The Prime Minister began to look very uncomfortable.
"Oh, no," went on the King, observing his change of countenance, "don't think that I am blaming you. What you said was quite true; abdication after that became impossible; I am only saying it as an excuse for the position in which I now find myself. It was not I who made the mistake, it was that poor misguided person who threw the bomb; he ought to have killed me. I am confident that, had the Prince been actually on the throne, the situation would have been radically altered, that he would not have persisted—that he would have seen, as you say, how impossible the position would be. Very unfortunate—very—but there we are!"
"But again I say, sir, that even now, though the Prince is not on the throne—and long may your Majesty be spared!—the whole thing is absolutely and utterly impossible."
"I quite agree," said the King; "but that is the situation. Before now I have found myself in similar ones, and have tried to get out of them; yet I have seldom succeeded."
"But this, sir," persisted the Prime Minister, "is politically impossible. Things could not go on."
"And yet, Mr. Premier, you know that they will have to; that is the very essence of politics."
"I tell your Majesty that rather than admit such a possibility the Ministry would resign."
"Very well—then it must," said the King. "But you will find that the Prince will not regard my inability to secure an alternative Government as any reason why he should not marry the lady of his choice. I may as well tell you, for your information, that he has revolutionary ideas, and this is one of them."
"I am confident," exclaimed the Prime Minister, with a gleam of hope, "that the Archbishop himself will forbid it."
"Very likely," replied his Majesty; "but I am not sure that he will succeed. I wish he could; but from all I hear the lady herself is of a rather determined character. Women are very determined now-a-days."