I
The next day Prince Max received a letter written by the hand which had become for him the dearest in the world. It was very simple and straightforward and methodical: it began with the word "Beloved" and asked whether certain things were true. It seemed, then, that for the first time his confession was understood. Not a single one of the questions put to him contained anything that was untrue, but they did not go much into detail, and no commentary was made upon the facts indicated.
Max sat down and wrote a very beautiful letter in reply, and got no answer.
For three days he put up with this rebuff to his honesty of character and his literary ability; then not finding his lady where he expected her to be, he went and called upon her father.
The Archbishop was out; but Max, not to be denied, sat down and waited for his return. He waited for over two hours. It was getting towards dusk when his Grace entered, a reverend, high-shouldered figure, showing a stoop and beginning now to look old.
The Archbishop's very formal greeting told Max that here was the enemy. This did not at all dismay him; at that time, indeed, he was full of confidence. The temporary separation between himself and his beloved, brought about in a conventional way which he thoroughly despised, was for the moment a hindrance; but it had not yet taken to itself the colors of doom. He knew that Jenifer's heart was entirely his, and that they, with their common honesty, had only to meet again to be made one. What he wanted to know, therefore, was not so much the opinion of Jenifer's father about himself and the engagement, as to find out her present whereabouts. From the first moment of their meeting he knew that he did not stand in the Archbishop's good graces; but that hardly concerned him; and so it was almost without circumlocution that he asked for Jenifer's address.
The Archbishop, by a simultaneous depression of the head and raising of the eyebrows, managed to convey his just sense of the honor which was being done him and the liberty that was being taken.
"I wrote the other day," explained Max, "asking her to arrange a time when I might come and see you. In strict etiquette I believe that your Grace ought first to call upon me; but we have so few precedents to go by. She has, I trust, done me the honor to tell you that we are engaged?"
"I have been informed of the circumstance," replied the Archbishop with stately formality.
The Prince took the matter boldly in hand. "From your manner I have to presume that we have not the happiness of your consent?"
"My consent was not asked."
"Had it been?"
"I could not have given it."
"That I think," said the Prince, "would have been the perfectly correct attitude until such time as the King gave his. It is for that we have been waiting; had it not been so I should have come to you earlier."
"Early or late, my answer to your Highness would always be the same."
"May I ask upon what grounds?"
"I would ask, sir, in return, upon what grounds is it suitable that you should marry my daughter?"
"It so happens," replied Max, "that I am in love with her."
"What precisely, sir, to your mind does the phrase 'being in love' convey?"
The Prince saw that the tussle was coming; he gathered his thoughts together, then said, "An intense personal desire to endow a certain woman with motherhood."
The Archbishop flushed: sharp enmity showed itself in his eyes; he made a gesture of repulsion.
"Ah!" cried Max, "does that shock the Church?"
The challenge went unanswered; instead came question.
"Have you not had this desire before—in other directions?"
"Never!" exclaimed Max. "No, never!"
The Archbishop eyed him keenly. "You have had experience."
"I have lived my life openly," said the Prince.
"I was aware of that," returned his Grace. "Need I trouble your Highness with any further grounds for my refusal? Not with my consent shall my daughter marry a libertine."
"Great Judge of Heaven!" cried Max, springing to his feet. "Hark to this old man!"
"Don't shout," said the Archbishop; "He hears you."
Max's scorn dropped back like a rocket to earth.
"Yes," he retorted, "no doubt! The question is, are you capable of hearing Him?"
"I am always ready to be instructed," replied his Grace sarcastically.
"I must remind you," said the Prince, "that as a Doctor of Divinity I have some claim. Yes," he went on in answer to the Archbishop's look of astonishment, "though you have forgotten the circumstance, you yourself dubbed me Theologian by hitting me over the head with a Greek Testament."
The Archbishop accepted the reminiscence.
"In that case," said he, "I bow to your Highness's authority."
"Yes: you were a shepherd of that fold, yet you let me in? I was the clever one of my family; and the title was given me when, with three lives standing between, there was little likelihood of my becoming Head of the Church. Was I to wear it, then, as an ornament, or as an amulet to guide me into right doctrine? Whatever faith I still hold, I fear me that miracle has not been wrought."
"In these days," said the Archbishop, "faith itself is the great miracle."
"That people should have any faith in the Church is indeed a miracle," said Max. "Yet I suppose it is but another instance of how easily the world accepts what it finds. I myself remain outwardly a Churchman; merely because it seems to me hardly to matter, and because any overt act on my part would hurt those whom I love. And what spiritual experience have I acquired as the result of my outward conformity? I have found the pulpit the most polished of all social institutions: and never once have I heard from it any word troublesome to a conscience which has still, I can assure you, its waking moments. The eloquence that flows from it never trespasses beyond the bounds of polite conversation; and as regards 'unpleasant subjects' it deals faithfully only with the lives of those who do not form the bulk of its congregations. If it dealt faithfully with them, those polite congregations would get up and walk out."
"I do not think, sir, that your experience puts you in a position to know how the Church deals with the consciences of the faithful."
"You mean," said Max, "that in the ears of royalty uncomfortable subjects are avoided? That merely indicates the system. As the snail withdraws first his horns into his head, then his body into his shell, so your Church adapts itself to its surroundings. Let me give you a case in point—it touches on our present discussion. I have heard often enough the cheaper forms of prostitution decorously alluded to; but when did I ever hear dealt with, either for approval or reprobation, the established practice among the unmarried youth of our aristocracy of keeping mistresses?"
"I think, sir, that you must have been often inattentive. The virtue of purity is, I am sure, constantly inculcated by our clergy."
"In such a form," replied the Prince, "that we need not apply it to ourselves. The betrayal of innocency, yes, I have heard of that, for that only touches a small minority. But these mistresses whom most of us keep are no more innocent than ourselves, nor are we more innocent than they. And yet, while to them all social entrances are barred, we men are allowed to go in free."
"Society cannot act on mere rumor and suspicion," said the Archbishop.
"In the woman's case it does," replied the Prince. "And I wonder whether it has ever occurred to any one to connect that fact with the cheapening of our modern definition of chivalry. Are you ever chivalrous; am I?"
"Charity is a greater thing than chivalry."
"I am not so sure of that," said the Prince. "You had forgotten just now that I was a Doctor of Divinity; have you also forgotten that we share the honors of one of the most ancient knighthoods in the world?"
"Will your Highness be so good as to explain?"
"Your Grace will perhaps remember—since you officiated upon the occasion as prelate of the Order—my investiture rather more than two years ago as a Knight of the Holy Thorn?"
The Archbishop bowed assent.
"Your discourse upon that occasion was both learned and eloquent; but it did not really touch the subject that had brought us together."
"How would you define the subject?" inquired his Grace.
"The subject on which I hoped to be instructed," said the Prince, "was the real meaning of Chivalry as expressed in the Order of the Thorn, and the reason why I was deemed worthy to be made a knight of it. There had already been some comment owing to the fact that the honor was not conferred immediately on the attainment of my majority. Perhaps my shortened career at college had something to do with it—perhaps the fact that I had brothers who were older and worthier than myself. I am not in the least blaming my father for the delay; rather am I now inclined to be grateful. But that year the death of my two brothers created more than a vacancy: and any further postponement would, I suppose, have made the omission too pointed. I stepped into those dead shoes."
"What a talker the man is!" said the Archbishop to himself. But etiquette held him bound, and there he was obliged to sit, looking interested and attentive, while Max went on.