This for a start. The Countess Hilda became deeply interested, and very much alarmed. "Then it isn't a princess?" she cried in consternation, "she isn't royalty?"

"Oh, no," said Max, "far from it. She is what you call a sister of mercy, and 'sister'—horrible word—is the only thing I am allowed to call her; she is a sealed casket without a handle."

"Oh, Max," cried his Countess, "don't do it, don't do it; it's wickedness! I didn't matter; but this—oh, Max, you don't know what a grief and disappointment you'll be to me if you——"

"Dearly beloved friend," interrupted Max, "do give me credit for a morality not very greatly inferior to your own. After all I am your pupil."

"But you can't marry her?" cried the Countess.

"Saving your presence, I mean to," asseverated Max.

"You! Where will the Crown go?"

"Charlotte will have three inches taken out of its rim and will fit it far better than I should—that is if anybody is so foolish as to object to my marrying where I please."

"Then in Heaven's name," cried the Countess, "why in all these years haven't you married me?"

Max smiled; they were back into easy relations once more. This was the lady with whom he had never spent a dull day.

"I did not wish to give you the pain of refusing me," said he. "Had I asked you you would have said that I was far too young to know my mind, and that you yourself were too old."

"Yes, I should," she admitted, "but you should have left me to say it." Then she returned to her original bewilderment. "But, my dear boy, if she is a sister of mercy she has taken vows."

"Oh, no, we don't do that in Jingalo. No Jingalese Church-woman may throw away her whole life on so problematical a benefit as a religious vow of celibacy. She may lease herself to Heaven for a given number of years, but freeholds are not allowed."

"And you call that a Church!" cried the Countess.

"Well," said the Prince, "I think that in this case she has got hold of a scientific point worth keeping. Seven years ago I was not, science tells me, the man that I am now; and seven years hence I shall be yet another. What right has my past man to bind this present 'me' in which he has no particle of a share?" And Max, having taken wing on a fresh notion, was off into flight when the Countess brought him to earth.

"And how long is your next lease going to be?" she inquired dryly, "if seven years is all you can answer for?"

"My next man will renew," said Max confidently.

"Sisters of mercy don't accept tenants on those terms," she retorted. And then, seeing that he looked at her with a benevolent eye, added, "Oh, yes, I know that I did, but that isn't the sort of mercy you are looking for now. You'll find, Max, that you need a religion in order to become a freeholder. Mark my word! There! I couldn't have put it better than that! And now as I've come to the end of my lease I had better retire and see to dilapidations and repairs."

She left him smiling; but he knew, in spite of her brave face and jesting words, that there was still trouble of spirit to be gone through; and the repairs took some time.

III

In the days that followed, Max, now launched on his new quest, had as good and sympathetic a listener as lover could wish. And while the Countess thus paid penance and endured some purgatory for a five years' breach with her own conscience, she found compensations, as all sensibly good women will when they come on logical results of their own making. In our conventional readiness to reverence the mother and disown the mistress as social institutions, we are apt to ignore, as though the mere suggestion were an impiety, the fact that in their instincts and affections they have often much in common. It is one of Nature's kindest and wisest economies; yet perhaps the woman treasures it secretly, because it is a quality of her sex scarcely to be understood by men. The chaste mistress sleeps in many a mother's breast, ready to welcome in her grown son that touch of the lover which nestles before it takes flight; and in the unchaste mistress, homely of heart, there is often more of the mother than her paramour has wit to discern.

The Countess Hilda, cut off from home ties and kindred in the very prime of her maternal powers, had cast her eye on Max with a possessive but with no predatory aim; and in her own illicit fashion, contrary to some qualms of conscience and the strict dictates of her creed, had mothered him through the dangerous years with as little damage to his moral fiber as seemed reasonably possible. And now, not without some pangs of maternal jealousy, but with none of the baser kind, she listened while he sat at her feet and talked of the woman he loved. But the real price to be paid, as she clearly saw, lay still in the future and in all those possibilities of beautiful domestic possession wherein she could have no part. Left to herself she sometimes wept in woeful abandonment at the thought that she and his children must for ever remain strangers; and then she dried her eyes and sat eager and attentive to learn what manner of woman their mother would be, if Max had his present will.

"I met her," said Max, "or rather found her again, washing the floor of a single-room tenement on a 'four-pair back' to the accompaniment of screams from its enraged occupant. And when, as a means of introduction, I tendered assistance, she sent me down to the basement to refill her bucket,—offered me a child's head to wash, and then as an alternative bade me bring in a mattress from a second-hand dealer who had neglected to send it. I went. Required to give proofs of my honesty by a shopman who rightly regarded all strangers with suspicion, I deposited the value, which I forgot afterwards to reclaim, and set off with my load. Before I reached the first corner I made the humiliating discovery that I did not know how to carry it. I was bearing it embraced like an infant in arms, but owing to its size my arms would not go round. Twice it unrolled itself and lay like a drunken thing in the gutter; small children stood round and laughed at me. From one of them came these words of wisdom: 'Lor', 'e's only a gentleman, he don't know nothing!' On my second attempt, not seeing well where I was going, I stumbled into an apple-stall; and immediately I, heir to a throne and engaged in a charitable action, found myself regarded as a criminal lunatic by people quite obviously my superiors in all honest ways of earning a living. A small boy took pity on me and offered to carry it on his back—any distance for a penny. That taught me; I gave him the penny and put it upon my own, and having disentangled myself from the crowd in which for foolishness I had become conspicuous, found with relief that thenceforth no one took any notice of me. The old scriptural act of a man carrying his bed struck nobody there as absurd; the streets of our sweated quarters are far more genuine and human than those in which we parade the clothes they make for us. Ah, yes; that statement, at which you show some incredulity, is directly pertinent to my story; for it was an endeavor to trace my clothes to their origin—over the many impediments and difficulties placed in my way—that had led me into those slums. I won't go into that just now, though it had an important connection with our future acquaintance.

"By the time I returned with the bed to the four-pair back attic I had received a better lesson in human values than in any previous half-hour of my existence. I was then given other commissions, and these without any word of apology; as I had volunteered so I was to be used without scruple or mercy, just as a millionaire's motor-car is used at election times, till scratched, battered, broken down, it creeps from the fray. 'We are all sweated workers here,' she said to me afterwards, and then I saw her uses of me explained; anything which came to that mill came to be ground, and the chaff to be cast out. I submitted to her test, and in that first day saw her only by glimpses; but in accompanying her back to the Home from which she emanated I told her why I had come—said that I wished to have a clear conscience and wear clothes upon my back in which there was no element of sweating. She told me it was quite impossible, impossible, that is to say, unless I controlled every stage of manufacture from the raw material to the finished article; and even then, I was warned, the paper cover, the cardboard box, and the string with which it was tied, would all be sweated products. And when I asked what I could do to help matters, she bade me go with empty pockets and see as much of the life as possible for myself, and make others like myself see it also. That is what she had been doing to me—rubbing my nose into it before I should get tired and run away. Even while accepting it she showed a fine indifference to my money. 'Don't let that salve your conscience,' said she, 'we can make it useful, but it won't change matters.' And had I given her a million pounds I do not think she would have thanked me any more."

All that Prince Max narrated of his charitable adventure would take too long to tell here. One thing the Countess noted, as a point well scored, he had begun to learn humility; his offers of service had been rejected as of little use, his company as a hindrance, his new lady had left him to feel small, and he had not resented it, had indeed owned that her judgment on him was just. He had also put himself to her test of sincerity and failed. "I tried to go on with it," he confessed, "but it was no good. What my father says is quite true—we can't really get at the lives of these people, we are too cut off. We make use of them, they of us; but we are still hiding from each other round corners, or walking on opposite sides of the street. She, having become one of them, meant me to see that."

"But she doesn't know who you are."

"She knows what kind I am; it's all the same."

"You didn't cross after her?"

"How could I? It wouldn't have been manners."

"She presumed on your having them, then?"

"She has a generous nature."

"And then, for whole weeks, you did much more than cross after her; you hunted for her, lay in wait for her, doing nothing all the time. My dear grown-up man, wasn't that rather childish?"

"What else could I have done?"

"Made her miss you."

"Well, as we haven't seen each other since, it comes to the same thing."

"But she knows you've been there; she would have thought much more of you if you hadn't been."

"Why?"

"It would have made her more repentant. Now she only thinks that you've tired of it."

"Ah, well, she promised to pray for me," said Max.

"Oh, I pray for you, my dear," sighed the Countess; "not that I suppose that does any good!"

And therein may be discerned a difference between the two women who most concerned themselves for the good of Max's soul; for the other had been quite confident that her prayers would do good. And it is curious how often those who have faith prove to be in the right.

IV

Max had given up the quest, but he had not given up hope. Though love had humbled him, he yet believed in his star, and reminded himself that the world was small.

In the late spring the Jubilee celebrations took up some of his time; maneuvers followed. He went and played at soldiering for the public satisfaction; then returned to his more private and serious avocations, put the finishing touches to his book, and began to receive proofs from the foreign printing-house to which through the Countess's hands he had entrusted it. She herself with kind, charitable intent stayed on; more than ever now he needed some one to talk to and—he did not worry her. Others were trying to worry him. The Queen, after voluminous correspondence, had found and offered him choice of two German princesses whose photographs said flattering things of them; and, when he declined both propositions, had looked at him very sadly indeed—had almost broached the unmentionable subject. "Oh, Max, what are we to do with you?" she sighed; for she was still keeping herself badly informed of his goings-on. "That woman is back again," she informed her husband; "I really think we ought to consult the Archbishop."

The King saw no hope in that. "You must leave Max to take his own time," he said. He did not just then want to worry about Max, since he was preparing to plunge on his own account. "Alone I did it," was to be his boast, and he knew that if once he resumed fathering Max, Max would be fathering him, and his small spurt of initiative would be over.

But all that must be kept for another chapter. This one belongs to Max and his love affairs, past, present, and future; and it is still Max and his fortunes that we are following as we step back into the limelight of publicity.

At the first Court following on the Jubilee celebrations the Bishops appeared in force. It was their final demonstration of loyalty to the throne before the political battle joined, for they were now preparing to reject, just as a last fling, the whole of the Government's program, and then to see what the country thought of it.

As a bilious man sticks out his tongue toward the glass in order to know whether he looks as he feels, so the Bishops were sticking out their tongues toward the country in the hopes of looking as brave as they were pretending to be. And they came to Court that they might advertise their attitude.

They came in silken court-cassocks, preceded by their croziers and followed by their women-folk, a nice expression of that ecclesiastical and domestic blend on which the Church of Jingalo prided itself. These Church ladies were moral emblems in another respect as well: they had the privilege of appearing at Court functions more highly dressed—that is to say, less denuded—than others of a more aristocratic connection. The sacred and unfleshly calling of a bishop threw a protecting mantle over the modest shoulders of his wife and daughters; and these did not go unclad. In accordance with Pauline teaching they were covered in the assembly, expressing in their own persons that "moderation in all things" which was the accepted motto and policy of the Church.

The Archbishop of Ebury was there also; his crozier was different in shape from the rest, and as an addition to his silken cassock he wore a train. He was accompanied by his daughter. Daring in her assertion of the vocation which had withdrawn her from the gaieties of life she wore the gray robe of a little lay-sister of Poverty.

"His Grace the Archbishop of Ebury, Prince Palatine of the Southern Sees, Archdeacon of Rome, Vicar of Jerusalem, and Primate of all the Churches," so, upon entry to the Presence, his full and canonical titles were proclaimed by an usher of the Court.

After so high a flourish more impressive in its way was the simple announcement that followed: "Sister Jenifer Chantry."

Dignity led, quiet unassuming modesty came after; indifferent to her surroundings, obedient to the call of duty, she advanced in her father's wake toward the royal circle. They bowed their way round; and there, suddenly before him, Prince Max beheld the face of his dreams.

The eyes of the beloved met his; and he, struggling desperately to conceal his excitement and emotion from those who stood looking on, saw himself recognized without shock or quiver of disturbance. No heightening of color belied that look of quiet assurance and peace; with disciplined ease, perfect in self-possession, she courtesied and passed him by. And suddenly it seemed to him that all the air was filled with a strange humming sound, soft yet penetrating, like the populous murmur of a summer's day. Above the rustle of robes, the patter of feet, the subdued murmur of voices, and the regulated tones wherein Court ushers were announcing fresh names, that high vibratory note went on; elated and thrilled he listened to it and wondered, not knowing its cause—the quickened murmur of his own blood at the touch of Love's index finger upon his heart.

Now at last he knew who she was; now he could find her again on unforbidden ground, follow her where she had no excuse to hide, and press against all obstacles for an earthly fulfilment of that unpractically directed thing called prayer. For now it should not be only her prayer for him, but his for her; her very name—Chantry—expressed the need he had of her. She was the shrine within which his soul kneeled down to pray—not to any God, but to life itself. Here was the matrix from which all his desultory and scattered forces had been waiting to receive form and direction; to his own small fragment of that general outpouring which we call life, purpose and destiny had come. He with his adventurous theories, she with her patient and unflinching practice, how gloriously together they could tumble old monarchy to the dust and build it anew. For the first time in his life he felt almost fiercely desirous to step into his father's shoes. Strange that such sudden ambitions should be sprung on him by contact with a heart which apparently held none.

All this while he was returning the bows of bishops and their wives. They flowed by in solid file forty or fifty strong; for this was a demonstration with political import behind it, this was going to be in all the press to be understanded of the people; the Bishops about to fight for their own order were passing before the steps of the throne to indicate in dumb show that allegiance to Crown and Constitution which animated their hearts.

And then, gorgeous in cloth of gold and high funnel-shaped hat, introduced by the Minister of Public Worship but unaccompanied by his two black wives, came the Archimandrite of Cappadocia—a counter demonstration; and after him, forty Free Churches divines, all in black gowns, silkened for the occasion, but unenlivened by the moral emblems of their domesticity; a queer somber tail they seemed to that great eastern bird of Paradise under whose wing they would presently acquire the right to wear feathers as fine as his own.

Most of them had never been at Court before, and in consequence were not so well drilled as the Bishops. Some of them bowed too often, and too hurriedly, and before they need, beginning with the Lord Functionary whom they mistook for royalty; and they walked out sideways instead of backwards, reactionary methods of progress not being in their blood. Still, taking them for all in all, they were a very learned-looking body, and their presence in such uncongenial surroundings showed that they meant business.

And deficiency in their demeanor was quite covered by the deportment of the Archimandrite. In the new robe presented to him for the occasion by the Prime Minister (for the moth had got into his own) he looked superb, and behaved with a majesty beside which Jingalo's home-bred royalty sank into insignificance. Max frankly recognized his superior, and bowed low. "This is a descent of the spirit, Archimandrite," he said, as they touched palms; and as he did so a queer breath of eastern spices blew over him, for the man of God was chewing them.

And so, in this great overt act of respectful homage to the throne from both sides, the truce came to an end and the signal for fight was given. More important to Prince Max was the fact that it had revealed to him a certain lady's identity.



CHAPTER X

KING AND COUNCIL



I

During the weeks of the Jubilee recess the King had spent his spare moments in taking notes, and priming himself on fresh points of constitutional usage.

The Comptroller-General was greatly puzzled to see writing going on day after day in which neither he nor any of the secretaries were invited to take part. He was more puzzled still when, by means available to him, he obtained access to what the King had actually written.

After a single reading he felt it his duty to report to the Prime Minister.

"He seems to be writing a history of the Constitution," said the General. "Where he gets his facts from I don't know, but they don't seem to have come from you; quite the other side I should say."

On this note-taking, so voluminous that it resembled the writing of a history, the King was getting into his stride, and was discovering how very much better all these years he could have made his own speeches, had he only been allowed to. He had within him the gift of expression, though not the power of condensing it; he had industry, a good case, and now at last behind his back an unimpeachable authority. And so, at its next meeting he came down into Council stuffed full of facts and phrases, and quite determined that before things went any further his Ministry should hear them.

The constitutional crisis had reached a head as soon as Parliament again met. The defiant action of the Bishops had thrown the Government's program so much into arrears that a drastic quickening of the pace had become necessary; and if, in spite of scare and warning, the Bishops meant to go on doing as they had hitherto done it was evident that their constitutional powers must be limited. The Archimandrite and the Free Churchmen between them might supply the Government with a bare working majority; but that alone would not be sufficient to make legislation fruitful between then and the next general election. Unless the Government, after striking the blow, could come before the country bearing its sheaves with it, there was a very serious chance that its patriotic intention of continuing in power would be frustrated; and even a Government busily engaged in marking time to suit its own bureaucratic interests must appear to have covered the ground mapped out for it.

For this reason Cabinet ministers had been meeting and deciding on a good many things behind the King's back; and the "Spiritual Limitations Bill"—all the world has since heard of it—was the device they had adopted as most suitable to their needs. They proposed to bring it forward in a late winter session.

On the day before Council a draft of the proposed bill reached the hands of the King; and his Majesty on reading it and after referring once again to certain passages in Professor Teller's books of history, smiled gleefully and rubbed his hands; for though he had the heart of a vegetarian he was beginning to scent blood and rather to enjoy the smell of it.

II

The Council was already standing about the board when the King entered. Having bowed them to their seats he formally called on the Prime Minister to read the presented draft. This was done, and through the whole of it without a word of interruption his Majesty sat quiet and as good as gold.

Polite exposition was about to follow; but as the Prime Minister essayed an enlargement of his text his flight was stayed.

"Gentlemen," said the King, "I am dissatisfied with my position."

All turned amazed; the Professor with less amazement than the rest, for he observed, as confirmation of his suspicions, that the King's hand rested upon a bulky pile of manuscript.

"In this bill," said his Majesty, "you are proposing to remodel a Constitution that has lasted in an unwritten form for five hundred years. I see in your proposed emendations that the Crown is frequently mentioned, but its powers are nowhere defined—unless that constantly recurring phrase 'on the advice of his ministers' is a definition which you wish to see indefinitely extended. Otherwise there is no open indication that the Crown's powers are affected. But the question of constitutional rights as between the Bishops and the Laity to-day may to-morrow be a question involving the Crown also; and if you now mean to impose limits on one branch of the legislature, you must extend your definitions to cover the whole ground. I require, gentlemen, if this matter is to be carried any further, that my own powers and prerogatives shall be as accurately defined and set as much on a working basis as those of your two Chambers."

"'Working basis' is distinctly good," murmured Professor Teller, and looked admiringly at the King, whom the Prime Minister hastened to reassure.

"Your Majesty's powers," said he, "are in no way touched. At no single point of our proposals is any limitation suggested."

"Oh, I daresay not, I daresay not!" replied the King, "but though it isn't there in the text it is between the lines; yes, written with invisible ink which will be plain enough to read presently. What I am thinking about is the future. You may be perfectly right as to the wisdom of change; but we must have chapter and verse for it. We can't treat these matters any longer as an affair of honor. It used to be: now it isn't. Honor to-day is not a help but an impediment; I've found that out. To me it has lately become a question—a very grave question—whether I can in honor accept the advice of my ministers; and I do not intend to leave so disquieting a problem for my son to solve after me. There, now you have it!"

The King panted a little as he spoke, like a dog that has begun to feel the pace of a motor-car too much for him.

"I'm sorry that your Majesty has found any reason to complain," said the Prime Minister in a tone of grieved considerateness.

"I am not complaining," answered the King, "I'm only saying. And what I say is, let us have chapter and verse for it from beginning to end. Define the powers of the Crown as they exist to-day—but as they won't exist to-morrow unless you do—and your proposals shall have my most sympathetic consideration; but not otherwise."

"Surely the question your Majesty raises," interrupted the Prime Minister, "is an entirely separate one."

"No doubt you would treat it so," replied the King. "Oh, yes—break your sticks one at a time as the wise man did in the fable!"

A breath of protest blew round the Council board. What would he be accusing them of next?

"I daresay you don't mean it," he went on; "but it will be said, at some future day, that you did. And either you do mean it, or you don't; so if you don't what can be your objection to having it put down in black and white? I'm sure I have none. I have got everything written out here ready and waiting." And the King fingered his manuscript feverishly.

"One very obvious objection," interposed the Prime Minister in alarm, "is that there is no demand for it in the country. No political situation has arisen—the matter is not in controversy."

"You must pardon me," said the King, "we are in controversy now. Though the country knows nothing about it, my position is affected; the demand is mine."

"It is quite impossible, your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, with a brevity that was almost brusque. "It would entirely confuse the issue in the public mind."

"Direct it, I think you mean."

"In a most dangerous and inadvisable way."

"Dangerous to whom?" the King inquired shrewdly.

"The functions of the Crown must not be involved in party politics."

"Though party politics are involving the functions of the Crown? Oh, yes, Mr. Prime Minister, it is no use for you to shake your head. I contend that, without a word said, this bill does directly undermine my powers of initiative and independence. You deprive the Bishops of their right to vote on money bills; very well, that will include all royal grants, whether special or annual,—maintenance, annuities, and all that sort of thing. At present these are fixed by law and cannot be disturbed without the agreement of both Houses. That is my safeguard. But in future you leave the Bishops out, and you have me in the hollow of your hand. Oh, gentlemen, you need not protest your good intentions: I am merely putting the case as it will stand supposing a—well, a socialistic Government, bent on getting rid of the monarchy altogether, were to succeed you. Where should I be then? That is what I want you to consider. Oh, you don't need two sticks to beat a dog with! If you mean that, let us have it all said and done with,—put it in your bill; and if the country approves of it, well, if it approves of it, I shall be very much surprised."

The Prime Minister rose.

"Does your Majesty suggest," he began, "that any such idea——"

But the King cut him short. "Oh, I don't know what your ideas were; this isn't an idea, it's a bill."

The Prime Minister sat down again; all the Council were looking at him with mildly interrogating eyes, wondering what they should do next. The King had often been voluble before, but this time he was reasonably articulate; and as his pile of manuscript indicated he had come armed with definite proposals.

"I am asking for safeguards," said the King. "How do I know, how do any of us know, at what pace things may not be moving a few years hence? It is the pace that kills, you know; yes, very important thing—pace." His eye caught a friendly glance; it twinkled at him humorously; he appealed to it for support. "Yes, Professor, have you anything to say?"

The Professor rose and bowed. "I am only a listener, your Majesty," he said, and sat down again.

"Pace," said the King again, having for a moment lost the thread of his discourse. Then, having clung to that anchor to recover breath, once more he plunged on.

"If any royal prerogatives still exist," said he, "if I am to be still free to act upon them, then I want to be told what they are, and to have the country told also; yes, before any more of them become obsolete! At present it seems to me that anything of that kind is obsolete when it becomes inconvenient to the party in power."

Once more a respectfully modulated wave of protest went round the board.

"Oh, yes, gentlemen, I have become quite aware from what has recently taken place that an unexercised authority, if not set down in black and white, comes presently to be questioned as though it did not exist. If the title-deeds are missing, then you are no longer on your own premises. Well, for the future, I want to be upon mine. And here you come to me with this bill, and not a single one of you has seen fit to advise me as to how my own position is affected by it; no, I have had to go to other sources, and find out for myself."

At these words the Prime Minister saw an opening, and also a possible explanation of the manuscripts which lay under the King's hand. He put on a bold front and spoke without waiting for the royal pause.

"Have I, then, to understand," he inquired, "that your Majesty's advisers have lost the benefit of your Majesty's confidence?"

"By no means," replied the King. "If I am not confiding in you now, I don't know what confidence is. I am putting all my difficulties before you, and asking for your advice. But I don't want to have it in a hole-in-corner way, a bit at a time, first one and then another. We are in Council, and it is from my whole Council that I want to know how these difficulties are to be met. When I am alone I can get anybody to advise me, go to whomsoever I like; there is no difficulty about that."

The Prime Minister bristled; he seemed now to be on the track. "I must ask further, then," said he, "whether upon this question of a new written Constitution your Majesty has thought fit to consult others—those, that is to say, who are politically opposing us?"

Under an air of the deepest respect a charge of unconstitutional usage was clearly conveyed.

"Oh, you mean the Bishops?" said the King. "No; since all this trouble began I have been deprived of the consolations of the Church; not a single one of them has dared to come near me, except in an official capacity. Though, as I say, I have the right to consult any one."

The Prime Minister raised his eyebrows, in order, while formally agreeing, to make denial visible.

"Of course if your Majesty informs us of it," he said, "we shall know where we are."

"That is what I am saying," persisted the King. "If we all consult about it, then you know where you are, and I know where I am. There are the twenty of you, and here am I, and this is the first time that we have exchanged a word on the subject. Isn't it unreasonable to expect me to come to you with my mind made up on a thing I knew nothing about till yesterday? Why, it was only then I discovered that for you to discuss such a bill among yourselves, without having first sought my permission—a bill affecting the Constitution and the powers of the Crown—was in itself unconstitutional."

What on earth did he mean? Ministers looked at each other aghast.

"There!" cried the King, "you are all just as surprised as I was. That is why I say we must get it put into writing. You didn't know that you were interfering with royal prerogative. No more did I: we had forgotten to look up history. Now I've done it, and I daresay that as an historian Professor Teller will be able to inform you whether I am right?" And here with a flourish the King named his authority.

"Your Majesty has stated the constitutional usage with accuracy," acknowledged the Professor. "Whether usage is decisive remains a question."

"There!" said the King triumphantly. "That is what happens if things are not actually set down in law. Now you see my point."

The Prime Minister's brow grew dark.

"I think, your Majesty," said he, "that this is hardly a question we can discuss in Council."

"In a way you are right," acknowledged the King; "it should not have been discussed here, as I said just now, without my permission. But as it has been brought forward we either do discuss it and all that I have to propose in the matter, or I rule it out of order; and we will pass on, if you please, to the next business."

The King had finished; he leaned back in his chair; and the Prime Minister, collecting authority from the eyes of his colleagues, stood up and spoke.

"I think your Majesty hardly recognizes," said he, "that we cannot legislate on a matter as to which there is no public demand. In regard to the status of the Crown no political situation has arisen such as would justify your Majesty's advisers in adopting a course which might seem to indicate a lack of confidence. Under representative government no ministry can propose legislation which has only theory to recommend it. If your Majesty will allow me to make my representations in private, I think I shall be able to show that the course we propose is the only practical one. I would, therefore, most respectfully urge that for the present the points your Majesty raises may be set aside."

It was as direct a challenge of the royal will as one minister could well make in the presence of others; never before had a difference of opinion stood out so plainly for immediate decision under the eyes of a whole Cabinet.

The King heard and understood: it was a crucial moment in the exercise of his partially recovered authority; twenty pair of eyes were looking at him, curiously intent, one pair benevolently anxious. The Prime Minister was fingering his brief, ready to go on with the interrupted disquisition; he even looked surreptitiously at his watch to indicate that time pressed.

That little touch of covert insolence was sufficient; by a sort of instinct the incalculable values of heredity, training, and position asserted themselves. The King's lips parted in the shy nervous smile which charmed every one. "Mr. Prime Minister," he said, "I am perfectly willing to meet you at any future time you may like to name." He took up the agenda paper as he spoke and turned to the Minister of the Interior. "The Home Secretary," said his Majesty, "will now read his report."

Before they knew where they were the Council had passed on to its accustomed routine.

III

Nobody looked at the Prime Minister's face just then; for the moment he had been beaten, though the person who appeared least aware of it was the King.

But, of course, it was for the moment only. And when at a later hour of the day, with mind made resolute, the Prime Minister sought his promised interview, the monarch was no longer at an advantage. Dialectically he could not meet and match his opponent, and he had no longer that subtle advantage which presidency at a board of ministers confers. Speaking as man to man the head of the Government did not feel bound to observe that tradition of half-servile approach which in the hearing of others fetters the mouths of ministers.

The Jubilee celebrations were now over, the Parliamentary vacation approached; and what before had been mere talk and threat could now be put into instant action. And so when he had given the King his run, and listened to the royal obstinacy in all its varying phrases of repetition, contradiction, reproach, till it reached its final stage of blank immobility, he formally tendered the Ministry's resignation.

The King sat and thought for a while, for now it was clear that one way or the other he must make up his mind. All those strings of red tape, which he had meant to tie with such dilatory cunning hung loose in his grasp; to a Cabinet really set on resignation he could not apply them. Just as his hands had seemed full of power they became empty again. He knew that at the present moment no other ministry was possible, and that a general election was more likely to accentuate than to solve his difficulties; and so in sober chagrin he sat and thought, and the Prime Minister (as he noticed) was so sure of his power that he did not even trouble to watch the process of the royal hesitation resolving itself.

When after an appreciable time the King spoke he seemed to have arrived nowhere.

"This is the fifth time," he said, "that you have offered me resignation: and you know that I am still unable to accept it."

The Prime Minister bowed his head; he knew it very well, there was no need for words.

"And you know that I am still entirely unconvinced."

"For that," said the minister, "I must take blame; since it shows that my advocacy in so strong a case has been very imperfect."

"Oh, not at all," said the King. "I think you have shown even more than your accustomed ability."

"That is a compliment which—if it may be permitted—I can certainly return to your Majesty."

"I have felt very strongly upon this matter," said the King.

"We all do, sir—one way or the other. With great questions that is inevitable."

"You admit it is a great question?"

"I should never have so troubled your Majesty were it a small one."

The King's thoughts shifted.

"What a pity it is," said he, "that I and my ministers have never been friends."

"Have not loyal service and humble duty some claim to be so regarded?" inquired the Prime Minister. But the King let this official veneer of the facts pass unregarded.

"It would have helped things," he went on. "As it is, when I differ from my ministers I am all alone. It is in moments of difficulty like this that the head of the State realizes his weakness."

"There again, sir, you do yourself an injustice."

"Ah, that is easily said. But what does my power amount to when all is done? Perhaps at the cost of constant friction with my ministers I have been able to delay things for a while—given the country more time to make up its mind; but then, unfortunately, it was thinking of other things, and I myself provided the counter attraction. What I was trying to do in one way I was rendering of no effect in another; all that I intended politically has been swamped in ceremony."

"Your Majesty was never more popular than to-day," observed the Prime Minister. "That in itself is a power."

The King paused to consider; then he said, "If I am prepared eventually to give way, what time of grace can you allow me?"

"We must have our bill ready for the winter session, sir."

"Will you allow me till then?"

"If I may know what is in your Majesty's mind."

"What is in my mind is that the country should know what it is about. This bill has not yet been seen; by the public nothing is known of it. Well, that is what I ask: put it before the country, let the terms of it be clearly stated, and if, when we come to the winter session, you are still determined that it must form part of your program, then,"—the King drew himself up and took a breath—"then I will no longer stand in your way."

The Prime Minister bowed low to conceal his proud sense of triumph.

"I have your Majesty's word for that?"

"To-day is the 27th," said the King, "you can claim the fulfilment of that promise in four months' time."

"And till then?"

"Till then," said the King slowly, "this question is not again to come before Council. I hold to my point that its introduction without my express consent was unconstitutional, and to maintain the Constitution I am bound by oath."

The Prime Minister yielded the point readily, seeing in it the effort of dull obstinacy to score a nominal triumph. "There is, however, the accompanying condition," said he, "necessary for the success of our scheme; and to that I must once more refer. In order to pass our bill we shall need the consecration of at least fifty new Bishops, nominated by the Government; to that, also, your Majesty has hitherto been opposed."

"Oh, you mean the Free Churchmen?" queried the King. "Ah, yes, and the Archimandrite."

"In that matter," replied the Prime Minister, "I have some reason to believe that the Bishops will eventually give way."

The King felt himself a little more alone. "Yes," he said, "I daresay they will; I shouldn't wonder at all."

"Then over that, too, I may look for your Majesty's consent?"

The King repeated his former word. "I shall not stand in your way," he said; and again the Prime Minister bowed low.

"I have to thank your Majesty for relieving me of a great difficulty."

"Oh, no, why should you? You have not persuaded me in the least; you have merely forced me to a certain course, in which I still cannot pretend that I agree."

"I shall always recognize that your Majesty has acted on the highest motives, both in opposing and in ceasing to oppose."

"I shall ask you to remember that," said the King.

"There shall never be any misunderstanding on my part," replied the minister; and applying a palm to the hand graciously extended as though its mere touch had power to heal, he took his leave, and the fateful audience was over.

For a long time after, the King stood looking at the door out of which he had gone.

"I think there has been a misunderstanding, though," he said to himself, with a slow, faint smile, "and I don't think it is mine——" He paused. "Perhaps, though, I had better write down exactly what I said." And going to his desk he made there and then a careful memorandum of his words.

He read them over, and once again he smiled. He was still quite contented with what he had done. "And I wonder," he said to himself, "what Max would say if he knew?"

There was a great surprise waiting for Max, and well might the King wonder what that interesting young man would make of it. Yes, it was just as well that Max should not know anything about it beforehand; Max might run away.



CHAPTER XI

A ROYAL COMMISSION



I

While the King and the Prime Minister had thus been giving each other shocks of a somewhat unpleasant character, Prince Max had received a far pleasanter one. Only a week after the holding of the King's court the lady of his dreams had written asking for an interview.

The letter was not dated from the Archbishop's palace, but from the Home of the Little Lay-Sisters; and it was thither that he repaired, in order to forestall her humble yet amazing offer to wait upon him.

In the bare, conventual parlor, with high walls that echoed resoundingly and boards that smelt of soap, they met once more face to face and alone. She courtesied low, addressed him formally as "sir," and thanked him with due deference for coming; otherwise there was no change in her demeanor. The flat-frilled cap showed within its border a delicate ripple of hair, and above the fair breastplate of linen the face shone with tender warmth like a white rose resting upon snow; and as her lips moved in speech he re-encountered with a fervor of delight that curious quality of look which had ever haunted his dreams—a communicativeness not limited to words. Though it remained still her whole face spoke to him; lips and eyes made music together—a harmony of two senses in alliance, as into morning mist comes the yet unrisen light and the hidden singing of birds.

And yet all the while she was but saying quite ordinary things, making brief the embarrassment of this their first meeting since their relative positions had become explained.

"I have taken you at your word, sir," she began. "When we last met you asked if you could not be useful. Now you can."

"Your remembrance makes me grateful," said the Prince.

"Perhaps I ought not to be so confident," she went on, "since the idea is only my own. It came from something I heard my father saying; and as he strongly disapproves of women taking part in politics it was no use saying anything to him."

"Oh, politics?" That explanation rather surprised him.

"Sometimes—just now and then," explained Sister Jenifer, "politics do touch social needs: and to their detriment."

"My acquaintance with politics," answered the Prince, "is very—Chimerical," he added after a pause, pleased to have found the term.

"Yes," she smiled, "I have heard you. You are full of happy ideas, many of them somewhat contradictory; but you have not yet fallen into any groove. To you freedom means rebellion; you represent no vested interest."

"Is that my certificate of character?"

"I had not finished," she said. "I was keeping the best to the last. You have a great position and an open mind."

"An important combination, you think?"

"An unusual one."

"And so you have an unusual proposition to make to me?"

"Yes, I suppose you will think so. There is a brand I want plucked from the burning—a Royal Commission saved from becoming merely official and useless."

"What is its subject?"

"All this!"—she made an inclusive gesture—"slums, the conditions of sweated labor, the daily material which we have to work on."

"About which you have taught me that I know really nothing."

"You said you were anxious to learn. At least half of that Commission will be anxious not to learn—or not to let others."

"Then you ought to be on it."

"No woman is on it."

"You wish them to be?"

She threw out her hands. "What would be the use? Their voices would have no weight."

"Whose would?"

"Yours," she said; and, eyeing him full, stopped dead.

"You wish me to go upon that Commission?" cried Prince Max.

"Yes."

"In spite of all my ignorance?"

"The sittings do not begin till late autumn; between now and then you could get more actual knowledge—brought home and made visible to you, I mean—than most of those who will form its majority."

"Then you think I could be of use?"

She looked at him, silent for a moment. "I think you have a mind capable of taking fire, when it learns the facts."

"Facts only deaden some people," said he.

"Yes; that is what crushes us here. We have such mountains of facts to deal with."

"And you want fire to come down from those mountains and consume me?"

She nodded prophetically.

"I know you wouldn't run away."

"I am trying to feel the call," said Max a little skeptically. And in truth he was of divided mind, not because he had any doubt of his ability, but because the temptation to insincerity was so strong. This would give him the very opportunity he sought—through a vale of misery he beheld the way to his own Promised Land; but was it fair that he should take advantage of it without a heart of pity and conviction? This Prince of ours rather prided himself on his conscientious scruples.

"Will you tell me from the beginning," he said at last, "what put this thought into your mind? I seem to be getting it only by fragments."

"Three days ago," she answered, "I heard my father talking with others of the projected Commission. They were dissatisfied at the Church not being sufficiently represented—so insufficiently, indeed, that they took it as an intentional slight, part of the Government's policy for depriving the Bishops of all standing. It was held that further representation was imperative."

"What?" exclaimed Max; "am I to represent the Bishops, then?"

She shook her head, laughing. "Oh, no!" she answered. "They found some one very much better for themselves. That is the really immediate danger. They are afraid that the Commission as it stands will issue findings of a one-sided and party character, and that any minority report, unless it obtained the chairman's signature, would have no weight. Their main hope, therefore, is to secure a chairman of high standing on whose help they can rely, and it is thought that the Government could not oppose the nomination of a member of the Royal Family. It would appeal to popular sentiment; and subject to his Majesty's assent, his Royal Highness the Duke of Nostrum has expressed his willingness to serve."

Max had no great opinion of the collaterals of his grandfather—this one least of all. "Oh, ye Heavens!" he exclaimed. "For what use these bones of my ancestors? Why, with him to direct its deliberations, the Commission will run on into the next century, and its report be only applicable to the last!" Then, as he took stock of the situation, "And are you expecting me to head the minority report instead of him?" he inquired.

"It is not their report I am concerned about," she answered, "and for party I care little; it is the majority I fear. On paper the Commission looks as if it meant business; Church and property have been squeezed into one small corner, but the trade-interest is very strong; it is there in concealed ways which outsiders cannot recognize, for even over our public and medical departments—and still more in the press—it has now got control. I can give you instance after instance of men known as philanthropists whose riches come from sweated labor, and whose munificent charities form not one tithe of their inhuman profits drained from the lives of the very poorest. Some of them, great advertisers, are to sit on this Commission, and all the press, irrespective of party, will praise their appointment; while to defend their interests others will be attacked. The Government may be quite ready as a temporary expedient to make scapegoats of the property-owners, but it is not so ready to antagonize trade. I believe, sir, that on this Commission the real source of evil will never be traced; we shall hear of the grinding middleman and the rack-renter, but nothing dangerous to these magnates, or to the trade-system itself—unless——" She paused, and left silence to carry her message.

"Unless," supplemented Max, "some one thoroughly indiscreet occupies the chair?"

"Somebody," she replied, "whose minority report of one would attract all the attention it deserved."

"Oh, you think——?" His mind sparkled at the prospect: to be in a minority of one had a peculiar fascination for him.

"Yes, I think it may come to that," she said, "if you will honestly open your eyes."

"Then you cannot promise me the support of the Church?"

She shook her head as though that were the last thing possible.

"I am to be all alone?" His tone invited commiseration, while his brain soared with the dreams of a hashish-eater.

"I think about three may be with you, not more," she said, letting him down to earth again.

"Why are you so confident about me?"

Her gentle gray eyes met his with friendly understanding.

"When I found out who you were," she said, "I saw"—then she hesitated—"I saw that you had the rare gift of doing naturally what one would never expect."

"In what way?"

"To begin with, in coming here at all. And then you did things which, I imagine, no prince ever did before, and did them quite easily—'for fun,' I suppose you would say. Well, if you could do all that for fun, what might you not do when you became serious? A man who doesn't mind being laughed at—whatever his position—is very rare."

"Ah!" cried Max, "but now you are giving me more credit than I deserve. You set me to do ridiculous things for you—ridiculous, I mean, in one dressed as I was for fashion and not for use—I was aware of it; but nobody was aware of me. When I come here into these poor streets, I am so unexpected that nobody recognizes me. If they thought that they did, they would not believe their eyes. In that alone there is a sense of enlargement and liberty which those who have not to live in our position can hardly realize. It was like holiday; I felt as though I had been let loose."

"And so became more yourself?"

"I cannot say; but I was happy while I was here. Why did you send me away?"

"For the same reason that I now ask you to come back. I wanted you to be of use—independently."

"Yet here I am dependent upon you again."

"No; you have this in your own hands: it is your position."

"That secures the chairmanship? But am I at all likely to be accepted?"

"From what I hear, nobody suspects you of taking any great interest in the life of the poor. They have therefore no reason to be afraid of you."

"I see," said Max. "As a figure-head chairman I might even be valuable."

"Very, I have no doubt."

"Part of the game?"

"Royalty and Trade are supposed to be natural allies," remarked Sister Jenifer.

Max was startled at her discernment. "Oh, but that is true!" he cried. "How wonderful, then, that you should be able to trust me at all."

This set her smiling. "I had the advantage to begin with of not knowing who you were."

"And that gave you a start."

"No, finding you out gave me the start."

"You certainly have not lost time."

"That I cannot say, till I have your answer." There was no temporizing here.

Max thought for a while, then drew breath and spoke. "I want you quite to understand," he said, "that if I take up this work it will be very largely for a personal reason. I daresay I shall, as you say, 'take fire' when I know more about it; but at present I am not so moved. Commissions do not attract me; and what I undertake I shall do solely on faith—faith in you. Are you content that it should be so?"

"For a beginning, yes."

"Very well; something else follows. I shall need you for my guide."

"I am always here at certain hours," she said. "But there are others who know far more than I."

He let that point go unregarded.

"Then I may come to you for help?"

"Always, if really you need it."

"My needs shall be as real as I can make them," said Max. "How am I to begin?"

She named one or two books. "If you follow up what you read there," she said, "you will find most of it practically demonstrated in this district alone. For instance, we have a strike on just now among our tailors and shirt-makers; the men have made the women come out with them; they did not want to—women can exist under conditions where men cannot. Go and mix with them, be among them for hours, attend their street-corner meetings; you will hardly hear two ideas of any practical value, but you will get many. It isn't theory that is wanted,—it is that the life which thousands are living should be known and realized. When the eye has seen, the heart follows. All we really want is brotherhood; but how are we to bring it about?"

"From that I am furthest away of all," said Prince Max.

"No, no," she cried; "that is the great mistake! If kings are not the very symbol of our community then they have no value left. May I tell you two of the most kingly things I ever heard done in the present day? The one was by the old King of Montenegro, the smallest of the Balkan States. He found that his chief gentry were becoming lazy, too proud to put their hands to labor—making idleness a class distinction. He sat down in the courtyard of his palace and began to make shoes, and went on making them daily while he held his Court and administered justice; and so the new folly died."

"And the other?" inquired the Prince.

"It may seem far-fetched in the present connection," said she, "yet as an expression of the real kingly instinct it has all that I mean. Some years ago the heir to the English throne—the one who died young—went out to India. One day he was holding a durbar of Indian chiefs, and they with their retinues stood drawn up in parade ready to offer homage as he passed along their ranks. Opposite was a great crowd of natives watching the spectacle, and at a certain point in that crowd stood, as a mere onlooker, one whom Britain had defeated and driven into exile, the old Ameer of Afghanistan. Just before he rode down the Prince heard of it, and had the man pointed out to him; and when he came there he wheeled his horse about and gave the full royal salute. And through all that great multitude went a thrill because the kingly thing had been done, and all had seen it."

Tears glistened in her eyes as she spoke. "He was rather a dull young man," she went on, "so one has been told, but that was better than brains, for that was the touch of human kindness done in the grand manner which royalty makes possible, and ought to make natural—done with a pride which has its place beside the humility of St. Francis."

"Well, well," said Max, "put me in touch then, and I will see what I can do. But I haven't the grand manner, you know."

II

The King was considering the request of his revered uncle, the Duke of Nostrum, to preside over the Commission on slums, when Max came, asking also to be made useful.

"What, you too?" cried his Majesty; "isn't one of us enough?"

"Quite," said Max. "I want to be that one."

"What are your qualifications?"

"Willingness," said Max, "a brain capable of taking fire at facts, a great position, and an open and rebellious mind. I am quoting from authority; I was given my certificate yesterday."

To his Majesty this was merely the voice of Max at his flightiest. "Well," he said, "your Uncle Nostrum happens to have come first."

"Do you always grant first applications?"

"He has had much more experience."

"Of slums?" inquired Max.

"Of commissions, and all that sort of thing. He has sat on them."

"So he has—the elephant! And they have died the death."

"He works," said the King, "and you don't! You only talk."

"I only talk!" cried the injured Max; his voice went up to Heaven appealing against parental injustice. "Has he ever in his life been down into the slums and spent whole days there, as I have? Has he carried buckets for washing-sisters of charity, as I have; and borne upon his back the beds of the dying, as I have?"

"You?" cried the King with incredulity.

"I do not publish these things upon the housetops," said Max, "but in the secrecy of your chamber and in strict confidence I tell you that they are true. And while I, for many anxious weeks, have been toiling to qualify for this post, he, this Nostrum, this patent-drug from our royal medicine-chest, this soporific sedative——"

"Max, Max!" reproved his father.

"He rushes in where an angel has feared to tread, and filches from me my reward!"

"My dear boy, are you serious?" cried the King.

"I was never more serious in my life, father," replied his son. "But in order to arrest your attention I have to be theatrical. Now if you will really believe what I am going to say I will drop play-acting. I have, as I tell you, been down into our slum districts, I have been among the slum workers, means have been offered me for studying these problems at first hand, and I am prepared,—from this week on when Parliament rises, and the metropolis empties itself of pleasure, and you have gone sadly to your annual cure at Bad-as-Bad,—I am prepared to devote the whole of my time and energy to qualifying for this post; and with Heaven helping me, I will make it the most astonishing and effective Royal Commission that ever sat down believing itself on cushions to find that it was on a hornets' nest."

"You are becoming theatrical again," said the King.

"No, no," said Max, "but my brain is taking fire; an angel warned me of it in a dream, and behold it has come true. I have been seeing things."

"Your Uncle Nostrum won't be pleased," remarked the King.

"He never is," said Max. "Discontent is his prevailing virtue. Give himself something to be discontented about, then he can go down to his house justified."

"The Prime Minister has already recommended him," went on the King, "at least, said he would not oppose; but I don't know what he'll say to this."

"Nor do I," said Max, "and I don't care; neither do you."

The King opened his eyes as though he had been surprised in some secret—how did Max know that? And then his mind traveled a few months further on; yes, it was quite true, he did not now care in the least. What he had made up his mind to do had released him from all ministerial terrors; and as he contemplated the relief in his own case his thoughts turned to that bright youth over whose head so unlooked-for a fate was now impending; how dramatic it would be! And here was Max, all unbeknownst, harnessing himself to the wheels of State, pledged, unable to run away. It was just one more turn in the toils which a simple-minded man of gentle and retiring character was able to wind around the scheming lives of others. By at last daring to be himself he had become a power.

"Very well. I will see that it is arranged," he said. "Yes, it is perhaps time you had some experience in presiding over—over boards and all that sort of thing. I shan't last for ever; I don't feel like it." And he shook his head sadly, for he liked to be sorry for himself; nothing helped him more to bear up under the troubles of life.

"My dear father," said Max, with some fondness of tone, "you know that the prospect of going for your cure always depresses you; but as you insist on doing it you must pay the penalty. And when you are taking those waters which so upset your digestion, and deprive you of the flesh which nature meant you to wear, then think of me—not talking any longer, but really up and doing—preparing myself at last to follow in your footsteps. Now in this land of Jingalo, in the very heart of its social and commercial system, I am going to make history."

"Oh, you think so?" said the King to himself. "Young man, before you have much more than begun, you may have to come out of it! You can't do that sort of thing when you are in my shoes."

And then he bade Max a benevolent good-bye and went off to his cure; and Max, assured of his seat upon the forthcoming Commission, went off to his.

III

"How am I to dress for this business?" Max had inquired; it was one of the first practical problems to be solved, and an important one.

"If you don't mind," said Sister Jenifer, "you had better dress like a Socialist. Wear a very soft hat, a very low collar, and a very red or green tie, done loose in the French fashion, and nobody will wonder at your looking clean, or at your asking questions. Young Socialists come here to study the social problem and to show themselves off, and in a vague sort of way the people have begun to understand them; and though they look upon them as cranks, they don't any longer think they are inspectors or charity agents—the two things you must avoid."

"Dress," said Max, "has a very subtle effect upon the character. At a fancy-dress ball, last season, I wore a Cardinal's robe—there is a portrait of one in the British National Gallery rather like me—and it took me a month to get rid of the effects. If I turn into a Socialist, therefore, it will be upon your advice."

"As far as politics go it matters very little what you turn into," said Sister Jenifer.

"What a statement!" exclaimed Max.

"It is perfectly true," she said. "At present what we are fighting is ignorance and indifference; in comparison to that the mere theory of government doesn't matter, for nothing is going to succeed while one half of society neither knows nor cares how the other half lives. Your politicians are welcome to any theories they can find tenable, if only they will face facts."

"What are your own politics?"

"I haven't any; I haven't room for them. My only aim is just to get that one half of the community to come and look with understanding at the other half; and then service, I know, would follow. It won't until they do."

"Well, you are making me look," said Max.

"Yet I have not been able to make my father."

"Has he never been here?"

"He has opened churches."

"Well, you believe in prayer."

"That depends on how you define it."

"I wanted to ask you that. You are only a lay-sister; but some of you have taken vows—for a period, at all events."

"That is all the Church allows; but it makes little difference since they can always renew."

"Those who have taken vows—do they give themselves entirely up to prayer?"

"No, but they entirely depend upon it."

"Depend—how?"

"They could not do their work without it. You asked me for definition: I can only give you example. Some of our sisters quite literally cannot face what they have to do except after prayer; otherwise their flesh would revolt."

"Is it such horrible work?"

"They will not tell you so; but I know that it must be. You see I am rather an outsider. My father only allowed me to come here on certain conditions; and with the inner side of our work here I have nothing to do; I understand nothing about it."

Her face flushed slightly under his gaze, the faint, troubled flush of maidenhood which apprehends an evil of which it may not know the conditions; and he saw by swift intuition that this sincere spirit was ashamed of its own ignorance. His mind darted a guess that he had before him, in fact, an inexperience of life underlying intimate acquaintance with grief and poverty which he would not have believed to be possible. And oh, sexually, how it redoubled her beauty and charm! Yes, he could not deny that so unnatural a combination attracted him, and yet it enraged him also. A few moments ago he had heard from this woman's lips a declaration that no help could come till half and half made up one whole in knowledge and understanding; and yet there she stood—if his guess was right—hesitant and bashful on the borders of that great central problem about which parental authority had decreed she was to know nothing; an example set before him of that idealistic waste of womanhood which is for ever going on, and which for bad practical reasons society is always encouraging. For depend upon it the practical social result is what we men are really afraid of—not lest our women should lose either modesty or charm, but lest with knowledge they should apply themselves too ruthlessly to practical ends, and set upon their charm a price which hitherto we have avoided having to pay. And as he so moralized upon the relations of sex, a sentimental desire grew in him to kneel down there and then at her feet and tell her how good a young man from his point of view he had always been—and how bad a one from hers.

For the time being he resisted that temptation; other things that he was not yet sure of must come first; for before we can allow the beloved to think ill of us at all she must first think far better of us than we deserve. Then for the letting-down process there is a safe margin left, and confession becomes a luxury with no danger involved; since to see himself retrospectively pardoned by a heart virginally pure has surely restored to many a weary and disillusioned sensualist a better opinion of himself than he could ever have hoped to refurbish by his own efforts. That, oh ye men about town, is a good woman's mission in life; that is what she is for—when the watch has run down she winds it up again and sets it domestically ticking. And that she may continue to do so, let us keep her from all knowledge independently acquired. When we ourselves bring her the evidence, having first packed her fond jury of a heart, then we can also dictate verdict and sentence, and the world will run on in the grooves to which we have accustomed it.

All of which is a digression, and not in the least intended as being applicable to Max, unless, indeed, some reader of virulent morals so chooses to apply it; for far be it from this historian to prevent any reader forming his or her own judgment on the facts set forth. And if to any of these Max appears as one whose springs have run riotously down and now need setting up again—if his seems to be a heart that has never yet ticked domestically, because it had not been legally registered, I can at least promise them this—that before they come to the end of this history they will have an eminent ecclesiastical authority agreeing with them, and expressing their sentiments with an eloquence which I cannot hope to rival. And so having done with digression, let us return to the social education of Max, now trying to become acquainted with the lowest stratum of all.

IV

After a few weeks he began to distinguish in the squalor of the faces that surrounded him the separate causes of their malady—to know drink from disease, dissipation from destitution, the drug-habit from hunger. Complexion and facial expression stood more than dress as an indication of trade, habit, and environment; from physiognomy he began to learn history, and from Monday's streets a commentary on the linked sweetness long drawn out of Jewish followed by Christian sabbath. He became inured to smells, to the breathing of foul atmosphere, to contact with foul bodies, to a nakedness of speech such as he had not dreamed of, to a class-hatred that struck from eye to eye like murder, to an apathy of dead hopelessness that revolted him yet more. From Sister Jenifer he learned the hardest lesson of all, that to understand social conditions he must refrain from gifts of charity. And so, afraid of his own frailty, he came to his district with empty pockets, and going hungry himself spent hours among sale-dens, pawn-shops, the alleys where half-starved middle-men received the piece-work of sweated labor, and the black staircases where rent-collectors, hard-driven by competing agencies, plied a desperate piece-work of their own.

In every place he visited cleanliness was discouraged, and the water system seemed a mere after-thought. In most cases the taps were buttons requiring continuous pressure, and then yielding only an exiguous supply; a kettle took nearly a minute to fill, so that while one tenant drew service others stood waiting. He spoke indignantly of it to Sister Jenifer. What were the sanitary authorities doing? he asked.

"Oh, yes," she said, "those buttons are a new device; the old taps were taken away—they became too dangerous; these poor people found a way of turning them to effect."

"You mean they stole the fixings?"

"No; though they used to do that now and then. But this was at the last strike which happened to come during a drought. One of their leaders said to them: 'Take all the water you can; drain the city dry, make the rich give up their baths,—then perhaps they will attend to you.' They actually had the power; they organized the whole of the working district, and one night they turned on all the taps, the street fountains as well. And we, because at last they were taking their full share, were threatened with a water famine! Yes, if they had those tenement baths which the last Housing Commission recommended they could run us dry as their leader proposed,—hold the whole city up to ransom and dictate terms. As it was even those taps proved dangerous, so we gave them buttons instead; and of course the death-rate has gone up."

"And now the next strike has come."

"Ah, yes, but this is not such a large one and so, as it isn't reckoned 'dangerous,' the Government doesn't interfere, and no one outside troubles about the rights of it."

They were moving on the outskirts of a crowd in the center of which a demonstration of strikers was going on. Gaunt, hungry, apathetic faces formed the bulk of them; in their midst a man with a big voice talked heroically of the rights of labor and prophesied victory. They stood to listen for a while, then moved on. At the corner of a side-street which they crossed stood a smaller group; a woman, her hat tied round with a motor-veil, stood waving her arms from an orange-box.

"Who are those?" inquired Max.

"Women Chartists," said Sister Jenifer.

"What are they doing here?"

"They go wherever they can get a hearing."

Max stopped to listen a little satirically; he had never heard a woman speaking in public before. Presently he turned to his guide and found that her eye was on him. "Shall we go on?" he said.

"This does not interest you, then?"

"It is a subject about which I know nothing."

"But you came to learn."

"Well,—is that woman telling the truth?"

"No, not exactly."

"Does she know what she is talking about?"

"Not as well as she ought to."

"Then, isn't that sufficient?"

"You have listened to men here whose statements were just as wide of the mark, and whose proposals were just as useless."

"Yes, so you warned me; but what I find instructive is not the speaker but the crowd."

"You have a crowd here."

"A much smaller one."

"So you are for the majorities?"

Max acknowledged the stroke. "Very well," he said; "let us go back."

"No, I only wanted you to notice the crowd. Did they seem interested?"

"They listened."

"That is something, is it not, when she was talking of things that to their minds hardly concerned them?"

"But you say she was not telling the truth."

"She was ignorant, and she exaggerated; but for all they know what she is saying might be gospel."

"Is that how you would have it preached?"

"If gospels had to wait for the wise and prudent," said Jenifer, "they would wait till eternity. That woman was speaking not for an institution but for a movement."

"Do not such exaggerations condemn it?"

"By no means; if some did not exaggerate none of us would get a hearing—especially if we happened to be in a minority; and reformers always are."

"Though I embroider it for myself," said Prince Max, "from others I prefer to get plain truth."

"Plain truth," she replied, "is only that manner of dealing with a thing—with some wrong, say—which makes it plain to people that the wrong exists. Short of that you haven't got truth into them."

"Now you are preaching pragmatism," said Max.

"Do you suppose," she went on, "that to that dull, sunk, slow-witted crowd we have been looking at, a mere niggardly statement of facts would make the truth plain, or stir them to any action or feeling for others? That woman on some points over-stated her case quite ridiculously—especially as to the benefits and rewards which the women's Charter would bring—but the effect upon her hearers fell far short of what the real facts justify. Oh, people have to be bribed even to do no more than open their ears to the truth."

"By false promises of reward? Yes, you have the Church with you there. It deals with our ordinary everyday morality, in very much the same way. Tells a maximum of untruth so that a necessary minimum may spring out of it. How many Christians to-day really believe in the doctrine of hell?"

"Surely," she said, "to see the light of its fires in so many faces is proof enough."

"That is not the doctrine," said the Prince, "and you know it. Hell here and now may be very real; but it is not what your Church preaches. Many of those lit-up faces that you speak of are aglow with mere lustful enjoyment. But the Church does not teach that men can make the mistake when in hell of actually believing themselves in Heaven; that would be too dangerous. Turn on that tap, and the jasper sea in which your angels take their baths will run dry."

She looked at him half quizzically. "And what is your doctrine?" she inquired. "When you are enjoying yourself—saying things like that, for instance, hoping to hurt—do you ever think that you are in hell?"

"No," said Max, "I do not make enjoyment the test. Just now, for instance, I rather feel that I may be at the gates of Heaven; but I am not, therefore, superlatively happy. Can you promise me that the heavenly road is one of pure happiness?"

"To any one who accepted absolutely the Divine Will it must be."

"The Divine Will," said Max, "gave me my body and my reasoning power. You must not ask me to forfeit them. I agree with that old collegiate (a doctor of divinity like myself) to whom one of more austere piety had declared 'abject submission' the only possible attitude of the creature toward his Creator. 'No, no!' protested the Doctor, with outraged dignity, 'deference, but not—not abject submission!' Deference is all a man can honestly promise so long as reason remains to him; abject submission is fit only for lunatic asylums."

"And yet," she retorted, "abject submission to antecedents is all that science can infer when once it starts to investigate the springs of action."

"That is not to deny reason; that only conditions it. I wanted you to accuse me of blasphemy; but as you do not give me my legitimate openings I have to make them for myself. To me the abrogation of reason, on any pretense, is the most rooted blasphemy of which the mind of man is capable. Some modern Romanist penned once a hymn which had in it these or like words for its refrain—

'And black is white, And wrong is right, If it be Thy sweet Will.'

That, to my mind, is a blasphemous utterance, for it juggles with the fundamentals of all morality. The person who adopts that attitude as an act of surrender to earthly love is a sensualist. It is a form of sensualism rampant in women; and men encourage it by bestowing upon it the names of womanly virtues. To adopt a similar attitude in spiritual matters seems to me sensualism none the less. And what a hot-bed for that sort of sensualism the Church has always been and still is!"

His ugly talk roused her spirit of resistance.

"How can it be sensual," she protested, "when it results in self-denial and self-sacrifice?"

"Self-sacrifice," he replied, "may be merely sensualism in its intensest form; it is peculiarly a woman's temptation; the scientific name for it (since you throw science at my head) is 'negative egoism.' You yourself are quite capable of it; for you cannot get rid of the results of your training all in a day."

She did not flinch from his attack.

"What do you know of my training?" she asked.

"I know this: here are you the superior of any Bishop on the bench now preparing to play injured martyr at the loss of his political privileges; and what position of authority and influence has your Church to offer you—you and the thousands like you whose practical humanity alone has made its antiquated forms still possible? Yes, you are its life-preservers, and they tuck you away into subordinate positions and back slums where nobody hears of you. And you have been trained to think that it is right!"

"The training was all my own," she said. "I tucked myself."

"Wastefully, under parental conditions—you yourself have owned it."

"There is always more work than one can do."

"There is much more work that you could do; but here, what is your chance? Has it not struck you—if you had only the position given you, what a power you might be, in that direction, I mean, of bringing the two halves of society face to face, which you say is your main object? If that position were offered you would you accept it as a thing sent to you from God, or would you——?"

And then Max stopped abruptly, for he realized that in another moment he would have been offering her the succession to the throne, and he felt that the street was not exactly the right place for it. Not that he minded making the offer anywhere; but she, self-sacrificingly, might refuse; and a crowded street was not the place where he could tackle a refusal of the throne to advantage. It was not like an ordinary proposal; there were too many points to urge and objections to be met; while a certain amount of preliminary incredulity was almost inevitable. She might know that he loved her still; but it would take a considerable amount of knowing that he also wished her to sit with him upon the throne; nay, for that matter, to sit with him off it, if Court etiquette and the fates so ordained. And if they did so ordain, where would that great position be which he was proposing to offer?

And so as Max has ended his declaration abruptly let us also end the chapter abruptly, and wonder what the next, or the next but one may have to bring forth.



CHAPTER XII

AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE



I

Bad-as-Bad was a hardy annual which grew high up among the hills and pine-forests on the borders of Schafs-Kleider and Schnapps-Wasser. With its roots extending into both States it flourished exceedingly for three months of each year. During the winter it was bottled up in its native passes by snow, and for at least five months no visitors ventured thither to expose their constitutions to the rigors of its climate or of its waters. But in another bottled-up form, of a more portable character, it made a great trade and reputation for itself throughout Europe; and during the three summer months crowned heads visited it in turn (often by careful diplomatic arrangement when they or their countries happened not to be on good speaking terms), and drew after them a steady influx from that class of their communities on which a town composed almost entirely of hotels can most safely flourish.

The medicated springs, to which so many came but for which nobody thirsted, rose in Schnapps-Wasser territory; and being the property of the reigning house brought to it a huge revenue. Every red-stamped label broken so carelessly in the restaurants and sanatoria of Europe meant twopence halfpenny to the princely pocket of its highly descended ruler. And it was upon these proceeds that the young heir had absented himself for three years and fitted out an expensive expedition of a semi-military character to the unexplored wilds of South America.

Behind his back local warfare had gone on. Not for nothing had he said "crocodiles" to those orchestral scramblings in the bass of an imperially inspired oratorio; and Schafs-Kleider, receiving certain mysterious grants in aid (for its own funds were nil), had started to sink shafts at a lower level on the outskirts of the town; and after many failures had secured at one point a trickle of water which tasted suspiciously like the real article, and was declared by interested experts to be chemically the same.

News had gone out to the Prince in the wilderness that by this earth-stroke his revenues from the retail business might presently be very seriously affected.

His remedy had been simple; he had directed the town authorities to lay out a new cemetery at a strategic point on the slopes lying towards Schafs-Kleider; and though it had little actual effect upon the chemical properties of this new breach in his patent it created a prejudice in unscientific minds, and the Schafs-Kleider variant of the Bad-as-Bad waters failed to "catch on." And thus it came about that on returning from his three years' exile Berlin had not restored him to favor, and he, one of the richest and least encumbered princes in Europe, was more or less going a-begging—an easy prey to the match-making net which, by assiduous correspondence, his aunts and others had prepared for him.

Bad-as-Bad, though economically its most important asset, was not the capital of the principality; but when the Prince arrived at Schnapps, thirty miles distant, Bad-as-Bad fired off a salute from a toy cannon in the gardens of the municipality, and hoisted the royal ensign on the flag-staff beside the kiosk. The principality having been without its head for three years had recovered it.

On hearing that salute her Majesty, Queen Alicia of Jingalo, at once knew what it referred to. "Ah!" she remarked, in a tone of complete satisfaction, "that means that the dear Prince has arrived. What a distance he has been! I was afraid we might miss him." And as she spoke her glance traveled across to her daughter Charlotte, and in the peace and plenitude of her domestic musings she smiled with more meaning than she was aware of. Princess Charlotte caught sight of that smile, and sitting observant saw presently that her mother was studying her with some attention.

"You are looking very well, child," remarked her Majesty. "I am sure that the place suits you."

"Getting out of the place suits me," said the Princess. "I like the hills, and the forest. Three miles away one meets nobody, except the peasantry."

"Well, be sure you don't overdo it; and don't let your face get too brown. Remember that sort of thing doesn't go with a low dress."

"But I am not wearing low dress while I am here."

"You may be before we go. We may have to give a dinner in the Prince's honor; or he in ours. Now he has arrived he is sure to come over and see us. What very nice-sized countries these principalities are! I wish we had them everywhere, then being kings and queens would be really no trouble whatever. If Jingalo had only been smaller how much younger it would have made your father; and, besides, it would have got rid of all that socialist element."