"Ah! Le pauvre Roi! He can do very little--almost nothing! He can only move one step at a time, and that with much labor and hesitation--he is the wooden image of Louis XVI!"
"Then," said the girl quickly, "the object of the game is to protect a king who is not worth protecting!"
Duprèz laughed. "Exactly! And thus, in this charming game, you have the history of many nations! Mademoiselle Güldmar has put the matter excellently! Chess is for those who intend to form republics. All the worry and calculation--all the moves of pawns, bishops, knights, castles, and queens,--all to shelter the throne which is not worth protecting! Excellent! Mademoiselle, you are not in favor of monarchies!"
"I do not know," said Thelma; "I have never thought of such things. But kings should be great men,--wise and powerful, better and braver than all their subjects, should they not?"
"Undoubtedly!" remarked Lorimer; "but, it's a curious thing, they seldom are. Now, our queen, God bless her--"
"Hear, hear!" interrupted Errington, laughing good-humoredly. "I won't have a word said against the dear old lady, Lorimer! Granted that she hates London, and sees no fun in being stared at by vulgar crowds, I think she's quite right,--and I sympathize heartily with her liking for a cup of tea in peace and quiet with some old Scotch body who doesn't care whether she's a queen or a washerwoman."
"I think," said Macfarlane slowly, "that royalty has its duties, ye see, an' though I canna say I object to Her Majesty's homely way o' behavin', still there are a few matters that wad be the better for her pairsonal attention."
"Oh bother!" said Errington gaily. "Look at that victim of the nation, the Prince of Wales! The poor fellow hasn't a moment's peace of his life,--what with laying foundation stones, opening museums, inspecting this and visiting that, he is like a costermonger's donkey, that must gee-up or gee-wo as his master, the people bid. If he smiles at a woman, it is instantly reported that he's in love with her,--if he frankly says he considers her pretty, there's no end to the scandal. Poor royal wretch! I pity him from my heart! The unwashed, beer-drinking, gin-swilling classes, who clamor for shortened hours of labor, and want work to be expressly invented for their benefit, don't suffer a bit more than Albert Edward, who is supposed to be rolling idly in the very lap of luxury, and who can hardly call his soul his own. Why, the man can't eat a mutton-chop without there being a paragraph in the papers headed, 'Diet of the Prince of Wales.' His life is made an infinite bore to him, I'm positive!"