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 213 of 254
Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · pp. 301–316
The Keepers of the People
p. 304With crimson face, starting eyes, and stumbling tongue, the Princess Agnes burst into a fury of words: she would not be thus insulted; she would not have this disgraceful, this shameful intimacy flaunted before her; Lord Lisdor might be blind to it; he might condone it, if he chose; she would not; she protested against it, and she would protest till her last breath.
They listened to her, the Princes with unmoved faces, the others shocked, or angered, Ruth contemptuous; and to one and all she stood plainly revealed as the common woman.
When she had done, the Princess Dorothy, who had listened in a horror, said with a stern dignity, “I give you leave to retire to your room, Princess Agnes.”
The rebuke, coming from this quarter: she had always despised the old Princess for her gentleness: surprised and discomfited the Princess Agnes; and she stared at her dumbfounded.
“Convey the Princess Agnes to her rooms,” said Prince Raleigh; and four chamberlains came forward.
She rose; her eyes full of fury and hate swept round the table; and she moved towards the door with the air of a tragedy queen. Halfway she stopped, and said, “I have raised my voice in protest!”
When the curtains fell behind her, before the pause could grow awkward, Prince Raleigh said, “There is no need to apologise for the ravings of a mad woman.”
“Besides, where would the apologising begin?” said Lord Lisdor. “She came to you from us.”
But the talk did not run easily for the rest of dinner. When it came to an end, Prince Ralph went with his father; Vashti, seeing that they wished to be alone together, went with Ruth and Althea to the gardens; Lord Lisdor followed Vashti.
The two Princes smoked for a while in silence, then Prince Raleigh said, “I am growing tired of your wife.” “Then you will wonder the less that I have grown very tired of my wife,” said Prince Ralph.
“She will not disturb our peace at dinner for at least three months,” said Prince Raleigh. “That is well,” said Prince Ralph. “But that is a trifle. I wish you had a son. I am growing very old; and I have lived my life out. My heart would be at peace, if I could see a ruler of the people to come after you, growing up in the palace.”
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.