‘You underrate your powers, Prince Petros,’ he said. ‘It was always the same with the Princess; she is all zeal for whatever she has in hand. I have even seen her once or twice here in the palace playing some trivial game at the cards with the ardour—all the ardour, so I thought—with which she follows our debates. And with what act! You would have thought she really cared for the romances of the little pasteboard pieces in which her guests of less sterling fibre found their amusement. She plays still, I believe?’
Prince Petros had not the patience to continue this elaborate farce. Malakopf had fully intended that the first step of importance should be taken by the other, and the wraith of a smile hovered round his mouth as Petros spoke again.
‘She plays still, as you say,’ he replied; ‘and, as you know, she has gone to Monte Carlo, and her royal relations are the tables. The affairs of the State, as you also know, are nothing to her. I fully believe, though, that if she had stopped here she would have suffered in health through pure boredom. But that which is so insignificant to her is very dear to me. I want to see Rhodopé a great power, and no buffer State. I want——’
He stopped abruptly, got out of his seat, and began walking up and down.
‘Your Highness wants——?’ suggested Malakopf, insinuatingly, and as softly as a thought.
‘I want Rhodopé to be a nation,’ broke out the Prince. ‘Look at our material!’ (‘Already he says “our,”’ thought Malakopf.) ‘Did you ever see finer men than these troops? Look at our coast, and show me the fleet that could effect a landing. Have you seen Gibraltar? You have seen Búlteck, and that is two Gibraltars! Look at our boundaries! Whose is the army that could invade Rhodopé? England herself is not more definitely marked out by Nature to be a great power than we. We are of one race with the Albanian, the flower of the Greek as well as the Turkish troops—completely careless of death, and with no thought but their country. Once set me in a great position here, and you shall see what I will make of Rhodopé’. If I were the humblest Member of the Chamber I could act, but now I am bound with chains of lead. My hands are tied; I can do nothing; and my wife spends her money and her time and her thoughts at Monte Carlo. I am no more than the lacquey who stands in her ante-chamber—less even, for he is useful in his way; I alone am a cipher. Oh, Malakopf, it is pitiable, man—it is pitiable!’
The Prince stood before him, his hands opened out by his side, his handsome mobile face suffused with excitement. Malakopf put one leg over the other, and suppressed a sigh of content. He had not dared to hope for speaking so plain as this. There was no need for any more diplomatic dancing.
‘Yet you have obtained one step to-day,’ he said; ‘you have a seat in the House. That may well be considered—how do you say it?—the thin end of the wedge.’
‘Yes, and when my wife returns out comes the wedge,’ replied the Prince. ‘And out come I. Oh, Lord!’
‘Not necessarily,’ said the Prime Minister.