Volume VII - Modernist Magazines Project

54 The Queen's Pleasureorder a general election. Or you can suspend the Constitution,and govern without any Soviete at all."The King laughed again." I'm afraid the Soviete might ask for a little evidence, a fewproofs, in support of my sweeping charges. I could hardly satisfythem by declaring that I had my wife's word for it. But,seriously, you exaggerate. Tsargradev is anything you like fromthe point of view of abstract ethics, but he's not a criminal. Hehasn't the faintest motive for doing anything that isn't in accordancewith the law. He's simply a vulgar, self-seeking politician,with a touch of the Tartar. But he's not a thief, and I imaginehis private life is no worse than most men's.""Wait, wait, only wait!" cried the Queen. "Time willshow. Some day he'll come to grief, and then you'll see thathe's even worse than I have said. I feel^ I know^ he's everythingthat's bad. Trust a woman's intuitions. They're much betterthan what you call evidence"And she had a nickname for him, which, as well as her generalcriticisms of his character, had pretty certainly reached thePremier's ear ; for, as subsequent events demonstrated, very nearlyevery servant in the Palace was a spy in his pay. She called himthe nain jaune.Subsequent events have also demonstrated that her woman'sintuitions were indeed trustworthy. Perhaps you will rememberthe revelations that were made at the time of M. Tsargradev'sdownfall; fairly full reports of them appeared in the Londonpapers. Murder, peculation, and revolting secret debaucherieswere all, surely enough, proved against him. It was proved thathe was the paid agent of Berlin ; it was proved that he had hadrecourse to torture in dealing with certain refractory witnesses inhis famous prosecution of Count Osareki. And then, there wasthe