"Good Heavens!" cried the King. "Does he know of it?"
"No more than the babe unborn; two days ago he sat there telling me it was my duty to marry; and I thinking of his daughter all the time."
"Impossible!" exclaimed the King.
"I knew you would say that,—so did she. That I believe is why she gave me her consent."
"Then she does not really——"
"Love me? Very much, I believe. But her life is a strange mingling of sincerity and self-sacrifice; and it will in some strange way give her almost as much joy to have owned that her heart is utterly mine, and then to be irrevocably parted, as it would to share all the splendor of my fortune as heir to a throne."
"You know, Max, that it is quite impossible."
"Yes; by all the conventions of the last three hundred years, so it is. That is why I trust that you will rise to the occasion, sir, and do what is not expected of you. To allow your son and heir to marry the daughter of the great political antagonist of your present Prime Minister in itself creates an almost impossible situation—for party politics, I mean. But as party politics have already created an almost impossible situation for monarchy, the best thing to do is to have a return hit at party politics. I believe that the monarchy will survive."
"No, no, Max," said the King, "this won't do."
"You know that it would greatly upset the Prime Minister."