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 225 of 254
Chapter XVII · The Last Path · pp. 317–330
The Keepers of the People
p. 323“Yes, you are a fool!” said Althea earnestly. “Why, a common English housemaid knows more about men; and you have read the Books of the Wisdom. You are Prince Ralph’s wife for reasons of State. He wants a son of pure English blood to rule the people after him. I dare swear that he never even told you that he loved you; I know him too well. Did he?” And she stamped her foot.
“No,” said the Princess, constrained by Althea’s vehemence.
“Of course not! And you are his State wife; you weary him with everlasting complaints; you sulk with him; you are always making a display of your bad taste and bad temper; and you do not even suspect the Pavilion of Wonderful Delights!”
“He is my husband!” cried the Princess Agnes fiercely.
“He is — your — husband,” said Althea with infinite scorn. “And I am not going to have anything more to do with such a foolish person.” And with that she left her.
The Princess Agnes had been furious many times; but her past furies were as nothing to her fury now. She recalled every injury of her long betrayal, as she had come to believe it, and this — this matter of Latchimi — seemed the most infamous usage of it all.
At first she was for loading once more Prince Ralph with her just reproaches, for expressing the loathing of him with which he had inspired her. Then she thought of her thousand other complaints, and his unmoved face. At last she resolved to assert herself, to deal with this Latchimi herself, and armed with justice, drive her from the palace. She did not know clearly what she would say to her, but felt that the right whirl of indignant words would rush from the whirl of her mind; and awaited the dusk, pacing the long room with hasty, uneven steps, eager to be done with it. When the dusk fell, and she knew that the Princes were dining, she dismissed all her mute maids but one, the youngest and most timid, whom she thought the proper instrument for her purpose. She bade her follow her into the garden, and when they came to the end of it, she caught her by the arm, and said fiercely, “Latchimi! Lead me to Latchimi, and the Pavilion of Wonderful Delights! Open me the gates!”
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XVII · The Last Path · Book II, Chapter XVII · The Last Path · pp. 317–330
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.