and his mother were taken into captivity together. It was in prison
that she invented the royal game, the young king amused himself by
carving out the first rough pieces.


But was she a queen? Sometimes I think that I have the story wrong;
for what queen in those days would have assented to a proposition so
democratic as that a man-at-arms (a "pawn" in the language of the
unromantic) could rise by his own exertions to the dignity of Royalty
itself? But if she were a waiting-maid in love with the king's own
man-at-arms, then it would be natural that she should set no limit to
her ambitions for him. The man-at-arms crowned would be in keeping
with her most secret dreams.


These are the things of which I think when I push my king's
man-at-arms two leagues forward. A game of chess is a romance sport
when it is described in that dull official notation "P to K4 Kt to
KB3"; a story should be woven around it. One of these days, perhaps,
I shall tell the story of my latest defeat. Lewis Carroll had some
such intention when he began _Alice Through the Looking Glass_, but he
went at it half-heartedly. Besides, being a clergyman and writing as
he did for children, he was handicapped; he dared not introduce the
bishops. I shall have no such fears, and my story will be serious.


Consider for a moment the romance which underlies the most ordinary
game. You push out the king's pawn and your opponent does the same. It
is plain (is it not?) that these are the heralds, meeting at the
border-line between the two kingdoms--Ivoria and Ebonia, let us say.