Selden had seen a good many kings in the course of his career, but none who looked the part as this one did. The tall and dignified King of the Belgians was the closest second, but he lacked the picturesqueness, the air of mastery and profundity, which marked this old man. He sat there as though he ruled the world; he imposed himself.
He wore, as always, the costume of his country, rich and colourful with embroidery, and for head-covering a flat round brimless cap of blood-red satin, with his arms in gold upon the front. It became oddly his dark, semi-oriental countenance, with its hawk-nose, its grizzled moustache drooping on either side the full lips, and its deeply cleft chin. But it was the eyes which impressed Selden most. They were very dark and very large, and had a peculiar cast, or lack of focus, which gave them the effect of looking not at one, but into and through one and out on the other side, distinctly disconcerting until one grew used to it. Indeed, just at first, Selden had the impression that the king was gazing fixedly at some one behind him.
“I hope you will not mind,” went on the king, “if I speak in French. I speak English, it is true, and I have insisted that all of my children should learn that language, though I regret to say that some of them forgot, as they forgot other of my teachings, after they left my house. But I have not in it the precision which I have in French.”
“It astonishes me, sir, that you speak English so well,” said Selden. “I found very few people in the Balkans who could speak it at all, unless they had lived in America.”
“Ah, monsieur,” said the king, a little sadly, “when one’s kingdom is so small that from its centre one can see almost to its borders, and when beyond those borders are age-old enemies searching ceaselessly for an avenue of attack, one must take care to neglect nothing. As you perhaps know, I have had six daughters and four sons. Yes, I believe in large families,” he added, with a smile. “I once had a most interesting discussion upon that subject with your great Roosevelt. We found ourselves in entire accord. I wish I could have married one of my girls to one of his boys—it would have been for the good of the race!”
Selden nodded his agreement. Yes, that would have been a new strain! He was more and more fascinated by this astonishing old man.
“But what I wished to say,” went on the king, “was this—that since my kingdom was such a small one—small, you understand, monsieur, in size, but very great in spirit, in tradition and in pride—it was necessary that I strengthen myself wherever possible by alliances. So my children were taught many languages, English among them, and since I could not permit them to be wiser than their father, I was forced to learn them too, though of course I learned them much less readily. But the effort they cost me has been many times repaid by the ability they gave me to converse with men of many nations, whose minds would otherwise have remained closed to me, and to read many things of which otherwise I should have been ignorant—your interesting articles upon my country, for example, and upon Austria and central Europe in general. I congratulate you again upon them—their point of view is not always mine, but I can see that they have been based upon an accuracy of observation and breadth of sympathy altogether unusual. Will you have a cigarette? No? Tobacco is my one dissipation—I am getting too old for any other.”
He took a fat Turkish cigarette from a case on his desk, lighted it carefully, and blew an immense gust of smoke toward the ceiling.
“When my good Lappo told me this morning of having met you yesterday,” he went on, “and suggested that you be asked this evening half an hour in advance of the other guests, I thought it a most happy idea. Lappo has many happy ideas,” with a smile at the baron. “I should be lost without him. Having read your articles, I welcomed the opportunity to explain to you something of my point of view. It is no secret that I am trying to regain my kingdom, of which I have been unjustly deprived. I shall continue to try until I succeed, or until I die. It is a point of honour with me. But I infer from your articles that you would not be sympathetic toward such a restoration?”
“It seems to me, sir,” Selden answered, “that the republican form of government is best for any people, because it opens the way for opportunity and self-development. And I do not believe in the hereditary right to rule—to dispose of people’s lives and fortunes, and to control their happiness.”