“Because I know that you are my friend,” he said. “Even a King must have a friend in whom he can at times confide. That is why I have asked you to come and see me.”
“You do me too great an honour,” declared the diplomat.
“Not at all. It is I who am asking your favour in your assistance,” was His Majesty’s quiet response. “Let me explain the situation of which you, as a British diplomat, will at once recognise the extreme gravity.” And then drawing his white hand wearily across his brow, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. In that gay, brilliant Court—one of the gayest in all Europe—His Majesty always presented a brilliant and kingly figure in his splendid uniforms and dazzling decorations, but at heart he hated all pomp and show, and as soon as a ceremony was over he always changed into evening-clothes, or else into a navy serge suit which, being an old friend, was slightly shiny at the elbows.
A high-minded, God-fearing ruler, he carried out to the letter all the traditions of the House of Savoy and worked incessantly and untiringly for the welfare of his nation, and for the benefit of the sweated factory-hand, and the poor, half-starved contadino. For certain Hebrew financiers who had tried to grip the country and strangle it, he had nothing but hatred. For the present Cabinet, mostly composed of commercial adventurers and place-seeking lawyers, he had the most supreme contempt, and daily he sighed that he was not an autocrat, so that he could sweep away with a single stroke of the pen all those who stood in the way of his beloved Italy’s prosperity.
True, by dint of his own business acumen and his resolute firmness against the various Ministers of Finance who were too often rogues, many of whom ought long ago to have been in prison, he had himself placed the finances of Italy upon a sound basis. The lire was now almost equal in value to the French franc. By this, commercial industries had been encouraged, foreign capital had been invested in Italy, the railways had been taken over by the State, and a wave of prosperity had swept upon the nation such as had never hitherto been experienced.
But this had not suited the Cabinet, every man of whom could be bought at a price. Hence he stood alone as ruler, compelled daily to combat the intrigues of that unscrupulous horde of adventurers which composed the Chamber of Deputies, and to continue the policy he had marked out as his own.
As a diplomat Hubert Waldron knew all this and deeply sympathised with him. Truly, the Palace of the Quirinale was not a bed of roses for its Sovereign.
Again the bugle sounded, and from below came the regular tramp of armed men.
The little buhl clock upon the mantelshelf chimed the hour upon its silver bell, the big fire burned cosily, and over the great writing-table the two green silk-shaded electric lamps threw their mellow glow.
“Waldron, my nation is to-day in gravest peril,” the King said at last, looking straight into the other’s eyes very gravely. “A secret—one which I foolishly believed to be safe from our enemies—has been betrayed! You are shrewd, cautious, and far-seeing. I will reveal the whole ghastly truth to you—for you must help me. I rely upon you, for though I am King of Italy you are, I know, my friend, and will help me through the most critical crisis that has occurred since my accession to the throne. Listen,” he urged, “and I will relate the whole of the remarkable circumstances.”