The Governor-General received Virginia in royal state. His manner was
gracious and genial. He led her to a seat in his great library and
closed the doors. The royal guard took his stand outside.
“I told you, Miss Holland,” he began eagerly, “that I had high
ambitions. You see that I am a man of my word. Of course, the thing that
happened was inevitable. It was written in the book of Fate. Had I not
seized the reins--another would. Conditions made my coup possible. For
the excesses of the Imperial Conquering Army I have no words in
palliation. Such is war. Had I known the peril of your father and
mother, I assure you I would have hurried to their rescue--you believe
me when I say this?”
“I am sure of it, now,” she answered promptly.
“I hurried to Babylon the moment I learned that the defense had
collapsed and our troops were victorious--”
He paused and leaned closer.
“I want to apologize for the unpardonable blunder I made the last time
we met in this house. I did not realize then how deeply and madly I love
you. In anguish I learned it too late. But I have bided my time. I have
lived to prove my devotion in the hour of your peril and I have only
begun what I wish to do for you--”
Again he paused, his eyes devouring her pensive beauty.
“I had rather win you than rule the Empire that’s mine. I would win as a
man woos and wins the one woman he loves--you believe me when I say
this?”
“Yes,” was the frank reply. “I believe now that you are in dead
earnest.”
“Good. I don’t ask if you love me. I know that you do not. I do not ask
you to marry me immediately. I know that I must first win your regard. I
prize you all the more for this reason--”
“Man-like, of course,” Virginia interrupted with a smile.
“First, I wish to pay you personally the highest tribute a man in my
position can give to any man or women. I am going to offer you the
second highest place in the Empire next to mine. Your fortune has
disappeared in the wreck of war. You shall rebuild it tenfold through
the work I shall place in your hands. My first ambition now is really
to pacify the mind of the States. It can be done through our women.
“I appeal to your reason. Here is the situation. The last hope of
successful rebellion has been stamped out. The millions of America,
completely disarmed, are helpless to resist our army of occupation. I
wish, not only to complete the crushing of the last hope of
insurrection; it is my ambition to convince the people that the central
monarchical and aristocratic form of government is the only natural
order of life and therefore a divine law.
“The quick intuitions of women have been always more open to this truth
than the more brutal and anarchistic male mind. Women have always been
the bulwark of aristocracy and imperial monarchy. Man is an
anarchist--woman a royalist by instinct.
“The American democracy was only an accident of time and space. The
oceans are now the King’s highway and he owns them by right of eminent
domain. Democracy can never survive this bringing of the ends of the
earth together. Democracy cannot live because when brought face to face
with the monarchical form it is not worthy to live. The United States of
America gave the human race the one supreme example of a weak, corrupt
and contemptible government. The like of it was never known before in
the history of man.
“Democracy is a disease--a form of crowd egomania which drives millions
of people mad with the insane delusion that they have been called of God
to do something for which they are utterly unfitted.
“All government worthy of the name must be conducted by a few brilliant
minds--divine leaders--presided over by a supreme leader whom we call
emperor or king. This is true in so-called democracies. The people only
pretend to govern--imagine that they govern. They do not. A few master
minds and brutal wills do it for them. Hence the system of bosses whose
foul record we have ended forever.
“No nation can have an art or literature unless monarchical and
aristocratic--America has never had a literature. It will have one only
when its conscious life is reincarnated in the soul of a sovereign who
takes his crown from God, not man.
“The people of this country were never fit to govern themselves. They
got the kind of government they deserved. In Central Europe government
has long been reduced to a science. Their cities are clean--their life
as orderly as the movement of the stars.
“The monarchical form of government only can answer the questions of
Socialism. Germany did this a generation ago. When the world-war came
the Socialists were as loyal to the Emperor as the proudest prince of
the blood.
“The conquest of America has been the best thing that could have
happened. Its battles were of minor importance. Had not a powerful
Imperial government come to our rescue we would have been deluged in
blood by a second French Revolution within this generation.
“The noblest minds in this country have felt this for years. They have
gradually been turning in disgust from our corrupt legislatures, our
corrupt courts, our corrupt municipalities, our rotten boroughs, our
corrupt Congress. I tell you this to show you that I have been led by no
weak or vulgar ambition into a betrayal of the liberties of a people. I
believe in what I have done--believe in it with every ounce of my
manhood. We owe the progress of the human race to aristocracy, not
democracy. Democracy is the great leveler of the world--the destructive
force that presses humanity downward and backward. Aristocracy is the
inspiring power that leads, uplifts, creates and beckons onward and
upward.
“All the achievements of thought and science are by the chosen few. The
herd merely eats and sleeps and reproduces its kind. But for the
pressure from their superiors the masses would all lapse to elemental
savagery within a few brief generations--”
Waldron stopped suddenly and gazed on the placid waters of the Hudson.
Virginia watched him with genuine astonishment. He had revealed a new
side of his strong character. She had not dreamed that his philosophy of
life had been so logically wrought. She had not believed since his
betrayal of his country that he had a philosophy of life at all.
“You astonish me beyond measure,” she said at last.
He smiled coldly.
“I understand. You did not think me capable of such sweeping thoughts or
such close reasoning--confess it!”
“It’s true, I didn’t--”
“You know now that I am in earnest in my political ambitions also?”
“I’m thoroughly convinced--”
“Good! You are a woman of rare intelligence and high ambitions. It is
therefore easy for me to speak, now that you know that I am sincere--”
He held her gaze in a moment’s searching silence.
“I may trust you now I’m sure with a secret that is not a secret if I
should be accused. _You_ will know that I mean something very definite
when I say that this nation is too great, its resources too exhaustless
to remain forever a conquered province of Imperial Europe. Am I not
right?”
“At least I hope so,” was the diplomatic reply.
“Exactly,” Waldron answered confidentially. “In other words the day will
come when a political leader of supreme genius will win the utter
loyalty and confidence of the soldiers who hold these millions in hand.
The man who does that will ascend a throne in Washington in a palace
worthy of a Continental Empire washed by two oceans--you understand?”
“I see!” Virginia breathed.
“Remember then, dear young lady, that I am your servant from today. If I
have high ambitions and glorious dreams for my people and my country, I
dream new glories for you--”
“And the commission you would offer me?” she asked steadily.
“That you organize the women of America into loyal legions who will
sustain the government against the possible forces of anarchy and
rebellion. If you will consider the offer I will place unlimited money
at your command. The old régime is gone forever. You can help me now to
organize a nobler one on its ruins.”
“And my reward?”
“I shall lay at your feet all that I am and have and ever hope to be. I
offer it now without condition if you will accept my hand in marriage--”
“Your commission I accept at once,” was the prompt reply. “If I succeed
we shall meet on terms more nearly equal.”
Waldron sprang to his feet, seized her hand and kissed it.
Could we have seen the expression of her white face when his lips
touched her flesh he would not have smiled as he led her to the waiting
car.