King John of Jingalo

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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."

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