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 54 of 254
Chapter IV · Lady Hammersmith Asks Questions · pp. 38–47
The Keepers of the People
p. 40“It’s not that: they bore me,” said Althea.
About noon Prince Melinsky came down to the tennis court, where Lord Lisdor and Ralph Falcon were playing. He was shaky from his drunkenness; his fresh complexion was all red and white patches; his eyes were dull; and the lump on his forehead was black. They nodded to him, and played on. At the end of the set, as they changed sides, Lord Lisdor said to him, “Feeling bad?”
“I have a headache,” said Prince Melinsky, speaking slowly. “I hope I wasn’t very unpleasant last night. I think I drank too much.”
“You were rather — scratched,” said Lord Lisdor.
“Scratched? How? I do not understand,” said Prince Melinsky.
“Scratch the Russian and you find the Tartar” said Lord Lisdor, suddenly urbane.
“I see,” said Prince Melinsky stiffly, and paused. “Did I — did I say anything foolish? I sometimes tell awful — what do you call them? — awful yarns? — yes; yarns, when I have drunk too much.”
“You said nothing that mattered,” said Ralph Falcon; and they began to play again.
For the rest of that day and for most of the next Prince Melinsky was quiet and thoughtful. He remembered nothing of his drunken fit, but he could not account for so great a lump on his forehead; and Lord Lisdor only said, when he asked him how he got it, “Against the wall.” He was very sore too that Lady Lisdor expressed neither curiosity nor compassion about it: he had always the expectations of a child. She had learned from Lord Lisdor that Ralph Falcon had picked him up, and flung him into a corner; and she wondered, with a wonder that ended in a shiver, how it would feel to be picked up in those great arms, and flung into a corner.
Lady Hammersmith and Miss Freshington arrived together; and at tea on the terrace it was plain that life at Quivern Court had changed. The two of them had so much to say, on what they called the burning questions of the hour, that no one else could have said anything, had they wished to. Ralph Falcon watched them; for he had heard that Lady Hammersmith could tell him of the life of the English lower classes; and he had his own interest in Miss Freshington. Neither of them spoke to him.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book I, Chapter IV · Lady Hammersmith Asks Questions · Book I, Chapter IV · Lady Hammersmith Asks Questions · pp. 38–47
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.