"Unless," supplemented Max, "some one thoroughly indiscreet occupies the chair?"
"Somebody," she replied, "whose minority report of one would attract all the attention it deserved."
"Oh, you think----?" His mind sparkled at the prospect: to be in a minority of one had a peculiar fascination for him.
"Yes, I think it may come to that," she said, "if you will honestly open your eyes."
"Then you cannot promise me the support of the Church?"
She shook her head as though that were the last thing possible.
"I am to be all alone?" His tone invited commiseration, while his brain soared with the dreams of a hashish-eater.
"I think about three may be with you, not more," she said, letting him down to earth again.
Her gentle gray eyes met his with friendly understanding.
"When I found out who you were," she said, "I saw"--then she hesitated--"I saw that you had the rare gift of doing naturally what one would never expect."
"To begin with, in coming here at all. And then you did things which, I imagine, no prince ever did before, and did them quite easily--'for fun,' I suppose you would say. Well, if you could do all that for fun, what might you not do when you became serious? A man who doesn't mind being laughed at--whatever his position--is very rare."
"Ah!" cried Max, "but now you are giving me more credit than I deserve. You set me to do ridiculous things for you--ridiculous, I mean, in one dressed as I was for fashion and not for use--I was aware of it; but nobody was aware of me. When I come here into these poor streets, I am so unexpected that nobody recognizes me. If they thought that they did, they would not believe their eyes. In that alone there is a sense of enlargement and liberty which those who have not to live in our position can hardly realize. It was like holiday; I felt as though I had been let loose."
"I cannot say; but I was happy while I was here. Why did you send me away?"
"For the same reason that I now ask you to come back. I wanted you to be of use--independently."
"Yet here I am dependent upon you again."
"No; you have this in your own hands: it is your position."
"That secures the chairmanship? But am I at all likely to be accepted?"
"From what I hear, nobody suspects you of taking any great interest in the life of the poor. They have therefore no reason to be afraid of you."