" said Buck, laughing shortly.

"They've sold dirtier things," said Wayne, calmly: "they have sold
themselves."

"It's no good, my Buckling," said the King, rolling about on his
chair. "You can't cope with this chivalrous eloquence. You can't cope
with an artist. You can't cope with the humorist of Notting Hill. Oh,
_Nunc dimittis_--that I have lived to see this day! Provost Wayne, you
stand firm?"

"Let them wait and see," said Wayne. "If I stood firm before, do you
think I shall weaken now that I have seen the face of the King? For I
fight for something greater, if greater there can be, than the
hearthstones of my people and the Lordship of the Lion. I fight for
your royal vision, for the great dream you dreamt of the League of the
Free Cities. You have given me this liberty. If I had been a beggar
and you had flung me a coin, if I had been a peasant in a dance and
you had flung me a favour, do you think I would have let it be taken
by any ruffians on the road? This leadership and liberty of Notting
Hill is a gift from your Majesty, and if it is taken from me, by God!
it shall be taken in battle, and the noise of that battle shall be
heard in the flats of Chelsea and in the studios of St. John's Wood."

"It is too much--it is too much," said the King. "Nature is weak. I
must speak to you, brother artist, without further disguise. Let me
ask you a solemn question. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting
Hill, don't you think it splendid?"

"Splendid!" cried Adam Wayne. "It has the splendour of God."

"Bowled out again," said the King. "You will keep up the pose.
Funnily, of course, it is serious. But seriously, isn't it funny?"

"What?" asked Wayne, with the eyes of a baby.

"Hang it all, don't play any more. The whole business--the Charter of
the Cities. Isn't it immense?"

"Immense is no unworthy word for that glorious design."

"Oh, hang you! But, of course, I see. You want me to clear the room of
these reasonable sows. You want the two humorists alone together.
Leave us, gentlemen."

Buck threw a sour look at Barker, and at a sullen signal the whole
pageant of blue and green, of red, gold, and purple, rolled out of
the room, leaving only two in the great hall, the King sitting in his
seat on the dais, and the red-clad figure still kneeling on the floor
before his fallen sword.

The King bounded down the steps and smacked Provost Wayne on the back.

"Before the stars were made," he cried, "we were m