“That’s just it!” The Maid of Honor pounced upon the words, as she pounced upon her favorite garden seat. “The King! Oh”—she clicked her fan vehemently—“I am so glad to get you two alone for once, so that we can talk and talk and talk about him!”
“My dear!” The little old person’s hands went up. “I’m sure no one ever found that much to say about a king. There’s really nothing much to say, is there?” She glanced half fearfully toward the beautiful old chapel door.
“Exactly what I mean!” announced the Maid of Honor triumphantly. “Mind you, I don’t agree to it for all kings—perhaps the less important ones aren’t so bad—but this one! Why, he’s a mere bundle of robes, a mannequin to hang things on: satins, epigrams, anything. A sort of peg for the traditions of our ancestors. Oh!” In the small restless face showed the exasperation of all youth. “What difference does it make how many millions of subjects he has? He’s always the same. He always will be the same, I suppose: just a monarch, a handsome effigy, no more than a king!”
“Nor less,” appended his Fool impartially. (Nowadays, they call them the “king’s best friend”: it amounts to the same thing.) “He does the best he can with the predicament, you know. Rather beastly situation to find oneself in, too, now isn’t it? Fancy, just fancy for yourself”—he looked toward the Maid of Honor’s profile propitiatingly—“being suddenly obliged to become king—or, queen, that is, of Dumdedum; Emperor of Ladada, Lord High Protector of Thingumbob, and all the rest of it. You wouldn’t like it, you know. Nobody would.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” For some reason the Maid of Honor was blushing.
“Nobody would, unless it were one’s butler. It’s being such a temptation to anarchists; and no well-brought-up person likes to be a temptation—or admits that he likes it.”
“And you confess he is marvelously handsome,” urged the little old Lady-in-Waiting slyly, “you acknowledge yourself, Ermyntrude, that he fills his position with distinction; never looks scared, I mean, and that’s so hard for a king. You said just now, you know—you called him——”
“I called him a handsome effigy!” The Maid of Honor rose to her feet sharply. “And that’s quite all he is. Oh, I don’t ask that he shall do anything so wonderful,” she defended, catching up his pet spaniel, and pulling its ears with a mixture of affection and intense impatience, “I don’t ask that he shall ride to wars, or build huge palaces, or squander fortunes over pageantry. I ask simply that he show some signs of humanness, that he be a man, any sort of a man, anything rather than a dummy! Why, if Ja—if the Prince were to grow like him ...!”
“But”—the Fool began to look worried. He rubbed his pumps together till they creaked.
“Other kings manage it,” went on the Maid of Honor accusingly; “they have their personalities, their special diets, their favorite spa; they invent a cravat or a new kind of soup, and it’s all very well. But he—he doesn’t do one thing that’s different. It’s the Queen who reigns, you know. It’s she” (was it a note of bitterness in the little Maid’s voice?) “who has been straining every nerve to promote this marriage of the Crown Prince with that Franconia girl. But he—he’s such a piece of passivity, he won’t even say yes or no to the idea. All he has energy to do, this whole month since I came to court, is to avoid quarrelling. Any lazy person can do that.”