The Valley of Decision

She paused a moment. “The danger,” she repeated, “was a grave one; but it threatened only your Highness’s person. Your Highness listened to me then; will you listen again if I advise you of a greater—a peril threatening not only your person but your throne?”

Odo smiled. He could guess now what was coming. She had been drilled to act as the mouthpiece of the opposition. He composed his features and said quietly: “These are grave words, madam. I know of no such peril— but I am always ready to listen to your Highness.”

His smile had betrayed him, and a quick flame of anger passed over her face.

“Why should you listen to me, since you never heed what I say?”

“Your Highness has just reminded me that I did so once—”

“Once!” she repeated bitterly. “You were younger then—and so was I!”

She glanced at herself in the mirror with a dissatisfied laugh.

Something in her look and movement touched the springs of compassion.

“Try me again,” he said gently. “If I am older, perhaps I am also wiser, and therefore even more willing to be guided—we all knew that.” She broke off, as though she felt her mistake and wished to make a fresh beginning. Again her face was full of fluctuating meaning; and he saw, beneath its shallow surface, the eddy of incoherent impulses. When she spoke, it was with a noble gravity.

“Your Highness,” she said, “does not take me into your counsels; but it is no secret at court and in the town that you have in contemplation a grave political measure.”

“I have made no secret of it,” he replied.

“No—or I should be the last to know it!” she exclaimed, with one of her sudden lapses into petulance.

Odo made no reply. Her futility was beginning to weary him. She saw it and again attempted an impersonal dignity of manner.

“It has been your Highness’s choice,” she said, “to exclude me from public affairs. Perhaps I was not fitted by education or intelligence to share in the cares of government. Your Highness will at least bear witness that I have scrupulously respected your decision, and have never attempted to intrude upon your counsels.”

Odo bowed. It would have been useless to remind her that he had sought her help and failed to obtain it.

“I have accepted my position,” she continued. “I have led the life to which it has pleased your Highness to restrict me. But I have not been able to detach my heart as well as my thoughts from your Highness’s interests. I have not learned to be indifferent to your danger.”

Odo looked up quickly. She ceased to interest him when she spoke by the book, and he was impatient to make an end.

“You spoke of danger before,” he said. “What danger?”

“That of forcing on your subjects liberties which they do not desire!”

“Ah,” said he thoughtfully. That was all, then. What a poor tool she made! He marvelled that, in all these years, Trescorre’s skilful hands should not have fashioned her to better purpose.

“Your Highness,” he said, “has reminded me that since our marriage you had lived withdrawn from public affairs. I will not pause to dispute by whose choice this has been; I will in turn merely remind your Highness that such a life does not afford much opportunity of gauging public opinion.”

In spite of himself a note of sarcasm had again crept into his voice; but to his surprise she did not seem to resent it.

“Ah,” she exclaimed, with more feeling than she had hitherto shown, “you fancy that, because I am kept in ignorance of what you think, I am ignorant also of what others think of you! Believe me,” she said, with a flash of insight that startled him, “I know more of you than if we stood closer. But you mistake my purpose. I have not sent for you to force my counsels on you. I have no desire to appear ridiculous. I do not ask you to hear what I think of your course, but what others think of it.”

“What others?”

The question did not disconcert her. “Your subjects,” she said quickly.

“My subjects are of many classes.”

“All are of one class in resenting this charter. I am told you intend to proclaim it within a few days. I entreat you at least to delay, to reconsider your course. Oh, believe me when I say you are in danger! Of what use to offer a crown to our Lady, when you have it in your heart to slight her servants? But I will not speak of the clergy, since you despise them—nor of the nobles, since you ignore their claims. I will speak only of the people—the people, in whose interest you profess to act. Believe me, in striking at the Church you wound the poor. It is not their bodily welfare I mean—though Heaven knows how many sources of bounty must now run dry! It is their faith you insult. First you turn them against their masters, then against their God. They may acclaim you for it now—but I tell you they will hate you for it in the end!”

She paused, flushed with the vehemence of her argument, and eager to press it farther. But her last words had touched an unexpected fibre in Odo. He looked at her with his unseeing visionary gaze.

“The end?” he murmured. “Who knows what the end will be?”

“Do you still need to be told?” she exclaimed. “Must you always come to me to learn that you are in danger?”

“If the state is in danger the danger must be faced. The state exists for the people; if they do not need it, it has ceased to serve its purpose.”

She clasped her hands in an ecstasy of wonder. “Oh, fool, madman—but it is not of the state I speak! It is you who are in danger—you—you—you—”

He raised his head with an impatient gesture.