King John of Jingalo

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Concealment and flight are, we know, the very arrows of love when
directed with subtle intent against the hunter's heart in man; and they
are scarcely less powerful to kindle his ardor when undirected and
without purpose, or, as in this case, of a purpose wholly negative and
without lure.

His lady had disappeared, because in very truth parting was her intent;
and in haunting for a while the dark and crooked ways which her feet had
blessed, he had but the poor satisfaction of knowing that he was
depriving of her ministrations lives inconceivably more miserable than
his own. That consciousness when it came touched him in a point of
honor, and forced him to relinquish the quest; but there remained with
him thenceforth a maddening sense that if, accepting his withdrawal, she
had resumed her avocations, he now knew daily where she was, and had
only to break with his scruples in order to find her.

They had met less than half-a-dozen times; and he, driven by his mental
pugnacity to test so unreasonable an apparition, had spared neither
himself nor her. The sincerity of her faith had angered him, though
anything else, had he detected it, would have destroyed his dream; and
when he had scoffed she had not troubled to rebuke him, had only glanced
at him amused, not with pity or condescension or kind Christian charity,
but with a very friendly understanding and often with what seemed
agreement. He was astonished to find that a rippling sense of humor
could go hand in hand with a blind gift of faith, and to hear sayings as
bold as his own uttered as though they were the merest common-sense.
"Why yes, of course," she admitted, in answer to one of his tirades, "if
you want envy, hatred, and uncharitableness in a concentrated form you
will find them in the Church; that stands to reason." And when he
inquired why, she answered, quite simply, "Because a bad Christian is
Satan's best material."

Nor had she any illusions about that particular branch of the Church
militant for which she labored; she regarded it rather as a half-baked
body of territorials than a regular army equipped for the field. Still
it served a purpose, gave useful occupation to many, and stood for the
time being against unreasoning panic or callous desertion of duty; nor
would she surrender its few poor healing virtues for any of the nostrums
he sought to set in their place. "It does more than you with all your
talking," she said quietly, and, as they passed by, took him into a
mission church where he might see--a small corrugated iron hut, set down
in the midst of slums. Under the scent of incense the smell of
disinfectants was strong; near a stove sat a lay reader, and about her a
dozen poor weary women plying needle and thread. Two or three of them
held children at the breast; in a pen near by lay half-a-dozen others
asleep. Over the stove was a large boiler supplying hot water to poor
parishioners; away by a small side altar knelt a single figure in
prayer. Brightly colored "stations of the Cross," and something upon the
altar that looked like a large tea-cozy, before which burned a light,
told how here the law was systematically broken, and that the "nonsense"
inveighed against by the old Queen Regent had not yet been put down.

"That is the bit of Christianity I work for," she said as she led him
out again, "a sort of mother-hen whose cluckings, scratchings, and
incubations are run in a parish of five thousand half-starved people on
less than L300 a year. Have you anything better to show?"

"I want revolution," he said.

"Choose your own time," she answered mildly. "Here every day we are
facing a far worse thing."

"Making it endurable," he objected. "These people are patient because of
you and your like."

"Impatience would only make it harder for them," she returned. "You
can't argue with them; they haven't the brains."

"Not in working order, I admit."

"Meanwhile they have to live."

"And when you help them to that end--are they at all grateful?"

"A few; yes, that is one of the hardest things we have to bear,--we who
are living stolen lives; for whether we will it or not our vitality
comes from them; daily we drain it from their blood, and nothing we can
do will stop it."

"Are you in need of money?"

"Always; but five million pounds given us to-morrow would not go to the
root of this."

"What would?"

"Nothing but true worship."

"You worship an alibi," said Max.

"What nearer divinity has brought you here?" she inquired. And he, too
conscious of the personal motive, forbore to explain.

At their fifth meeting she told him quite frankly that he was
interfering with her work, that she could not have him accompanying her,
waiting for her, picking her up as if by chance.

"If you want to do work you must find it for yourself; you will if you
are sincere," she said in answer to his request that she would
commission him.

"But may I not be your follower?" he pleaded, choosing the word for its
double sense.

"Lay sisters don't have followers," she replied. "They don't go with the
costume."

"Then why wear it? Will you turn away a disciple for a mere matter of
dress?"

"My dress," she said, "is of more use and protection to me than anything
you can do or than money can buy. You have politicians who say that
society is built upon force. My dress is the work of women; thousands of
lives have made it what it is, and it will take me safely into slums
where no policeman dare go alone. When your politicians can come here in
coats of a similar make, then they will have begun to solve the problems
which they are so fond of talking about. Now, will you please to walk on
the other side of the road?"

He took her hand, saying earnestly, "When are we to meet again?"

She shook her head at him, smiling. "Truthfully I haven't time for you,"
she said, "and I can't make promises."

And then, just for once--for it seemed his last chance--Max fell into
sentiment.

"One I want you to make," he insisted.

"What is that?"

"That you will pray for me!"

"Now you are asking for luxuries," she smiled; "you don't believe in
prayer. But I will." Then, nodding confidently, she added, "And it will
do you good."

And then, as he still lingered, with quiet business-like demeanor she
crossed the street and disappeared.

It was true that in thus seeking her intercession Max had asked for a
luxury. He did not believe in prayer any more than he had ever done; but
he did very much like the idea of being prayed for by the woman he
loved. Once, for a brief moment, he had seen her kneel before an altar
empty to him of meaning; and as he then watched the serene joy and
beauty of her face had realized with a jealous envy how in an instant
all thought of him had passed from her mind. So in asking her to pray
for him he had merely sought to penetrate by subtlety the unbelievable
world of her dreams. And then, even as he reveled in the vision, the odd
thought occurred in what terms would he obtain introduction? Once, when
for the repayment of a borrowed cab fare she had asked his name and
address, he had told her who he was, and she had not believed him; had,
indeed, herself tantalized him in return with an address as little
probable as his own. If, therefore, she prayed for him in words how
would they run, or, if in thought, what character would it assume? "That
man," "that nice man," "that talkative man," "that person who called
himself Prince Max," "the tall stranger," "the man whom I sent away,"
"the man who emptied my bucket," "the man who brought in the bed," "the
man who waited for me at corners," "the man who wanted to be my
follower." All these variant products of a brief acquaintance, though he
dwelt on them as luxuries, failed to give him satisfaction, they formed
a fretful and at times a tormenting accompaniment to his unapportioned
days. At his hours of rising and setting the thought would insistently
recur to him: "Now, perhaps even now, she is praying for me." And
straightway he would return to the task of trying to realize the nature
of her prayer and with what label she pigeoned him in the columbarium of
her soul.

Whether or no it could be said that this was "doing him good," he had
certainly begun to apprehend the power of prayer; that dove-like spirit
with overshadowing wing had found means to ruffle very considerably the
even current of his existence. Even had he wished to he could not get
her out of his thoughts. Fantastic and prosaic statements of his
identity kept leaping into his mind. "The man with his trousers turned
up" was one of them. Yes, he had done that in order to make their
immaculate cut less noticeable; he had dressed as badly as he knew how,
and yet--she might possibly be praying for him as "that well-dressed
person." It was a ghastly thought, and he had brought all this purgatory
upon himself merely by asking for a "luxury," for something in which he
did not really believe. And then, at the thought of her deep sincerity,
his mind revolted from all these bywords and subterfuges. "Oh!" he cried
to himself, "she knows, she knows, she must know!"

And, of course, as a matter of fact she did. She knew that she had a
lover, a young man who had nicknamed himself,--clever and handsome,
evidently with time and money to spare, probably of some social
position, and with an undeniable likeness to a Prince whom she only knew
by his photographs. And for this young man, who on five or six separate
occasions had so hindered her with his attentions, she had a deep and
impulsive liking which, as it ran counter to her plan of life, she did
not choose to encourage.

But if Max could only have known he would have been comforted: she
prayed for him every day, morning and night, and taking him at his word,
though not in the least believing it, it was as "my Prince Max" that she
begged heaven to look after him. And when in her orisons that nymph
remembered him she smiled a little more than was her usual wont--for
truly he had amused her. In spite of dignified air and polished speeches
and a belief in himself that never failed, she had discerned the
stripling character of his soul; and greatly would Max have been
surprised, and perhaps also a little shocked, could he have learned that
he ranked in her mental affections as "rather a dear boy"; for it is
woman's way to claim the privilege of a motherly regard without any
seniority in age, and with a good deal of feeling that mere "mothering"
will not satisfy.

II

Another lady, as to whose movements and plans Prince Max could not yet
be indifferent, had meanwhile returned home, and he had been to see her.

The Countess Hilda von Schweniger had sent word that she had serious
things to say to him; it was only thus that he received notice of her
return. She had a tender weakness for talking seriously at intervals,
for the periodic workings of her conscience were ever open to view. But
whatever special seriousness of purpose was now perturbing her, this
matter-of-fact return to the roof they shared seemed to give it
contradiction,--did not at least suggest that any immediate breach in
their present relations was to be looked for from her.

And so Max went to the interview wondering how he was going to behave
over this new fact which had so largely entered his life; whether he was
going to "behave well"--whether indeed it were possible at the same time
to behave well and be honest and above-board. He was, in fact, up
against the usual difficulty of the man who, having run domesticity on a
temporary basis, has discovered grounds for wishing to exchange it for a
more permanent one. And as he put his latch-key into the garden door of
the quiet tree-shadowed house which for five years he had regarded as
his second home, he uttered to himself a kind of a prayer that his
relations with a good woman would not now have to be less honest than
formerly.

It was evident that she had been on the lookout for him; a French-window
in a creeper-covered veranda opened as he advanced, and gracious
domesticity stood smiling in the green-lighted shade.

She laid her hands on his shoulders as she kissed him. "Well, mon
Prince," she said, "are you glad to see me again?"

He took in all the pleasant and familiar appeal of her face before
answering. "Yes, I am," he said, "very."

"That's true--really true?"

And at that challenge he gave a funny little duck of the head, known to
her of old, and kissed her again.

She turned quietly and walked away into the room.

"I came back just to hear you say that," she murmured in a moved tone,
and stood waiting with her face away from him.

The heart of Max was wonderfully relieved: gladdened also, for as he
looked at her he realized that she remained dear to him. With her old
simple directness she had let him know what was in her mind, and by her
clean brevity of speech had already, in this their first moment
together, saved him from the trap into which he might have fallen. Not
that the ordinary male temptation to let her resolution stand as cover
to his own did not for a moment occur to him. Nay, he could even suggest
good reasons; for was not this the kindest reward now left within his
power--to let her think that the wish was not shared--to show even a
little resentment and reproach? Max, the satirical critic of human
nature, could see clearly the attractiveness of such a course,--knew
himself a sufficiently good actor to play the game at least well enough
to satisfy his artistic taste. But he did not yield to the temptation;
had he done so he would have formed a more moral emblem for the
edification of my readers than I am now able to provide; and they must
face instead the uncomfortable fact that out of this long and immoral
liaison between a prince and his mistress certain moral values held
good, and that being in need of a sincere friend and confidante he found
it in the woman from whom he was about to separate.

He crossed to her side, and taking her hand kissed it with more
frequency and fervor than he had kissed her face, and heard then her
breath struggling against tears. She reached up her other hand and began
stroking his head; and it is life's truth that these two still found
attraction and comfort the one in the other.

"Then you are going back again?" whispered Max.

She nodded, saying "yes" afterwards on a catch of breath.

"When?"

She looked at him wistfully. "I didn't want to go--yet."

"Why should you?"

"It wouldn't worry you?"

"Not at all. Very much the reverse."

"I should want to see you, though."

Max smiled. "You mean, then, shouldn't _I_ worry _you_----"

"I suppose I did mean that," she said, viewing him speculatively.

Then Max was tempted to show off. "Who gave me my first lesson in not
worrying?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she admitted, "but then, you see, I was yours. It has to be
different now."

"I want it to be different too," he said; and as by that statement he
wished to convey important inner meanings, he spoke solemnly.

She looked at him radiant, half incredulous--the pious wish shining in
her eyes. "Oh, Max!" she cried amazed, "has it come to you too, then?
Has Our Lady----"

But Max shook his head. "Your Lady is not my lady," he gently confessed.

"Oh!" her voice went down into the deeps of despondency. "Oh! is that
what you mean?"

A solemn nod from Max informed her that it was.

"You always told me that it would happen some day."

"I hoped I should have gone."

"And I," said Max, "am glad that you have not. Selfish of me, isn't
it?" Then he kissed her hand again.

She began a homely mopping of her face.

"Then it doesn't matter how I look now?" she commented, and paused. "How
am I looking?"

"Well, and as dear as ever," he replied.

"That isn't what I wanted to know. You know it isn't."

"You are looking," he said, "just two evening moons older than when I
saw you last."

"What have evening moons got to do with it?"

"They are your most becoming time."

She took the compliment with a sigh and a smile; then with an air of
resignation sat down.

"Who is she?" she asked abruptly.

"I haven't a ghost of a notion. We haven't been properly introduced, she
hasn't encouraged me, I haven't said a word, and I'm not to go near her
any more."

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."

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