King John of Jingalo Part 51

The Archbishop sat silent for a while. "How long have you known Prince Max?" he inquired at last.

"About six months."

"Is not that rather a short time?"

"Yes."

"For so important a decision, I mean."

"Yes; it is, I know."

"For learning a man's character, shall I say?"

"Some characters one learns more quickly than others. I know him, papa, better than I do you."

"That may well be, youth does not easily understand age. And so my question remains: Do you know him well enough to marry him?"

"I want to marry him," she said.

"You know there are objections?"

"Oh, yes."

"Very serious ones."

"Yes, I told him; I said it was quite impossible. He said he could get the King's consent. I did not think so: I felt sure, indeed, that he could not. But to-day he came and showed it to me in writing--a promise made conditionally more than two months ago."

"Conditionally?"

"Yes; it named a date. That is why until to-day there was nothing that I could tell you."

"Not even the fact that he had asked you to marry him?"

"I could not wish that to be known, if nothing was to come if it--not by any one."

"It would have been better, my child."

"No, papa; why should you, or any one, know what I had had to give up?"

"Of course, it would have been painful; that I can understand."

"I can smile at it now," she said; "but at the time it was terrible! For I found, then, how much I loved him."

The Archbishop withheld all speech for a moment, then said tenderly--

"I am very sorry for you, my child."

"Ah, but there is no need to be now!" she cried joyfully.

Once more he paused; then he repeated the words.

There was quick attention then in her look, but she showed no fear; and he shifted to easier ground.

"Tell me," he said gently, "how all this came about. How did you come to know the Prince?"

"Only by seeing him at the Court; then I recognized that we had met often before, when I had not known who he was."

"Why should he have concealed it?"

"He did not; one day he told me, and I would not believe him, it seemed so unlikely. Neither did he believe me when I told him who I was; he said that the facts were incompatible, and that mine was the more unlikely story of the two."

"Did you--did you begin liking him very soon?"

"I began by almost hating him. He used to scoff at everything, he seemed not to believe in anything that was good. Almost the first time that we met he told me that the dress I wore was 'provocative'--'a lure of Satan's devising' he called it, and said that nothing tempted men more than for women to wear what he described as 'the uniform of virginity.'

He declared that it was because of my dress that he got lost following me through the slums."

"Did not that warn you what sort of man he was?"

"No; for it was not true. We just happened to meet, and he helped me when I was single-handed. He confessed afterwards that he had said everything he could to shock me--to put me to the test. He has grown up distrusting all religious professions."

"A scoffer? Did not even that warn you?"

"No; under the circ.u.mstances it seemed the most natural thing; it showed me that he was honest."

These sounded dreadful words to the Archbishop, coming from his daughter's lips; he felt that, in pa.s.sing from theory to practice she had become shockingly lat.i.tudinarian in her views; and again, cautious and circ.u.mspect, he shifted his ground.

"My dear," he said, "you do realize, I suppose, that from a worldly point of view the Prince has committed a very grave indiscretion."

She smiled. "He tells me so himself; it rather pleases him. But now the King has given his consent."

"Yes, nominally he has," replied the Archbishop. "But in that there is a good deal more than meets the eye. When his Majesty first gave that promise he never intended that it should take effect."

She paled slightly at his words, and he saw that only now had he scored a point.

"Why do you think that?"

"I do not think it, I know; but I am not at liberty to reveal secrets of State. Let us put that aside, I cannot give you proof; if you wish to disbelieve it, do. But now I come to my main point. There is a side to this question about which you know nothing, but you know that in the State to-day the Church has her enemies. This indiscretion on the part of the Prince, supported by a promise from which the King cannot in honor withdraw, has suddenly put into my hands a great opportunity which must not be missed."

"Into _your_ hands, papa?"

"Under Providence, yes; I say it reverently. You are my daughter, and in service and loyalty to the Church you and I are as one."

She looked at him steadfastly, but did not respond in words.

"A great opportunity," he said again; "a great power for righteousness, to save the Church in her dire need. That is a great thing to be able to do--worth more than anything else that life can offer. To you, my daughter, that call has come; how will you answer it?"

Her face had grown white, but was still hard to his appeal; he had not won her yet.

"Yes," she said, "I do partly understand. I will do all for you that I can."