"You like England best?" resumed the Queen.
"Madam, I am an Englishman! To me there is no land so fair, or so much worth living and dying for, as England!"
"Yet--I suppose, like all your countrymen, you are fond of change?"
"Yes--and no, Madam!" replied Langton.--"In truth, if I am to speak frankly, it is only during the last thirty or forty years that my countrymen have blotted their historical scutcheons by this fondness for change. Where travelling is necessary for the attainment of some worthy object, then it is wise and excellent,--but where it is only for the purpose of distracting a self-satiated mind, it is of no avail, and indeed frequently does more harm than good."
"Self-satiated!" repeated the Queen,--"Is not that a strange word?"
"It is the only compound expression I can use to describe the discontented humour in which the upper cla.s.ses of English society exist to-day," replied Sir Walter. "For many years the soul of England has been held in chains by men whose thoughts are all of Self,--the honour of England has been attainted by women whose lives are moulded from first to last on Self. To me, personally, England is everything,--I have no thought outside it--no wish beyond it. Yet I am as ashamed of some of its leaders of opinion to-day, as if I saw my own mother dragged in the dust and branded with infamy!"
"You speak of your Government?" began the Queen.
"No, Madam,--I have no more quarrel with my country"s present Government than I could have with a child who is led into a ditch by its nurse. It is a weak and corrupted Government; and its actual rulers are vile and abandoned women."
The Queen"s eyes opened in a beautiful, startled wonderment;--this man"s clear, incisive manner of speech interested her.
"Women!" she echoed, then smiled; "You speak strongly, Sir Walter! I have certainly heard of the "advanced" women who push themselves so much forward in your country, but I had no idea they were so mischievous! Are they to be admired? Or pitied?"
"Pitied, Madam,--most sincerely pitied!" returned Sir Walter;--"But such misguided simpletons as these are not the creatures who rule, or play with, or poison the minds of the various members who compose our Government. The "advanced" women, poor souls, do nothing but talk plat.i.tudes. They are perfectly harmless. They have no power to persuade men, because in nine cases out of ten, they have neither wit nor beauty.
And without either of these two charms, Madam, it is difficult to put even a clever cobbler, much less a Prime Minister, into leading strings!
No,--it is the spendthrift women of a corrupt society that I mean,--the women who possess beauty, and are conscious of it,--the women who have a mordant wit and use it for dangerous purposes--the women who give up their homes, their husbands, their children and their reputations for the sake of villainous intrigue, and the feverish excitement of speculative money-making;--with these--and with the stealthy spread of Romanism,--will come the ruin of my country!"
"So grave as all that!" said the Queen lightly;--"But, surely, Sir Walter, if you see ruin and disaster threatening so great an Empire in the far distance, you and other wise men of your land are able to stave it off?"
"Madam, I have no power!" he returned bitterly. "Those who have thought and worked,--those who are able to see what is coming by the light of past experience, are seldom listened to, or if they get a hearing, they are not seldom ridiculed and "laughed down." Till a strong man speaks, we must all remain dumb. There is no real Government in England at present, just as there is no real Church. The Government is made up of directly self-interested speculators and financiers rather than diplomatists,--the Church, for which our forefathers fought, is yielding to the bribery of Rome. It is a time of Sham,--sham politics, and sham religion! We have fallen upon evil days,--and unless the people rise, as it is to be hoped to G.o.d they will, serious danger threatens the glory and the honour of England!"
"Would you desire revolution and bloodshed, then?" enquired the Queen, becoming more and more interested as she saw that this Englishman did not, like most of his s.e.x, pa.s.s the moments in gazing at her in speechless admiration,--"Surely not!"
"I would have revolution, Madam, but not bloodshed," he replied;--"I think my countrymen are too well grounded in common-sense to care for any movement which could bring about internal dissension or riot,--but, at the same time, I believe their native sense of justice is great enough to resist tyranny and wrong and falsehood, even to the death. I would have a revolution--yes--but a silent and bloodless one!"
"And how would you begin?" asked the Queen.
"The People must begin, Madam!" he answered;--"All reforms must begin and end with the People only! For example, if the People would decline to attend any church where the inc.u.mbent is known to encourage practices which are disloyal to the faith of the land, such disloyalty would soon cease. If the majority of women would refuse to know, or to receive, any woman of high position who had voluntarily disgraced herself, they would soon put a stop to the lax morality of the upper cla.s.ses. If our builders, artisans and mechanics would club together, and refuse to make guns or ships for our enemies in foreign countries, we should not run the risk of being one day hoisted with our own petard. In any case, the work of Revolution rests with the people, though it is quite true they need teachers to show them how to begin."
"And are these teachers forthcoming?"
"I think so!" said Sir Walter meditatively. "Throughout all history, as far back as we can trace it, whenever a serious reform has been needed in either society or government, there has always been found a leader to head the movement."
The Queen"s beautiful eyes rested upon him with a certain curiosity.
"What of your King?" she said.
"Madam, he is my King!" he replied,--"And I serve him faithfully!"
She was silent. She began to wonder whether he had any private motive to gain, any place he sought to fill, that he should a.s.sume such a touch-me-not air at this stray allusion to his Sovereign.
"Lese-majeste is so common nowadays!" she mused;--"It is such an ordinary thing to hear vulgar _parvenus_ talk of their king as if he were a public-house companion of theirs, that it is somewhat remarkable to find one who speaks of his monarch with loyalty and respect.
I suppose, however, like everyone else, he has his own ends to serve!--Kings are the last persons in the world who can command absolute fidelity!"
She glanced dreamily over the sea, and perceiving a slight shade of weariness on her face, Sir Walter discreetly rose, craving her permission to retire to the saloon, where he had promised to join the King. When he had left her, she turned to one of her ladies, the Countess Amabil, and remarked:
"A very personable gentleman, is he not?"
"Madam," rejoined the Countess, who was very lovely in herself, and of a bright and sociable disposition;--"I have often thought it would be more pleasant and profitable for all of us if we had many such personable gentlemen with us oftener!"
A slight frown of annoyance crossed the Queen"s face. The Countess was a very charming lady; very fascinating in her own way, but her decided predilection for the sterner s.e.x often led her to touch on dangerous ground with her Royal mistress. This time, however, she escaped the chilling retort her remark might possibly, on another occasion, have called down upon her. The Queen said nothing. She sat watching the sea,--and now and again took up her field-gla.s.s to study the picturesque coast of The Islands, which was rapidly coming into view. Teresa de Launay, the second lady in attendance on her, was reading, and, seeing her quite absorbed in her book, the Queen presently asked her what it contained.
"You have smiled twice over that book, Teresa," she said kindly;--"What is it about?"
"Madam, it speaks of love!" replied Teresa, still smiling.
"And love makes you smile?"
"I would rather smile than weep over it, Madam!" replied Teresa, with a slight colour warming her fair face;--"But as concerns this book, I smile, because it is full of such foolish verses,--as light and sweet--and almost as cloying,--as French _fondants_!"
"Let me hear!" said the Queen; "Read me a few lines."
"This one, called "A Canzonet" is brief enough for your Majesty"s immediate consideration," replied Teresa;--"It is just such a thing as a man might scribble in his note-book after a bout of champagne, when he is in love for ten minutes! He would not mean a word of it,--but it might sound pretty by moonlight!" Whereupon she read aloud:--
My Lady is pleased to smile, And the world is glad and gay; My Lady is pleased to weep;-- And it rains the livelong day!
My Lady is pleased to hate, And I lose my life and my breath; My Lady is pleased to love,-- And I am the master of Death!
I know that my Lady is Love, By the magical light about her; I know that my Lady is Life, For I cannot live without her!
"And you do not think any man would truly mean as much love as this?"
queried the Queen.
"Oh, Madam, you know he would not! If he had written such lines about the joys of dining, or the flavour of an excellent cigar, they might then indeed be taken as an expression of his truest and deepest feeling!
But his "Lady"! Bah! She is a mere myth,--a temporary peg to hang a stray emotion on!"
She laughed, and her laughter rippled merrily on the air.
"I do not think the men who write so easily about love can ever truly feel it," she went on;--"Those who really love must surely be quite unable to express themselves. This man who sings about his "Lady" being pleased to do this or do that, was probably trying to obtain the good graces of some pretty housemaid or chorus girl!"
A slight contemptuous smile crossed the Queen"s face; from her expression it was evident that she agreed in the main with the opinion of her vivacious lady-in-waiting. Just at that moment the King and his suite, with Sir Walter Langton and one or two other gentlemen, who had been invited to join the party, came up from the saloon, and the conversation became general.
"Have you seen Humphry at all to-day?" enquired the King aside of De Launay. "I sent him an early message asking him to join us, and was told he had gone out riding. Is that true?"
"I have not seen his Royal Highness since the morning, Sir," replied the equerry; "He then met me,--and Professor von Glauben also--in the gardens. He gave me no hint as to whether he knew of your intention to sail to The Islands this afternoon or not; he was reading, and with some slight discussion on the subject of the book he was interested in, he and the Professor strolled away together."
"But where is Von Glauben?" pursued the King; "I sent for him likewise, but he was absent."
"I understood him to say that you had not commanded his attendance again to-day, Sir," replied Sir Roger;--"He told me he had already waited upon you."
"Certainly I did not command his attendance when I saw him the first thing this morning," replied the King; "I summoned him then merely to satisfy his scruples concerning my health and safety, as he seemed last night to have doubts of both!" He smiled, and his eyes twinkled humourously. "Later on, I requested him to join us in this excursion, but his servant said he had gone out, leaving no word as to when he would return. An eccentricity! I suppose he must be humoured!"
Sir Roger was silent. The King looked at him narrowly, and saw that there was something in his thoughts which he was not inclined to utter, and with wise tact and discretion forbore to press any more questions upon him. It was not a suitable time for cross-examination, even of the most friendly kind; there were too many persons near at hand who might be disposed to listen and to form conjectures; moreover the favouring wind had so aided the Royal yacht in her swift course that The Islands were now close at hand, and the harbour visible, the run across from the mainland having been accomplished under the usual two hours.