‘I would make her mine Empress,’ cried Felicitas passionately. ‘I would obtain a divorce and free myself from my intolerable fetters!’ ‘Impossible!’ urged Swami, as it seemed defiantly. ‘Thy Majesty hath no just cause for putting away thine Empress: she is a model of marital purity, by all accounts.’ ‘My plea would be on the ground of incompatibility of temper: we do not agree in any way, and I shall never know happiness while I live with her. Besides, what is to become of the Succession, with a barren woman for Empress?’ demanded Felicitas with a look of triumph in his face, for he imagined this would prove an unanswerable argument with the country. ‘The Succession,’ returned Swami smiling, ‘can take no harm whatever, with the numerous cousins thy Majesty is favoured with. Moreover, it behoves me to remind thy Majesty that the Empress and thyself lived in perfect harmony up to the time that thy mind wandered to the fair astronomer. Curb thy desires: keep thy way pure, and engage thyself in the affairs of the nation, taking good heed of thine high position, and Mercia will soon pass out of thy life. Thus all will in time go well with thee.’ ‘How fine thou preachest, good Swami! Surely thou hast mistaken thy vocation—for the gown of a priest would better befit thee. Dost thou advise all thy customers in this strain?’ exclaimed the monarch angrily. ‘I counsel each one who seeks my aid to the best of my ability. All who come hither do so of their own free will. I invite no one—I press no one. Let him who is dissatisfied with my forewarnings go his own way: I will not quarrel with him for following his own council. For I find all men in the end carry out their own designs, even if the wisdom of a Solomon, double-distilled, were to warn them of their folly.’ ‘Swami, forgive me!’ returned Felicitas humbly, ‘I meant no offence; but I was nettled by being made to listen to good advice, to which I am treated daily. The Empress bestows uninvited this article so generously that in truth I want no more from anybody. Now, I pray, let us talk of Mercia; would she marry me if I were free?’ ‘She is destined for another, far beneath thy Majesty in social position; but who can give her a heart wholly devoted to her: one who has never desired the love of woman till his eyes gazed upon her beauty—the beauty of her soul,’ replied Swami, with a countenance irradiated with his own emotions.