The Princess Sophia

by E. F. Benson

‘It wants a man with a system to do that,’ laughed Sophia.

Petros and Leonard, an amazingly sunny infant, went down to Mavromáti to see the Princess off, and returned together to Amandos about six o’clock. Petros did not care for children, and the unconscious Leonard merely roused in him a sense of futile envy at the thought that the boy would some day be Prince of Rhodopé, not merely the husband of its Princess. The Assembly met at three o’clock next day, and he spent a solitary but arduous evening going over very carefully a scheme he had in his mind. He was naturally a cautious man—a man with a system, as Sophia had said, but occasionally he would embark in a risky concern. His investments of all kinds, whether of money or brains, were either very safe or paid an enormous percentage.

The Prime Minister at this time was a man named Malakopf, originally no doubt of Russian birth, whose family had been settled in Rhodopé for many generations. Russian he might or might not be; Jew he certainly was, and he had all the financial sagacity of that remarkable race. His probity, however, stood in great need of demonstration; and he was known to have been mixed up in a very lucrative but more than questionable transaction, some ten years before, on the Vienna Bourse. There had been a most unpleasant scene on this occasion between him and Prince Demetrius, who spoke his mind with singular frankness, and Malakopf’s affection for the reigning House of Rhodopé was supposed to be of the most tepid temperature.

Sophia detested the man; with her habitual force of expression, she had said that to be in the room with him was like having tea with a centipede: one never knew where it would be next, and the prevalent impression was that it was crawling up one’s back. But Petros from the first had made much of him; he had often told his wife that so acute a financier was a goose who laid golden eggs for the State. It would be of the nature of suicide to strangle anything so intimately connected with the well-being of the principality. He might be like a centipede, socially speaking, if she would have it so; politically he was invaluable. Besides, he was a man with power; he could be a dangerous enemy, and it was always well to make friends with people who might be dangerous enemies.

Sophia’s nose had gone in the air at this.

‘My family is not accustomed to make friends with centipedes,’ she had said. ‘But, of course, you can do as you please, Petros.’

To-day Prince Petros sought him in his private room off one of the lobbies of the House. He was a bent, withered little man, but nimble in movement, and there was a shifty brightness in his eye. He got up at the Prince’s entry, and bowed low to him.

‘An unexpected pleasure, your Highness,’ he said. ‘Indeed, I was told that Princess Sophia left Mavromáti yesterday, and I had supposed you had not yet returned. I am shamefully ill-posted in the news of our Court, but I have some transactions of great moment on hand, which must be my excuse.’

Now Malakopf knew that Petros had returned to Rhodopé, and Petros knew that he knew it. Thus comment was needless.

‘My wife left yesterday,’ said he, ‘but, as you see, I am already back again. The Princess was in need of a holiday. State affairs’—he spoke with slow emphasis, and looked Malakopf full in the face—‘State affairs have tired her terribly this summer. She has been head over ears in work.’