Sometimes he interfered with Ferdinand’s schemes when they seemed to him to endanger his own. For instance, Ferdinand, on some pretext or other of state, sought to impose himself on the Court at Petrograd at a time most inconvenient for Stambuloff. The innkeeper’s son warned the Coburg Prince most promptly that if he crossed the frontier outwards he would most certainly not be allowed to cross it on the return journey. So Ferdinand stayed in Sofia.
Then Clementine had an inspiration; Ferdinand, now a bachelor in the thirties, must marry. A good marriage would give him strong enough influence in some particular direction to force the recognition which was now her whole reason for continuing to exist.
Whereupon the Fat Charmer set out on a new pilgrimage. Ferdinand in search of a wife.
THE COMPLEAT BACHELOR
“Ferdinand is like the traditional British sailor: he has a wife in every one of his ports of refuge.” —Stambuloff.
CHAPTER V
THE COMPLEAT BACHELOR
The young Prince Ferdinand had received almost daily lessons from his mother on the part that women were apt to play in his life. She, the Princess Clementine, his own mother, shrank from no sacrifice when advancing his pursuit of some vacant throne. She held no claim to consideration as compared to the great life object she set before him and herself. And she was determined that no woman breathing should live to become a hindrance to the quest.
Imagine, then, what teaching Ferdinand received, when still an innocent child, about women from the lips of one of the cleverest women that ever lived. No illusions for him, no charming boyish enthusiasm for angels of earth. He had it drilled into him at every hour of the day that for the benefit of great princes like him all women existed—yes, even his own mother. Women were to be courted, wheedled, used, seduced; but not honoured. No tender feeling was ever to enter his mind in connexion with a woman, for that way led to the path of self-sacrifice. And Ferdinand must sacrifice others, never himself.