Joanwas standing on the first floor veranda of the President's house early next morning, when her errant thoughts were brought back to earth from wonderland by a stir and clatter of hoofs in the courtyard. She knew, because Alec had told her the previous evening, that he was bound for an experimental farm certain local magnates had established in the rich alluvial plain that forms the right bank of the Danube some few miles from the capital city.
"At present our country exports pigs and little else," he had said. "I mean to change all that. Austria shuts and bolts her doors by hostile tariffs; but Turkey is open to trade with all the world, and who so favorably situated as we, once the barriers of race prejudice are broken down? So, behold in me a patron of agriculture and its allied arts!"
"The Turk is our hereditary enemy," snarled Prince Michael, who was much annoyed by the poor quality of the wine at the royal repast. "Fancy me drinking Carlowitz at my age!" he had growled toStampoff when he discovered that champagne was not supplied, by the King's order.
"My dear Dad, I am trying hard to erase that word 'hereditary' from the Serbian language," laughed Alec. "It opposes me at every turn; it mocks at my best efforts; it swathes me like the bandages of a mummy,—and I am growing weary of its restraint. This is a question of self interest, too. Perhaps, if I can persuade our good Kosnovians to adopt some more up-to-date fetish, they may drop the hereditary habit of carving their chosen rulers into mincemeat whenever a change of Government seems good to them."
"The King of Kosnovia should never forget that the time may come when he will be crowned Emperor at Constantinople," said Prince Michael with a regal flourish of his plump hand.
"Precisely. The ceremony should provide a picturesque spectacle for the cinematograph. Meanwhile, I want to enter the enemy's territory, and at present my skirmishers are pigs which are difficult to drive. We need stronger forces, such as hardware, agricultural implements, horses, cereals, even textile manufactures."
"In sending your pigs, I hope you also get rid of your bores, Alec," put in Felix, and Nesimir, who knew no English, wondered why so many of his guests laughed.
As for the elder Delgrado, he sulked until the President produced a bottle of imperial tokay, aluxury which the stout Sergius explained away by the statement that his house had never before been honored by so distinguished and brilliant a company.
So Joan was prepared for her lover's departure from Delgratz soon after daybreak. The heat of the noon hours was so excessive that early rising became more of a necessity than a virtue; hence her appearance on the veranda.
Alec had definitely promised his mother before retiring to rest that he would not dispense with an escort until the city was thoroughly quieted down after the day's excitement. The troopers paraded at six o'clock, and he did not keep them waiting a minute. Joan, delighting in the military display, watched him mount and ride off with that half-maternal solicitude which is the true expression of a woman's love. She hoped he would look up ere he quitted the courtyard—and she must have telegraphed her wish; for Alec at once turned in the saddle, almost as though some one had told him she was there.
He waved a hand in gay greeting, and it would appear that a whim seized him at the sight of her, since he gave some instructions to an aid de camp, who came clanking back to the porch, dismounted, and entered the building.
Soon the officer was bowing low to Joan. "The King presents his compliments, Excellency," he said in careful French, "and wishes to know if you will accompany him for an hour's ride before sunset."
Joan laughed at Alec's masterful methods Page 199Joan laughed at Alec's masterful methodsPage 199
"Please convey my regrets to his Majesty; but I do not possess a riding habit," said Joan.
"The King told me to say that if your Excellency offers no objection, a habit will be brought to the palace at four o'clock."
Joan laughed whole heartedly; for Alec's masterful methods came as a distinct surprise. Yet, despite her independent spirit, she rejoiced in his dominance.
"Tell his Majesty that I have the utmost confidence in his judgment," she said, and her face was still rippling with merriment at the hidden meaning Alec would surely extract from her message when Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir joined her.
"Ah, that is better, Miss Vernon," he cried. "Glad to find you in good spirits,—'Hail, smiling morn,' and that sort of thing, eh, what?"
"Why are you deserting Alec—the King—to-day?" she asked. "I thought you two were inseparable. And please enlighten me, Lord Adalbert, as to the correct way of alluding to royalty. Alec is every inch a King, of course; but I find my tongue tripping every time I use his title."
Beaumanoir seemed to weigh the point. "You are experiencing the same difficulty as the sailor who acted as billiard marker in the naval mess at Portsmouth," he said. "One evening the Prince of Wales came in to play pool, and Jack whispered to the mess president, 'Beg pardon, sir, but am I to call 'im Yer R'yal 'Ighness or Spot Yaller?'"
Joan shrieked at that, and the sound of her mirth brought Princess Delgrado to them.
"You are cheerful this morning, Joan," she said.
Her ready use of the girl's Christian name would have told Felix, if he had been present, that Alec's mother did not by any means share her husband's views as to the impossibility of a marriage between her son and this bright faced American. At any rate, Joan's cheeks glowed, and there was more than convention in the kiss the two women exchanged, each moved, as it were, by a spontaneous liking for the other.
"It is impossible to be other than cheerful in Lord Adalbert's company," said Joan. "Even yesterday, when bullets were showering in through the windows of that wretched hotel, he made game of them."
"So I did,—shouted 'Mark cock' when the first low one flew across. By gad! that's rather clever of you, Miss Vernon," he grinned.
"I don't know how either of you can find it in your heart to jest about that dreadful adventure," said the Princess. "I lay awake for hours last night thinking of what might have happened if that man Bosko had not managed to get away and warn General Stampoff."
"By the way, what became of the waiter Felix sent here from the hotel?" mused Joan aloud. "I forgot to ask him. Surely the man came and spoke to some one?"
"Oh, yes, Prince Michael met him and questioned him. Then Monsieur Nesimir took him in hand; but long before either of them could make up their minds that he was speaking the truth Bosko was clear of the mob and Stampoff was bringing his hussars from the War Ministry."
The Princess spoke hurriedly, and the younger people were quick to perceive a slight restraint in her words. It was quite natural. A mother, weighing the actions of others in a matter touching the safety of her son, would hardly make allowance for the incredulity such a messenger as Sobieski would inspire, and Beaumanoir tactfully led the talk to a less serious topic.
"You charged me, a little while ago, Miss Vernon, with deserting our sovereign lord the King, whereas the exact opposite is true," he said. "I am here on duty. 'Berty,' said my liege, 'stop at home to-day and amuse my mother and Joan,' his very words. Am I amusing you? No! Then I must go and find that funny little Pole and beseech him to tell us his best before breakfast story. Gad! He has some rippin' after dinner ones. He had us all roaring last night, and the funniest thing was to hear him spinning the same yarn in the local lingo, so that Nesimir and the other Serbs could share in the festivities. Prince Michael and Alec had the pull of me there, because they could laugh twice. By the way, Princess, Monsieur Poluski was well acquainted with your husband a good many years ago. They firstmet in New York, it seems. Poluski coolly informed us that he was obliged to leave Warsaw about that time because he had invented a new explosive specially adapted for removing crowned heads. Fancy him saying that when a real live King was sitting next to him."
"Alec is very fond of Felix," said Joan. "He knows quite well that our friend talks about things he has never done and never means to do. Why, Felix is the most tender hearted man living. His generosity is proverbial, and he would give away the last franc in his pocket if a starving woman begged of him. His anarchist notions are all nonsense. He has cared little about political affairs during the last ten years, and his only real happiness now is to paint the portrait of a pretty woman and sing at his work. If it was not for the belief that he is mixed up with dynamitards and other weird creatures, he would be one of the best known artists in Paris."
Beaumanoir called to mind the quiet confidence in Poluski's voice when describing the potency of that curious cigar-shaped bomb which so narrowly escaped being hurled at the mutineers during the fight.
"There is a lot more in Poluski's make-up than one would give him credit for at a glance," said he.
"I understand he was really a firebrand in his youth," remarked the Princess. "My husband and he disagreed so strongly at one period that their acquaintance ceased during many years. Indeed, I met him yesterday practically for the first time."
She sighed. Joan realized that Princess Delgrado was perplexed to find her son with so many new interests in life, interests of which she had no cognizance. He might have dwelt in some city a thousand miles removed from Paris, for all she knew of his associates or habits, and this one fact was eloquent of the gulf that yawned between his home and his pursuits.
After breakfast, Joan insisted on beginning work in the Cathedral. Felix and Beaumanoir accompanied her there in a closed carriage, and the cool interior of the heavy, ugly structure was not ungrateful in the midday heat.
At four o'clock Joan was ready to don a riding-habit that fitted marvelously well considering that the maker had never set eyes on the wearer till he brought the costume to the palace. At five she and Alec and Beaumanoir went for a ride on the outskirts of the town. The men took her to a very fine turfed avenue that wound through three miles of woodland. At the close of a glorious canter a turn in the path revealed a rather pretty chateau situated on a gentle slope of lawns and gardens rising from the northern shore of a large lake.
"Do you like it?" asked Alec.
"It is a perfectly charming place," she said enthusiastically.
"I am glad you think so," said he. "It is called the New Konak, in contradistinction to the old one, the Schwarzburg. It will be our summer residence.I propose to occupy it as soon as it is properly furnished."
He spoke lightly; but a quiet glance conveyed far more than the words. This, then, was their destined nest, their very own house, and for their first ramble he had brought her there. Its seclusion gave a sense of secure peace that was absent from the President's gloomy palace. The lovely park and its belt of forest shut out the noise and glare of the streets. Joan sat on her horse and surveyed the scene with glistening eyes. Her future home lay there, and the belief thrilled her strangely. If she could have peered into the future, how much more deeply would she have been stirred; for if ever she was fated to be happy in the companionship of the gallant youth by her side, assuredly that happiness was not so near or so easily attained as it seemed to be in that sylvan hour.
Beaumanoir broke in on her reverie in his usual happy-go-lucky style. "Not a bad looking crib, is it, Miss Joan?" said he. "I have promised Alec to remain in Delgratz until you are all settled down in it, nice and comfy. Then I wend my lonely way back to Paris. By Jove! I shall be something of a hero there—shine with reflected glory—eh, what?"
"I can't spare you for many a day yet, Berty," said Alec. "You can hardly realize how good he has been, Joan," he continued. "I had a fearfully hard time during the first week. More than once I wantedto cut and run; but he kept me to it, chaffing me out of the dumps when everything seemed to be going wrong."
Beaumanoir winked brazenly at her. "He talks that way now," he grinned. "It's the kingly habit, I understand. Alec has got it down to a fine point. Make every fellow believe that he is It, and there you are, you know."
There was some substratum of sense in Beaumanoir's chaffing. Alec was taking his kingship very seriously, and Joan was hard pressed to bridge the gulf that lay between Paris and Delgratz.
At first she found it almost impossible to realize that Alec had been in harness little more than a month. His talk was replete with local knowledge; he seemed to understand the people and their ways so thoroughly. He was versed even in the peculiarities of their methods of tillage, was able to explain distinctions of costume and racial appearance, and might have spent his life in studying all their customs and folklore.
Fortunately, Joan herself was gifted with quick perception and a retentive memory. After a few days' residence in the White City she began to assimilate the rills of information that trickled in upon her from so many sources, and the feeling of bewildered surprise with which she regarded her lover's attainments during the first hours of real intimacy was soon replaced by an active sympathy and fuller understanding. She was helped in this by the King'smother, since there could be no doubt that Princess Delgrado took her absolutely to her heart.
Prince Michael, who was completely eclipsed not only by his son's extraordinary versatility in all public affairs but by lack of that opulent setting for his peculiar qualities which Paris alone could supply, seemed to accept the inevitable. He tolerated Joan, openly praised her beauty, and became resigned in a more or less patronizing way to the minor distractions of local life.
Felix and Joan gave up their mornings to art. The Pole discovered some quaint old frescoes in the cathedral which attracted him by their remarkable freedom of design and simplicity of color. He valiantly essayed their reproduction; but Joan suspected in her deepest heart that Poluski's sudden conversion to Byzantine ideals was due far more to the fact that the lofty dome of the building produced musical effects of the most gratifying nature than to any real appreciation of the quaint contours and glaring tints of a series of wall pictures that set forth some long forgotten Bulgar artist's conception of the life and history of John the Baptist.
There was naturally a good deal of inquiry and speculation as to the identity of the unknown connoisseur who had commissioned Joan to copy the Saint Peter. Felix resolutely declined to satisfy any one's questioning on that topic. He had given his word, he said, not to betray the confidence reposed in him; but he allayed Alec's professed jealousy bydeclaring that to the best of his knowledge the man who had sent Joan on this mysterious quest had never even seen her. Still, it was impossible to avoid a certain amount of interested speculation among members of the small circle which was aware of the reason that lay behind Joan's visit to Delgratz. Both Alec and Joan believed that Count Julius Marulitch was in some way responsible, and their chief difficulty was to analyze the motive of such unlooked-for generosity on his part.
The slight mystery underlying the incident was not cleared up until Beliani reached the capital two or three days after Julius himself. The latter cleared the air by expressing his unbounded amazement at finding his cousin engaged to a young American woman of whose existence he had not even heard before he was introduced to her. Under the conditions it seemed to savor of the ridiculous to ask if he was the hidden agent in the matter of the picture. But Beliani was candor itself; not for a moment did he endeavor to conceal his responsibility. When Alec welcomed him on the evening of his arrival, he drew the King aside and said, with all the friendliness of one apparently devoted to the Kosnovian cause:
"I am glad to see that my little scheme has worked well. Of course you guessed who it was that despatched Miss Vernon from Paris?"
"No," said Alec, scanning the Greek's smiling yet subtle face with those frank eyes of his thathad so quickly learned the secret of looking beneath the veneer of men's words to discover their motives. "No, I never associated you with her appearance here. What inspired you to it? I may say at once that I regard it as the most friendly act you could possibly have performed so far as I am concerned; but I know you well enough to be a little dubious."
Beliani smiled and spread wide his hands with the deprecatory gesture of the Levantine. Long years of residence in the capitals of Europe had not wholly effaced the servile mannerisms of the Eastern money-lender.
"That is because you know I am a Greek, your Majesty," he said. "It is the misfortune of my countrymen that we are seldom given credit for disinterested motives. Well, I will be honest, quite frank in this, for the excellent reason that if I was to endeavor to hoodwink you I think I should fail. I make it my business to know everything—I repeat, everything—about Kosnovian affairs, and when the rumor reached Paris that you were to marry a Montenegrin Princess——"
Alec laughed so cheerily that Prince Michael, who happened to be in the room, turned and looked at the two, wondering what Beliani could have said that so amused his son.
"My dear fellow," he broke in, "I have never set eyes on the lady. My time has been far too occupied in learning my business to permit of visits to neighboringStates. Moreover, as it happened, I had chosen my wife some days before I hit upon a career."
"Exactly, your Majesty. I knew that also."
"But how could you know?"
"I mean that I learned it afterward. An art student of the type of Miss Vernon, and a young gentleman so popular in Parisian society as Alexis Delgrado, could not meet day after day in the Louvre to conduct a class composed solely of two members without exciting a certain amount of comment."
"But that doesn't explain why you should have decided upon the extraordinary step of sending her to Delgratz."
"No, it shows only how readily I availed myself of existing circumstances. You see, sitting there in Paris and reading of your phenomenal progress, I pictured to myself the isolation, the lack of sympathetic companionship, that you must be suffering here despite all the brave fireworks of your achievements. We Greeks are poets and philosophers as well as financiers, and I gratified those higher instincts of my race by rendering possible a visit to Delgratz of the lady whom you had chosen as a bride, while at the same time I hope to do myself a good turn in winning your favor; for I have money at stake on your success. Please do not forget that, your Majesty. I supported the Delgrado cause when it was at the lowest ebb of failure, and I naturally look forward now to recoup myself."
"All this is new to me," said Alec, "new and somewhatpuzzling. In what way are you bound up with the fortunes of my house, Monsieur Beliani?"
The Greek shrugged his shoulders expressively. "There are so many ways in which interest in a fallen monarchy can be kept alive," he said. "Monseigneur your father is well acquainted with the turns and twists of events ever since he was driven forth from Kosnovia as a young man. For many years I remained here, working steadily and hopefully in his behalf, and you yourself are aware that when you were a boy of fourteen, Stampoff and I escaped death only by the skin of our teeth because of an abortive attempt to place your father on the throne."
"Of course," said Alec thoughtfully, "you must be repaid with interest the sums you have expended in our behalf; but I warn you that a new era of economy has been established here. My father and I have already agreed to differ on that point. He seemed to think that the chief business of a King was to exploit his subjects, whereas my theory is that the King should set an example of quiet living and industry. Don't forget that I have seen some of my brother potentates stranded in Paris, mostly because they were so ready to gratify their own appetites at the expense of their people. I need hardly tell you, Beliani, that Kosnovia is a poverty stricken State. We have suffered from three generations of self seeking and rapacious rulers. That is all ended. I mean to render my people happy and contented. It shall be the one care of my life to makethem so, and if it is the will of Providence that a Delgrado should reign in the next generation, my legacy to him will be, not millions of pounds invested in foreign securities, but a nation strong, self contained, and prosperous."
Beliani listened with a rapt attention. "I agree most fully with every word that has fallen from your lips," he said; "but your Majesty cannot achieve these splendid aims single handed. You must be surrounded by able men; you need officials of ripe experience in every department. Now, the first consideration of a small State like this, hemmed in as it is by powerful Kingdoms which the least change in the political barometer may convert into active enemies, is a strong and progressive system of finance. I am vain enough to think that you may find my services useful in that direction. There is no man in Delgratz who has had my training, and so assured am I of the success that will attend your Majesty's reign that I purposely delayed my arrival here so that I might not come empty handed. I passed a week in Vienna, working and thinking twenty hours out of each twenty-four. I felt my way cautiously with the leading financial houses there. Of course, I could not say much, because I was unauthorized; but I have obtained guarantees that will command the certain issue of a loan sufficient to give a start to some, at least, of the many projects you have already foreshadowed in your public speeches. Without a shadow of doubt I declare that as soon as I am ableto open negotiations with your approval, a loan of several millions will be at your service."
Though the Greek was putting forward an obvious bait, it was evident that the King was astonished by his outspoken declaration. "Do I understand that you are applying for the post of Minister of Finance?" he said in his straightforward way.
"Yes, your Majesty," replied Beliani.
"You appreciate, of course, that I occupy a somewhat peculiar position here," said Alec. "I am a constitutional monarch backed by a constitution that is little more than a name. This country really demands an autocracy, whereas I have sworn to govern only by the will of the people. In those circumstances I do not feel myself at liberty to appoint or dismiss Ministers at my own sweet will. I assure you that I am grateful for the offer of help you bring; but I cannot give you the appointment you seek until, in the first place, I have consulted my council and obtained its sanction."
Beliani bowed. "I will leave the matter entirely in your Majesty's hands," he said, and by no sign did his well governed face betray his satisfaction; for, with the King on his side, the astute Greek well knew that he could pull the strings of the puppets in the Assembly to suit his own ends.
"May I venture to suggest to your Majesty," he went on, "that there is one thing that demands immediate attention? Your position cannot be regarded as assured until you have received the recognitionof the chief European States. Has Austria made any move in that direction? Have you been approached by Russia? One of those two will take the initiative, and the others will follow."
"So far," said Alec, smiling, "I have been favored with a telegram from the German Emperor, which his chargé d'affaires tried to explain away next day. It was followed by a protest from Turkey on account of an alleged disrespectful remark of mine about her position in the cosmogony of Europe, and I have drawn a polite refusal from Austria to modify passport regulations, which, by the way, I suggested should be altogether done away with. Other Kings and Principalities have left me severely alone."
"But it would be a grave error to drop the passport system," said Beliani earnestly. "It is most important that your Majesty's police should be acquainted with the identity of all strangers; otherwise you would never know what secret agents of your enemies you might be harboring here."
"I trouble my head very little about the secret agents of enemies that do not exist," said Alec lightly. "You are probably thinking of the revolt of the Seventh Regiment; but that is a domestic quarrel, a local phase of the war waged by all criminals against representatives of law and order. To be sure, I shall devote every effort to keeping Kosnovia free of external troubles; yet passports are useless there. I find that a stupid dream of a Slav Empirehas drugged the best intellects of Kosnovia for half a century. That sort of political hashish must cease to control our actions. It has served only to cripple our commercial expansion, and I have declined resolutely to countenance its continuance either in public or private. Let us first develop the land we own. Believe me, Monsieur Beliani, if our people are worthy of extending their sway, no power on earth can stop them; but they must first learn to till the field with implements other than swords or bayonets, which are quite out of date, either as plows or as reaping-hooks."
Prince Michael, watching them furtively, and wondering much what topic was engaging them so deeply, could no longer restrain his impatience. He joined them, saying with his jaunty, self confident air: "What new surprise are you two plotting? You ought to make a rare combination,—Alec with his democratic pose of taking the wide world into his confidence, and you, Beliani, burrowing underground like a mole whose existence is suspected only when one sees the outcome of his labors."
"Just what I was suggesting to his Majesty," laughed Beliani, cursing Prince Michael under his breath for interfering at that moment. "I will say, though, from what I have managed to glean of his projects, that the humble rôle you have been good enough to assign to me will be utterly out of place in his nobler schemes. Nevertheless, I hope to make myself useful."
"Something to do with money, of course?" guffawed the Prince.
"It is the only commodity I really understand," was the suave answer.
"That is why you refused me a loan a fortnight ago in Paris, I suppose?"
"A loan!" interposed Alec. "Were you hard up, father?"
"I have been telling you so without avail ever since I arrived in Delgratz," said the Prince bruskly.
"Ah, you have been asking me to impose on an empty exchequer an annual payment that Kosnovia certainly cannot afford; but I certainly was not under the impression that you had found it necessary to apply to Monsieur Beliani for help. Why should such a step be necessary? I have always understood——"
"Oh, we need not discuss the thing now," said Prince Michael offhandedly; for he dreaded a too close inquiry into his wife's financial resources in the presence of the Greek. Princess Delgrado was reputedly a rich woman, and her husband had explained his shortness of cash during recent years by the convenient theory of monetary tightness in America, whence, it was well understood, her income was derived.
"Have you seen your mother recently?" he went on, striving to appear at his ease. "I was looking for her half an hour ago. Some letters that reached me from Paris to-day ought to be answered by to-night'spost, and I wish to consult her before dealing with them."
"Joan will know where she is, I expect," said Alec; but, seeing that Prince Michael did not avail himself of Joan's presence to seek the desired information, he strolled over to the corner of the room where Joan was chatting with Beaumanoir and one of the Serbian officers attached to the royal suite.
"Do you know where my mother is?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "General Stampoff took her for a drive nearly an hour ago. I offered to go with them; but the General explained that his victoria would hold only two."
"Stampoff driving with my mother!" cried Alec with a laugh, "I must look into this. Stampoff is no lady's man as a rule. Now, what in the world does he want my mother to do for him?"
Certainly there must have been some quality in the air of Delgratz that produced strange happenings. Stampoff could scarcely speak civilly to a woman, ever since a faithless member of the fair sex brought about his downfall in Delgratz a decade earlier. Small wonder, then, that Alec should express surprise at such display of gallantry on his part!
And, indeed, the unprecedented action of the gruff old Serbian General in taking Princess Delgrado for a drive that evening was destined to have consequences not to be foreseen by any person, least of all the young couple whose contemplated marriage was then in the mouths of all men. It was the first step in thenew march of events. Stampoff meant to prove to the King's mother that her son would be ruined in the eyes of his people if he married a foreigner, ruined instantly and irretrievably, no matter how gracious and pleasing Joan might seem to be in their eyes, and, true to his military caste, he wasted no time in making the Princess aware of his motive in seeking this tête-à-tête conversation.
"I think I am right in assuming that you approve of the young American lady as your son's wife," said he when the carriage was clear of the paved streets and bowling smoothly along the south bank of the Danube on the only good driving road outside the city.
"The notion startled me at first," confessed the Princess; "but the more I see of Joan the more I like her. Alec and she are devoted to each other, and I am sure she will be popular, for she is the type of woman who will take her position as Queen seriously."
"She is admirable in every respect," interrupted Stampoff; "but she suffers from one defect that outweighs all her virtues,—she is not a Serb."
"Nor am I," said the Princess quickly; "yet no one seems to find fault with the King on that ground."
"One cannot judge the conditions that hold good to-day by those which existed twenty-five years ago," said Stampoff gravely. "When Prince Michael married you, madame, he was an exile; but Alexis is thereigning King, and he will offend his people mortally if he brings in a foreigner to share his throne."
Princess Delgrado was bewildered by this sudden attack. She turned and scanned the old man's impressive features with feverish anxiety. "What do you mean?" she asked quickly. "Are you trying to enlist my aid in a campaign against my son's chosen wife? If so, you will fail, General. I am weary to death of political intrigues and the never ceasing tactics of wirepullers. I have been surrounded by them all my life, and I thanked Providence in my heart when I saw that my son began his reign by sweeping aside the whole network of lies and artifice. He has not imposed himself on his people. He is here by their own free will, and if they are ready to accept him so thoroughly they will surely not think of interfering in such a personal matter as his marriage."
"But they are thinking of it," said Stampoff doggedly. "That is why you are here now with me. I felt that I must warn you of the trouble ahead. Alec, I admit, would be an ideal King in an ideal State; but he has failed absolutely to appreciate the racial prejudices that exist here. They are the growth of centuries; they cannot be uprooted merely because a King is in love with an eminently desirable young woman. Among the ten millions of our people, Princess, there are hardly ten thousand who have any settled notions of government, whether good or bad, and those ten thousand think they have a priorright to control the destinies of the remainder of the nation. With the exception of a few of the younger officers, there is not a man among the governing class who doesn't harbor more or less resentment against your son. He is putting down with a ruthless hand the petty corruption on which they thrived, and at the same time reducing their recognized salaries. In season and out of season he preaches the duties of good citizenship, but these men have too long been considering self to yield without a struggle the positions attained under a less scrupulous régime.
"I speak of what I know when I tell you that, placid and contented as Delgratz looks, it is really a seething volcano of hate and discontent. Repressed for the hour, kept in check, perhaps, by the undoubted loyalty of the masses, it is ready to spout devastating fire and ashes at the least provocation, and that will be found in a marriage which seems to shut out all hope of realizing the long looked-for joining of Montenegro and Kosnovia. I have a bitter acquaintance with our history, madame, and am persuaded that if Alec is to remain King he must abandon forever this notion of marrying an alien. The Greek church would oppose it tooth and nail, and the people would soon follow the lead of their Popes. This young lady's appearance in Delgratz has come at a singularly inopportune moment. She was brought here by some one hostile to your son. If she came in obedience to Alec's wishes, he is his own worst enemy."
The distressed Princess could hardly falter a question in response to Stampoff's vehement outburst. "Why do you tell me these things?" she said brokenly. "I—I dare not interfere, even though I approved of what you say, which I do not."
"Some one must act, and speedily too, or the resultant mischief cannot be undone. I appeal to you because you are a woman, and we men are prone to bungle in these matters."
"But what do you want of me?" wailed the tortured Princess. "Michael protested against the marriage——"
"I am thinking of Alec's welfare now," said Stampoff gruffly. "You are his mother, and you and I can save him. In a word, that girl must go, to-night if possible, to-morrow without fail. The talk of marriage must be dropped, and revived only when a Serb is the prospective bride."
"You say she must go. What does that imply? It is not in my power to send her away, even if I would."
"It is, Princess," was the grim answer. "If she loves Alec, she will save him by leaving him. I am told women do these things occasionally. Perhaps she is one of the self sacrificing sort. At any rate, she must be given the chance, and by you. She must go away, and, in going, tell the King she will never marry him. It is hard. Both will suffer; but, in the long run Alec will come to see that by no other means can he retain his Kingdom."
Anodd element of fatality seemed to attach itself to the Byzantine Saint Peter in the cathedral of Delgratz. Joan nearly lost her life within a few hours of the time when first she saw that remarkable work of art, and it was ordained that one of the last clear memories of the checkered life in Kosnovia should be its round staring eyes, its stiffly modeled right hand, uplifted, it might be, in reproof or exhortation, the ornate pastoral staff, and the emblem of the crossed keys that labeled the artist's intent to portray the chief apostle. Poor Joan had already conceived a violent dislike of the reputed Giotto. It was no longing to complete her work that drove her, at the end, to the solemn cathedral, but the compelling need of confiding in Felix. For it had come to this: she must fly from Delgratz at once and forever.
It chanced that morning that Alec had taken a holiday. He appeared unexpectedly at breakfast and sat by Joan's side, and his lover's eyes had detected a pallor, a certain strained and wistful tensionof the lips, signs of mental storm and stress that she hoped would not be noticeable.
"Sweetheart," he whispered in quick alarm, "you are not well. You are feeling this wretched climate. I am minded to throw sentiment aside and send my mother and you to the New Konak to-day."
"I am quite well," she said, with a forced composure that she felt did not deceive him. It was necessary to invent some explanation, and she continued hurriedly, "I did not sleep soundly last night. Some wandering night bird flew in through my open window and startled me with its frantic efforts to escape from the room. That is all. After a little rest I shall be myself again."
"That gloomy old cathedral is not a healthy place, I am inclined to think," he said, scanning her face again with the anxious gaze of one who could not endure even a momentary eclipse of its bright vivacity. "You go there too often, and now that we know from whom your commission was received it is straining a point of etiquette to continue your work. It will relieve any scruples you may have on that head if I tell you that I paid Monsieur Beliani yesterday every farthing of the money advanced to you by his agent in Paris."
"I am glad of that," she said simply. "I did not like the idea of being indebted to him. Though he is a very clever man, I regard him as a good deal of a rogue."
Alec was not to be switched off personal issuesbecause Joan expressed her opinions in this matter of fact manner. "I am quite sure you are ill, or at any rate run down," he persisted. "What you need is a change of air. I think I can allow myself a few hours' respite from affairs of state to-day. What say you if the two of us drive to our country house this morning and find out for ourselves the progress made by the workmen? I seem to remember that the contractor named a date, not far distant now, when the place would be habitable."
"There is nothing in the world that I should like better," said Joan.
Again Alec detected a strange undercurrent of emotion in her voice; but he attributed it to the lack of sleep she had complained of, and with his customary tact forbore from pressing her for any further explanation.
They took their drive, and to all outward semblance Joan enjoyed it thoroughly. Her drooping spirits revived long before the last straggling houses of Delgratz were left behind. She exhibited the keenest interest in the house and gardens. Although their inspection did not end until the sun was high in the heavens, she insisted upon entering every room and traversing many of the paths in the spacious grounds. She talked, too, with a fluency that in any other woman would have aroused a suspicion of effort; but Alec was too glad that the marked depression of the morning had passed to give heed to her half-hysterical mood. He entered with zest intoher eager scrutiny of their future home, sought her advice on every little detail, and grew enthusiastic himself at the prospect of a speedy removal from the barnlike presidential palace to that leafy paradise. He remembered afterward how Joan's eyes dwelt longingly on an Italian garden that had always attracted her; but it was impossible that he should read the farewell in them.
They returned to the city in time for luncheon; then the King had to hurry away to try and overtake the day's engagements.
His parting words were an injunction to Joan that she should not go out again during the hot hours, but endeavor to obtain the rest of which she had been deprived during the night.
"Good-by, dear," she said. "You may feel quite certain that when next we meet I shall be a different person altogether to the pallid creature whom you met at breakfast this morning."
Alec was still conscious of some strange detachment in her words. His earlier feeling that she was acting a part came back with renewed force; but he again attributed it to the reaction that comes to highly strung natures after a surfeit of excitement in the midst of a new and difficult environment.
He kissed her tenderly, and Joan seemed to be on the verge of tears. He was puzzled; but thought it best to refrain from comment. "Poor girl!" he said to himself. "She feels it hard to be surroundedby people who are all strangers, and mostly shut off by the barrier of language."
But he was in no sense alarmed. He left the palace convinced that a few hours of repose would bring back the color to her cheeks and the natural buoyancy to her manner. Then he meant to chaff her about her distracted air; for Joan was no neurotic subject, and she herself would be the first to laugh at the nervous fit of the morning.
Poluski, hard at work at his frescoes since an early hour, and grudgingly snatching a hasty meal at midday, was surprised when Joan came to him after the King's departure and told him that she meant to finish her picture that afternoon. He made no comment, however, indeed he was glad of her company, and the two drove away together in the capacious closed carriage that brought them to and fro between cathedral and palace. During their working hours, they refused to be hampered by the presence of servants. An old Greek, who acted as caretaker, took charge of canvases, easels, paintboxes, and other utensils of the painter's craft, and he came out gleefully from his lodge as soon as their vehicle rumbled under the deep arch of the outer porch.
Usually, Joan had a word and a smile for him, though the extent of her Greek conversation was a phrase or two learned from Felix; but to-day she hardly seemed to see him, and lost not a moment in settling down to work. She had not much to do;in fact, so far as Felix took note of her action, after adjusting the canvas and mixing some colors on the palette, she sat idle for a long time, and even then occupied herself with an unnecessary deepening of tints in the picture, which already displayed an amazing resemblance to its stilted and highly colored prototype.
At last she spoke, and Felix, perched on a platform above her head, was almost startled by the sorrow laden cadence of her voice.
"I did not really come here to-day to paint," she said. "The picture is finished; my work in Delgratz is ended. You and Pauline are the only two people in the world whom I can trust, and I have brought you here, Felix, to tell you that I am leaving Delgratz to-night."
The hunchback slid down from the little scaffolding he had constructed to enable him to survey the large area covered by the frescoes. "I suppose I have understood what you said," he cried. "It is impossible to focus one's thoughts properly on the spoken word when a huge dome adds vibrations of its own, and I admit that I am invariably irritated myself when I state a remarkable fact with the utmost plainness and people pretend to be either deaf or dull of comprehension."
That was Poluski's way. He never would take one seriously; but Joan merely sighed and bent her head.
"You say you are leaving Delgratz to-night!May one ask why?" he went on, dropping his bantering manner at once.
"No," she said.
Felix bassooned a few deep notes between his lips. "You have some good reason for telling me that, I presume?" he muttered, uttering the first words that occurred to his perplexed brain.
"Yes, the very best of reasons, or at least the most convincing. I cannot remain here unless I marry Alec, and as I have absolutely determined not to marry him, it follows that I must go."
"Ah, you are willing to give some sort of reason, then," he said. "At present I am muddled. One grasps that unless you marry Alec you must go; but why not marry Alec? It sounds like a proposition of Euclid with the main clauses omitted."
"I am sorry, Felix, but I cannot explain myself further. You came to Delgratz with me; will you return with me to Paris? If not, will you at least promise to help me to get away and keep secret the fact that I am going?"
Felix grew round eyed with amazement; but he managed to control his tongue. "You are asking a good deal, dear," he said. "Do you know what you are doing? Do you realize what your action will mean to Alec? What has happened? Some lover's tiff. That is unlike you, Joan. If you run off in this fashion, you will be trying most deliberately to break poor Alec's heart."
Joan uttered a queer little choking sob, yet recoveredher self control with a rapidity that disconcerted Felix far more than she imagined at the moment.
"He will suffer, I know," she murmured, "and it does not console me to feel that in the end I shall suffer far more; but I am going, Felix, whatsoever the cost, no matter whose heart may be broken. Heaven help me! I must go, and I look to you for assistance. Oh, my friend, my friend! I have only you in all the world. Do not desert me in my need!"
She had never before seen Felix really angry; but even in the extremity of her distress she could not fail to note a strange glitter in the gray eyes now fixed on her in a fiery underlook. The little man was deeply moved; for once in his life he did not care how much he showed his resentment.
"Saperlotte!" he growled. "What has come to you? Is it you who speak, or the devil? You are possessed of a fiend, Joan, a fiend that is tempting you to do this wrong!"
Joan rose, pale faced and resolute. Despite the flood of rage and despair that surged in Poluski's quivering frame, she reminded him of a glimpse he caught of her in that last desperate moment when the door of the hotel was battered open by the insurgents and her mind was already fixed on death as a blessed relief from the horror of life.
"I only ask you to believe in my unalterable purpose," she said with a calmness that stupefied him. "If no other means presents itself, I should wander out of the palace in the darkness and endeavor toreach Austria by the ferry across the Danube. I believe there are difficulties for the stranger if one goes that way; but again I throw myself on your mercy, Felix, and appeal to you for guidance and help. This is my worst hour. If you fail me now, I shall indeed be wretched."
Felix leaned against an upright of the scaffolding and passed a trembling hand over his forehead. "Forgive me, Joan, if I have spoken harshly!" he muttered in the dubious voice of a man who hardly knows what he is saying.
"There is nothing to forgive. It is I, rather, who should seek forgiveness from you for imposing this cruel test of friendship. But what can I do, Felix? I am a woman and alone, and, when I think of what lies before me, I am afraid."
With a great effort he steadied himself. Placing both hands on the girl's shoulders, he turned her face to the light that fell from a small rose window in a side aisle. In silence he looked at her, seeking to wring the secret of this madness from her steadfast eyes.
"Ma belle," he cried suddenly, "I am beginning to believe that you are in earnest."
"No matter how many years it may please God to leave me on earth, I shall never be more resolved on anything than on my departure from Delgratz to-night."
"You place trust in me, you say in one breath, yet you deny it in another. Tell me then, Joan,what is the obstacle that has arisen to prevent you from marrying Alec? It all hinges on that. Who has been lying to you?"
She could not continue to meet his accusing eyes. It seemed to her that if he urged her more her heart would burst. Yielding to the impulse of the hunted animal, she wrenched herself free and turned to run somewhere, anywhere, so that she might avoid his merciless inquisition. A harsh laugh fell on her ears, and nothing more effective to put a stop to her flight could have been devised.
"Name of a name!" he roared, "shall we not take our pictures? If we are false to all else, let us at least be true to our harmless daubs!"
The taunt was undeserved and glanced unheeded from the shield of the girl's utter misery. Perhaps because that was so, the Pole's next words were tender and soothing.
"Come, then, my Joan," he growled, "never shall it be said against me that I deserted a comrade in distress. I hoped to see you happily wedded. It was my fantasy that Alec and you would inaugurate a new line of monarchs and thus bring about the social revolution from an unexpected quarter. But I was mistaken. Holy blue! never was man so led astray since Eve strolled into the wrong orchard and brought Adam with her!"
By this time he had caught her. He held her arm, and began to stroke one of her hands softly as if she had shown symptoms of falling in a faint."We will go,mignonne," he soothed her, "you and I, and none here shall know till we have crossed the frontier. Not even then will they guess what has become of us, unless you find it in your heart to leave some little word for Alec. You will do that? You will save him from despair, from the torture of doubt——"
"Oh, Felix, spare me!" she sobbed convulsively.
"But one must look squarely at the facts,mignonne. If you run away and give no sign, it can only be supposed that you have met with some evil fate. There are others than Alec who will think that disaster has befallen you, and they will have uneasy souls, and Alec will look into their guilty faces with the eyes of a wrathful lover, which at such times can be superhuman, terrible, heart piercing. There is no knowing whose blood will stain his hands then; for he will accept from no one but yourself the assurance that you have left him of your own free will."
"That, at least, is true," she said wearily. "I shall write a letter which must be given to him when I am gone."
"Grand Dieu!what a resolute will is yours, Joan! Have you counted the cost? Leave Alec out of it; but do you think his hog of a father, his easily swayed mother, Stampoff, the short sighted and patriotic, or that scheming Greek and his puppet Marulitch, will gain the ends for which, between them, they have contrived your flight? Do you know Alecso little as to believe that he will leave the field clear to that crew? Why, dear heart, he will sweep them aside like an angry god! They have bewitched your brain with some tale of the evil that will accrue to the King if he weds the woman he loves. If that is all, it is a fiction fit only to frighten a child. Hear me, Joan! You are not helping Alec by tearing yourself away from Delgratz; but condemning to the deepest hell not him alone but some millions of people who have done no wrong. They gave their honest affections to this boy, because he strikes their imagination as a King sent straight from Heaven. It is a vile plot, dear heart, to drive Alec from Kosnovia. How can you, of all women, lend yourself to it?"
Felix could not guess how his words lacerated the unhappy girl's soul; but she did not falter in her purpose, and again endeavored to rush from the church. Poluski uttered a queer click with his tongue. It testified that he had done his uttermost and failed.
"Be it so, then!" he muttered. "Help me to pack up these masterpieces. I can plan and scheme with any man living; but I cannot cope with heavy parcels of holiness."
Joan, distraught though she was, felt that he had given way. Without another word she assisted in packing the carriage with their canvases and other belongings. The old Greek caretaker hobbled after them when he saw that they were going without depositing their paraphernalia in the lodge as usual.
"You will come back some day and copy another picture, I hope, Excellency," he cried, doffing his cap to Joan.
She opened her purse, since she did not understand what the old man was saying.
"No, no, Excellency," he protested. "The King himself told me you were not to be pestered by beggars. I have threatened to crack the skulls of one or two who persisted in annoying you, and it would ill become me to take a reward for doing what the King ordered."
"He will not accept anything," said Felix. "I may not tell you what else he said, since he only put my arguments in simpler words."
He shot a quick look at her, hoping to find some slight sign of weakening; but her marble face wore the expression of one who has suffered so greatly that the capacity for suffering is exhausted. From that instant Felix urged her no more. He obeyed her without question or protest, contriving matters so that when she quitted the palace, deeply veiled, to walk to the station, the soldiers on guard imagined she was a serving maid going into the town.
Pauline, though prepared to be faithful at any hazard, wept when she was told that she must stay in Delgratz and face the storm that would rage when she delivered into the King's own hand the letter Joan intrusted to her care. But even Pauline herself realized that if her mistress was to escape from Delgratz unnoticed, she, the maid, must remain theretill the following day. By that time there would be no reason why Joan's maid should not leave openly for the west, and the Frenchwoman was only too thankful at the prospect of a speedy exit from "this city of brigands" to protest too strenuously against the rôle thrust upon her by Felix.
As events unrolled themselves, the two travelers encountered no difficulty in leaving Delgratz. It will be remembered that Beliani's foresight had provided them with return tickets to Paris, and this circumstance aided them greatly. In those closely guarded lands where keen eyed scrutineers keep watch and ward over a frontier, the production of the return half of a ticket issued in the same city as a passport at once lulls any doubt that might arise otherwise.
Moreover, Joan and Felix occupied separate carriages, and the Belgrade officials, concerned only with the examination of tickets, gave no heed to them, though one man seemed to recognize Felix and grinned in a friendly way. Passport formalities did not trouble them till the train had crossed the Tave River and was already in Austrian territory. The frontier officers could not possibly know them. Their papers were in order, and received only a passing glance. Even Joan, adrift in a sea of trouble, saw that it was a far easier matter to leave the Balkan area than to enter it.
They arranged to meet in the dining saloon, when all necessity for further precaution would have disappeared.Felix was astounded at the self possession Joan now displayed. She was pale but quite calm. Her eyes were clear and showed no traces of grief. Even her very manner was reverting to that good humored tone of frank camaraderie that the unavoidable ceremoniousness of the last fortnight had kept in subjection. Felix was secretly amazed at these things; but in the depths of his own complex nature were hidden away, wholly unknown to the little hunchback himself, certain feminine characteristics which enabled him dimly to understand that the woman who suffers most is she who has the strength and the courage to carry her head most proudly before the storm.
"Well," said he when the mail train had left Semlin far behind and they were speeding northward through the night to Budapest,—"well, Joan, now that the severance is complete, do you still refuse me your confidence?"
Her luminous eyes dwelt on his with a sad smile. She had closed the gates of her paradise, and there was to be no faint hearted looking backward.
"No," she said, "I have attained my end. It is due to you, my friend, that I should tell you why I have abandoned the only man I shall ever love. It lay with me to choose between his success or failure; perhaps there rested on my frail shoulders the more dreadful issues of life and death. If I had married Alec, I should have pulled him down to ruin, even to the grave. What else would youhave me do but save him, no matter what the cost to myself?"
He propped his chin on his hands and surveyed her quizzically. Felix, despite his protests, was not enamoured of Delgratz, and his mercurial temperament rejoiced in the near approach of his beloved Paris.
"All this sounds heroic and therefore unconvincing," he said. "I do not want to condemn your motives before I know them, Joan; but I hope you will allow me to criticize false sentiment," he added, seeing the expression of pain that for an instant mastered her stoicism and threw its dull shadow across her face.
"Say what pleases you, Felix," she replied gently. "I shall not suffer more than I have already endured. I think I am benumbed now; but at least I am sure that I have acted right. There were influences at work in Delgratz of which even you had no cognizance. Popular as Alec seemed to be, every prejudice of the Serb was arrayed against him. He appealed to the imagination of the people as a brave and gallant figure; but he is and will ever remain a foreigner among them. They are a race apart, and Alec is not of them, and it would have been a fatal error to give them as a Queen another foreigner like himself.
"Alone, he will win his way. In the course of years he cannot fail to identify himself more and more with their interests; he will—some day—marrya Princess of the blood to which he belongs. That will help Kosnovia to forget that he was neither born nor bred in the country, and the presence of a Serbian consort will tend to consolidate his reign. It would have been quite different if he and I were married within a few weeks. Those who are opposed to him—and they are far more numerous than you may guess at this moment—would have been given a most powerful argument by the refusal of the Greek archimandrite to perform the ceremony. You see, Alec himself is not a member of the national church, nor am I, and a drawback that may be overlooked when a Slav Princess becomes Queen of Kosnovia would have been a fatal thing for me."
Poluski could not but admire Joan's splendid detachment in speaking of Alec's hypothetical wife. His thin lips creased in a satirical grin. "Is that it," said he, "the everlasting religious difficulty? No, my belle, tell that to the marines, or, at any rate, to some guileless person not versed in Kosnovian history! There never yet was bloodstained conqueror or evil living Prince in that unhappy city of Delgratz who failed to obtain the sanction of orthodoxy for his worst deeds, whether in beheading a rival or divorcing a wife."
Joan hesitated. She was obviously choosing her words; but the burden laid upon her was too great for the hour to prevent her from adopting a subterfuge that would surely be detected by her shrewd companion. "I do not wish to lay too much stressupon that particular phase of the matter," she said at last. "It was only one of many. In itself it might have been surmounted; but when the church, a large section of the army, and nearly all the higher officials of the State are ready to combine against Alec's uncompromising sincerity of purpose, it was asking too much of me knowingly to provide the special excuse for his downfall."
There was silence for a little while, and Poluski's keen gray eyes still dwelt searchingly on the girl's sorrow laden though resigned features. She did not flinch from the scrutiny, and there was a certain sadness in the Pole's next comment.
"What you say,ma petite, sounds very like the dry-as-dust utterances of some podgy Minister of State; they are far from being the words of a woman who loves, and so they are not yours."
"Perhaps you are right, Felix," she said wearily. "Perhaps, had I told Alec these things, he might have silenced my doubts and persuaded me to dare everything for his sake."
"Yet, knowing this, you are here!" he cried, his conscience stinging him at the memory of that forsaken King mourning his lost bride.
"Yes, and no consideration would induce me to return."
"Ah, then there is something that you have not yet told me."
"Yes, and it can never be told, Felix. Be content, my friend, with that assurance. There is nothingthat can happen which has the power to change my decision. Heaven help me, I can never marry Alec!"
"The true cause must remain a secret!"
"Yes."
"A woman's secret?"
"Yes, my secret."
His eyes sparkled. He bent nearer and sank his voice to a deep whisper, for there were others in the carriage, and that which he had to say must reach her ears only.
"Not yours, Joan. Oh, no! Not yours. Another woman's. Ha! Blind that I was—now I have it! So that is why you are running away. They threatened to drag Alec headlong from the throne unless you agreed. My poor girl, you might have told me sooner. The knowledge has been here, lurking in the back of my head for years; but I never gave a thought to it. Why should I? Who would have dreamed of such a tragicomedy? Joan, to-day in the cathedral I could have bound you with ropes if that would have served to keep you in Delgratz; but now I kiss the hem of your dress. My poor girl, my own dear Joan, how you must have suffered! Yet I envy you—I do, on my soul! Life becomes ennobled by actions such as yours. And Alec must never know what you have done for him. That is both the grandeur and the pathos of it. Joan, my precious, your namesake was burnt on the pyre for a King's cause, yet her deed would rank no higherthan yours if the world might be allowed to judge between you. But do not dream that your romance is ended.Saperlotte!Old Dame Nature is a better dramatist than that. If she has contrived so much for you in a little month, what can she not accomplish in a year?"
And, in a perfect frenzy of excitement, he threw himself back in his chair and amazed another group of cosmopolitan diners by singing.
But this time Joan did not care who stared or whispered. She sat there, a beautiful statue, sorely stricken, and not daring to believe that the hour of blessedness promised in Poluski's song would be vouchsafed after many years of pain.