TheKing reached his temporary residence hot and tired after an exhausting day. It chanced that at a meeting of the Ministry, which he attended late in the afternoon, the question of Beliani's appointment as Minister of Finance came up for settlement. It was not determined without some bickering, and an undercurrent of dislike if not of positive hatred of the man quickly made itself apparent.
The Serb and the Greek differ in most essentials. The one is by habit and training a good soldier, a proverbial idler, an easygoing optimist endowed with genial temper and a happy-go-lucky nature, capable indeed of extremes, yet mostly inclined to the tolerant indifference that leaves things as they are; the other, whose martial qualities have vanished in the melting pot of time, has developed the defensive traits that come to the aid of all races who can no longer maintain their cause in the tented field. The Greek is the usurer of the East. He wins his way by using his subtle wits, and the less adroit people on whom he preys soon learn to regard him with distrust that often culminates in personal violence in those half-civilizedcommunities where law and order are not maintained with a heavy hand.
The Kosnovian Ministry, of course, consisted of men of a much higher type than the rude peasantry that made up the bulk of the nation. But at heart they were anti-Greek, and some among them retained lively memories of Beliani's methods when he was in power a decade earlier. No one disputed his ability, yet none, save the King, had a good word for him. It was recognized, however, that under the new dominion his opportunities for peculation at the expense of the public would be few and far between.
Alexis III. had already made his influence felt in each department of State. He was ready to listen to every man's grievances, and to adjust them if possible; he held the scales evenly between the bureaucracy and the people. The official element knew full well that it had nothing to fear from the King's anger if a disputed action could be justified, while those traders and others who had occasion to deal with any of the great departments were beginning to understand that they need not dread the vengeance of an executive against whose exactions they had cause to complain.
After some discussion, therefore, a guarded sanction was given to Beliani's appointment. It was probable that each man in the Council had already been approached in the Greek's behalf, and that the protests uttered were rather by way of safety valves in view of possible criticism in the future thanintended to exclude this dreaded candidate from office.
The matter might have ended there for the moment had not the President of the Assembly given a somewhat maladroit twist to the discussion when the King mentioned Beliani's efforts with regard to an Austrian loan.
"That, at least, we should oppose most bitterly," said Nesimir. "We of the Balkans should never accept favors from the hand of Austria. Our true ally is Russia, and any outside aid received by Kosnovia should come from Russia alone."
Alec had learned the value of patience with mediocrities such as Sergius Nesimir. He never argued with them. He contented himself with pointing out the facts, and left the rest to time; for he had soon discovered that the weak man talks himself into agreement with the strong one.
"I would remind you that in this matter we are merely entering into an ordinary business arrangement," he said. "I have heard of no concessions attached to the loan. We are merely going into the money market like any other borrower, and will undertake to pay such reasonable interest as the lenders deem compatible with the security we offer."
"I think your Majesty will find that Austria will impose her own terms," persisted the President.
"Why do you harp on Austria in this connection?" asked the King. "Monsieur Beliani spoke of Viennese bankers. They are not Austria. This loanis not so much a matter of State as of sound finance."
"I hope your Majesty is right in that assumption," was the stubborn answer; "but I have reason to believe that, under certain contingencies, not only would Russia assist us in this respect, but she would at once take steps toward recognizing your Majesty's accession to the throne."
"Contingencies!" cried Alec, forced for the nonce to maintain the discussion. "What are they? What is the difference between your suspected Austrian terms and your Russian contingencies?"
"In the first place, your Majesty, Russia is anxious to consolidate the good feeling that exists among the Slav nations by following a settled policy in the matter of railway communication. Your Majesty's own projects favor the Russian proposals, whereas Austria will surely stipulate that any money of hers expended on railways shall be devoted to her rival plans. In the second——"
The President paused and looked round among his colleagues as though to seek their encouragement. He knew he was about to utter words of daring significance, and his nerve failed. An appreciative murmur ran through the room. It seemed to give the stout President a degree of confidence.
"Well?" said the King, who noted the glance and the hum of approval, and wondered what lay behind it all.
"The really vital question before us to-day is yourMajesty's marriage," exclaimed the other, paling somewhat, now that the fateful topic was broached.
"I agree with you," said Alec, smiling. "Its importance to myself is self evident; but I fail utterly to see how the appearance of a Queen in Delgratz will affect our political relations with our neighbors. I do not propose to borrow money from Austria to pay for my wife's wedding presents."
Nesimir was long in answering. He seemed to be waiting for some other member of the Council to take part in the discussion; but each man sat silent and embarrassed, and it was incumbent on their leader to declare himself anew.
"It is far from my thoughts to wish to give any offense to your Majesty; but I am constrained to tell you," he said, "that there is a growing sentiment among all classes of your subjects that when you look for a consort you should seek her among our kith and kin."
"Am I to understand, then, that the lady whom I am about to marry has not found favor among you?"
Alec spoke quietly; but there was a ring of steel in his voice that might have warned a bolder man than the President. His stern glance traveled round the Council table; but he saw only downcast and somber faces. One thing was abundantly clear,—this attack on Joan was premeditated. He wondered who had contrived it.
"It is not that the lady does not command our favor," declared the spokesman, very pale now anddrumming nervously with his fingers on the edge of a blotting pad. "Those of us who have met her are charmed with her manners and appearance, and our only regret is that Providence did not ordain that her birthplace should be on the right side of the Danube."
"Oddly enough, I was born in New York," interrupted Alec, with a touch of sarcasm that was not lost on his hearers.
"Your Majesty was born a Delgrado," said the President, "and if Miss Joan Vernon could claim even the remotest family connection with one of the leading houses of Kosnovia, Montenegro, or even Bulgaria, every man here would hail your Majesty's choice in a chorus of approval."
"Since when has the supposed drawback of my intended wife's nationality come into such prominence?" demanded the King sharply.
"Since it became known that your Majesty meant to marry a lady whose avowed object in coming to Delgratz was to follow her occupation as an artist."
Stampoff's harsh accents broke in roughly on a discussion which had hitherto been marked by polite deference on the part of its originator.
"What! are you too against me, General?" cried Alec, wheeling round and meeting the fierce eyes of the old patriot who sat glaring at him across the Council table.
"Yes, in that matter," was the uncompromising answer. "We feel that our King must be one ofourselves, and he can never be that if his wife differs from us in race, in language, in religion, in everything that knits a ruler to his subjects."
Alec arose with a good natured laugh. "Monsieur Nesimir spoke of contingencies," he said, "and the word seems to imply that counter proposals to those of Monsieur Beliani have already been put forward. Has the Russian Ambassador been conducting negotiations with my Ministers without my knowledge—behind my back, as it were?"
"There is no taint of Muscovite intrigue about my attitude!" exclaimed Stampoff with a vehemence that showed how deeply he was moved. "I have given the best years of my life to my country, and I am too old now to be forced to act against my principles. Every man in this room is a Slav, and we Slavs must pull together or we are lost. I, at any rate, am not afraid to register an emphatic protest against my King's marriage with a lady, no matter how estimable personally, whose presence in Delgratz as our Queen would be a national calamity. If I speak strongly, it is because I feel so strongly in this matter. The rulers of States such as ours cannot afford to be swayed by sentiment. When your Majesty weds, you ought to choose your wife among the Princesses of Montenegro. Had I the slightest inkling of any other design on your part, I should have stipulated this before we left Paris."
"Ah," said Alec thoughtfully, "it is too late now, General, to talk of stipulations that were not made.And, indeed, one might reasonably ask who empowered you to make them?"
"God's bones! who should speak for Kosnovia if not I?"
"Your patriotism has never been questioned, General," said Alec with a friendly smile; but Stampoff was not to be placated, being of the fiery type of reformer who refuses to listen to any opinion that runs counter to his own.
He too rose and faced the Council. "What has palsied your tongues?" he cried. "You were all ready enough to declare your convictions before the King arrived. He is here now. Tell him, then, do you approve of his proposed marriage—yes or no!"
Heads were shaken. A few cried "No." Alec saw clearly that he could not count on the support of one among those present. He did not shirk the issue. He determined that it should be dealt with at once if possible. If not, he had already decided on his own line of action.
"I am sorry that in such a matter, affecting, as it does, the whole of my future life," he said, "I should be so completely at variance with what is evidently the common view of my trusted friends in this Council; but I cannot forget that, for good or ill, I am King of Kosnovia, while you may rest assured, gentlemen, that no consideration you can urge will prevent me from marrying the lady of my choice. Of course, it is conceivable that my kingship and my marriage may clash. In that event I shall take theconsequences of my action; I must even justify myself to the Assembly, if need be. It is well that the President should have made me acquainted with the views you all hold with such apparent unanimity. It is also well that you should be aware of my decision. Very often, when men think they have reached absolute disagreement, a way opens itself unexpectedly whereby the difficulties vanish. In this instance, certainly, it is hard to see how any solution of our dispute can be attained that shall satisfy both you and me.
"I shall marry Miss Vernon, probably within a fortnight. I shall marry her, gentlemen, even though it costs me my throne; but I would remind you that we in this room are not Kosnovia. Let us keep our heads and guard our tempers. If an appeal is to be made to the nation, let it be by votes rather than by swords. I have never deviated from my fixed principle that I would sooner pass the remainder of my life poor and unknown than obtain an hour's extension of my rule by spilling the blood of an unoffending people. But I ask from you the same concession that I am willing to make myself. Until deposed, I retain the privilege of a King. Is this matter to be regarded as a test of ministerial confidence? Do all you gentlemen resign your portfolios?"
The President, agitated and stuttering, sprang to his feet. "For my part," he declared, "I expressed my views in an informal manner."
"Yes, yes," agreed several voices. The turn givento the discussion by Alec was quite unforeseen and far from their liking.
"It has ever been your Majesty's wish that we should state our opinions fully and freely," continued the agitated Nesimir. "I, for one, was only anxious to make known to you the sentiments that obtain currency in my own circle. I may be wrong. Delgratz is not Kosnovia——"
"Rubbish!" shouted Stampoff, hammering the table with a clenched fist. "That which has been said here to-day will be heard openly in the streets of the capital to-night. To-morrow it will be preached far and wide throughout the confines of the country by every man who has its welfare at heart. This marriage must not take place, I say! I came here from exile with the King and was prepared to give my life to establish him on the throne. I am prepared now to offer the same poor sacrifice if it will save my beloved land from a catastrophe—and this proposed mesalliance is nothing less!"
A curious thrill convulsed the Council. Every Serb there was stirred by the General's bold avowal; but Alec stilled the rising storm by a calm announcement:
"I suggest that we defer this discussion till to-morrow morning," he said. "It has found me unprepared, and, if I am not very much mistaken, many of the gentlemen here did not anticipate that the question would be raised to-day in its present acute form."
It was evident that the majority of ministers favoredthe adoption of the King's proposal; but Stampoff scowled at them angrily and drowned their timorous agreement by his resentful cry:
"God's bones! Why wait till to-morrow?"
Then, indeed, Alec was stung beyond endurance. "Perhaps, in the circumstances, General," he said, "it would be advisable that you should absent yourself from to-morrow's Council."
"Not while I am Minister for War!" came the fiery response.
"That is for you to decide," said the King.
"Then I decide now! I resign!"
"Excellent! By that means you salve your conscience; whereas I hope still to retain the friendship of Kosnovia's most faithful son by refusing to accept your resignation."
A shout of applause drowned Stampoff's vehement protest, and Alec seized the opportunity to hurry from the Council chamber. He did not try to conceal from himself the serious nature of this unexpected crisis, though he was far from acknowledging that the people at large attached such significance to his wife's nationality as Stampoff and the others professed to believe. Puzzle his wits as he might, and did, he failed utterly to account for Stampoff's uncompromising tone. The old Serb and he were the best of friends. He had taken no single step without first consulting the man who had been his political tutor since his boyhood. Even when he ran counter to Stampoff's advice, he had always listened to iteagerly, and he invariably took the utmost pains to show why he had adopted another course.
Till that day there had never been the shadow of a breach between them. How, then, was the War Minister's irreconcilable attitude to be explained? Was Cousin Julius pulling the strings in some unrecognized manner? Was Beliani a party to the scheme? These questions must be answered, and speedily. Meanwhile, by hook or by crook, he must keep all knowledge of the dispute from Joan's ears until after the wedding.
In the palace courtyard a man standing near the gates tried to pass the sentries when the King arrived. He was instantly collared. Undersized, poorly clad, and poverty stricken in appearance, he was hustled unmercifully by a stalwart Albanian policeman until Alec's attention was drawn to the scuffle.
A white despairing face became visible for a moment, and a choking voice cried, "Save me, your Majesty! I am John Sobieski!"
"Sobieski!" thought Alec, ordering his carriage to stop and alighting quickly. "That is the Polish hotel waiter of whom Felix spoke to me some few days ago. He said the man had done his best to bring assistance; but his efforts were frustrated by some stupid blunder here, and he thought something ought to be done for him. I promised to attend to it; but the thing slipped my mind."
By this time he had reached the policeman, who, assistedby a soldier, was dragging the protesting waiter to the guardroom.
"Release that man!" he said.
The man saluted, and the trembling Sobieski fell on his knees on the pavement.
"Oh, get up," said the King, who felt a special aversion to such a display of abasement. "Recover your wits, man, and tell me what you want!"
"I ask protection, your Majesty," murmured the desperate Sobieski. "My life is in danger. I came here to see Monsieur Poluski; but they told me he was not at home. I have been turned out of my situation; so I have nowhere to go. If I am found wandering in the streets to-night, I shall be killed."
"At any rate, you seem to be thoroughly frightened," cried Alec with a reassuring smile. "Take charge of him," he said to the pandur, "and have him sent to my bureau in five minutes!"
The bureau in question was that apartment on the first floor overlooking the courtyard, in which Alec had preferred his claim to the throne of Kosnovia to the perplexed President of the embryo Republic. It was there, too, that Felix Poluski had spoken those plain words to Prince Michael Delgrado, and its situation was so convenient for the King's daily comings and goings that he had utilized it temporarily as an office and private audience chamber.
At the top of the stairs he happened to catch sight of Pauline, Joan's staid looking maid. Though he obtained only a casual glimpse of her, he fancied thatshe was distressed about something, and it occurred to him after he was in the room and the door was closed that perhaps she wished to give him a message. Bosko, the taciturn Albanian whom he had now definitely appointed as his confidential attendant, was standing near the table with a bundle of documents that demanded the King's signature.
Realizing that the Frenchwoman would meet Bosko in a minute or two when he went out with the signed papers, and could then make known her wish to speak to the King if such was her intention, Alec bent over the table and began to peruse several departmental decrees hurriedly. He made it a rule never to append his name to any State paper without mastering its contents, and one of the palace guards brought in Sobieski before Alec had concluded his self imposed task. As it happened, the various items were mere formalities, and when he wrote "Alexis R." for the last time, Bosko and the soldier left the room, and the frightened little Pole found himself alone with the King.
"Now," said Alec kindly, "tell me what you want and why you are so afraid?"
Sobieski at once plunged into a rambling statement. He spoke the Kosnovian language with the fluent inaccuracy of his class; but Alec's alert ears had no difficulty in following his meaning. His story was that several customers of the café had denounced him to the proprietor as a spy in the King's service, while some of them went so far as to charge himwith responsibility for the deaths of those thirty-one heroes of the Seventh Regiment whose bodies had been found on the stairs and first floor landing of the hotel. His master had no option but to discharge him, and Sobieski felt that he had good reason to fear that his life was in danger. Alec pooh-poohed the notion; but the timid little waiter was so woebegone that the King pitied him.
"Tell me exactly what you did on the day of the revolt," he said. "You came here, I understand. How was it that no one listened to you?"
"Oh, they did, your Majesty," protested Sobieski. "Your Majesty's own father brought me into the hall and kept me there nearly five minutes. He did not believe a word I said, and was very angry with me for bringing such an alarming story to the palace. At last, by good fortune, Monsieur Nesimir appeared; but even then I should have been taken away in custody if Monsieur Poluski had not caused me to be released."
Despite its sinister significance, Alec could not choose but credit this amazing statement. He wondered why Felix had not told him the facts in detail afterward; but he knew that the hunchback's mind worked in strange grooves, and it was probable that his silence was dictated by some powerful motive. In any event, the incident was an unpleasant reminder of certain nebulous doubts that he had striven to crush, and it was better that this scared rabbit of a man should not remain in Delgratz and become thevictim of some vendetta which might bring the whole odd story into prominence.
"You want to leave the city, I take it?" said he after a thoughtful pause, in which he took a slow turn up and down the room.
"I dare not remain here any longer, your Majesty. I came to-night to ask Monsieur Poluski to be good enough to give me money to take me to Warsaw."
"I think," said Alec, smiling, "he promised you, in my name, the wherewithal to buy a café."
"I fear I did not earn my reward, your Majesty," stuttered the other.
"Are cafés dear in Warsaw?" said the King, unlocking a drawer and producing roubles to the equivalent of five hundred dollars. "Here, this sum should give you a fresh start in life. All I ask in return is that you shall keep a still tongue about your recent share in local events."
Poor Sobieski's gratitude grew incoherent, especially when the King handed him over to the care of the attendant who had brought him to the bureau, with instructions that he was to be taken to the railway station and safeguarded there till the departure of the next train that crossed the frontier.
By that time the dinner hour was long past. Alec was disinclined for a heavy meal; so he went to his private suite, where he changed his clothes, contenting himself with some sandwiches, which he ate in a hurry and washed down with a glass of red wine.
Coming down stairs about an hour later, he passedthe smoking-room. The door was open, and he saw that the men had already ended dinner. He was about to enter the music salon, to which his mother and Joan usually retired with the President's wife and daughter, when he met Pauline for the second time, and the Frenchwoman now approached him with the same marked nervousness in her demeanor that he had noticed when he saw her standing in the lobby.
"May I have a word with your Majesty in private?" she asked.
He was surprised; but again he believed she was probably bringing a message from Joan. He threw open the door of his office. "Come in here," he said. "What is it?"
She held out a letter, and he saw that her hand shook. "Mademoiselle asked me to give you this, your Majesty," she said. "I was to take care that you were alone when you received it."
"Something important then," he said with a laugh.
Crossing the room to the table on which stood the lamp by whose light he had scribbled "Alexis R." on the papers intrusted to Bosko, he opened the envelop, which bore in Joan's handwriting the simple superscription, "Alec," and began to read:
My Dear One:—When Pauline gives you this, I shall have left you forever. I am going from Delgratz, and I shall never see you again. I cannot marry you—but oh, my dear, my dear, I shall love you all my life! Try and forget me. I am acting for the best. Do not write to Paris or endeavorto find me. If it is God's will, we shall never meet again. I can scarcely see what I am writing for my tears. So good-by, my Alec! Be brave! Forgive me, and, in the years to come, try to forget our few days of happiness together.
My Dear One:—When Pauline gives you this, I shall have left you forever. I am going from Delgratz, and I shall never see you again. I cannot marry you—but oh, my dear, my dear, I shall love you all my life! Try and forget me. I am acting for the best. Do not write to Paris or endeavorto find me. If it is God's will, we shall never meet again. I can scarcely see what I am writing for my tears. So good-by, my Alec! Be brave! Forgive me, and, in the years to come, try to forget our few days of happiness together.
Yours ever,Joan.
Yours ever,
Joan.
He stood there stricken, almost paralyzed with the suddenness of the blow, wondering dumbly why Joan's hand should have inflicted it. The frightened Frenchwoman dared not speak or move. She watched him with that impersonal fear so readily aroused in one of her class by the terrifying spectacle of a strong man in his agony. At last he moved listlessly, as though his limbs had just been released from the rack. He held the letter under the lamp again and read it a second time, word for word. He seemed to be forcing himself to accept it as truth. This young King, so valiant, so resourceful, so prompt in action and judgment, could devise no plan, no means of rescue from the abyss. After an interval that neither the man nor the woman could measure, he turned his strained, staring eyes on the shrinking Pauline.
"Have I ever done you any harm?" he said in the low voice of utmost despair.
"Me, monsieur?" she gasped. "You harm me? No, indeed, I was only too proud to think my dear mistress should have won such a husband."
"Then you will answer my questions truly," he went on, his eyes devouring the woman's homelyfeatures as though he would fain seek some comfort therein.
"Oh yes, indeed, monsieur. Ask me anything. It is not that I have much to tell. Mademoiselle said, 'Give this letter to the King himself. Let it touch no other hand.' That is all, monsieur. She was weeping when she wrote it. Monsieur Poluski told me what to do to-morrow about my own journey. See, here are my tickets."
"Poluski!" said Alec, and the words came dully. "Has he too betrayed me?"
"He has gone with my mistress," sobbed Pauline. "It is not that they have betrayed you, monsieur; for mademoiselle looked like to die, and I have never seen any one more disturbed than Monsieur Poluski. He raved like a maniac when I asked him for one word of explanation."
"But what does it mean, woman? Do you understand what has happened? My promised wife has fled, bidding me not to dream of seeing her again, and with her has gone one of the few men alive in whom I had confidence. What is that but betrayal?"
"I do not profess to understand the ways of courts, monsieur," said Pauline, gathering a little courage, since the King appealed to her as a fellow mortal. "But in your case I do not think I should blame Mademoiselle Joan. She did not go because she had ceased to love you, monsieur. Sometimes a woman can love a man so well that she will leave him if she thinks it is for his good."
A light broke in on the darkness. Was Joan the victim of some deadly intrigue such as had sullied too often the records of the Kosnovian monarchy? How strange it was that he should come from that eventful meeting of the Cabinet and receive within the hour Joan's pathetic message of farewell! He stood and thought deeply again for many minutes, striving to conquer his laboring heart and throbbing brain, exerting manfully all his splendid resources of mind and body. Then he turned to the trembling Frenchwoman and said with almost uncanny gentleness:
"You have done what your mistress asked, Pauline. Come to me to-morrow before you go, and I will reward you for your faithful service. Leave me now; but tell none what has happened. I must have time to think, and it would help me if no other person in this house but you shares with me the knowledge of mademoiselle's departure."
Pauline went out, glad of her dismissal, yet sobbing with sympathy. Alec began to pace the length of the long dimly lighted room. Back and forth he went, thinking, knitting his brows in fierce effort to subdue his stunned faculties. By degrees the sad significance of Joan's words and actions during their visit that morning to the New Konak began to establish itself. He saw now that she was bidding farewell to her dream of happiness, deliberately torturing herself with a burden of memories. Even their parting kiss must have given her a twinge of direst agony; for the one thing he would never believe of Joan wasthat she had sacrificed him to some feminine whim, made him the sport of a woman's caprice.
She had been driven from him! By whom? He must discover that, and he gloated with almost insensate rage at the thought of strangling with his hands the wretch who had done this callous deed. Physical passion mastered him again, and it was not until he realized the folly of merely dreaming of vengeance that he forced himself anew into a semblance of calm. He knew that a man blinded with rage could not deal sanely with this problem of love and statecraft. At first he thought of questioning individually each person who, by the remotest chance, might be responsible for Joan's flight. But not only did his impatient heart spurn that slower method of inquisition; but he realized that he was more likely to discover the truth by gathering instantly in one room all those persons whose self interest pointed to his undoing. Somehow, Sobieski's disjointed narrative aroused a dreadful suspicion that was not to be quelled.
He summoned an attendant. "Ask Prince and Princess Delgrado to come here," he said. "Send to General Stampoff and tell him that the King urgently desires his presence. I believe that Monsieur Beliani and Count Julius Marulitch are in the smoking-room with Monsieur Nesimir. Ask those three gentlemen also to join me."
The attendant saluted and withdrew. Alec examined the door to make sure that the key was in thelock. Hardly conscious of his own purpose, he looked about for a weapon. In the place of honor, above the fireplace, hung the sword given him by his father in the Rue Boissière. It evoked bitter memories, and he swung on his heel with a curse, going to the window and staring out into the night. His brain seethed with strange imaginings, and his breast was on fire. The sight of that ridiculous sword lying in its sheath of velvet and gold seemed to reveal the hollowness of life, its mock tragedies, its real agony of tears. All at once the impulse seized him to look at the bright steel. With a savage laugh he sprang back across the room and took down the sword. The blade leaped forth at his clutch, and he kissed it in a frenzy.
"You weep, my Joan," he cried. "I know that you weep; but your tempter's lying heart shall shed drop for drop!"
Aknock sounded on the door. "Their Excellencies the Prince and Princess Delgrado," announced Bosko, whose jaws underwent strange contortions at being compelled to utter so many syllables consecutively.
Alec thrust the sword into its scabbard. He did not put the weapon in its accustomed place; but hid it behind a fold of one of the heavy curtains that shrouded the windows.
"On the arrival of the others whom I have summoned you can usher them in without warning," he said to Bosko. "As soon as General Stampoff comes let no other person enter, and remain near the door until I call you."
"Oui, monsieur," said Bosko. King or no King, he was faithful to his scanty stock of French.
Prince Michael had dined well, having induced his host to depart from the King's injunctions as to the wine supplied at meals. His puffed face shone redly. It looked so gross and fat, perched on such a slender frame, that he resembled one of those diminutive yetmonstrous caricatures of humanity seen on the pantomime stage.
"What is the trouble now, Alec?" he asked, glancing quickly round the spacious ill lighted apartment. "Your man came to me most mysteriously. His manner suggested treasons, spoils, and stratagems. I met your mother on the stairs. She too, it seems, is in demand."
Alec looked at the strange little creature whom he called father, and from the Prince's gargoyle head his gaze dwelt on his mother. She had uttered no word. Her eyes met his furtively for a second and then dropped. She was disturbed, obviously alarmed, and, with a curiously detached feeling of surprise, he guessed that she knew of Joan's departure. Well, he would bide his time until all possible conspirators were present. Then, by fair means or foul, he would wring the truth from them.
"I want to consult my mother and you as to a certain matter," he said, answering Prince Michael with apparent nonchalance. "I shall not detain you very long. Beliani, Julius, and Monsieur Nesimir are in the building, and then we only await Stampoff—with whom, by the way, I almost succeeded in quarreling to-day."
"A quarrel with Stampoff!" exclaimed the elder Delgrado, preening his chest and sticking out his chin in the exaggerated manner that warned those who knew him best of the imminent expression of a weighty opinion. "That will never do. Stampoffis the backbone of your administration. Were it not for our dear Paul, nothing would have been heard of a Delgrado in Kosnovia during the last quarter of a century. My dear boy, he has kept us alive politically. On no account can you afford to quarrel with Stampoff!"
Michael's big head wagged wisely; for champagne invariably made him talkative. Nesimir entered; with him came Count Julius and the Greek.
"Nice thing his Majesty has just told me!" cried Prince Michael, with owl-like gravity. "He says that Stampoff and he have disagreed. What has gone wrong? Have you heard of this most unfortunate estrangement, Monsieur Nesimir?"
The President, of course, assumed that some allusion had been made already to the scene in the Council chamber.
"A serious position has undoubtedly arisen," he said blandly. "His Majesty did not see his way clear to adopt certain recommendations put forward by his Ministers to-day,—by myself, I may say, acting on behalf of my colleagues," and he coughed deferentially,—"and General Stampoff took an active part in the debate. He set forth his views with—er—what I considered to be—er—unnecessary vehemence. But there," and a flourish of his hand indicated the nebulous nature of the dispute, "nothing was said that cannot be mended. His Majesty himself had the tact to adjourn the discussion till to-morrow, and I have little doubt that we shall all beprepared to consider the matter then like reasonable men."
"But what was it about?" broke in the Prince testily. "Was it with reference to Monsieur Beliani? I understood that his appointment to the Ministry of Finance was agreed to unanimously."
Beliani coughed, with the modesty of a man who might not discuss his own merits. The President hesitated before he answered this direct question. He cast a doubtful glance on the King, who had turned to the window again and seemed to give little heed to the conversation. But Alec wheeled round. He had heard every word, and, oddly enough in his own estimation, was already drawing conclusions that were not wholly unfavorable to Prince Michael.
"I have sent for Stampoff," he said, exercising amazing self control in concealing his fierce desire to have done with subterfuge, "and my message was couched in such terms that he will hardly refuse to honor us with his presence. Meanwhile, let me rescue you, Monsieur Nesimir, from the embarrassment of explaining away the difficulty you yourself brought about at to-day's meeting of the Cabinet. Monsieur Beliani had no rival; no one doubted his ability as a financier.
"The dispute arose in connection with my forthcoming marriage. It was suggested that I should contract an alliance with a Princess of some reigning house in the Balkans. The obvious corollary of that view was that Miss Joan Vernon could not be regardedas a suitable bride for the King of Kosnovia. I declined to accept the recommendation put forward by Monsieur Nesimir,—to whom, by the way, I attribute the utmost good faith,—and Stampoff, whose patriotic ardor halts at nothing, practically threatened me with the loss of my Kingdom as the penalty of disobedience. I said that I was quite willing to leave the whole matter to the arbitrament of the people. If they decide against my choice of a wife, it follows that there will be a vacancy in the Delgrado succession."
Princess Delgrado uttered a sigh that was almost a groan. She sank into the chair that her son had offered her when she entered the room, but rose to her feet again in manifest anxiety when her husband thrust himself in front of Alec.
"Are we to credit," he broke in furiously, "that you have actually placed your marriage with this girl before every tie of family and patrimony?"
"That is hardly a fair statement of the facts," said Alec coldly, though it cost him a violent effort to sustain this unnatural calm when he was aflame with desire to ascertain Joan's motive; "but it will serve. At any rate, we can defer discussion of that point for the present. We are gathered here to deal with quite another phase of the dispute, and, with your permission, I shall leave any further explanation until General Stampoff has arrived."
Although his utterance was measured and seemingly devoid of any excess of feeling, three, at least, ofthose in the room were not deceived by his attitude. Princess Delgrado seemed to be profoundly disquieted, while Beliani and Marulitch strove, not altogether with success, to carry themselves with the indifference that cloaks uneasiness. Alec turned again to the window and looked out.
A carriage drove into the courtyard and, though its occupant was invisible, he guessed rightly that Stampoff had not failed him. Some low conversation went on behind his back, and, although he was now marshaling his forces for the impending struggle, he became aware that the President was giving in greater detail an account of the afternoon's proceedings. But he listened only for the opening of the door. From that instant war should be declared, ruthless war on each and every person present who had reft him of his promised bride.
Stampoff entered. His keen old eyes instantly took in the significance of the gathering; but he saluted the King in silence, bowed to Princess Delgrado, and stood stockstill, not a yard from the door, in the attitude of one who awaits an order, or, it might be, a denunciation.
Alec approached, and the others, including Stampoff himself, thought that he meant to make some private communication to the newcomer before beginning a debate in which all might share. But he walked past Stampoff, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.
Stampoff saluted the King in silence Page 268Stampoff saluted the King in silencePage 268
"Now," he said, "I am free to explain why weseven are gathered here to-night. Joan Vernon, who was to have become my wife within a few days, left Delgratz two hours ago by the mail train for Paris. She was accompanied by Felix Poluski, and the only reason for this clandestine journey is contained in a few lines of farewell addressed to me by the lady herself. In that letter she speaks of a barrier that renders impossible a marriage between her and me. I want to know what that barrier is and who erected it, and I shall discover both those things here and now, if I have to tear the knowledge from the heart of each man present!"
"A strange threat, Alec," panted Prince Michael, whose prominent eyes were bulging in semi-intoxication, though indeed he seemed suddenly to have realized the tremendous import of the King's statement,—"a strange threat to be uttered before your mother!"
"My mother loved Joan," came the impassioned cry. "She took her to her heart from the first hour, and she will bear with me now in my agony. Yet it may be that even my mother has deceived me. I cannot tell. Some of you here know, perhaps all; but I vow to Heaven I shall not flinch from my resolve to extract the truth, no matter with whom the responsibility rests!"
Princess Delgrado, trembling and ghastly pale, tottered to the chair again and gripped its back to prevent herself from falling. Under less strained conditions, it must have seemed bizarre in a company ofmen for whom polite attentions to the opposite sex were a fixed convention, that she should seek such support when her husband was standing by her side; but in that startled gathering small heed was given to aught else than the King's thrilling statement.
Though aware of his mother's distress, Alec did not move from the position he had taken up, facing all of them, and with that hidden sword within easy reach. Ever a dutiful and devoted son, he continued now to glower at the half-fainting woman as though she alone held the key of the mystery that resulted in Joan's disappearance. His impassioned eyes sought to peer into her very soul, and his nostrils quivered with the frenzied eagerness of one who awaited an answer to the implied question. In some indefinable way he had already begun to suspect the truth; for when the poor woman made no reply, though more than once her terror laden eyes met his in mute appeal, he whirled round on Marulitch.
"Perhaps this is an occasion when it is a woman's privilege to remain silent," he said bitterly. "So I begin with you, Julius. Save myself, you are the youngest here, and it would be fitting that you and I should determine this business. I warn you there will be no half measures! My life, at least, goes into the scale, and I care not who else adjusts the balance."
The pink and white tints had long fled from the Parisian dandy's complexion. In the dim light he looked livid, and his forehead bore bright beads ofperspiration. But even Alec's fiery eyes discerned that he was not only afraid, but bewildered, and his voice cracked with excitement when he spoke.
"I declare by everything I hold sacred that I had no hand in this affair!" he said shrilly. "It is natural perhaps that you should suspect me, since I seem to have most to gain by any ill that befalls you; but, even in your anger, Alec, you should be just. No matter how fierce your emotions, you ought to realize that Miss Vernon's departure from Delgratz retards rather than helps any possible scheming on my part to succeed you on the throne."
"Now you, Beliani!" said Alec, striving to penetrate the mask that covered the one impassive face in the room. "It was you who contrived that my promised wife should come here from Paris. I can see your purpose now. At to-day's meeting of the Cabinet, while I was urging your advancement to power and dignity in the State, your hand was revealed in the opposition manifested to my marriage. Your cunning brain conceived the notion that I would not abandon the woman I loved for the sake of fifty Kingdoms. You read my mind aright; but, if it was you who brought about her flight, for what devilish reason did you depart from the subtle plot that might well have achieved your ends by means which you, at least, would consider fair?"
The Greek spread wide his hands in that characteristic gesture of his. As it happened, for once in his life he could afford to be sincere. "I can onlyassure your Majesty in the plainest possible terms," he said, "that until I heard the news from your own lips, I had no knowledge whatsoever of Miss Vernon's journey. Were I asked outside that locked door to state to the best of my belief where she might be found, I should have said that the slight illness of which she complained this morning had probably confined her to her room."
For an instant Alec scowled at the President; but Sergius Nesimir's vacuous features so obviously revealed his condition of speechless surprise and distress that there remained only Stampoff, Prince Michael—and his mother.
Adhering rigidly to his scheme of narrowing the field of inquiry by putting the same straight question to each individual in turn, Alec next appealed to the man who had helped him to gain a throne.
"Paul," he said, "you who were my friend and have become my enemy, you, at least, will speak the truth. Tell me, then, who has done this thing!"
Stampoff strode forward. He feared no one, this determined advocate of his country's cause, and he alone knew the real menace of the impending tornado. "Your mother ought not to be here, Alec," he muttered. "A little more of this and she will faint. Look at her! Have you no pity in your heart? This is no place for a woman. Unlock the door and let her be taken away!"
Alec moistened his dry lips with his tongue. He felt that he was finally touching sure ground in themorass through which he was floundering. "She and all of you must remain!" was his grim reply. "Answer my question! Was it you who drove Joan from Delgratz?"
"I counseled it," said Stampoff, folding his arms defiantly, and apparently careless whether or not the King sprang at his throat the next instant.
"Ah! At last! Thank God for one man who is honest, though he seems to have acted like a fiend! To whom did you counsel it? To Joan herself?"
"No."
"Tell me, then, to whom?"
"I refuse."
"Stampoff, I shall draw a confession from you even though you die under my hands."
"I have faced death many times for the King of Kosnovia," said the harsh Serbian voice, "and I shall not shrink from it now, whether at the hands of the King or his foes. Send your mother away; then, perhaps, I may tell you what you want to know. The thing is done, and I, for one, shall not shirk the consequences."
"My mother again! Must she be spared though you have sacrificed her son?"
With a quick movement that sent tremors through Julius and the Greek, since he was compelled to pass close to both, he strode to the quaking Princess and caught her almost roughly by the shoulder.
"I feared this from the outset," he cried. "Did Stampoff make you the agent of his hellish work?Joan would trust you. Speak to me, mother! Was it you who wrought this evil?"
Her head was bent low, and she gasped something that sounded like an excuse. Alec recoiled from her in sudden horror. His hands were pressed feverishly to his forehead, and a hoarse cry of anguish came from his panting breast.
"I think I shall go mad!" he almost sobbed. "My own mother enter into this league against me! My mother——Oh, it cannot be! Stampoff, you, I know, would not scruple to sacrifice my dearest hopes to further your designs. Could you find none but my mother to aid you?"
He reeled as under a blow from an unseen hand, and at that unfortunate moment Prince Michael Delgrado thought fit to assert his authority.
"This ridiculous scene has gone far enough," he cried. "I was not aware that your pretty artist had quitted Delgratz; but it is quite evident that her departure is the best thing that could possibly happen for the good of the Kingdom. If Stampoff advised it, and your mother saw fit to point out to the girl the danger she was bringing to you and the monarchy, such action on their part has my complete approval."
Alec gazed blankly at the pompous little man. It needed but Prince Michael's outburst to stamp the whole episode with the seal of ineffable meanness and double dealing. He recalled the cowardice displayed by the Prince when Stampoff urged him to seize the vacant throne, and his gorge rose at the thought thatJoan had been driven from his arms in order that this pygmy might secure the annual pittance that would supply his lusts in Paris. At that moment Alec was Berserk with impotent rage. His mother's complicity in the banishing of Joan denied him a victim on whom to wreak his wrath.
But there still remained a vengeance, dire and far reaching, which would teach a bitter lesson to those who had entered into so unworthy a conspiracy.
Leaping to the curtain which concealed the sword, he snatched it up and smashed it across his knee. "See, then, how I treat the symbol of my monarchy," he cried with a terrible laugh. "I shall soon demonstrate to you what a pricked balloon is this Kingship of which you prate. I believe that you, my own father, are ready to supplant me, I know that Julius, my cousin, is straining every nerve to procure my downfall; but you shall learn how a man who despises the pinchbeck honors of a throne can defeat your petty malice and miserable scheming. Monsieur Nesimir, I proclaim Kosnovia a Republic from this hour! Here and now I abdicate! Summon a meeting of the Assembly to-morrow, and I shall give its members the best of reasons why the State will prosper more under the people's rule than under that of either of the men who are so anxious to succeed me."
"Abdicate! Republic! What monstrous folly!" cried Prince Michael, his plethoric face convulsed with anger at this unexpected counterstroke.
"I am saying that which, with God's help, I shallperform!" cried Alec, despair falling from him like a discarded garment as he realized what his project would mean to Joan and himself.
"You may abdicate, of course, if you choose," came the scornful retort; "but you have no power to break the Delgrado line."
"My power will be put to the test to-morrow," said Alec. "I am not afraid to measure my strength against the pitiful cowards who struck at me through a woman's love."
"Pay no heed to him, Monsieur Nesimir!" piped Prince Michael, whose voice rose to a thin falsetto. "He is beside himself. If he chooses to vacate the throne, it reverts to me."
"A Republic in Kosnovia!" snarled Stampoff. "That, indeed, will mark the beginning of the end for the Slav race. A single year would wipe us out of existence. What say you, Beliani, and you, Marulitch? Why are you dumb? Was it for this that we have striven through so many years? Shall our country be wrecked now because a hot headed youth puts his vows to a woman before every consideration of national welfare?"
"The notion is preposterous!" growled Julius, gaining courage from Stampoff's bold denunciation; but Beliani tried to temporize.
"We are far too excited to deal with this vexed affair to-night," he said. "The King is naturally aggrieved by a trying experience, and is hardly in a fit state of mind to consider the grave issues raisedby his words. Let us forget what we have just heard. To-morrow we shall all be calmer and saner."
"Monsieur Nesimir," said Alec sternly, fixing the hapless President with his masterful eye, "while I remain King you must obey my orders. See to it that notices are despatched to-night to the members of the National Assembly summoning a special meeting for an early hour to-morrow."
"Monsieur Nesimir will do nothing of the kind!" shrieked the infuriated Prince Michael. "I forbid it!"
"And I command it," cried Alec. "If he refuses, I shall take other steps to insure my wishes being fulfilled."
"Then I will tell you why your Joan has gone!" bellowed the Prince. "No, Marie, I will not be restrained!" he shouted to his wife, who had rushed to him in a very frenzy of alarm. She clutched at his shoulder; but he shook himself free brutally.
"It is full time you knew what I have done for you," he hissed venomously at Alec. "Stampoff and your mother and I, alone of those in this room, are aware of the fraud that has been perpetrated on the people of this country. You are not King of Kosnovia. You are not my son. Your father was a Colorado gold miner to whom your mother was married before I met her, and who died before you were born. For the sake of his widow's money I gave her my name, and was fool enough to fall in with her whim of pride that you should be brought up as a PrinceDelgrado. I suppose Stampoff urged your mother to reveal the facts to that chit of a girl who has addled your brain, and she, fortunately, had sense enough to see that you can not continue to occupy the throne five seconds after it becomes known that you are a mere alien, that your name is Alexander Talbot, and that I, Michael Delgrado, who married a foreigner in order that I might live, and permitted an American child to be reared as a lawful Prince of my house, am the lawful King."
The little man strutted up and down the room in a fume of indignation, and evidently felt fully justified in his own esteem. Ever selfish and vain, he fancied that he had been the victim of a cruel fate, and he read the sheer bewilderment in Alec's face as a tribute to the master stroke he had just delivered.
But his self conceit wilted under the contemptuous scorn of his wife's gaze, which he chanced to meet when his posturing ceased.
Alec looked to his mother for some confirmation or denial of the astounding statement blurted forth by her husband. But she had no eyes for her son then. The wrongs and sufferings of a lifetime were welling up from her heart to her lips. The agonized suspense of the last few minutes had given way to the frenzy of a woman outraged in her deepest sentiments.
She relinquished the chair to which she had been clinging, and faced the diminutive Prince with a quiet dignity that overawed him.
"So that is how you keep your oath, Michael!"she said. "When I forgave your infidelities, when I pandered to your extravagance, when I allowed you to fritter away the wealth bequeathed to me by a man whose fine nature was so far removed from yours that I have often wondered why God created two such opposite types of humanity, time and again you vowed that the idle folly of my youth would never be revealed by you. Twice you swore it on your knees when I was stung beyond endurance by your baseness. No, Michael," and her voice rose almost to a scream when her husband tried to silence her with a curse, "you shall hear the truth now, if I have to ask my son as a last favor to his unhappy mother to still that foul tongue of yours by force!"
For an instant, she made a wild appeal to Alec. "Your father was an honorable man," she cried. "For his sake, if not for mine, since I have forfeited all claim to your love, compel this man to be silent!"
The belief was slowly establishing itself in her son's mind that the incredible thing he was hearing was actually true. Nevertheless, he was temporarily bereft of the poise and balance of judgment that might have enabled him to adjust the warring elements in his bewildered brain. It was a new and horrible experience to be asked by his mother to use physical violence against the man he had been taught to regard as his father.
He had never respected Michael Delgrado,—he could acknowledge that now without the twinge of conscience that had always accompanied the unpleasingthought in the past,—yet, despite the gulf already yawning wide between them, his soul revolted against the notion of laying a hand on him in anger.
But he did stoop over the spluttering little Prince and said sternly, "You must not interrupt my mother again! You must not, I tell you!"
Such was the chilling emphasis of his words that Delgrado's loud objurgations died away in his throat, and the distraught Princess, with one last look of unutterable contempt at her royal spouse, faced the other occupants of the room.
"I did harm to none by my innocent deception," she pleaded. "I was very young when I married Alec's father, who was nearly twenty years older than I. We were not rich, and we were compelled to live in a rude mining camp, where my husband owned some claims that seemed to be of little value. But from the day of our wedding our fortunes began to improve, and, in the year before my son was born, money poured in on us. That small collection of wooden shanties has now become a great city. The land my husband owned is worth ten thousand times its original value; but, unfortunately, when wealth came, I grew dissatisfied with my surroundings. I wanted to travel, to mix in society, to become one of the fashionable throng that flocks to Paris and London and the Riviera in their seasons. My husband refused to desert the State in which his interests were bound up.
"We quarreled—it was all my fault—and thenone day he was killed in a mine accident, and I, scarce knowing what I was doing, fled to New York for distraction from my grief and self condemnation. My son was born there, and in that same year I met Prince Michael Delgrado in a friend's house. To me in those days a Prince was a wonderful creature. He quickly saw that I was a prize worth capturing, and not many months elapsed before we were married. I had all the foolish vanity of a young woman, unused to the world, who was entitled to call herself a Princess, and it seemed to my flighty mind that the fact of my son bearing a different name to my own would always advertise my plebeian origin; for I was quite a woman of the people, the daughter of a storekeeper in Pueblo. I cast aside my old and tried acquaintances, placed my affairs in trustworthy hands, and, when we set up an establishment in Paris, my infant son came to be known as a Prince of the Delgrado family.
"Once such a blunder is made it is not easily rectified; but during many a sad hour have I regretted it, for Michael Delgrado did not scruple to use it as a threat whenever I resented his ill conduct. At first a trivial thing, in time it became a millstone round my neck. As Alec grew up, it became more and more difficult to announce that he was not Prince Alexis Delgrado, but a simple commoner, Alexander Talbot by name.
"There, then, you have the measure of my transgression. It was the knowledge of the truth thatdrove that dear girl, Joan Vernon, from Delgratz this evening, because General Stampoff would not scruple to reveal the imposture if he failed to secure the King's adherence to his projects."
"God's bones!" broke in Stampoff. "I made him King, though I was aware from the day of your wedding that he was not Michael's son. King he is, and King he will remain if he agrees to my terms."
"Go on with your story, mother," said Alec softly. "I think I am beginning to understand now."
"What more need I say?" wailed the Princess in a sudden access of grief. "I have squandered your love, Alec, I have ruined my own life, I have devoted all these wretched years to a man who is the worst sort of blackmailer,—a husband who trades on his wife's weakness."
She turned on Prince Michael with a last cry. "I am done with you now forever!" she sobbed. "I have borne with you for my son's sake; but now you and I must dwell apart, for my very soul loathes you!"
She sank into a chair in a passion of tears, and Alec bent over her. He spoke no word to her; but his hand rested gently around her neck while his eyes traveled from Michael's gray-green face to Julius Marulitch's white one.
"I think we have all heard sufficient of the Delgrado history to render unnecessary any further comment on my decision to relinquish an honor that, it would appear, I had no right to accept," he said. "Ihave gained my end, though by a strange path. Will you please leave me with my mother?"
The one man present who felt completely out of his depth in this sea of discord took it upon himself to cry pathetically:
"The door is locked, your—your Majesty!"
"Ah, forgive me, Monsieur Nesimir," said Alec, with a friendly smile. "I had forgotten that. And, now that I come to think of it, I still have something to say; but we need not detain my mother to hear an uninteresting conversation. Pardon me one moment, while I attend to her."