The King cleared his throat. “I’m afraid it does,” he acknowledged, looking away from the boy, and up at the balcony—so cold and white in the moon’s radiance. “I—but come, let’s walk. You were saying——”
“There’s something I’ve got to ask you.” The Prince walked a little faster. “You must know what it is, Father—they’ve all talked so much about it. And last night at the Masque Ermyntrude whispered to me that it was no use at all, asking you—that Mother had arranged everything, and you would never go against Mother. But, somehow, because you aren’t just an ordinary man, because you’ve always been different to me from the rest of the world, I made up my mind to ask you. You see, it’s—it’s about this marriage.” For the moment the young Prince looked a good deal more than eighteen. “I haven’t said anything up till now—I’ve always known, of course, that being a king made a difference, that it meant one could never do as one liked, you know; so when Mother and all of them first talked about the Princess—all along, in fact—I didn’t say anything. Oh, I understood”—and for the first time in his life the King saw bitterness in his son’s face—“an alliance with Franconia is essential; my tutor’s told me of it many times: he’s prepared me very cleverly. But, Father, I don’t want to make an alliance. I want to marry a woman.”
The King stopped walking. They were just at the foot of the steps where he had used to meet—“I see,” he said gently.
“I’ve tried to go through with it”—the boy’s voice grew more and more unsteady—“since Mother told me how much it would mean to all the millions of our people I’ve nerved myself up to it; and I told myself again and again that, as Ermyntrude says, a man who’s got to be a king has no right to any feelings. That he must be just a dummy, to support the prestige and ambitions of his subjects. His subjects!” The Prince’s laugh was not a pleasant thing to hear. “Oh, I wonder that you don’t see the screaming satire of it, Father—even though you are a king.”
The King looked at him strangely. “I was not always a king,” he said; and again his glance strayed down the dim green vistas with their whimsical shadows. At the end of each vista it was black now. “When I was your age, Jack, I had no idea that I ever would be King. But—but I want to ask you something: if the country were to go to war, and a good man was needed to lead the troops, would you go? Understand me: even though there was every probability of your being killed, though you had one chance in a thousand, or say no chance at all—and—you were also just about to marry—a woman. Would you go?”
“I”—the boy drew a long breath. “But of course I’d go. You know that, Father.”
“Then—the country is at war; for a great nation, the subtlest, deadliest kind of war, John: with international opinion. It does need a leader. The King, you see”—the even voice never wavered—“is just a dummy—no more than the King. And I’m very much afraid that the leader will have to be killed, at least all but the mere blood and bones and breath of him: and those amount to so little, don’t they? Yes, yes; they amount to so little. Well! so this some one must sacrifice himself. We’ve tried everything, we’ve come dangerously near showing ourselves abject, in this adjustment with Franconia: at least, so the queen tells me. There is left just this way out, the alliance, I mean, and ... some one must sacrifice himself. Who do you think will do it, John?” Under the cold stone balcony, the King stretched his hand toward the Crown Prince. Did he congratulate himself that for once he was not being over-lenient?
“Very well, your Majesty.” There was no doubt as to its being the Crown Prince who spoke. At the same time his hand as it met the King’s was the hand of a subject. “I will do it. You will, I suppose, make the formal announcement to the Court to-morrow night? I will be prepared, sir. Good-night.”
“Good-night.” An infinite sadness was in the King’s eyes as once more he turned about to pace up and down, alone.
The alliance, then, was assured. The Queen and all her ministers—far more than his—would be satisfied. He supposed it was a very satisfactory piece of business. But—he wondered suddenly—would the next King be just an ordinary person?