"Sir," said the Premier, "over a matter of this sort any delay is impossible--the risk is too great. I must see the Prince myself."
"Very well," said the King, "do as you like. After all I ought to be glad that it is with the Prince you will have to discuss the matter, and not with me."
And he smiled to himself, for he very much liked the thought of the Prime Minister tackling Max.
But the Prime Minister, though he lost no time, was unable to catch his quarry. Prince Max had gone out; and his secretary could give no information as to his whereabouts. "His Highness told me that he had a very important engagement; he did not say with whom." To apprehensive ears that phrase sounded ominous; and fearing what risks delay might entail the Premier drove down to Sheepcote Precincts, the archiepiscopal residence; and there for three mortal hours he and the Archbishop sat with heads together (yet intellectually very much apart) discussing what was to be done.
It was during those three hours that his Grace of Ebury performed his most brilliant feat of statesmanship, and redeemed that local off-shoot of the Church of Christ over which he ruled from the political slough whereinto it had fallen. To him solely--by means of his daughter, that is to say (but in politics women do not count)--is due the fact that the Church of Jingalo still stands on its old established footing, and that her Bishops have a decisive modicum of political power left to them.
The Archbishop was, in his heart of hearts--that last infirmity of his noble mind--quite as much horrified at the news as the Premier had been. But scarcely were the dread tidings out of the minister's mouth when, perceiving his opportunity, he rose to it as a fish rises to a fly, and pretended with all due solemnity to be rather pleased than otherwise. Though his daughter's elevation to princely rank and to the prospect of future sovereignty would assuredly seal his political doom, he professed presently to see in it a fresh stepping-stone to influence and power, or, as he conscientiously phrased it, to "opportunities for good." His approach to this point, however, was gradual and circuitous.
"Of course it is a great honor," he began, deliberately weighing the proposition in earthly scales, and seeming not wholly to reject it.