Chapter 22

THE THORN AND THE FLESH

I

The next day Prince Max received a letter written by the hand which had become for him the dearest in the world. It was very simple and straightforward and methodical: it began with the word "Beloved" and asked whether certain things were true. It seemed, then, that for the first time his confession was understood. Not a single one of the questions put to him contained anything that was untrue, but they did not go much into detail, and no commentary was made upon the facts indicated.

Max sat down and wrote a very beautiful letter in reply, and got no answer.

For three days he put up with this rebuff to his honesty of character and his literary ability; then not finding his lady where he expected her to be, he went and called upon her father.

The Archbishop was out; but Max, not to be denied, sat down and waited for his return. He waited for over two hours. It was getting towards dusk when his Grace entered, a reverend, high-shouldered figure, showing a stoop and beginning now to look old.

The Archbishop's very formal greeting told Max that here was the enemy. This did not at all dismay him; at that time, indeed, he was full of confidence. The temporary separation between himself and his beloved, brought about in a conventional way which he thoroughly despised, was for the moment a hindrance; but it had not yet taken to itself the colors of doom. He knew that Jenifer's heart was entirely his, and that they, with their common honesty, had only to meet again to be made one. What he wanted to know, therefore, was not so much the opinion of Jenifer's father about himself and the engagement, as to find out her present whereabouts. From the first moment of their meeting he knew that he did not stand in the Archbishop's good graces; but that hardly concerned him; and so it was almost without circumlocution that he asked for Jenifer's address.

The Archbishop, by a simultaneous depression of the head and raising of the eyebrows, managed to convey his just sense of the honor which was being done him and the liberty that was being taken.

"I wrote the other day," explained Max, "asking her to arrange a time when I might come and see you. In strict etiquette I believe that your Grace ought first to call upon me; but we have so few precedents to go by. She has, I trust, done me the honor to tell you that we are engaged?"

"I have been informed of the circumstance," replied the Archbishop with stately formality.

The Prince took the matter boldly in hand. "From your manner I have to presume that we have not the happiness of your consent?"

"My consent was not asked."

"Had it been?"

"I could not have given it."

"That I think," said the Prince, "would have been the perfectly correct attitude until such time as the King gave his. It is for that we have been waiting; had it not been so I should have come to you earlier."

"Early or late, my answer to your Highness would always be the same."

"May I ask upon what grounds?"

"I would ask, sir, in return, upon what grounds is it suitable that you should marry my daughter?"

"It so happens," replied Max, "that I am in love with her."

"What precisely, sir, to your mind does the phrase 'being in love' convey?"

The Prince saw that the tussle was coming; he gathered his thoughts together, then said, "An intense personal desire to endow a certain woman with motherhood."

The Archbishop flushed: sharp enmity showed itself in his eyes; he made a gesture of repulsion.

"Ah!" cried Max, "does that shock the Church?"

The challenge went unanswered; instead came question.

"Have you not had this desire before--in other directions?"

"Never!" exclaimed Max. "No, never!"

The Archbishop eyed him keenly. "You have had experience."

"I have lived my life openly," said the Prince.

"I was aware of that," returned his Grace. "Need I trouble your Highness with any further grounds for my refusal? Not with my consent shall my daughter marry a libertine."

"Great Judge of Heaven!" cried Max, springing to his feet. "Hark to this old man!"

"Don't shout," said the Archbishop; "He hears you."

Max's scorn dropped back like a rocket to earth.

"Yes," he retorted, "no doubt! The question is, are you capable of hearing Him?"

"I am always ready to be instructed," replied his Grace sarcastically.

"I must remind you," said the Prince, "that as a Doctor of Divinity I have some claim. Yes," he went on in answer to the Archbishop's look of astonishment, "though you have forgotten the circumstance, you yourself dubbed me Theologian by hitting me over the head with a Greek Testament."

The Archbishop accepted the reminiscence.

"In that case," said he, "I bow to your Highness's authority."

"Yes: you were a shepherd of that fold, yet you let me in? I was the clever one of my family; and the title was given me when, with three lives standing between, there was little likelihood of my becoming Head of the Church. Was I to wear it, then, as an ornament, or as an amulet to guide me into right doctrine? Whatever faith I still hold, I fear me that miracle has not been wrought."

"In these days," said the Archbishop, "faith itself is the great miracle."

"That people should have any faith in the Church is indeed a miracle," said Max. "Yet I suppose it is but another instance of how easily the world accepts what it finds. I myself remain outwardly a Churchman; merely because it seems to me hardly to matter, and because any overt act on my part would hurt those whom I love. And what spiritual experience have I acquired as the result of my outward conformity? I have found the pulpit the most polished of all social institutions: and never once have I heard from it any word troublesome to a conscience which has still, I can assure you, its waking moments. The eloquence that flows from it never trespasses beyond the bounds of polite conversation; and as regards 'unpleasant subjects' it deals faithfully only with the lives of those who do not form the bulk of its congregations. If it dealt faithfully with them, those polite congregations would get up and walk out."

"I do not think, sir, that your experience puts you in a position to know how the Church deals with the consciences of the faithful."

"You mean," said Max, "that in the ears of royalty uncomfortable subjects are avoided? That merely indicates the system. As the snail withdraws first his horns into his head, then his body into his shell, so your Church adapts itself to its surroundings. Let me give you a case in point--it touches on our present discussion. I have heard often enough the cheaper forms of prostitution decorously alluded to; but when did I ever hear dealt with, either for approval or reprobation, the established practice among the unmarried youth of our aristocracy of keeping mistresses?"

"I think, sir, that you must have been often inattentive. The virtue of purity is, I am sure, constantly inculcated by our clergy."

"In such a form," replied the Prince, "that we need not apply it to ourselves. The betrayal of innocency, yes, I have heard of that, for that only touches a small minority. But these mistresses whom most of us keep are no more innocent than ourselves, nor are we more innocent than they. And yet, while to them all social entrances are barred, we men are allowed to go in free."

"Society cannot act on mere rumor and suspicion," said the Archbishop.

"In the woman's case it does," replied the Prince. "And I wonder whether it has ever occurred to any one to connect that fact with the cheapening of our modern definition of chivalry. Are you ever chivalrous; am I?"

"Charity is a greater thing than chivalry."

"I am not so sure of that," said the Prince. "You had forgotten just now that I was a Doctor of Divinity; have you also forgotten that we share the honors of one of the most ancient knighthoods in the world?"

"Will your Highness be so good as to explain?"

"Your Grace will perhaps remember--since you officiated upon the occasion as prelate of the Order--my investiture rather more than two years ago as a Knight of the Holy Thorn?"

The Archbishop bowed assent.

"Your discourse upon that occasion was both learned and eloquent; but it did not really touch the subject that had brought us together."

"How would you define the subject?" inquired his Grace.

"The subject on which I hoped to be instructed," said the Prince, "was the real meaning of Chivalry as expressed in the Order of the Thorn, and the reason why I was deemed worthy to be made a knight of it. There had already been some comment owing to the fact that the honor was not conferred immediately on the attainment of my majority. Perhaps my shortened career at college had something to do with it--perhaps the fact that I had brothers who were older and worthier than myself. I am not in the least blaming my father for the delay; rather am I now inclined to be grateful. But that year the death of my two brothers created more than a vacancy: and any further postponement would, I suppose, have made the omission too pointed. I stepped into those dead shoes."

"What a talker the man is!" said the Archbishop to himself. But etiquette held him bound, and there he was obliged to sit, looking interested and attentive, while Max went on.

II

"For some reason or another--perhaps because it was the one thing for which, in spite of legitimate expectations, I had been kept waiting--I conceived for the honor, when it was bestowed on me, a sentimental regard which I did not experience toward my other titles. They had all dropped upon me without any merit on my part; for this one honor I felt in some curious way that I was not worthy. It may have been that feeling of unworthiness which made me, before the date of my investiture, study the history of the Order and the legend of its origin. I had hoped that you would touch upon that legend, and give it some modern application. I wonder now whether your Grace is aware of the legend; or whether I, indeed, am not the only Knight of the Order who has troubled to think anything about it."

"I fancy," said the Archbishop, "that the legend you refer to has a flavor of medieval Romanism that would hardly commend itself to modern ears."

The Prince smiled bitterly. "Your Grace persuades me," he said, "to tell the story myself. At the point where it does not commend itself I shall be glad to hear your criticism.

"The Founder--or ought I not rather to say the first Knight?--of the Order was (if the story be true) a certain ancestor of our royal house who had spent the greater part of his life in wars of unjust aggression. To atone for them--or for other things which weighed more heavily on his conscience--he went late in life on a crusade to the Holy Land; and after being there handsomely trounced by the infidel, was returning in dejection to the sea-coast with the mutinous remnant of his following, when the founding of the Order of the Thorn occurred to him.

"It occurred to him thus: this at all events was his own account of it. He had become separated from his company of knights, darkness was coming on--when, as he spurred his tired steed with little mercy for its exhausted condition, he passed by the roadside a beggar who cried out to him for charity. But the charity asked for was not alms, but only the withdrawal from the mendicant's foot of a thorn which troubled him.

"My ancestor, softened by some accent of gentleness or patience in the suppliant's voice, dismounted to do the service required of him, and in the growing darkness drew out the thorn. But when he had got it free from the flesh it seemed no more a thorn but an iron nail; and the wound out of which he had drawn it shone with celestial radiance. Then was founded the Order. The Mendicant bade him bind the Thorn upon his heel in the place of his spur, so that whenever thereafter he should be tempted to goad or oppress whether man or beast the Thorn should remind him of pity and mercy. I wait for your Grace's criticism of that legend?"

The Archbishop made no reply: with a courteous gesture of the hand he invited the Prince to continue.

"I hoped," said the young man, "to be instructed in the connection between that Founding and the continuance of the Order. You spoke of chivalry and loyalty; but the chivalry which you invited us to emulate was merely the physical daring of our ancestors as proved in war (wherein I am no longer allowed to take part); and the loyalty was to a form of monarchy which modern conditions now threaten with change. And I, looking at all my brother Knights around me, and at myself, wondered by what right we wore that iron thorn upon our heels.

"Among us--I need not mention names--were men whose lives were far more notoriously evil than mine--men whose wealth had been gained for them by the grinding of sweated humanity; men who received enormous rents from houses not fit for human habitation--men who opposed every act of remedial legislation which disturbed their own vested interests, and who did these things with an untroubled conscience because the conditions they fought for were all the outcome of custom or of law.

"And I remembered that some day I should be required to become their Grand Master--the titular head of that dead Order of Chivalry; and I wondered what would happen if I acted honestly upon my conscience and refused."

"Yet you say, sir, that for this Order, of which you now speak so slightingly, you had sentiments of reverence?"

"For the Order--yes; but none for the men--including myself--who make up its membership."

"Surely," said the Archbishop, "your Highness must admit that they are all men of mark; many of them have spent their lives in the public service--leaders of the people in peace and war. You cannot regard these things as nothing."

"For these things they already have their titles," said the Prince, "their state-pensions, or the wealth personally acquired on which their power and influence are based. Has the Order of the Thorn ever once in its history been given to a man because he was conspicuously good, or gentle, or forbearing, or unselfishly thoughtful for others? Has it ever once been given to a successful philanthropist who was not also of high lineage and title? I have looked through the lists; I can find none. Your Grace is the only one among us whose profession is to serve God rather than to be served by men."

The Archbishop glanced uneasily at the Prince; but there was no sarcasm in his look or tone. Max was never more of an artist than in his adaption of manner to theme. Sadly, almost dejectedly he went on.

"And now let us come to myself. It seems that I am not accounted worthy to receive your daughter's hand in marriage. In a certain sense I admit it. That he is unworthy seems true to every man who ever loved a woman well; and perhaps the woman feels the same of herself. But I do not admit that the reasons for your judgment are just. You deny me my claim because, during my early manhood, I have had illicit connection with one woman. Tell me--do you propose that your daughter shall ever marry at all?"

The Archbishop looked at the Prince with a half-pitying surmise and drew himself up as though he had some statement to make. Then putting the inclination aside he said: "That is for her to choose."

"From her own rank in life?" persisted Max,--"not limited, I mean, to the clerical profession?"

"I impose no limits on my daughter's freedom," said the Archbishop.

"And do you mean to tell me," inquired the Prince, "that of every suitor for your daughter's hand--lawyer, soldier, politician, man of letters--you will make it your business to inquire--and will expect to be told the truth--whether they have not at some period of their career had illicit connection with women?"

"I could recommend no suitor," said the Archbishop, "who had been at so little pains as your Highness to avoid the setting of a bad example to others."

"Is it, then, merely secrecy that you advocate?"

"A respect for moral observances is in itself a ground of recommendation," answered his Grace; "though at times a man may fall short of what he knows to be right."

"You mean," said the Prince, "that I have flagrantly committed myself in the upkeep of an establishment, where others have only paid an extravagant price for a night's lodging?"

"Your Highness puts the matter in a way that makes it impossible for me to discuss."

"I beg your pardon; I really was trying to be delicately indirect. But that you should beg off discussion because my way of putting things seems to you indelicate is yet another count in my quarrel with your established ministry. You seem to me to be amateurs where you ought to be professionals. How can you possibly deal with poor weak humanity in kid gloves? Like the surgeon before he can hope to bring healing in his wings, you too must be anatomical in your researches. It is the anatomical your civil churchmen fight shy of. Well, I will endeavor to get at the matter from another and a more accessible side. Your Grace is, I take it, a man of the world?"

The Archbishop was inclined to demur; humbly but firmly he deprecated the imputation.

"But surely!" protested the Prince, "had you not been, you would not now be in the place which you occupy; every one knows that an Archbishop's appointment is political. I ask you then, as a man of the world, how--short of a miracle--could you expect a man in my position and circumstances to have kept a technically unblemished record? Surrounded with luxuries from my birth, disciplined by no real hardship, having to make no struggle for my existence; brought up to eat meat and drink wine; athletic, but without any reason or opportunity for leading a strenuously athletic life; with brains, but with no compulsion to use them; passed, for the perfecting of my education, from one privileged grade to another; from the University to the Army, and from thence to sport and the race-course; from where on God's earth, in this modern curriculum for kings, was the idea to have occurred to me that I should do this thing, in attempting to do which your early hermits went hullabalooing to the desert?

"I am now nearly twenty-six. My father, for reasons of State, married at twenty-one: I, for similar reasons, have been kept unmarried, no sufficiently eligible partner could be found for me. And I solved the time of waiting by contracting a non-legal conjugal relationship with a woman for whom I had a very real affection, who was considerably my senior in years, and who knew quite well that the arrangement could only be temporary. My Lord Archbishop, I ask you--could you in my circumstances have shown a better, a more blameless record? I was even punctilious enough to tell your daughter--an excessive scruple, I think,--she did not understand."

"She understands now," said the Archbishop.

"And who is it," inquired the Prince sharply, "who has thus played bo-peep with her intelligence--first shutting and now opening her eyes?"

"When evil is encountered," said his Grace, "instruction has to be extended."

"And still you have stopped halfway, just at the point where it serves you best. What does her pure soul know of these problems which to her are only a few hours old?"

"She is a daughter of the Church; and she knows what the Church's answer has always been."

"She knows, then," said Max, "what no school of historians has yet been able to decide! See over in England to-day how the Church, clinging to its establishment, has to dodge and shuffle over the changes in the moral law arising out of national habit. Is the Church of Jingalo so greatly superior, think you, that it can boast?"

At that moment a clock upon the chimney-piece intoned the hour; and the Archbishop, reduced to extremity in order to get rid of his distinguished but unwelcome visitor, permitted himself to throw an involuntary glance in the direction of the sound.

The Prince, perceiving the indication, rose at once to his feet.

"Pardon me," he said, "for having kept you so long."

"Pardon _me_," returned his Grace; "unfortunately I have to dine."

"Of course. I ought not to have forgotten."

"I mean that I have guests."

"They shall not be kept waiting by me," said the Prince. He moved to the door. Then he stopped.

"Your Grace," he said, "I know that we cannot be friends, still----"

He paused; and there was silence.

"I greatly wish to see your daughter. Surely you cannot deny me that right."

"_I_ cannot," said the Archbishop. "She does."

This pulled Max up with a jerk: not that he yet believed it, however.

"Where is she now?" he inquired.

"She has joined the Sisterhood of Poverty. To-day she entered her profession."

The Prince choked.

"That is horrible!" he said. "You mean she has taken vows?"

The Archbishop of Ebury bowed his head. "For the remainder of _my_ life at all events," he said in a stricken tone. "She will not return here. My house is left desolate to me--because of you."

"You still have guests," said the Prince.

"That is an unworthy gibe," retorted his Grace. "My work has still to go on."

"I beg your pardon," said Max.

"I have written to her," he added after a pause; "and she has not answered. Will your Grace be good enough----"

"I do not think she will. She prays for you. If you came, I was to tell you that."

Again there was silence for a time.

"When I was a child," said the Prince, "I had an old nurse, who whenever I did anything wrong--as whipping was not allowed--used to go down on her knees and pray for me; and she always did it against a blank wall. I suppose it helped her. That has always remained my vision of prayer. And now I shall always think of your daughter with her dear face turned to a blank wall, praying for you and me--her murderers."

He went out.

"Upon my word!" thought the Archbishop, "that is a dangerous man to be heir to a throne."