Her Majesty had a great belief in archbishops. At the hands of one she had been confirmed, it had taken two of them to marry her, and by one or another each of her four children had been well and truly baptized. They had also preached sermons of eloquent optimism over the two who had so prematurely died. And since she regarded all that they had done for her as eminently successful in result, they stood out in her world as the most efficient aids to the spiritual etceteras of life; and if any moral difficulty dimmed for a moment the clear horizon of her soul she would turn to the nearest archbishop for advice and encouragement.
And so the Archbishop came to see Prince Max in his convalescence, and sat by his side and talked to him, and tried by various diplomatic shifts to draw his confidence in the salutary direction desired by her Majesty; for he and the Queen had held conversation together on the matter. And Max, lying back at ease upon his cushions, and pretending to be a little further from complete recovery than he really was, examined that face of stern ecclesiastical mold, and seeking therein for some likeness to his beloved found none.
Nevertheless he listened respectfully without protest to the voice of the Church, when at last the Archbishop started to deliver his charge: he heard how necessary it was for the nation that those who were its rulers should set before it an example of regular family life, and how inexpedient it was for that example to be too long delayed; he heard of duty as though it came by inheritance to the accompaniment of a position and a title, and of many other things that he had heard tell of before and profoundly disagreed with; but for once he was not argumentative. He let the Church speak to him and advise him to do the thing he was longing to do, and to leave that life which (without a word said on the matter) he was known to have been leading in the past. And when the Archbishop had quite done and taken his departure, then Max rose up from his bed of sickness and went down to Sister Jenifer and, presenting to her gaze a broken and a contrite head and a rather pallid countenance, spoke as follows: "I have been having a talk with your father, O Beloved, and he tells me that I ought to marry you."
IV
On the next day Max received a visit from his father.
"Well," said the King, wishing to bestow commendation on a wound honorably come by, "you have been on the side of law and order for once at any rate."
"I?" cried Max.
"I hear that you assisted the police."
"On the contrary," said Max, "I went to rescue a poor youth from their clutches."
"Good gracious me!" cried the King, horror-struck.