King John of Jingalo Part 33

"I should rather incline to say that it is fixed."

"You mean just to the two I told you of? But you wouldn't have either of them."

"Perhaps _I_ ought to say that _I_ am fixed, then; I can't very well see myself changing."

"Oh, no, Max, no! Don't say that!" cried his mother, alarmed. "It is so very important that you should marry. And people are beginning to expect it."

"Yes, but as I say, there are difficulties--religious ones."

This was strange news for the Queen. Had Max a conscience then? It was a portent for which she had not been prepared.

"Of course," she said, "I don't want to ask questions."

"Perhaps you had better not."

"But I do want you to settle."

"I am settled," said Max.

It was dreadful to hear him say so, and a horrible idea that he had contracted a secret marriage with that foreign woman crossed her mind.

Was this the difficulty that she did not understand? She grew timorous, afraid that he was going to tell her something--set before her some moral problem which she could not possibly solve. What if he were trying to entrap her, to lure her into taking sides with him over something no King or Government could countenance? From such a danger as that all her conventional femininity gathered itself in a panic-stricken bundle and fled.

"Max, dear," she said, "I would much rather you didn't tell me."

"I quite agree," he replied.

"But----" She paused, searching her mind for succor; and then, having found it, "Why not see the Archbishop about it?" she urged; "I am sure he could remove all your difficulties."

Max almost jumped out of his skin before he perceived how guileless had been his mother's remark. But the opportunity was certainly not to be missed.

"I should be delighted to see him," he said. "Indeed, I think he more than any one might solve my difficulty."

"Then you shall!" cried his mother, and fondly believed that, without becoming entangled herself she had wrought a good work and provided means to a solution. The Archbishop would, of course, be able to solve for him any difficulties of conscience, and to put such things as--well, anything he might have done in the past--in its right and proper place.

Her Majesty had a great belief in archbishops. At the hands of one she had been confirmed, it had taken two of them to marry her, and by one or another each of her four children had been well and truly baptized. They had also preached sermons of eloquent optimism over the two who had so prematurely died. And since she regarded all that they had done for her as eminently successful in result, they stood out in her world as the most efficient aids to the spiritual etceteras of life; and if any moral difficulty dimmed for a moment the clear horizon of her soul she would turn to the nearest archbishop for advice and encouragement.

And so the Archbishop came to see Prince Max in his convalescence, and sat by his side and talked to him, and tried by various diplomatic shifts to draw his confidence in the salutary direction desired by her Majesty; for he and the Queen had held conversation together on the matter. And Max, lying back at ease upon his cushions, and pretending to be a little further from complete recovery than he really was, examined that face of stern ecclesiastical mold, and seeking therein for some likeness to his beloved found none.

Nevertheless he listened respectfully without protest to the voice of the Church, when at last the Archbishop started to deliver his charge: he heard how necessary it was for the nation that those who were its rulers should set before it an example of regular family life, and how inexpedient it was for that example to be too long delayed; he heard of duty as though it came by inheritance to the accompaniment of a position and a t.i.tle, and of many other things that he had heard tell of before and profoundly disagreed with; but for once he was not argumentative. He let the Church speak to him and advise him to do the thing he was longing to do, and to leave that life which (without a word said on the matter) he was known to have been leading in the past. And when the Archbishop had quite done and taken his departure, then Max rose up from his bed of sickness and went down to Sister Jenifer and, presenting to her gaze a broken and a contrite head and a rather pallid countenance, spoke as follows: "I have been having a talk with your father, O Beloved, and he tells me that I ought to marry you."

IV

On the next day Max received a visit from his father.

"Well," said the King, wishing to bestow commendation on a wound honorably come by, "you have been on the side of law and order for once at any rate."

"I?" cried Max.

"I hear that you a.s.sisted the police."

"On the contrary," said Max, "I went to rescue a poor youth from their clutches."

"Good gracious me!" cried the King, horror-struck.

"Oh, they were quite right to arrest him, but having arrested him, they proceeded to a.s.sault him; and when I interfered they a.s.saulted me. And had I not been the person I am, with detectives at my heels to vouch for me, I should have been doing a fortnight hard for interfering with the police in the execution of their duty."

"But I heard it was a beer-bottle thrown by one of the rioters!"

"Oh, no; a truncheon,--having I believe your image and superscription stamped somewhere upon it. Your own mark, sir." And Max pointed to the scar upon his head. "When I, in turn, have to wear the crown its rim will probably rest on that very spot. What a coincidence that will be!"

"Max, this is really too bad of you!" said his father.

"It comes of trying to mix with the people."

"Well, you shouldn't; for we can't do it."

"Not without paying the price. I have, and it was worth it."

"What good has it done you?"

"Can you not see how it has steadied me? You behold here a reformed character who is now only waiting for his father's blessing to lead a good and holy life ever after. Oh, yes, I know what you have come about, sir; my mother has been at me, the Archbishop has been at me,--you have all of you been at me one time or another; and so far as I am concerned, if we can only agree upon who the lady is to be, I am ready to marry her to-morrow."

Then, perceiving a terror in his father's eye (for the Queen had breathed in his ear some word of her apprehensions), Max, divining its cause, spoke to rea.s.sure him. "No," said he, "it is not the Countess; she had thrown me over, and is now only a second mother to me. This was largely of her mending." He again pointed to the scar. "Can such things be done, you wonder, in a second establishment? Well, remember it is now only a mausoleum. For three weeks I have lain there like a mummy with my head swathed in bandages."

"Max, I wish you would not talk like that," said the King. "I wanted to speak seriously to you."

"And I to you," answered Max. "But when I start I shall only shock you more."

"Well, we had better get it over, then. Say the most serious thing you have to say, and be done with it!"

Then Prince Max drew a bold breath. "Conditionally upon your consent, sir"--he began--"(I myself regret the condition, but on that point the lady is adamant)--I say all this in order to let the whole case be stated before giving you the necessary shock----"

"Oh, go on!" groaned the King.

"Conditionally, then, I am already engaged to be married."

The King's mind went vacuously all round the Courts of Europe, and returned to him again empty.

"Whom to?" he inquired.

Max made his announcement with stately formality.

"The lady who honors me with her affection is the daughter of our Primate Archbishop."

"Good Heavens!" cried the King. "Does _he_ know of it?"

"No more than the babe unborn; two days ago he sat there telling me it was my duty to marry; and I thinking of his daughter all the time."