"and now he seeks which way to proove,
how he his fancie might remoove."
monsieur de tricotrin was right. the king had been fascinated. that was clear. it was the talk of every breakfast-table in oneiria. and mlle de tricotrin was right too. it made very little difference to the king, except to amuse him; but this was not so clear to the breakfast-tables.
amused kophetua certainly was. it was highly entertaining to see how clever the little woman was. he quite laughed to himself to think how great an impression she had made on him, and he looked forward with a fresh pleasure to playing with a toy of such exquisite ingenuity, without giving a thought to the danger of the pastime. the mere fact that he was charmed he considered quite a sufficient safeguard. it was only a proof that she was a deeper cheat than the rest, and therefore more contemptible. and yet, somehow, this morning the wiles of women did not appear quite so detestable; he found himself wondering if there were not something[pg 53] to be said for them, when they could produce so delightful a result. he was sitting in the library pretending to transact business with turbo and dolabella, when his train of thought brought him for the twentieth time that morning to this same point, and with a half-unconscious desire for protection against what he knew to be a dangerous heresy, he addressed himself to his friends.
"what a charming woman mlle de tricotrin would be," he said, "to any one who could not see through her!"
the general started. he happened to have a piece of business that morning, but he was absent, and had made little progress: and now kophetua's voice suddenly awoke him to the mortifying fact that, with a view of ascertaining the value of a living which was under his consideration, he was unconsciously looking out "tricotrin" in the army list. turbo did not start at all. he had been watching the king, and expecting the remark for the last hour.
"yes, she is certainly very pretty," said the general, with a confusion which was not bettered by his feeling immediately that he ought to have said something else.
"that is assuredly the case, sire," said turbo, looking hard at the disconcerted general. "it is very fortunate we can all see through women so easily."
"but she is clever, isn't she, general?" said the king, with a smile of amusement.
[pg 54]
"well, your majesty," replied the general, regaining his composure, "she might deceive more than a tiro, but to us it was evident from the first."
"ah!" said turbo, with more than his ordinary sneer, "i knew what the general would be thinking when she shrank on her father's arm. it was very clumsy."
"positively disgusting," cried the general, with great relief.
at this moment a chamberlain announced that the marquis de tricotrin was at the palace, and awaited general dolabella's leisure.
"i ventured last night," explained dolabella hurriedly, "to ask him to see the gardens; we were discussing a little question of tactics which i thought we might elucidate there at our leisure."
"and was his daughter coming with him?" asked the king, with affected unconcern.
"that is what is so annoying," the general answered. "you see he asked if he might bring her, and what could i say? it will be hopeless to settle the point this morning."
"not at all, general," said turbo maliciously; "you could not have a better master in tactics than mlle de tricotrin."
"yes," laughed the king, "you had better go at once. i excuse your further attendance."
"what a child our general is!" said the king when he was gone. "now tell me what[pg 55] you thought of her, turbo. it always amuses me."
so turbo told the king what he wanted the king to think. he was never more trenchant or merciless; but the more he reviled, the more clearly there came before the king's eyes the beautiful face and the baby look it wore when she seemed to forget herself in the dance. whether it was this, or whether it was that turbo was more brutal than usual, it matters little, but the king was not amused. the chancellor's coarse satire seemed particularly distasteful. he began to wish he had not started the subject. at last as he listened he noticed the founder's rapier was still lying on the table between them. that increased his discomfort. he looked up into the shadows under the morion, and then at his watch. it was time for his morning walk, and he descended by his private stair into the gardens.
there was a long and trim grass alley where he was accustomed to take the air, and, plunged as he was in thought, he turned into it mechanically almost before he knew. the sound of women's voices aroused him, and he looked up to see a sight which convinced him that general dolabella's point in tactics was likely to be thoroughly discussed that morning after all. for from the end of the alley he saw his mother and mlle de tricotrin approaching. they were talking, but were too far for him to hear what they[pg 56] said, yet not so far but that he could see that the beauty looked if possible more beautiful than last night.
she was dressed in the same kind of soft high-girdled gown, in strange contrast with the queen-mother's stiff brocades. her face glowed with freshness like a flower, and she seemed in the king's eyes more natural than nature itself, or at least than it was permitted to be in the gardens of the palace. for there nature was generously assisted, not merely with the trim clipping and rectilinear planting of our old english gardens. in oneiria they had advanced a long way beyond the ideas which the old knight brought with him: the inorganic kingdoms had been called in to supply the poverty of the organic, and vases and statues were there without number. as though to show nature what a mistake she had committed, the vases were made to look like shrubs and the shrubs like vases, and the long-legged statues seemed always in a gale of wind, while the trees looked as though a hurricane could not stir their rigidity. it is then little to be wondered at that mlle de tricotrin, in the midst of such surroundings, sustained the impression she had originally produced in the king's mind.
she greeted him charmingly, so charmingly indeed, that he a little lost his presence of mind, and in trying to recover his composure he found himself kissing the [pg 57]queen-mother affectionately. it was difficult to say how it happened, unless it was that she looked so happy and motherly that morning. when it was over he was sufficiently himself again to notice that mlle de tricotrin was gazing at him with a look of admiration he had not noticed before; and it disturbed his balance once more that she did not lower her blue eyes when he caught her looking at him, but continued to watch him from under her long dark lashes while he made her his compliments.
"it is fortunate we met," said the queen-mother, when the first few words were over. "i wanted to go in. it is too hot for me here. we were trying to find monsieur de tricotrin; but you can take my place now, kophetua."
kophetua did not think it at all fortunate. in fact he was getting a little afraid of mlle de tricotrin. she had a disturbing effect upon him, but he could hardly refuse, especially since the queen-mother withdrew as she spoke and left them in the alley alone.
they were some time in finding the marquis. in fact the marquis had seen everything from a terrace behind the trees, and had no intention of allowing himself to be found too soon. so the poor general, with rueful countenance, had to listen at painful length to certain invaluable military opinions which the marquis had acquired at second-hand. the king's conversation was certainly more pleasant. he soon regained his [pg 58]composure as they strolled along, and began to talk.
"i am sure, sire," she said, after they had admired the garden a little, "you must be the one perfectly happy man in the world. till yesterday," she added, with something like a sigh, "i thought there was not even one."
"and why do you think i am that one, mademoiselle?" asked the king.
"because you have everything, sire."
"but you forget i am a king."
"no, sire. i remember it. i know kings should be the unhappiest men in the world while those they govern are so unhappy. in france a prince like you would be miserable, but it is different here where every one is so happy and none are oppressed, or poor, or wicked."
"and do you think that should make me happy, mademoiselle?"
"yes, sire, i know it must. had my ancestors handed me down a kingdom like yours, which they had purged of every evil, i should worship them every day."
"and do you think that nothing more is needed—that it is enough to contemplate the happiness of my subjects?"
"yes, sire, it is the highest happiness."
"can you not think there may be something else a man may crave for, something still higher?"
"is there something else?" she said looking up at him sympathetically.
[pg 59]
he paused before he answered. he did not like the way she was drawing him immediately to tell her his inmost thoughts; yet it was so pleasant—this strange, sympathetic power of the beautiful woman at his side, who was so frank and unaffected. it was somehow like talking to a man, and yet so widely different. he knew his next reply would place them on closer terms than he had ever been with a woman before. he hesitated, and then took the plunge.
"i will tell you," he said, speaking with an earnestness which surprised him, and which he could not prevent. "that something else which is highest of all is to contemplate happiness, which you have wrought yourself. what is it to me that my people are contented, rich, and unoppressed? it is not my work. i could not even make them otherwise if i tried. it is my ancestors who have done it all. without a thought for those who were to come after they laid law to law, and ordinance to ordinance, till the whole was perfect. they tore up every weed, they smoothed down every roughness in their unthinking greed of well-doing. they strove unceasing to perfect their own nobility and gave no heed to me. see in what fetters they have bound my soul. all my life i have striven and denied myself that i might grow up a statesman in fact as well as name; that i might be a physician to my people, to detect and cure the most secret maladies that[pg 60] seize on nations, and stretch out my arm in such wide-reaching strokes as men see wondering, and say, 'there is a king of men.' but you are a woman," he said, suddenly dropping his inspired tone to one of no little bitterness, "and cannot understand what it is for a man to feel thus."
"indeed, indeed, i understand," she cried, "and from my heart i pity you. i know what you would say. you who rise up and feel your strength to make a garden of the wilderness and see the work is done. i know all you mean. it was what the great voice of the wind said to me, when it had borne our galleon into port so bravely and roared out through the naked spars as we lay at anchor: 'see what a power is in me, but my work is done. you give no heed to the might that is going by, and i must pass on and consume my strength without an end.'"
the king looked at her in wonder. it was a woman that spoke, but they were the words of more than a man. she understood all that he meant; nay, much that he had hardly grasped before. he was more disturbed than ever, and it was with difficulty he steadied his voice to speak.
"then you can understand, mademoiselle," he said quite softly, "that i am perfectly miserable rather than perfectly happy?"
"yes, sire," she said; "but such sorrow as yours is a better thing than other men's happiness."
[pg 61]
"yet it is none the less hard to bear."
"true; but it is also the easier to change to gladness."
"i do not understand; what do you mean?"
"there is a remedy so simple that i hardly dare to tell your majesty. i have presumed too far in all this—yet forgive me, sire, if when i heard such words as yours, i forgot that i spoke with a king."
"nay, tell me all. i desire to know."
"it is then, sire," she said, looking down almost shyly, and speaking with some hesitation,—"it is, when the great things are done, to do the little things that are left undone. it is not given to all to do deeds that sound to the ends of the earth, but there are little things that a great man may do greatly so that they shall ring in the furthest heights of heaven."
"what things are those? i do not understand."
"perhaps i speak foolishly, yet i feel so strongly, that a man like you would be sure to find them if you sought."
"but where—where am i to seek?"
"amongst your people. if you were to go down to them so that they might not know you, you would find wrongs to right, wrongs that are little in the eyes of man but great before heaven. then you would know in your heart that the greatest acts are those[pg 62] which are done with the loftiest purpose and by the greatest soul."
"you would have me a very haroun-al-raschid," he said, with a laugh, for he felt that their talk was getting dangerously elevated, and he was ashamed of his weakness in letting it go so far.
"and why not?" she answered, smiling, as though her mood had changed with his. "what monarch had a happier life or left a happier memory behind him? and it is for the little things that he is remembered. but i see my father," she added, "i need detain your majesty no longer."
with the prettiest curtsey in the world she left him, and kophetua returned to his apartments with his peace of mind considerably disturbed. the whole day he was the prey of the most conflicting thoughts, but above all to the humiliating conviction that he had been saying to this bewitching frenchwoman things which he had never breathed in his life to any one but turbo, his bosom friend. the idea she had suggested was fascinating enough. it would be very pleasant to try, and to tell her of his success afterwards; and at all events an excitement of any kind would be good for him, and serve to get her out of his mind a little.
which of these considerations weighed most with him perhaps he hardly knew himself. he made and unmade his mind fifty times before nightfall; but still it is certain[pg 63] that as the moon rose trecenito found himself stealing out of the private entrance of his gardens with his hair dishevelled and unpowdered, and his person concealed with a wide slouch hat, and a voluminous cloak or burnouse which he used on his hunting expeditions.
