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 147 of 254
Chapter VII · The Princess Agnes and Althea · pp. 191–200
The Keepers of the People
p. 193“He certainly hasn’t robbed an only child of her mother! When you talk like that you are exactly poor, dear mamma; and that was just the kind of mothering I got,” said Althea. “But we can’t have any nonsense about it here: you can’t really rob people of what they really don’t value; and mamma only found me in the way. If she had only left me alone, it would have been different; but she was always interfering for no reason in the world. She only used me to keep her hand in, when there wasn’t any one disreputable and interesting to improve. You see, since I’ve been here, I’ve thought most of it out, and guessed the rest.” She spoke slowly, and with weighed words.
“Terrible! Terrible! To desolate a home for a mere caprice!” said the Princess Agnes.
“You have grown very like poor, dear mamma — but I suppose you women do,” said Althea, with a little scorn in her tone. “Now, I think it was very good of Prince Ralph to take the trouble. There was no reason, except kindness, why he should help me. I don’t want any more nonsense about robbing a mother of her child; I see that he did not tell you about my coming, because he knew you would talk foolishly. But the truth is, I am very happy here, and I owe it to him.”
“But where have you been living? What have you been doing?” said the Princess Agnes.
“Oh, I live in the Golden Rooms, in his wing. I see more of him that way; he promised me I should, before I came. And as for what I do. We often go to the North on a hunting expedition among the forests, when everything is going smoothly, and we can be spared.”
“What do you mean by ‘we’? What have you to do with it?” said the Princess Agnes, with jealous quickness.
“Oh, I don’t mean I am necessary. But I think I help rule the people a little. I am always some one to talk to; and that is really a good deal. And now and then, not often, I see a thing that puzzles him; and it saves him thinking it out. I am awfully pleased when I do. At any rate, I am sure he likes to have me about,” said Althea.
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.