IV
On the next day Max received a visit from his father.
"Well," said the King, wishing to bestow commendation on a wound honorably come by, "you have been on the side of law and order for once at any rate."
"I?" cried Max.
"I hear that you assisted the police."
"On the contrary," said Max, "I went to rescue a poor youth from their clutches."
"Good gracious me!" cried the King, horror-struck.
"Oh, they were quite right to arrest him, but having arrested him, they proceeded to assault him; and when I interfered they assaulted me. And had I not been the person I am, with detectives at my heels to vouch for me, I should have been doing a fortnight hard for interfering with the police in the execution of their duty."
"But I heard it was a beer-bottle thrown by one of the rioters!"
"Oh, no; a truncheon,—having I believe your image and superscription stamped somewhere upon it. Your own mark, sir." And Max pointed to the scar upon his head. "When I, in turn, have to wear the crown its rim will probably rest on that very spot. What a coincidence that will be!"
"Max, this is really too bad of you!" said his father.
"It comes of trying to mix with the people."
"Well, you shouldn't; for we can't do it."
"Not without paying the price. I have, and it was worth it."
"What good has it done you?"
"Can you not see how it has steadied me? You behold here a reformed character who is now only waiting for his father's blessing to lead a good and holy life ever after. Oh, yes, I know what you have come about, sir; my mother has been at me, the Archbishop has been at me,—you have all of you been at me one time or another; and so far as I am concerned, if we can only agree upon who the lady is to be, I am ready to marry her to-morrow."
Then, perceiving a terror in his father's eye (for the Queen had breathed in his ear some word of her apprehensions), Max, divining its cause, spoke to reassure him. "No," said he, "it is not the Countess; she had thrown me over, and is now only a second mother to me. This was largely of her mending." He again pointed to the scar. "Can such things be done, you wonder, in a second establishment? Well, remember it is now only a mausoleum. For three weeks I have lain there like a mummy with my head swathed in bandages."
"Max, I wish you would not talk like that," said the King. "I wanted to speak seriously to you."
"And I to you," answered Max. "But when I start I shall only shock you more."
"Well, we had better get it over, then. Say the most serious thing you have to say, and be done with it!"
Then Prince Max drew a bold breath. "Conditionally upon your consent, sir"—he began—"(I myself regret the condition, but on that point the lady is adamant)—I say all this in order to let the whole case be stated before giving you the necessary shock——"
"Oh, go on!" groaned the King.
"Conditionally, then, I am already engaged to be married."
The King's mind went vacuously all round the Courts of Europe, and returned to him again empty.
"Whom to?" he inquired.
Max made his announcement with stately formality.
"The lady who honors me with her affection is the daughter of our Primate Archbishop."
"Good Heavens!" cried the King. "Does he know of it?"
"No more than the babe unborn; two days ago he sat there telling me it was my duty to marry; and I thinking of his daughter all the time."
"Impossible!" exclaimed the King.
"I knew you would say that,—so did she. That I believe is why she gave me her consent."
"Then she does not really——"
"Love me? Very much, I believe. But her life is a strange mingling of sincerity and self-sacrifice; and it will in some strange way give her almost as much joy to have owned that her heart is utterly mine, and then to be irrevocably parted, as it would to share all the splendor of my fortune as heir to a throne."
"You know, Max, that it is quite impossible."
"Yes; by all the conventions of the last three hundred years, so it is. That is why I trust that you will rise to the occasion, sir, and do what is not expected of you. To allow your son and heir to marry the daughter of the great political antagonist of your present Prime Minister in itself creates an almost impossible situation—for party politics, I mean. But as party politics have already created an almost impossible situation for monarchy, the best thing to do is to have a return hit at party politics. I believe that the monarchy will survive."
"No, no, Max," said the King, "this won't do."
"You know that it would greatly upset the Prime Minister."
"I have other ways of doing that," said the King.
"Without upsetting yourself?"
This gave his Majesty a little start. "It depends what you mean by upsetting; perhaps it would upset you much more. But there, we won't talk about that!" For this was danger-point, and having touched it, he hurried cautiously away from it. Then he returned to the original charge: "Whatever put the idea into your head?"
"A vision of beauty that I had not believed to be possible."
"Is she so very beautiful, then?"
"You have seen her, sir, and you have not remembered her. I did not mean that sort of beauty."
"Ah, then, you are really in love."
"Ludicrously," confessed Max.
"My dear boy, I am very sorry for you."
"Oh, you need not be, sir; I am quite sure of myself at last; and by refusing to marry anybody else I have only to wait and you will have to yield to my request."
"You may have to wait a long time," began the King, and then he stopped; for looking into the future he saw Max in a new light, that same fierce light which had beaten upon himself for the last twenty-five years, preventing him from doing so many things he had wished to do. It would prevent Max too.
"But I want your consent now, father," said the young man; and there was something of real affection in his voice.
"Why can't you wait till I am dead?"
"That would be selfish of me. Do you not want to see me happy first?"
But to that the King only shook his head.
"It won't do, Max, it won't do. The Archbishop wouldn't like it either," he went on, trying to get back to the political aspect again. "It would be terribly damaging to him. With a connection like that, leadership of his party would become impossible."
"Have we to consider the political ambitions of an archbishop?"
"You would have to get his consent."
"I don't think so. All she bargained for was yours. I told her I would get it; and she did not believe me."
"You make me wish that I were altogether out of the way."
"Quite unnecessary, I'm sure."
"Ah, but if you were in my position then you'd see—then you'd understand. You couldn't do it; you simply couldn't do it."
The King was now saying what he really believed, and at the sound of his own voice telling him he realized that all he had to do was to temporize and time would bring its own solution. If Max were King he could no more do this thing than he could fly. Why, then, should he trouble himself?
To cover his change of ground he continued the argument, and on every point allowed Max to beat him (he could not probably have prevented it, but that was the way he put it to himself), and finally, when he felt that he could in decency throw up the sponge, he let Max have his way—or the way to it, which was the same thing.
"Well," he said, "I can't give you my consent all at once. I must have time to turn round and think about it; you must have time too. But if——" here he paused and did a short sum of mental arithmetic. "Yes," he went on, "if in two months from now you find me still upon the throne—and I'm sure I don't know that you will with the way things are going and all the worry I've had—but if you do, and are still of the same mind about it, then you may come to me and I will give you my consent."
A quiet, rapturous smile passed over the face of Max. "May I have that in writing, sir?" he said.
The King was rather taken aback, and a little affronted. "Do you doubt my word?" he demanded.
"Not in the least, but it is your consent I have to get. You might have a stroke, or lose your memory; you might even die, and there should I be left stranded. My love is so great that I can let it run no risks. And therefore, sir, if you will be so good, a promissory note to take effect in two months' time."
"You won't tell your mother?" said the King, halting, pen in hand.
Max shook his head sagely. "Nobody shall know," said he. "No filter could contain such news as this." He took the precious document from the King's hand, folded it, and put it away.
"By the way, sir," he said, "in a week or two I shall be sending you my book."
"I am afraid it is going to shock people," said his father.
"Not nearly so much as this." Max touched his breast pocket and smiled. "I will confess now, sir, that I really had hardly a hope: if I said so just now, I lied. And if a son may ever tell his father that he is proud of him, let that pleasure to-day be mine."
They parted on the best of terms. "I wonder," thought the King to himself, "whether he will be quite so pleased and proud two months hence."
His countenance saddened, and he sighed. "Poor boy," he said. He was very fond of Max.