful world, where never a shadow of sorrow or trouble
darkened the quiet contentment of happy and innocent lives. He smiled
in his sleep, and heaved a deep sigh of pleasure,--and so, gently
awoke, to feel a light touch on his shoulder, and to see Gloria
standing before him. A smile was on her face,--the fragrance of the
woodlands and the sea clung about her garments,--she held a few roses
in her hand, and there was something in her whole appearance that
struck him as new, commanding, and more than ever beautiful.

"You have returned alone?" he said wonderingly.

"Yes. I have returned alone! I have much to tell you, dear! Let us go
in!"




CHAPTER XIX

OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE STATE


The large gaunt building, which was dignified by the name of the
'People's Assembly Rooms,' stood in a dim unfashionable square of the
city which had once been entirely devoted to warehouses and storage
cellars. It had originally served a useful purpose in providing
temporary shelter for foreign-made furniture, which was badly
constructed and intrinsically worthless,--but which, being cheaply
imported and showy in appearance,