Now Margaret heard the dull pain quaver in Lord Ulster's voice, as he urged the extremity of the general peril that Brand had broken faith.
"I wish I could understand," said the poor girl dreamily. "I've tried so hard to understand."
When the flowers unfold their petals to the sun; when wild birds preen their first fine bridal plumes; when a maid first trembles to a lad's shy kiss, spring stirs young blood, and the rose-flush of heaven glows in a girl's pure face, as the dawn of childhood flames to the day of life—then God ordains the sacred truce of Love. Child-life is shadowed with fears of the Unknown, the days of a woman are dark with the sorrows of the world, but between the time of fear and the coming time of sorrow is set the holy Sabbath, and truce of Love. Bitter the lot of a woman who looking back from the sunset time of life, and that long twilight waning down to night, remembers no daybreak, no flush of sunrise, no Sabbath of Love which strengthened her for pain.
Queen Guinevere went maying in the spring, Elizabeth rode a-hawking, Marie Antoinette played milkmaid; and Queens, who bear the heavy burden of state, have need of love and laughter to cheer the way, before the crown of diamonds is changed to a crown of thorns. Hungry for freedom, for love, the delight of life, Queen Margaret turned with a little bitter smile, turned her back to the gardens, and tried to think of finance.
"Don't be cross with me, dear Lord Ulster, I can't understand yet. Tell me again what Mr. Brand has threatened."
"To sell gold at a penny an ounce."
"But the coin, the sovereign, is something more than gold. It's stamped with a dreadfully hideous portrait of me, and my name, for a proof that the head wasn't meant for a crocodile."
"Yes, madame, it pledges the national honour that melted down or ground to powder its precious gold remains of untarnished worth. Failing that, the coin, even with the Queen's image, is spurious."
"A promise to pay," said Margaret, "and the promise keeps if I'm beggared."
"To pay, madame, yes, in food or fuel, or clothes, but the question is how much? For in the great sea of commerce, the prices rise and fall; and like a post to measure the flood and the ebb, so is the changeless standard of gold recording the tides of trade. Without that index, no man could sell his labour, or buy food. If Brand strikes down the standard, the world will starve."