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 Arch