Temporal Power: A Study in Supremacy Part 31

Silvano raised his eyes,--clear dark eyes, deep-set and steady in their glance.

"Were I so, I should not be here;" he replied--"But I know how she speaks; I know what she does! and from a purely political point of view I think it unwise to ignore her."

"What is this anonymous communication you speak of?" asked the Premier, after a pause.

"Oh, it is brief enough," answered Silvano unfolding a paper, and he read aloud:

"To the Marquis de Lutera, Premier.

"Satisfy yourself that those who meet on Sat.u.r.day night where Lotys speaks, have already decided on your downfall!"

"Oracular!" said the Marquis carelessly;--"To decide is one thing--to fulfil the decision is another! Lotys, whoever she may be, can preach to her heart's content, for all I care! I am rather surprised, Silvano, that a man of your penetration and intelligence should attach any importance to revolutionary meetings, which are always going on more or less in every city under the sun. Why, it was but the other day, the police were sent to disperse a crowd which had gathered round the fanatic, Sergius Thord; only the people had sufficient sense to disperse themselves. A street-preacher or woman ranter is like a cheap-jack or a dispenser of quack medicines;--the mob gathers to such persons out of curiosity, not conviction."

The secretary made no reply, and went on with other matters awaiting his attention.

At a few minutes before two o'clock the Marquis entered his carriage, and was driven to the palace. There he learned that the King was receiving, more or less unofficially, certain foreign amba.s.sadors and n.o.blemen of repute in the Throne-room. A fine band was playing military music in the great open quadrangle in front of the palace, where pillars of rose-marble, straight as the stems of pine-trees, held up fabulous heraldic griffins, clasping between their paws the country's s.h.i.+eld.

Flags were flying,--fountains flas.h.i.+ng,--gay costumes gleamed here and there,--and the atmosphere was full of brilliancy and gaiety,--yet the Marquis, on his way to the audience-chamber, was rendered uncomfortably aware of one of those mysterious impressions which are sometimes conveyed to us, we know not how, but which tend to prepare us for surprise and disappointment. Some extra fibre of sensitiveness in his nervous organization was acutely touched, for he actually fancied he saw slighting and indifferent looks on the faces of the various flunkeys and retainers who bowed him along the different pa.s.sages, or ushered him up the state stairway, when--as a matter of fact,--all was precisely the same as usual, and it was only his own conscience that gave imaginary hints of change. Arrived at the ante-chamber to the Throne-room, he was surprised to find Prince Humphry there, talking animatedly to the King's physician, Professor Von Glauben. The Prince seemed unusually excited; his face was flushed, and his eyes extraordinarily brilliant, and as he saw the Premier, he came forward, extending his hand, and almost preventing Lutera's profound bow and deferential salutation.

"Have you business with the King, Marquis?" enquired the young man with a light laugh. "If you have, you must do as I am doing,--wait his Majesty's pleasure!"

The Premier lifted his eyebrows, smiled deprecatingly, and murmuring something about pressure of State affairs, shook hands with Von Glauben, whose countenance, as usual, presented an impenetrable mask to his thoughts.

"It is rather a new experience for me," continued the Prince, "to be treated as a kind of pet.i.tioner on the King's favour, and kept in attendance,--but no matter!--novelty is always pleasing! I have been cooling my heels here for more than an hour. Von Glauben, too, has been waiting;--contrary to custom, he has not even been permitted to enquire after his Majesty's health this morning!"

Lutera maintained his former expression of polite surprise, but said nothing. Instinct warned him to be sparing of words lest he should betray his own private anxiety.

The Prince went on carelessly.

"Majesty takes humours like other men, and must, more than other men, I suppose, be humoured! Yet there is to my mind something unnatural in a system which causes several human beings to be dependent on another's caprice!"

"You will not say so, Sir, when you yourself are King," observed the Marquis.

"Long distant be the day!" returned the Prince. "Indeed, I hope it may never be! I would rather be the simplest peasant ploughing the fields, and happy in my own way, than suffer the penalties and pains surrounding the possession of a Throne!"

"Only," put in Von Glauben sententiously, "you would have to take into consideration, Sir, whether the peasant ploughing the fields is happy in his own way. I have made 'the peasant ploughing the fields' a special form of study,--and I have always found him a remarkably discontented, often ill-fed--and therefore unhealthy individual."

"We are all discontented, if it comes to that!" said Prince Humphry with a light laugh,--"Except myself! I am perfectly contented!"

"You have reason to be, Sir," said Lutera, bowing low.

"You are quite right, Marquis!--I have! More reason than perhaps you are aware of!"

His eyes lightened and flashed; he looked unusually handsome, and the Premier's s.h.i.+fty glance rested on him for a moment with a certain curiosity. But he had not been accustomed to pay very much attention to the words or actions of the Heir-Apparent, considering him to be a very 'ordinary' young man, without either the brilliancy or the ambition which should mark him out as worthy of his exalted station. And before any further conversation could take place, Sir Roger de Launay entered the room and announced to the Marquis that the King was ready to receive him. Prince Humphry turning sharply round, faced the equerry.

"I am still to wait?" he enquired, with a slight touch of hauteur.

Sir Roger bowed respectfully.

"Your instant desire to see the King, your father, Sir, was communicated to his Majesty at once," he replied. "The present delay is by his Majesty's own orders. I much regret----"

"Regret nothing, my dear Sir Roger," he said. "My patience does not easily tire! Marquis, I trust your business will not take long?"

"I shall endeavour to make it as brief as possible, Sir," replied the Premier deferentially as he withdrew.

It was with a certain uneasiness, however, in his mind that he followed Sir Roger to the Throne-room. There was no possibility of exchanging so much as a word with the equerry; besides, De Launay was not a talking man. Pa.s.sing between the lines of attendants, pages, lords-in-waiting and others, he was conscious of a certain loss of his usual self-possession as he found himself at last in the presence of the King,--who, attired in brilliant uniform, was conversing graciously and familiarly with a select group of distinguished individuals whose costume betokened them as envoys or visitors from foreign courts in the diplomatic service. Perceiving the Premier, however, he paused in his conversation, and standing quite still awaited his approach. Then he extended his hand, with his usual kindly condescension. Instinctively Lutera's eyes searched that hand, with the expression of a guilty soul searching for a witness to its innocence. There shone the great sapphire--his own signet--and to his excited fancy its blue glimmer emitted a witch-like glow of menace. Meanwhile the King was speaking.

"You are just a few minutes late, Marquis!" he said; "Had you come a little earlier, you would have met M. Perousse, who has matters of import to discuss with you." Here he moved aside from those immediately in hearing. "It is perhaps as well you should know I have 'vetoed'

his war propositions. It will rest now with you, to call a Council to-morrow,--the next day,--or,--when you please!"

Completely taken aback, the Premier was silent for a moment, biting his lips to keep down the torrent of rage and disappointment that threatened to break out in violent and unguarded speech.

"Sir!--Your Majesty! Pardon me, but surely you cannot fail to understand that in a Const.i.tution like ours, the course decided upon by Ministers _cannot_ be vetoed by the King?"

The monarch smiled gravely.

"'Cannot' is a weak word, Marquis! I do not include it in my vocabulary!

I fully grant you that a plan of campaign decided upon by Ministers as you say, has _not_ been 'vetoed' by a reigning sovereign for at least a couple of centuries,--and the custom has naturally fallen into desuetude,--but if it should be found at any time,--(I do not say it _has_ been found) that Ministers are engaged in a seriously mistaken policy, and are being misled by the doubtful propositions of private financial speculators, so much as to consider their own advantage more important and valuable than the prosperity of a country or the good of a people,--then a king who does _not_ veto the same is a worse criminal than those he tacitly supports and encourages!"

Lutera turned a deadly white,--his eyes fell before the clear, straight gaze of his Sovereign,--but he said not a word.

"A king's 'veto' has before now brought about a king's dethronement,"

went on the monarch; "Should it do so in my case, I shall not greatly care,--but if things trend that way, I shall lay my thoughts openly before the People for their judgment. They seldom or never hear the Sovereign whom they pay to keep, speak to them on a matter gravely affecting their national destinies,--but they shall hear _me_,--if necessary!"

The Marquis moistened his dry lips, and essayed to p.r.o.nounce a few words.

"Your Majesty will run considerable risk----"

"Of being judged as something more than a mere dummy," said the King--"Or a fool set on a throne to be fooled! True! But the risk can only involve life,--and life is immaterial when weighed in the balance against Honour. By the way, Marquis, permit me to return to you this valuable gem";--Here drawing off the Premier's sapphire signet, he handed it to him--"Almost I envy it! It is a fine stone!--and worthy of its high service!"

"Your Majesty has increased its value by wearing it," said Lutera, recovering a little of his strayed equanimity in his determination to probe to the bottom of the mystery which perplexed his mind. "May I ask----"

"Anything in reason, my dear Marquis," returned the King lightly, and smiling as he spoke. "A thousand questions if you like!"

"One will suffice," answered the Premier. "I had an unpleasant dream last night about this very ring----"

"Ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the King; "Did you dream that I had dropped it in the sea on my way to The Islands yesterday?"

He spoke jestingly, yet with a kindly air, and Lutera gained courage to look boldly up and straight into his eyes.

"I did not dream that you had lost it, Sir," he answered--"but that it had been stolen from your hand, and used by a spy for unlawful purposes!"

A strange expression crossed the King's face,--a look of inward illumination; he smiled, but there was a quiver of strong feeling under the smile. Advancing a step, he laid his hand with a light, half-warning pressure on the Premier's shoulder.

"Dreams always go by contraries, Marquis!" he said;--"I a.s.sure you, on my honour as a king and a gentleman, that from the moment you lent it to me, till now,--when I return it to you,--_that ring has never left my finger_!"

CHAPTER XV