The Puppet Crown | Page 6

it is not bought with gold, it is bought with lies and
blood. Sire, your great fault, if I may speak, is that you haven't
continued to be dishonest. You should have filled your private coffers,
but you have not done so, which is a strange precedent to establish.
You should have increased taxation, but you have diminished it; you
should have forced your enemy's hand four years ago, when you
ascended the throne, but you did not; and now, for all you know, his

hand may be too strong. Poor, dishonest king! When you accepted this
throne, which belongs to another, you fell as far as possible from moral
ethics. And now you would be honest and be called dull, and dream,
while your ministers profit and smile behind your back. I beg your
Majesty's pardon, but you have always requested that I should speak
plainly."
The king laughed; he enjoyed this frank friend. There was an essence of
truth and sincerity in all he said that encouraged confidence.
"Indeed, I shall be sorry to have you go tomorrow," he said, "for I
believe if you stayed here long enough you would truly make a king of
me. Be frank, my friend, be always frank; for it is only on the base of
frankness that true friendship can rear itself."
"You are only forty-eight," said the Englishman; "you are young."
"Ah, my friend," replied the king with a tinge of sadness, "it is not the
years that age us; it is how we live them. In the last four years I have
lived ten. To-day I feel so very old! I am weary of being a king. I am
weary of being weary, and for such there is no remedy. Truly I was not
cut from the pattern of kings; no, no. I am handier with a book than
with a scepter; I'd liever be a man than a puppet, and a puppet I am--a
figurehead on the prow of the ship, but I do not guide it. Who care for
me save those who have their ends to gain? None, save the archbishop,
who yet dreams of making a king of me. And these are not my people
who surround me; when I die, small care. I shall have left in the passing
scarce a finger mark in the dust of time."
"Ah, Sire, if only you would be cold, unfriendly, avaricious. Be stone
and rule with a rod of iron. Make the people fear you, since they refuse
to love you; be stone."
"You can mold lead, but you can not sculpture it; and I am lead."
"Yes; not only the metal, but the verb intransitive. Ah, could the fires of
ambition light your soul!"

"My soul is a blackened grate of burnt-out fires, of which only a coal
remains."
And the king turned in his seat and looked across the crisp green lawns
to the beds of flowers, where, followed by a maid at a respectful
distance, a slim young girl in white was cutting the hardy geraniums,
dahlias and seed poppies.
"God knows what her legacy will be!"
"It is for you to make it, Sire."
Both men continued to remark the girl. At length she came toward
them, her arms laden with flowers. She was at the age of ten, with a
beautiful, serious face, which some might have called prophetic. Her
hair was dark, shining like coal and purple, and gossamer in its fineness;
her skin had the blue-whiteness of milk; while from under long black
lashes two luminous brown eyes looked thoughtfully at the world. She
smiled at the king, who eyed her fondly, and gave her unengaged hand
to the Englishman, who kissed it.
"And how is your Royal Highness this fine day? he asked, patting the
hand before letting it go.
"Will you have a dahlia, Monsieur?" With a grave air she selected a
flower and slipped it through his button-hole.
"Does your Highness know the language of the flowers?" the
Englishman asked.
"Dahlias signify dignity and elegance; you are dignified, Monsieur, and
dignity is elegance."
"Well!" cried the Englishman, smiling with pleasure; "that is turned as
adroitly as a woman of thirty."
"And am I not to have one?" asked the king, his eyes full of paternal
love and pride.

"They are for your Majesty's table," she answered.
"Your Majesty!" cried the king in mimic despair. "Was ever a father
treated thus? Your Majesty! Do you not know, my dear, that to me
'father' is the grandest title in the world?"
Suddenly she crossed over and kissed the king on the cheek, and he
held her to him for a moment.
The bulldog had risen, and was wagging his tail the best he knew how.
If there was any young woman who