His mind, in consequence, was greatly troubled. Being of conservative instincts he believed that, in the main, the Bishops were right and the Prime Minister wrong. The Prime Minister had been harassing the country with general elections; and the country had had about as many as it could stand: yet without a fresh election no other ministry was possible. And now, at a moment when the country was bent on profiting by the revival in trade which the approaching celebrations had stimulated, nothing would be so unpopular as a fresh ministerial crisis; and he could have no doubt that, whatever the papers might pretend to say, the odium of that crisis, if due to his own action, would fall eventually upon himself. And the Prime Minister knew it! Yes, just at that juncture, resignation, or the threat of it, had become an absolutely compelling card; and he was playing it for all it was worth. Free Church Bishops were to be promised for the ensuing year, or the Ministry would be bound to feel, here and now, that his Majesty's confidence in it had been withdrawn. Resignation, aimed not against any opposing majority in Parliament, but against the demur and opposition of the Crown itself--that fact in all its political significance, with all its possible developments of danger for the State and of humiliation for the monarchy, was daily pressing its relentless weight against the King's scruples. The more unanswerable it seemed the more angry he became, the more keenly did he feel that he was being unfairly used. And then, one day, as he sat thinking at his desk, all at once a new thought occurred to him, throwing a queer radiance into his face, of joy mixed with cunning. And then, gradually, it faded out and left a blank; the old expression of anxiety and distrustfulness returned. He shook his head at himself, scared that such a thought should ever have come into it. "No, no, it wouldn't do!" he muttered. "Impossible." All the same he got up from his desk, and in deep cogitation began walking about the room. The carpet with its rich variegated pattern, like Max's conversation, helped him to think; until certain deliveries of a royal courier from abroad came to divert his attention to more particular and family affairs. Nevertheless his mind had again reverted to its vetoed notion when, an hour later, on his way to the Queen's apartments he met the Princess Charlotte tripping gaily along the corridor. She stopped to give him her "return home" embrace. "How well you are looking, papa!" cried she, admiring his flushed countenance. But the King, though he smiled, remained preoccupied with the embryos of statecraft. "My dear," he said abruptly, "do you think that I am popular?" "Why, yes, papa, of course!" she said, opening sweet eyes at him. "Doesn't everybody cheer you when you go anywhere?"