"Perhaps you had better not."
"But I do want you to settle."
"I am settled," said Max.
It was dreadful to hear him say so, and a horrible idea that he had contracted a secret marriage with that foreign woman crossed her mind. Was this the difficulty that she did not understand? She grew timorous, afraid that he was going to tell her something—set before her some moral problem which she could not possibly solve. What if he were trying to entrap her, to lure her into taking sides with him over something no King or Government could countenance? From such a danger as that all her conventional femininity gathered itself in a panic-stricken bundle and fled.
"Max, dear," she said, "I would much rather you didn't tell me."
"I quite agree," he replied.
"But——" She paused, searching her mind for succor; and then, having found it, "Why not see the Archbishop about it?" she urged; "I am sure he could remove all your difficulties."
Max almost jumped out of his skin before he perceived how guileless had been his mother's remark. But the opportunity was certainly not to be missed.
"I should be delighted to see him," he said. "Indeed, I think he more than any one might solve my difficulty."
"Then you shall!" cried his mother, and fondly believed that, without becoming entangled herself she had wrought a good work and provided means to a solution. The Archbishop would, of course, be able to solve for him any difficulties of conscience, and to put such things as—well, anything he might have done in the past—in its right and proper place.