Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/52

40 himself, 'Hang it all, I didn’t ask to be born a king, but since that is my misfortune, I will seek to mitigate it as much as I am able. I am, on the whole, a human being, with a human life to live, and only, probably, three-score-and-ten years in which to live it. Very good; I will live my life. I will lay no foundation-stones, nor drive about the streets bowing and looking pleasant. I will live my life, alone with the few people I find to my liking. I will take the cash and let the credit go.' I am bound to say," concluded Ferdinand Augustus, "that your King has done exactly what I should have done in his place."

"You will never, at least," said she, "defend the shameful manner in which he has behaved towards the Queen. It is for that, I hate him. It is for that, that we, the Queen's gentlewomen, have adopted 'Tis a weary day as a watchword. It will be a weary day until we see the King on his knees at the Queen's feet, craving her forgiveness."

"Oh? What has he done to the Queen?" asked Ferdinand.

"What has he done! Humiliated her as never woman was humiliated before. He married her by proxy at her father’s court; and she was conducted with great pomp and circumstance into his kingdom — to find what? That he had fled to one of his absurd castles in the north, and refused to see her! He has remained there ever since, hiding like — but there is nothing in created space to compare him to. Is it the behaviour of a gentleman, of a gallant man, not to say a king?" she cried warmly, looking up at him with shining eyes, her cheeks faintly flushed.

Ferdinand Augustus bowed. "The Queen is fortunate in her advocate. I have not heard the King’s side of the story. I can, however, imagine excuses for him. Suppose that his ministers, for reasons of policy, importuned and importuned him to marry a certain princess, until he yielded in mere fatigue. In that case, Rh