“It is the common fate of queens,” Dom Manuel replies, “to be exposed to the criticism of envious persons.”
“No, do not be brilliant and aphoristic, Manuel, for I want you to help me more practically in this matter.”
“Very willingly will I help you if I can. But how can I?”
“Why, you must assist me in getting a baby—a boy baby, of course.”
“I am willing to do all that I can, because certainly it does not look well for you to have no son to be King of England. But how can I, of all persons, help you in this affair?”
“Now, Manuel, after getting three children you surely ought to know what is necessary!”
Dom Manuel shook a gray head. “My children came from a source which is exhausted.”
“That would be deplorable news if I believed it, but I am sure that if you will let me take matters in hand I can convince you to the contrary—”
“Well, I am open to conviction.”
“—Although I scarcely know how to begin, because I know that you will think this hard on you—”
He took her hand. Dom Manuel admitted to Niafer without reserve that here he took the Queen’s hand, saying: “Do not play with me any longer, Alianora, for you must see plainly that I am now eager to serve you. So do not be embarrassed, but come to the point, and I will do what I can.”
“Why, Manuel, both you and I know perfectly well that, even with your Dorothy ordered, you still hold the stork’s note for another girl and another boy, to be supplied upon demand, after the manner of the Philistines.”
“No, not upon demand, for the first note has nine months to run, and the other falls due even later. But what has that to do with it?”
“Now, Manuel, truly I hate to ask this of you, but my need is desperate, with all this criticizing and gossip. So for old time’s sake, and for the sake of the life I gave you as a Christmas present, through telling my dear father an out-and-out story, you must let me have that first promissory note, and you must direct the stork to bring the boy baby to me in England, and not to your wife in Poictesme.”
So that was what Dame Alianora had wanted.
(“I knew that all along,” observed Dame Niafer—untruthfully, but adhering to her general theory that it was better to appear omniscient in dealing with one’s husband.)
Well, Dom Manuel was grieved by the notion of being parted from his child prior to its birth, but he was moved alike by his former fondness for Alianora, and by his indebtedness to her, and by the obligation that was on him to provide as handsomely as possible for his son. Nobody could dispute that as King of England, the boy’s station in life would be immeasurably above the rank of the Count of Poictesme’s younger brother. So Manuel made a complaint as to his grief and as to Niafer’s grief at thus prematurely losing their loved son—
(“Shall I repeat what I said, my dear?”
“No, Manuel, I never understand you when you are trying to be highflown and impressive.”)
Well, then, Dom Manuel made a very beautiful complaint, but in the outcome Dom Manuel consented to this sacrifice.
He would not consent, though, to remain in England, as Alianora wanted him to do.
“No,” he said, nobly, “it would not look at all well for you to be taking me as your lover, and breaking your marriage-vows to love nobody but the King. No, Alianora, I will help you to get the baby you need, inasmuch as I am indebted to you for my life and have two babies to spare, but I am not willing to have anything to do with the breaking of your marriage-vows, because it is a crime which is forbidden by the Holy Scriptures, and of which Niafer would certainly hear sooner or later.”
(“Oh, Manuel, you did not say that!”
“My dear, those were my exact words. And why not?”
“That was putting it sensibly of course, but it would have sounded much better if you had expressed yourself entirely upon moral grounds. It is most important, Manuel, as I am sure I have told you over and over again, for people in our position to show a proper respect for morality and religion and things of that sort whenever they come up in the conversation; but there is no teaching you anything except by bitter experience, which I sincerely hope may be spared you, and one might as well be arguing with a brick wall, and so you may go on”)
Well, the Queen wept and coaxed, but Manuel was firm. So Manuel spent that night in the Queen’s room, performing the needful incantations, and arranging matters with the stork, and then Dom Manuel returned home. And that—well, really that was all.
Such was the account which Dom Manuel rendered his wife. “And upon the whole, Niafer, I consider it a very creditable stroke of business, for as King of England the child will enjoy advantages which we could never have afforded him.”
“Yes,” said Niafer, “and what does that dear friend of yours look like nowadays?”
“—Besides, should the boy turn out badly our grief will be considerably lessened by the circumstance that, through never seeing this son of ours, our affection for him will never be inconveniently great.”
“There is something in that, for already I can see that Emmerick inherits his father’s obstinacy, and it naturally worries me, but what does the woman look like nowadays?”
“—Then, even more important than these considerations—.”
“Nothing is more important, Manuel, in this very curious sounding affair, than the way that woman looks nowadays.”
“Ah, my dear,” says Manuel, diplomatically, “I did not like to speak of that, I confess, for you know these blondes go off in their
