Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
Swipe or use the arrow keys.
English Edition · Branch 211 of 254
Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · pp. 301–316
The Keepers of the People
p. 301CHAPTER XVI
THE AFFAIR OF THE MISSIONARY
Althea went early the next morning to Vashti, in a faint hope that she might not after all be very deeply in love with Lord Lisdor. She found her pale from another wakeful night; and talked with her gently for a long while: as she had feared, the mischief was plainly past undoing. Vashti could not understand why she blamed Lord Lisdor; for it seemed to her in the ordinary course that a man should have two or more wives; but when Althea bade her again and again keep it hidden, assuring her that her close kinship with the Princes, and the fact that Lord Lisdor’s was an English marriage made a very different matter of it, she promised her that she would do her best. There was little chance that it would not be surprised very soon by one or another of the swarm of mutes; and Vashti thought it best to make no secret of it to the two of her maids who were fondest of her, and set them to keep watch against the rest.
Althea came away from her, still in an anxiety; and she felt besides a strong desire that no barrier between Prince Ralph and Ruth should be broken down. Lord Lisdor saw her from his lodging, as she passed, and came to her.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“I’m going to the council-chamber;” said Althea in a very cold voice.
He strolled along at her side, and said presently, with a vague intent to establish a counter-grievance, “I don’t see that you’ve any right to be angry with me, don’t you know? Ruth would have nothing to do with me; you would have nothing to do with me. You have practically both of you deserted me for Ralph. You’re wrapped up in him. I am thrown with Vashti, who is beautiful, and charming, and childlike; and I fall in love with her — what could be more natural?”
“You ought to have let her alone?” said Althea.
“Well, I couldn’t,” said Lord Lisdor. “By the way, I’ve been wondering why you and Ruth deserted me for Ralph. Why is it?”
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · Book II, Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · pp. 301–316
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.