“It is surer than any cock,” said the King. “It was settled long ago. I do not understand Real Politik, but I know that much. The Emperor wins the war. Then he says to me: ‘Konrad, you married her. Good. You are in a fortress for life.’ And I am. You do not understand the Emperor, my friend.”
“I’m beginning to,” said Gorman.
It was Smith who talked over Konrad Karl in the end. I am sure that Donovan would not have approved of his argument. I doubt whether Gorman would have cared to use it. Smith said frankly that a marriage performed by Stephanos the Elder would be no marriage at all outside the Island of Salissa and could be repudiated at any time without the slightest inconvenience.
“You think,” said the King, “that I wish to desert Corinne. But never.”
“Beg pardon, your Majesty,” said Smith. “That wasn’t the idea in my mind. What I was thinking of, your Majesty, was the way the matter might be represented to the Emperor.”
The King saw the point. On the whole he seems to have been pleased when his last difficulty was removed and he was actually able to marry his beloved Corinne.
I do not think they were very happy afterwards. They were, no doubt, well enough suited to each other. But neither of them was suited to a life on Salissa. Monotony preyed on them. They both suffered from a kind of homesickness, an aching hunger for streets, theatres, shops, the rattle of traffic, the glitter of city life at night. They would have been good friends if they had been able to live their proper lives. Even on Salissa King Konrad Karl remained a lover. But they bickered a great deal and sometimes openly quarrelled. Then Madame would retire to her room and sulk for hours or whole days, while the King wandered about the palace and bewailed the cruelty of Corinne.
Gorman too, in his own way, suffered from homesickness and had fits of irritation. He had lived his life in the centre of events, not great events, but such things as intrigues at Westminster, changes of Governments, and amendments, in committees, of Acts of Parliament. He had always known what was going on in the world. He found himself hopelessly shut off from all news of the greatest happenings of his time. He wanted desperately to know what England was doing, whether the French had risen to the occasion. He wanted, above all, to know about Ireland. Was Ireland in the throes of a civil war, or were her children taking their places in the ranks of the Allied Armies? Gorman was unreasonably annoyed by King Konrad Karl’s certainty that the Emperor would win the war and by Donovan’s passive neutrality of sentiment. For Gorman neutrality in any quarrel was no doubt inconceivable. As a younger man he might have been a rebel and given his life in some wild struggle against the power of England; or he might have held the King’s commission and led other Irishmen against a foreign foe. He could never, if a great fight were going on, have been content to stand aside as Donovan did; neither praising nor blaming, neither hoping for victory nor fearing defeat.
Even more difficult to bear was Konrad Karl’s conviction that the Emperor was invincible. It does not appear that the King had any particular wish for a German victory. He would perhaps have preferred to see the Emperor beaten and humiliated. But that seemed to him outside all possibility. The Emperor’s triumph was as inevitable as the changing of the seasons. A man may not wish for winter or the east winds of spring; but he does not soothe himself with hopes that the long days of summer will continue. It seemed to Konrad Karl merely foolish that Gorman should speak as if the issue of the war were in any doubt.
Gorman has often spoken to me about his feelings at this time.