King John of Jingalo Part 55

Your Grace is the only one among us whose profession is to serve G.o.d rather than to be served by men."

The Archbishop glanced uneasily at the Prince; but there was no sarcasm in his look or tone. Max was never more of an artist than in his adaption of manner to theme. Sadly, almost dejectedly he went on.

"And now let us come to myself. It seems that I am not accounted worthy to receive your daughter's hand in marriage. In a certain sense I admit it. That he is unworthy seems true to every man who ever loved a woman well; and perhaps the woman feels the same of herself. But I do not admit that the reasons for your judgment are just. You deny me my claim because, during my early manhood, I have had illicit connection with one woman. Tell me--do you propose that your daughter shall ever marry at all?"

The Archbishop looked at the Prince with a half-pitying surmise and drew himself up as though he had some statement to make. Then putting the inclination aside he said: "That is for her to choose."

"From her own rank in life?" persisted Max,--"not limited, I mean, to the clerical profession?"

"I impose no limits on my daughter's freedom," said the Archbishop.

"And do you mean to tell me," inquired the Prince, "that of every suitor for your daughter's hand--lawyer, soldier, politician, man of letters--you will make it your business to inquire--and will expect to be told the truth--whether they have not at some period of their career had illicit connection with women?"

"I could recommend no suitor," said the Archbishop, "who had been at so little pains as your Highness to avoid the setting of a bad example to others."

"Is it, then, merely secrecy that you advocate?"

"A respect for moral observances is in itself a ground of recommendation," answered his Grace; "though at times a man may fall short of what he knows to be right."

"You mean," said the Prince, "that I have flagrantly committed myself in the upkeep of an establishment, where others have only paid an extravagant price for a night's lodging?"

"Your Highness puts the matter in a way that makes it impossible for me to discuss."

"I beg your pardon; I really was trying to be delicately indirect. But that you should beg off discussion because my way of putting things seems to you indelicate is yet another count in my quarrel with your established ministry. You seem to me to be amateurs where you ought to be professionals. How can you possibly deal with poor weak humanity in kid gloves? Like the surgeon before he can hope to bring healing in his wings, you too must be anatomical in your researches. It is the anatomical your civil churchmen fight shy of. Well, I will endeavor to get at the matter from another and a more accessible side. Your Grace is, I take it, a man of the world?"

The Archbishop was inclined to demur; humbly but firmly he deprecated the imputation.

"But surely!" protested the Prince, "had you not been, you would not now be in the place which you occupy; every one knows that an Archbishop's appointment is political. I ask you then, as a man of the world, how--short of a miracle--could you expect a man in my position and circ.u.mstances to have kept a technically unblemished record? Surrounded with luxuries from my birth, disciplined by no real hardship, having to make no struggle for my existence; brought up to eat meat and drink wine; athletic, but without any reason or opportunity for leading a strenuously athletic life; with brains, but with no compulsion to use them; pa.s.sed, for the perfecting of my education, from one privileged grade to another; from the University to the Army, and from thence to sport and the race-course; from where on G.o.d's earth, in this modern curriculum for kings, was the idea to have occurred to me that I should do this thing, in attempting to do which your early hermits went hullabalooing to the desert?

"I am now nearly twenty-six. My father, for reasons of State, married at twenty-one: I, for similar reasons, have been kept unmarried, no sufficiently eligible partner could be found for me. And I solved the time of waiting by contracting a non-legal conjugal relationship with a woman for whom I had a very real affection, who was considerably my senior in years, and who knew quite well that the arrangement could only be temporary. My Lord Archbishop, I ask you--could you in my circ.u.mstances have shown a better, a more blameless record? I was even punctilious enough to tell your daughter--an excessive scruple, I think,--she did not understand."

"She understands now," said the Archbishop.

"And who is it," inquired the Prince sharply, "who has thus played bo-peep with her intelligence--first shutting and now opening her eyes?"

"When evil is encountered," said his Grace, "instruction has to be extended."

"And still you have stopped halfway, just at the point where it serves you best. What does her pure soul know of these problems which to her are only a few hours old?"

"She is a daughter of the Church; and she knows what the Church's answer has always been."

"She knows, then," said Max, "what no school of historians has yet been able to decide! See over in England to-day how the Church, clinging to its establishment, has to dodge and shuffle over the changes in the moral law arising out of national habit. Is the Church of Jingalo so greatly superior, think you, that it can boast?"

At that moment a clock upon the chimney-piece intoned the hour; and the Archbishop, reduced to extremity in order to get rid of his distinguished but unwelcome visitor, permitted himself to throw an involuntary glance in the direction of the sound.

The Prince, perceiving the indication, rose at once to his feet.

"Pardon me," he said, "for having kept you so long."

"Pardon _me_," returned his Grace; "unfortunately I have to dine."

"Of course. I ought not to have forgotten."

"I mean that I have guests."

"They shall not be kept waiting by me," said the Prince. He moved to the door. Then he stopped.

"Your Grace," he said, "I know that we cannot be friends, still----"

He paused; and there was silence.

"I greatly wish to see your daughter. Surely you cannot deny me that right."

"_I_ cannot," said the Archbishop. "She does."

This pulled Max up with a jerk: not that he yet believed it, however.

"Where is she now?" he inquired.

"She has joined the Sisterhood of Poverty. To-day she entered her profession."

The Prince choked.

"That is horrible!" he said. "You mean she has taken vows?"

The Archbishop of Ebury bowed his head. "For the remainder of _my_ life at all events," he said in a stricken tone. "She will not return here.

My house is left desolate to me--because of you."

"You still have guests," said the Prince.

"That is an unworthy gibe," retorted his Grace. "My work has still to go on."

"I beg your pardon," said Max.

"I have written to her," he added after a pause; "and she has not answered. Will your Grace be good enough----"

"I do not think she will. She prays for you. If you came, I was to tell you that."

Again there was silence for a time.

"When I was a child," said the Prince, "I had an old nurse, who whenever I did anything wrong--as whipping was not allowed--used to go down on her knees and pray for me; and she always did it against a blank wall. I suppose it helped her. That has always remained my vision of prayer. And now I shall always think of your daughter with her dear face turned to a blank wall, praying for you and me--her murderers."

He went out.

"Upon my word!" thought the Archbishop, "that is a dangerous man to be heir to a throne."