"the blinded boy, that shootes so trim,
from heaven downe did hie;
he drew a dart and shot at him,
in place where he did lye."
kophetua may have been in many respects a weak man, but he was not a man to sit down tamely under the affront which the beggars had put upon him. as he told general dolabella, it had been his intention to summon the head-quarter staff that very afternoon in order to concert measures for the forcible punishment of his treasonable subjects. in the course of the morning, however, his ardour had a little cooled. his sleep had removed his excitement, and the more he contemplated his adventure, the more ashamed he was of it, and he made up his mind to defer broaching the subject for a few days.
not that he abandoned his determination to cleanse his augean stables. it was only that he was resolved to let no one know of his adventure. he feared that the display of a sudden anxiety to consider the question could only lead to unpleasant inquiries and[pg 109] surmises. he did not therefore summon the staff. he made up his mind it would be better to approach the subject as an ordinary question of the interior, and give notice that the condition of the liberties of st. lazarus would be considered at the next monthly council, which would be held in about ten days' time in ordinary course.
but even this plain way was not without its embarrassment, and it was a particularly painful one for kophetua. in a word, the obstacle was turbo. turbo was chancellor, and, as chancellor, was president of the council. it was through him that all summonses and notices had to go. if the king wished to have the liberties of st. lazarus placed upon the orders of the day, it was turbo whom he must tell to do it, and turbo was the very last person in the world that he wanted to address on the subject. so acutely did he feel the difficulty of his position, and so carefully did turbo avoid him, that two days had passed since penelophon was installed in mlle de tricotrin's service before the question was mentioned between them. when the dreaded interview did take place, it was in no way due to kophetua's resolution.
it was now the third day since his adventure, and the last on which notices of business were usually sent to the council. kophetua was in no pleasant frame of mind, for he knew that turbo would come that very morning for instructions as to the orders of[pg 110] the day. in vain he tried to forget his trouble. in vain he adopted his usual expedient, which, till recently, had been so successful with him. he deliberately sat and tried to conjure up the prettiest face he knew. of course it was mlle de tricotrin's. it was a pleasant amusement to picture before his eyes her lovely form and face, with its ripe beauty, the glowing carnation that mantled so soft and pure in her rounded cheeks like life made visible, the rich purple that gleamed like a gem under the long dark eyelashes, the tempting lips that seemed made as a playground for kisses, and the tangled setting of gold and bronze that softened and enriched the whole.
yes, it was a sport pleasant enough to make a man forget the ugliest things. many times in the last two days had kophetua set himself to it, but it brought him little comfort. the pretty phantom would no longer come at his light call. it wanted a serious effort of will to conjure it, and then when he knew it had risen, and he set himself to enjoy a quiet contemplation of it, lo! it was changed, and in its place stood a spectre, wan and pale and of delicate mould, with a robe of thick dark hair, and eyes darker still. sometimes it was foul and ragged, and sometimes it was like a corpse, but always it had the same trusting dog-like look he knew so well, and always with a sense of strange distress he exorcised it. it[pg 111] was the spirit of the woman who had risked her life for his, of the woman whom he had saved from a horrible death. it was the ghost of his better self that was haunting him in the shape of that lowly child of nature. it would never do to think of it so. it must be crushed and smothered and forgotten. so each time it rose he cried his apagé against it, and fell to his trouble again. it was thus he was sitting now, when turbo was announced for his usual audience.
"i am merely here with the council summonses," said turbo carelessly, after he had been admitted and had made his formal civilities. "i presume your majesty has nothing to put on the orders of the day?"
"yes, chancellor, i have," answered the king, as carelessly as he could. "there is a matter of importance which i have for some time wished to consider, and which cannot be deferred much longer with safety to the state."
"indeed!" said the chancellor, with affected surprise. "i was not aware of anything so serious and sudden."
"it is not sudden," replied the king, with some sharpness, "i have told you that. it is a matter that has been long in my mind, and in every one else's, but no one has had the courage to speak the first word. sit down, and be at the pains of writing, while i dictate the form of my notice."
"shall i bring my papers to this end of the room?" asked the chancellor maliciously.
[pg 112]
"no," cried the king in great vexation, "i will go to my usual place." he had hardly been aware of it, but now he was highly annoyed to find that instead of taking his chair before the founder's hearth, he had been sitting at the other end of the library under the picture of the king and the beggar-maid, and all he could do to conceal his annoyance was to dictate his notice with unusual severity as follows:—
"his majesty.—to call attention to the growing power and lawlessness of the beggars within the liberties of st. lazarus, and to lay certain considerations before the council for the necessity of immediate steps being taken in regard thereto."
the chancellor wrote as he was told, placed the order in his portfolio without a word, and then stood up waiting to be dismissed. kophetua looked at his snarling face for a moment, as though to detect what was passing there, and then, turning on his heel with a shrug, waved dismissal to his minister. turbo went straight to the door in silence, but before he reached it the king's voice stopped him.
"turbo!" said he frankly, "stay! what ridiculous farce is this we are playing?"
it was always an understood signal between them, that when the king called the chancellor by his name they were to be on their old footing of governor and pupil. it was no longer a monarch who spoke to his[pg 113] minister, but two old friends who chatted together. so turbo limped back and sat down carelessly by the hearth.
"i really cannot tell," he answered coolly; "i was taking my cue from you."
"let us understand one another," said kophetua. "do you mean to allow a silly freak, in which we were both engaged, to sever our lifelong friendship?"
"that depends upon what you intend to do?"
"what do you mean?"
"do you intend to give me back the girl you stole from me?"
"certainly not," replied the king, with great decision.
"then," said the chancellor calmly, as he rose from his seat, "i am afraid the silly freak will have the effect you were contemplating."
"sit down, turbo. this is absurd. what can you want with the child?"
"no matter. i want her."
"it is impossible. i have passed my word to protect her; and, besides, i do not believe you want her."
"i am in love with her," said turbo, as coldly as though he were made of stone.
"my dear turbo," answered the king, "pray be serious while we discuss this matter."
"i am serious. i tell you i love her."
"but don't you see it is impossible for me[pg 114] to believe you after all you have taught me of your philosophy of women!"
"it is because you have not learned your lesson that you cannot believe i may love. you have not understood what i taught you. you can chatter the words finely enough, but you have never conceived the spirit."
"and may it not be the teacher who was at fault?"
"no! i have told you plainly enough, but you are too soft and weak to hold the truth. still i will tell you again what my woman-philosophy is. it is simply this: they have no resistance, no solid principles. their natural understanding is as a pool of water lying in a shallow bed, beyond which no conviction can sink. a woman's moral ideas are but bubbles that float on the surface of her unstable soul, and burst into impalpable spray whenever they come in contact with the little they meet that is firm and fixed. for women are all and utterly unstable, except where they have shut in their souls with the stony rocks of self-love and personal interest. these are things which are solid enough in the daughters of eve; it is against these that the empty bubbles of their morality are burst and dissipated."
"but you have told me this many times," interrupted the king. "i cannot see how it explains the paradox you want me to believe:[pg 115] it is only the conceit of diderot you quote again."
"i know," pursued the chancellor, "it is the conceit of diderot; and diderot was right, except that he pitied where he should only have despised. and he was right when he said that, though outwardly more civilised than ourselves, women have yet remained the true savages. it is they who have kept the passions and instincts of the beasts. we have changed them. they have only covered them over with civilisation. that is why diderot called the deceivers 'fair as the seraphin of klopstock, terrible as the fiends of milton.' it was a wise saying, yet he could not see it was the poison of civilisation that transformed the seraphin into fiends. when did i ever say a word against the material part of women? it was their minds i bade you know and shun. find me a woman where the seraphic matter is unpoisoned with the spirit of eve, and why should i not love her? such a one, i tell you, is the girl you stole. she is the pure clay, fresh from the hand of the potter. she is not smeared with the smooth and glittering glaze; she is not stained with the enticing colours; art the arch-liar has not found her out to make her as fair and false as the rest. she is foul and ragged and ignorant. she knows no art to entice. she has no skill to deceive, and i love her for her foulness and her rags and her [pg 116]stupidity, and know her for a lump of the pure seraphic clay."
"i hear what you say," said the king thoughtfully; "but i cannot understand. it is all wild talk, empty philosophy. this cannot make a man love."
"you will not understand!" cried turbo, with sudden warmth. "that is it; you will not listen, because you know it is this that makes a man love. you know it, because you love her yourself!"
"turbo," answered kophetua hotly, "what folly is this? you forget yourself."
"perhaps," cried turbo, rising from his chair and speaking with ever-increasing vehemence. "but it is better to understand each other now. i say you love her. you and i have talked for years like fools on all this. we thought as one man, and thought we were wise and strong in our unity. but now we have both seen this girl—curse the fate that brought you to her—we have seen her, and we know we have been blind fools that could not tell the gold from the dross. she has come to us, and we both love her. you and i, i say, we both love her, but it is i that will have her! do you hear? it is i, i that will have our love, though you stole her. were you twice a king i will have her, though i tear her from your very arms."
his ghastly scars grew more livid in his anger, and his pitted face turned pale with[pg 117] rage. he seemed as one possessed, and sank in helpless fury at the end of his insane outburst, as though exhausted with the prolonged struggle to control himself. kophetua turned from him and began to pace the room. turbo had gone too far. he had been insolent, and the king's pride was kindled into anger. yet kophetua would not speak till he was cool enough to control his words.
for, strange as it may seem, he loved this man—in the same way, perhaps, as a man will love his cross-grained ugly cur that snarls and snaps at every one but his master. so he paced the long room to cool his anger and try and understand what his old governor's madness meant. had he known his whole story, the task might have been easier. had he known how that passionate nature had been chained down in long imprisonment, he might have wondered less to see it burst its bonds. but he knew not what passion could be in a man like turbo. its durance had been long and hard, and now the time was at hand when it must die, worn out with age and suffering. yet even as the death throes were upon it, it had blazed up in one last ungovernable fit, and kophetua, to his wonder, saw the man of ice burning like a furnace. at the last moment, when the struggle was so near its end, the strong man's strength had failed him. he was overwhelmed, as it[pg 118] were, and swept resistlessly onward by the gathering flood he had so long dammed up.
but kophetua could understand nothing of this as he paced the dark oak floor, and the more he thought of the chancellor's threats and insolence, the less able he felt to continue the conversation. it was impossible to forgive his insinuations about penelophon. so at last all kophetua could do was to control himself sufficiently to inform the chancellor in his coldest official tone that he should not require his further attendance that day.
for kophetua the chancellor's departure did little to clear the air. the storm within him continued to growl and mutter. he felt himself a martyr, or if he ceased for a moment to think that, it was only to call himself a fool, and that was worse. the other view of the case was preferable. he certainly was a martyr. he had made one honest effort to escape from the banalities that were freezing his soul, and do something worthy of his name. the only result so far was that he had dangerously entangled himself with a siren who had been thrust in his way for that very purpose; he had allowed his name to be connected with a beggar-girl in a way that would have been still more annoying were it not so ridiculous; and, finally, on the eve of a fierce political struggle to which the same siren was sure[pg 119] to give rise, he had managed to quarrel with all three of the party leaders, including his best friend, and the only relation he had in the world. it is hardly to be wondered at under the circumstances that he found himself constantly recurring to thoughts which had often framed themselves before in the course of his reading in political philosophy. they were to the effect that kings were a mistake, and even a crime, and that his plain duty after all was to form a republic and abdicate.
