Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
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English Edition · Branch 146 of 254
Chapter VII · The Princess Agnes and Althea · pp. 191–200
The Keepers of the People
p. 192Althea had asked leave of Prince Ralph to go to the wing of the Princesses to see the child. He had granted it, for he thought that her spirit was, by now, strong enough to be unharmed by women’s foolishness. Having little desire to see the child’s mother, she had so timed her visits that they had not met. But one day, the Princess Agnes, who, in an irritation at the difficulty of learning the Varandal tongue, had seen the fulfilment of her mission further away than ever, had fallen into a low humour, and had loathed the child for three days, came into the nursery. Althea was sitting by the window, watching with a certain wonder the pleasure of her own maids, and of the nurses in a joyous, excited group about what seemed to her an unintelligent, inarticulate, crowing lump of pink flesh. At the sight of her the astounded Princess cried, “Althea! You here!”
Althea rose, curtsied, with a languid courtliness, and said, “How do you do, Princess Agnes?”
“How did you come here? How long have you been here?” cried the Princess Agnes.
“I came so long ago that I seem to have been here always,” said Althea, with a faint smile.
“But I don’t understand. Your mother?” cried the Princess Agnes.
“Oh, yes; poor, dear mamma,” said Althea, with a little yawn: she had ridden far and late the night before. “I should think she had forgotten me by now. I don’t often think about her.”
“But I don’t understand,” said the bewildered Princess. “Did your mother allow you to come?”
“I did not ask her,” said Althea. “Why should I? I had disowned her.”
“You ran away?” cried the Princess.
“Yes, I ran away. Prince Ralph offered to take me with him; and I came. I was not at all happy at home. I was always alone, or being bullied; and it was all very foolish, don’t you know?” said Althea in her slow, gentle voice.
“This is a shameful and disgraceful thing! My husband has robbed a mother of her only child!” cried the Princess.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter VII · The Princess Agnes and Althea · Book II, Chapter VII · The Princess Agnes and Althea · pp. 191–200
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Edgar Jepson’s The Keepers of the People begins as a late-Victorian lost-kingdom romance and becomes an unsettling political argument. Ralph Falcon moves from an English country house to the hidden state of Varandaleel, where laughter, secrecy, violence, education, and the duties of rulers are tested against one another.
Historical Text
The novel was first published in London in 1898 by C. Arthur Pearson. This reading text follows the owner-supplied critical edition, whose copy-text is the Methuen Colonial Library issue of the same year digitised by the Internet Archive. The supplied editorial note records the edition’s corrections, normalisations, limits, and unresolved textual risks.
About This Edition
This English Edition preserves the complete supplied text and apparatus: the introduction, reading guide, key words, plot outline, editorial note, both books and all thirty chapters, and the end notes. Its reader branches end at paragraph boundaries, with the original chapter structure and chapter page references mapped to the 1898 printing.
Rights
Edgar Jepson’s 1898 novel is in the public domain. The introduction, reader’s guide, key words, outline, editorial note, notes, editorial arrangement, and design of the supplied edition are © 2026 Diotimos Editions.