It was quite a month after that sunny noon on the Emperor's terrace, that Maria Luisa Iría de Bourbon was informed of her betrothal to the Grand Duke Feodor Stanief. She also received the announcement on a garden terrace, by a caprice of chance; but it was a terrace of the South, starred and flowered all over with violets, heavily-sweet tuberoses and blue Florentine irises. Moreover, it was sunset, and she stood a slender white figure against the rosy sky.
"It is all decided?" she asked in a hushed, pathetic little voice, a voice shattered into crystalline fragments, like the dash of a clear brook against a rock. "It is sure to happen, señora?"
"Quite sure," answered her mother, with a firmness not unsuggestive of Adrian.
The princess made a move forward, then swayed like one of her wind-blown irises and slipped down to the old moss-green steps. When in her own room they revived her, she turned to hide her face among the pillows.
"I am afraid," she whispered under her breath. "I am afraid."
That was all. She had been taught obedience in a convent, and the Duquesa her mother was not to be resisted. One does not stop the mills of the gods by laying a flower across their wheels.
But if Stanief seized every delay of diplomacy and ceremony in his Northern court, he was unconsciously aided by every feminine subterfuge from the Gentle Princess in her sun-kissed home. The elaborate trousseau required weeks to prepare, the autumn storms made the voyage by sea unpleasant, and the journey by land was too fatiguing and informal. Between one and another, it was six months after the announcement before the escort ship anchored in the cobalt-blue bay which makes a dimple in the curving cheek of southern Spain. And then Iría met some of her new countrymen.
Not easy were their names and titles to her lisping Latin tongue, as she greeted the guests graciously and gracefully, her mother by her side. But as one gentleman was presented, she leaned forward with delicate surprise.
"Monsieur John Allard," she echoed, her large golden-brown eyes on his face. "Monsieur is not then of my future country?"
"Madame, I am an American," he explained, almost with the tenderness one involuntarily shows a child. It seemed to him that he had never seen anything more appealing than her young dignity and pathetic beauty of expression.
Iría regarded him earnestly. His right arm hung in a scarf, but he bore the injury with a bright unconcern that suggested it rather a badge of honor than an embarrassment. Although so simply announced, his companions waited for him to pass on with deferential patience and lack of surprise at her interest. Very suddenly the young girl flushed, her golden-brown head drooping on its white stem.
"I am most glad to have met monsieur," she murmured confusedly.
After that the preparations for the departure went on more rapidly. Contrary to all expectations, the princess was not too weary to sail next day and embarked with her mother and their ladies without too obvious regret.
The chief of the escort, the venerable Admiral Count Donoseff, was charmed and flattered by the interest shown in his staff by their future mistress. The first lady of the Empire Iría would be, until Adrian's distant marriage; her friendship might be valuable.
"Monsieur Allard has then injured his arm?" she remarked, on the third day of the voyage.
"Madame, in an act of devotion most remarkable," the admiral replied. "Imagine that a week before we sailed, an insane student made an attack upon the Emperor. His Imperial Majesty was driving, with Monsieur Allard seated opposite, when the criminal leaped on the step of the carriage and attempted to plunge a knife into the Emperor's heart. Monsieur Allard flung himself forward and caught the blow on his own arm, undoubtedly saving the Emperor's life at the expense of a dangerous wound to himself. Drenched with blood, he held the assassin's wrist until aid arrived."
Iría shuddered, yet listened thirstily.
"I heard—a little of this," she said breathlessly. "But I thought it was his Royal Highness the Regent who was hurt."
The Admiral blushed at his own forgetfulness; a courtier should never forget.
"Certainly; he also, madame," he hastened to assure. "He was beside the Emperor and so at a disadvantage, but he sprang to aid Monsieur Allard in holding the man and received a slight wound in disarming him. All Europe rang with the story, and Monsieur Allard was decorated with the Grand Star of the Order of St. Rurik. The justice of the Regent is swift; the criminal was tried and executed the next day."
Iría glanced down the deck to where Allard chatted with two young nobles of the court, the sun striking across his bright hair and laughing face.
"The Regent," she began shyly, then relapsed into silence with her ready change of color.
But a little later she caught Allard's eye and summoned him by a scarcely perceptible movement of her hand. He came with pleasure and saluted her with that direct friendliness of regard which had carried him safely past many a shoal and undercurrent during his continental life.
"The Count Donoseff has been telling me the history of your wounded arm, monsieur," she said. "Let me add my poor admiration to all you receive, realizing that you saved the Emperor, soon to be my sovereign also."
"You are too gracious, madame," Allard protested lightly. Gaiety came very easily to him since that day when he had saved Adrian's life and Stanief's honor. It seemed to him that John Allard had not only paid; he had re-earned the right to existence, justified his liberty.
"If all the world knows of it—"
"Oh, pardon; I only meant to say that the Grand Duke was present and did as much as I."
Something in the words brought her soft smile.
"Is not the Grand Duke usually where you are, monsieur?" she queried.
"I am with him whenever he and my service of the Emperor permit, madame."
"Only then?" she doubted.
Surprised, he shrugged his shoulders laughingly.
"Some one has been telling tales of me, Princess. I confess I am with him more than is strictly warranted."
"I have heard so much of his coldness, his severity," she ventured, her lashes sweeping her round young cheeks. "He, he cares for nothing, no one, they say."
"Oh, no, madame," Allard denied, warmly enlisted in the defense. "That is most unjust. Consider only those from whom such reports come; there is no one living who has more undeserved enemies. I know him capable of love; I have seen it, felt it, lived it. And he works, madame; how he works! The country under his rule gains new life, new hope. Madame, if I might presume, I would implore you to believe nothing of him except what he himself will show you."
She crimsoned before his fervor, but her delicate face expressed no anger at the daring.
"I will not," she assented, still with that strange timidity. "I was frightened at first, but not now, not any more. The Regent is fair, with gray eyes, is he not, monsieur?"
"No, madame; he is very dark," he assured her hastily, his thoughts on Stanief's much-loved face.
Iría smiled, bending her head still lower.
"He is perhaps—fanciful, monsieur? He might do something quite useless and romantic, just for a caprice?"
"Hardly, madame. I think he does nothing without a purpose. He—I believe he has not been very happy, Princess."
"And, is he now?" she asked faintly.
Allard recalled himself to gallantry with charming grace.
"Madame, he should be happier than any one living."
"Thank you, monsieur," she breathed, and let him retire presently, her bosom heaving under its white linen and lace.
It was a very pale and listless girl who had first met Stanief's envoys, but as the voyage proceeded she grew each day more rose-tinted, more daintily radiant and content. One would have said the salt winds blew across some Elysian garden, some fountain of Ponce de Leon, and brought health with their touch. She had a little way of suddenly blushing and smiling, as if at some delightful secret of her own not to be carelessly spoken.
On the last day at sea she chose Allard's arm for her daily promenade up and down the deck. This honor was eagerly desired by the gentlemen, old and young alike, but she had hitherto shown a decided preference for the veteran admiral; or one of her ladies, if the sea were sufficiently calm. Allard no longer wore the scarf, but she had paused before him demurely.
"Your arm is better, monsieur?"
"Madame, it is quite well."
"Then, if you do not fear to injure it—"
And with that they were pacing dignifiedly down the shining deck, under a score of envious eyes.
"To-morrow we arrive, monsieur."
"In a happy hour for our country and the Grand Duke Feodor, madame."
"He thinks so?"
"Princess, can you doubt it?" evaded Allard, who himself had many doubts, remembering Stanief's grim sarcasms on the subject of being given the care of a twenty-year-old girl when his life was already one of crowded tasks and serious peril.
Some trouble in his manner communicated itself to the small hand fluttering on his sleeve.
"I do not want to doubt," she said. "I do not. Monsieur, in that old English legend—have you ever thought how wise King Arthur would have been, if instead of sending Lancelot to Lady Guinevere in his place, he had himself gone to meet her in Lancelot's guise?"
"Why, I never did think," Allard acknowledged merrily. "But certainly he would have been much wiser, madame."
He regarded her in bright question which drew the answer of her flush.
"Do not modern King Arthurs ever choose the wiser course?" she faltered.
"Perhaps they are too busy and hampered, madame, as the ancient king may have been also. Since I have lived at a court I have altered my ideas on such subjects. I never saw any one who worked so hard as the Regent. He has set himself a splendid task, and splendidly he carries it on."
Iría's expression clouded slightly; the glance she stole at her companion was puzzled and full of dawning terror.
"Yet he might leave it a little while, monsieur."
"Madame, to leave it for one day might topple down the careful building of months. Moreover, he holds the city always under his grasp, fearing danger to the Emperor."
Her left hand went to her heart.
"Monsieur, we arrive to-morrow; it would not be kind to play with me."
Allard met her pleading eyes with candid amazement.
"Princess, what have I said?Iventure to play with your Royal Highness!"
"Then the Grand Duke is waiting over there?" she flung out her hand toward the north, lifting her small white face to him, the golden-brown curls tossing in the breeze.
Even then he had no conception of her mistake.
"Surely, madame; where else?" he wondered.
The Gentle Princess made no exclamation, no reproach. Only her head drooped again, and shivering she drew the veil about her face.
"I am tired, monsieur," she gasped. "Will you take me back?"
"Madame, most unintentionally I have offended you. Let me beg forgiveness and ask how."
"No, no; no one has done wrong. I myself was—absurd. I am not angry, monsieur; only tired."
They walked back, Allard completely bewildered and uncomprehending. By her chair Iría paused and gave him her hand with a smile whose sweetness was beyond tears.
"Thank you, Monsieur Allard," she said. "Perhaps we shall still be friends over there. You are going home, but I go a stranger to a strange place; I meant no more than that."
She was like Theodora, Allard thought, deeply moved. Surely Stanief would be gentle with her gentleness.
The next morning they landed.
It was a pity that, amidst all the gorgeous ceremony and confusion of welcome, Iría did not see the warm affection of Stanief's greeting to Allard. Perhaps she would have been less hopelessly afraid when the little Emperor took her hand and presented to her the tall, superb noble whose dark face, finely emotionless, resembled a cameo. Whose velvet eyes she dared not seek behind their curtaining lashes.
Yet Stanief was faultlessly courteous, even kind in his grave manner. It might have been merely that he was so different from her fancies of the last weeks.
The wedding was to take place in two days; two days of festivities, of marvelously decorated streets, of wonderful balls by night. Iría did exactly as she was told; yielded dazedly to Adrian's caresses and accepted the Regent's lavish gifts. Like a beautiful toy she allowed her ladies to dress her half a dozen times a day, and listened submissively to her mother's advice. But the afternoon before her wedding-day, she saw Stanief alone for the first time.
After all, it was not really alone. The Emperor had been chatting with her on the great glass-enclosed balcony, and as Stanief came toward them, he rose with a significant smile and went back to the reception-hall. Still, from that crowded reception-hall they were only separated by arching, open arcades; only slightly screened by towering palms and flowers in huge vases.
Stanief took the chair beside his fiancée and looked at her; this was the first moment when he could do so without feeling himself watched by all curious eyes. He had read perfectly the terror under her mute passivity, the shrinking of her tiny frost-cold hand from his touch, and he pitied her with all his heart. Now, in the lustrous rose-pink gown against which her transparent skin showed without a tinge of color, her bronze-bright head averted, her mouth curved in childish pathos, she inspired him with an anger against Adrian which he had never felt for himself.
"Princess," he said gently, "we have seen so little of each other until now, nor shall we again until after to-morrow. May I say something which has been in my thoughts since we met yesterday?"
"As you will, monseigneur," she murmured.
"I think it is as you will," Stanief corrected, smiling in spite of himself. "But I accept the permission. Will you forgive me if I have imagined that you feared me, Princess?"
Iría raised her topaz eyes to his in complete dismay.
"Monseigneur, you are angry—"
The sentence broke; those firm, steadily tranquil eyes of his caught and held hers.
"Angry? Why? But I am sorry, deeply sorry, for the net of policy which has enmeshed us both and left me no power of freeing you. And I would do all possible, Princess, to make this less hard for you. There is no need to be afraid of me in any way. I do not know what they have told you of me; if I govern the Empire severely, it is that order may come from chaos, no more. Of what else I may be accused—"
"Monseigneur!"
He smiled again at her tone, rather sadly.
"Oh, I know my enemies. But such things have no place between you and me. John Allard was of your suite; perhaps he could have told you that I am not all harshness."
She snatched her gaze from his and blushed as he had never seen a woman blush before, the heavy crimson staining her very forehead.
"He did tell me—that, monseigneur."
"Then I would ask you to trust me, Princess. To-morrow you will come to my house; there will be no other change in your life which you do not wish. I am not a reigning sovereign, there is no reason why you should not keep with you the ladies of your own country whom you prefer. If you desire, I will have the Emperor ask your mother to remain with you for a few months."
Iría shook her head. Her mother's constant surveillance threatened even the peace Stanief offered, and prohibited rest.
"You are good to me, monseigneur," she faltered. "I will stay with you, please."
He understood, knowing the lady in question.
"Thank you," he answered, and after a moment, "A Stanief guards his own; so much, at least, our race has of loyalty. And to guard you all I can, that is all I claim. There are enough more serious troubles, Princess, without adding the artificial one of fear. If there is sorrow to you in this marriage, it is beyond my cure; but rest quietly in my guardianship."
The shadow of a sob crossed Iría's sensitive face; she looked up at him bravely and gratefully.
"You are good," she said hurriedly. "I never hoped you would be like this to me, monseigneur. No one ever thought of me so carefully before, never. But it is right to tell you,becauseyou are so good. I know that you did not wish this marriage, either, we are alike so. Baron Dalmorov informed me this morning."
"I am infinitely indebted to Baron Dalmorov," observed Stanief, his dark brows contracting in an expression that might have terrified into flight Iría's new-found confidence, if she had not been absorbed in her confession.
"I was not hurt, monseigneur; it made it easier to know. And now I can tell you; I, I hate secrets. There was some one—oh, some one quite impossible and who does not care for me at all. He does not dream I ever thought, like that. But I fancied he was some one else—I misunderstood. It was not his fault in any way. I had to tell you, monseigneur; it seemed to me right to do so."
Stanief leaned forward and laid his hand over the cold hands folded in her lap. He had never before believed that a woman could be frank, never imaged one who "hated secrets." It was as if he stood on the threshold of a room all perfume and whiteness; and not the most accomplished coquette could have devised a means of moving him so profoundly.
"All my life I shall remember that you gave me your confidence, Iría," he answered, with exquisite delicacy and respect. "So far I am happier than you; I love no one. Have no doubt, no dread of anything I can save you. Some good may come of all this, how can we tell? And at least there is no need of making it worse by not understanding. You will not shrink so much from to-morrow, now?"
She met his eyes, helpless as a child in the great reaction; his warm clasp seemed to melt the chill despair of the last days, a little color came back to her cheek and something flashed rainbow-like upon her lashes.
"Not now," she sighed quiveringly. "Thank you, monseigneur."
Stanief raised her hand to his lips, and presently they went back to the Duquesa. After which he went in search of Adrian.
The Emperor was talking to Allard when his cousin came up to the alcove where they were ensconced, and he sat motionless with astonishment at sight of Stanief's steel-hard glance and compressed lips.
"Cousin?" he exclaimed, daunted in spite of himself.
Allard had risen at the approach, but Stanief did not regard him and Adrian gave no permission to retire.
"Sire," Stanief said, in the markedly quiet tone that came with his rare anger, "it is frequently your Imperial Majesty's pleasure to submit me and my affairs to the discussion or criticism of Baron Dalmorov. I have made no complaint, I make none now, but there is a limit to such endurance. The lady who is to be my wife—"
Allard moved involuntarily; Adrian raised his hand in swift protest.
"Cousin, I assure you—"
Stanief saluted him formally.
"Sire, I have just learned that Baron Dalmorov has had the tact to inform the Princess Iría that I was marrying her under compulsion and against my will. This insult to madame, this falsehood—"
"Cousin!"
"This falsehood, sire—since, having met the Princess, it is my earnest desire to have the honor of her hand—this is too much. Baron Dalmorov is your attendant; I request your justice. If it is refused—"
"Well, cousin?" Adrian asked mechanically, rather in stupor than challenge at Stanief's words.
Stanief's usually veiled glance glinted clear and ice-cold.
"Sire, Dalmorov shall account to me now; and I to you later."
Allard, familiar with both, bit his lip in an agony of anxiety. For an instant Adrian wavered, then his eyes fell, beaten down by those of his kinsman.
"Whatever you wish," he conceded, docilely as Iría could have spoken. "He had no right, no excuse from me. Go bid Dalmorov come here, Allard."
The surrender was complete. Relieved and surprised, Allard obeyed, hazarding a guess that the Emperor's own fondness for Iría had influenced the answer.
But Adrian had not lived ten months with his Regent without learning more than a childish love of command. He looked up again at the stately figure that towered over him, glittering in the semibarbaric magnificence of dress demanded by etiquette.
"Come by me, Feodor," he urged, with a gesture of invitation to the chair at his side.
"Thank you, sire," without moving.
Adrian surveyed him, then stooped to the first apology of his life, however imperiously spoken.
"I never told any one at all of your unwillingness to marry Iría, Feodor. If it is known, it is because you yourself seized every possible delay. Come here; I do not wish Dalmorov to find you standing there."
Stanief complied, and Adrian laid a hand on his sleeve.
"Then you love Iría, after all?" he asked, with hesitating curiosity.
"Love? In twenty-four hours? Hardly, sire; but I guard my own."
The young Emperor lifted his head no less proudly.
"And so do I, cousin. Dalmorov shall satisfy you."
Half an hour after Iría had returned to the suite appointed to her and her mother, she received a visit from Baron Dalmorov—a very different Dalmorov from the malicious, self-confident gentleman of the morning, and who offered her so abject an apology for his mistaken and untrue statement regarding the Grand Duke's attitude, that the Gentle Princess was quite distressed. She sent him away reassured and apparently grateful, then fell to connecting events. Recollecting Stanief's expression during her naïve account and the carriage of his head as he had crossed the reception-hall to Adrian, she had no difficulty in divining the reason for Dalmorov's sudden contrition. But Stanief's strength no longer chilled her with terror; instead she stood with relief behind its shelter.
There was a ball at the palace that night. Stanief never danced, but every one else did, and the Emperor opened the evening with the Princess. It was obvious to all why Stanief had been forced to this marriage, whenever Adrian was seen with Iría; the boy so evidently liked, indeed, loved her. And the fifteen-year-old autocrat was always popularly supposed to be without affection.
Near the end of the evening Stanief came across Allard, who was leaning against a flower-wreathed pillar and watching the dancers with grave, unseeing eyes. The other man studied him for a minute, then laid a hand on his shoulder.
"John, I have scarcely seen you to-night. You look troubled."
Allard started and turned, his face brightening warmly.
"I am not dancing to-night, monseigneur," he explained. "That is all."
"Why not?"
The gray eyes fell.
"I was—a bit out of sorts, perhaps."
Stanief stood silent, his own expression becoming very somber. Allard waited quietly; he indeed bore the stamp of fatigue in his pallor and the dark circles beneath his eyes.
"It is a tangled skein, this life of ours," Stanief said at last, "and not wholly of our spinning. You are with the Emperor to-night?"
"Every night now, monseigneur."
"Then I may not see you until morning. Good night, John."
Allard smiled with the cordial brilliancy that always sprang in response to his name on Stanief's lips.
"Good night, monseigneur," he answered lovingly.
The next morning, with all elaborate ceremony, the marriage took place. It was remarked that when the Princess stood up, in as much snowy satin, old lace and pearl as could be crowded upon one small feminine figure, opposite Stanief in the vast cathedral, her wide eyes never left his face, and she seemed to find support in his composure. And when they came down the aisle together, her little white-gloved fingers clung to the white sleeve of his uniform as if there alone she touched some reality in the bewildering panorama.
"Did you ever see the frail edelweiss growing on a ledge of some ice-fringed granite cliff?" whispered the volatile Vasili in Allard's ear. "Look, pray, at our Grand Duchess."
"The edelweiss is safe, at least," Allard replied soberly. "Perhaps safer than the cliff."
Stanief was writing, writing steadily, placidly, his pen rustling faintly as it slipped across the paper. The ruddy glow of the open fire was tangled and reflected among the many-faceted knickknacks that littered the desk, caught and tossed back from a dozen shining surfaces, and mockingly echoed by deep-tinted walls and draperies. Most ruddily, most vividly, the light seemed to gather around the writer, as if its quivering pink radiance were a warning or a shield.
It was like another presence in the room, that fire, to the man behind the curtain. He watched it also as he crept stealthily forward, clutching more tightly the object in his hand. A man of the people, shabby, gaunt, unkempt, he stole out into the Regent's study, stepping cautiously on the gleaming floor or on the treacherously soft rugs which slipped beneath his unaccustomed feet. From the velvet hangings he gained the shelter of a tall Vernis-Martin cabinet and crouched in the shadow, shaking from head to foot with nervous tremors.
Stanief worked on undisturbed; once he paused to choose another pen, and the intruder cowered to the floor in abject fear. But the writing was resumed without alarm. After a few moments the man again moved forward, this time on his hands and knees, until he reached the end of a high-sided leather couch. There he halted again. Coming here with a purpose so bold, the habit of a lifetime yet prompted him to hold his soiled garments away from the gilded and perfumed upholstery with a vague sense of apology.
There never was a clock that ticked so loudly, so insistently as the timepiece above the hearth, a clock that set its beats so exactly to the beat of a man's hurrying pulse. Once the man on the floor touched his chest curiously, as if to be quite certain whether it was his heart, or indeed the swaying pendulum which sounded through the quiet place. Reassured, he moved on.
The glowing firelight wavered giddily across Stanief's bent head, seeking in vain for a hint of brown in the fine black hair, which had a slight ripple and a tendency to lie in tiny curls where it touched the neck. The man noted this dully. If one struck there? Or lower, between the broad shoulders—
Stanief leaned back and selected a cigarette from the tray on the writing-table. His drowsy lashes fell meditatively as he reached for a match, a half-smile curved his lips. The man by the chair darted forward and struck once, from behind.
The knife crashed ringing to the floor as Stanief's quicker movement met his assailant's. The man cried out sharply as the strong white hands closed on his wrists and the superior strength forced him to his knees beside the desk.
"Clumsily attempted," commented the level voice. "Have you any more weapons,mon ami?"
"Excellency, Royal Highness, pardon—I have no French."
Stanief shrugged his shoulders and lapsed into the language of the country.
"I asked you if you had other weapons, but it does not matter."
He deliberately transferred both captive wrists to the grasp of his right hand and with his left opened a drawer of the desk. The man made no effort to free himself. Generations of serfdom had reasserted themselves; he might have killed from behind, but before the patrician's glance and voice resistance did not even occur to him. He submitted passively when Stanief produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them in place.
"Stand up, and farther off," came the contemptuous command. "I am not accustomed to doing my own police work. You need not try to escape; the guard is within call. I might have had you arrested half an hour ago when I first saw you."
"Royal Highness, how—why—"
Stanief answered the stupefied gaze, coldly amused.
"Because it interested me to watch your attempt. I keep a mirror on my desk, not being without experience. Who sent you to kill me?"
"Royal Highness, my brother was hung last week."
"As you this week. Well?"
The man winced.
"Royal Highness, we wanted freedom. They tell us that while your Royal Highness lives it can not be; the country is too firmly held and too content. So we strive to act in time."
He spoke as one reciting a lesson, monotonously, with effort. His type was familiar, lacking even the poor excuse of originality.
"Your brother was executed for an attempt to kill me?"
"Serenity, he worked in the palace kitchen and put poison in a cup of chocolate."
"I remember. He was tried; I had nothing to do with his case." He paused, considering; and the other stared at him in mute fascination. "Before I ring to have you removed, have you anything to say?"
"Gracious Highness, pardon!"
Stanief regarded him with scornful amazement.
"Pardon? You are mad,mon ami. Do you fancy me a child or a woman to set you free after this performance? Why should I pardon you? You do not interest me in the least. Go face your trial; my share in the incident is ended," and Stanief turned away.
"Royal Highness, mercy—I am afraid! Not that—I will—"
"What?"
"Buy," he offered desperately. "Royalty, not to sell my comrades—who are we in your sight—there is some one else, some one of the court who wishes your death."
Stanief stopped with his finger on the bell and bent his keen eyes on the livid face. It was not a pleasant spectacle, this sordid, trembling figure in the firelight, but an uglier specter loomed behind it.
"Go on, if you choose," he conceded. "You have my permission."
"Royal Highness, not my comrades. But he is not of us; he urges us here to fail and die. You are the master; Royal Highness, his name for grace."
"I promise you nothing. Certainly not your liberty."
"No, no, but life!" he made a movement to throw himself at the Regent's feet, but drew back before the decided negative. "Royal Highness, to live, only to live. He is a great lord, he goes to court; he hates and fears you. Royal Highness, he is the Baron Sergius Dalmorov."
"Ah," observed Stanief, and said nothing more for several minutes. His all given, the man waited feverishly, not daring to speak except by his imploring gaze. But Stanief finally pushed the button without vouching a reply.
"Dimitri," he said curtly to the officer who appeared in answer to the summons, "take this man and have him imprisoned until I send for him again. Understand me; there is no charge against him at present; simply he is a prisoner at my pleasure."
The officer saluted in silence, however amazed at the presence in Stanief's study of one who certainly had not passed the door, and in silence marshaled his dazed captive backward to the threshold. There he halted and again saluted.
"Monsieur Allard awaits the honor of being received by your Royal Highness."
"Very well; admit Monsieur Allard."
"Highness," faltered the prisoner once more.
Dimitri favored him with a scandalized stare, jerked him unceremoniously out the door, and administered a shake that almost sent him into Allard's arms.
"More respect, animal," he ordered explosively. "Pig of a peasant! Oh, a thousand pardons, Monsieur Allard; pray enter."
Allard laughed and passed on, giving the prisoner a compassionate glance that altered to one of surprise and distrust at sight of his face. But he asked no questions, having learned many things in the course of his life in the Empire. Adrian himself had first given his favorite the dry advice to see nothing that did not concern him.
Stanief had resumed his writing; at Allard's entrance he looked up to nod pleasantly toward a chair, and continued his work without speaking. The two were accustomed to each other; smiling, Allard sat down and let his head sink against the high back of the cushioned seat.
The fire glowed and danced, rose and fell, making an artificial brightness that mocked the clouded sky without. Gradually, from waiting Allard drifted into reverie, in whose closing mists his surroundings were lost from sight.
After a while Stanief laid down the pen, pushed aside the completed task, and surveyed his companion unobserved. Twice the Regent moved as if to speak, then changed his intention and remained mute. The expression that forced its way through his locked composure was not gentle; it was as if he struggled fiercely with some emotion and felt it wrench and writhe beneath the surface of self-control. But in spite of his will, his dark brows tangled, the black eyes glinted hard behind their deceptive lashes. And when he finally spoke, his voice carried a tone never before used to Allard.
"John, what is wrong?" he demanded.
The other looked up in surprise.
"Nothing, monseigneur," he answered, rather wearily.
Stanief's fingers closed sharply on one of the ivory toys which strewed the desk.
"That is not true," he contradicted. "Kindly say so if you do not wish to explain; I am not a child to be put off with a light word. Something has been wrong with you ever since your return from Spain."
Too assured of their friendship for resentment or to attribute the speech to anything except interest in his affairs, Allard smiled even while changing color with pain.
"I have you always, monseigneur," he said. "If I have lost other loves, at least I can rest content with you."
The paper-knife snapped in Stanief's grasp.
"Thank you," he responded, with an accent worthy of his cousin. "I believe I asked you to explain."
The unconscious Allard pushed the bright hair from his forehead, his eyes on the ruddy unrest of the flames.
"Of course I meant to tell you some time, monseigneur," he mused aloud. "But it seemed a bit cowardly to burden you with my troubles; you could not help them, and you have so many of your own. It was no time to speak of such a thing during your wedding, and as the weeks went by it grew harder and harder to speak of it at all. I tried not to betray myself, but I am rather a bad actor. If it were only I who suffered. The journey to Spain, for madame—"
He paused. Stanief gazed at him with an expression as somberly dangerous as ever one of his dangerous house wore.
"The journey to Spain, monsieur?" he repeated.
Aroused at last to a strangeness in his manner, Allard turned to him in wonder.
"During the journey to Spain, monseigneur, this came for me," he replied simply, and drew forth a letter which he laid before the other.
Stanief picked it up, himself confronted by the unexpected. Allard resumed his seat and averted his head as the rustling paper unfolded.
It was a sweetly calm letter, a letter written by one in the evening of life and itself breathing an evening repose and gray twilight hush. Across the fevered passion of the man who read, the first words drifted like the cool, scented air of the Californian garden from which they came. A letter that neither reproached nor questioned, its message was given with all tenderness of phrase and household name.
Robert had not been well for a long time, Aunt Rose wrote most delicately. After John had left for South America so suddenly, his younger brother had fretted and chafed against his own quiet life. Even his engagement to Theodora had failed to cheer him, or cure his strange restlessness and abstraction. About six months after John's departure, he had been found unconscious on the veranda, lying among the crumpled newspapers. An illness followed, and after recovering from that he never seemed to grow quite strong. In the third year of John's absence, when preparations were being made for the long-delayed wedding, he again fell ill. The morning they received John's letter from theNadeja, he rallied wonderfully. Asking to have the letter himself, he read it again and again, then sent them all away while he rested. An hour later they had found him, resting indeed, his cheek upon the letter and the old bright content on his boyish face. Theodora had borne it very well. They were tranquilly calm in their life together, now, and sent their earnest love to John in the distant life he had chosen.
Stanief laid down the letter very gently. He never forgot how the light from this purer and simpler world fell across the labyrinth of dark thoughts at which he scarcely dared look back.
"Nearly two years," Allard said, his head still turned away. "So long since Robert died. I did not write at once from here; I thought they knew of me, and I wanted a little real life to tell. I was sick of pretense. I suppose the women did not know how to reach me here; Bertie would have had no difficulty. But it was a grief past remedying, and there seemed no use troubling you."
Stanief rose and came around the writing-table to lay both hands on the other's shoulders.
"I beg your pardon, John," he said earnestly and gravely. "I spoke to you just now as I never will again, come what may. I have my own griefs, less patiently endured than yours; and I misunderstood."
"I did not notice," Allard answered, with perfect truth. "You are always like no one else, monseigneur. I am glad that you know, very glad. You see, it is not only that I myself have lost Robert, but that I have taken him from Theodora. I wanted so much happiness for her, and now—it was all wrong. Let us talk of something else, please."
Stanief turned away to the table.
"My last cigarette was never lighted," he remarked, the change of tone complete. "Did you not see that particularly disagreeable fellow-countryman of mine who went out in Dimitri's charge? He tried to kill me just before you arrived."
Effectively distracted, Allard sat up.
"He—"
"Oh, that is nothing novel. In fact, it becomes monotonous. Only this fellow varied the routine by declaring Dalmorov the instigator of all this."
"Dalmorov!" Allard echoed incredulously. "To stoop so far! Yet I remember; I saw him talking with your prisoner the other night. I was coming from the club with Rosal and Linovitch, when the acetylene search-lights of the car fell across the two, as they stood in an angle of the cathedral wall."
"So? He is imprudent. Also he should recollect that while such people will keep faith with one another, they will cheerfully betray one of the class they hate."
"You will accuse him, arrest him?"
"My dear John, on the word of a wretched peasant? I shall do nothing so impulsive. But, I will perfect the chain, and then—" He offered a match serenely. "Why should he not pay? Moreover, he is dangerous to the Emperor. When I resign this remodeled empire to my cousin, he shall rule it, not Dalmorov. Have patience yet a while. Before my power passes from me, I will remove this gentleman, whether Adrian approves of it or not; and then contentedly lay down my borrowed scepter."
"The Emperor—"
"The Emperor may do as he will, afterward. He is fond of his Dalmorov."
"I am not so sure of that, monseigneur; he plays with him."
Stanief smiled.
"My young cousin is a kitten for whom we are all toy mice, John. Which reminds me that the hour for my visit to him approaches."
"And recalls me to my errand. The Emperor requests that her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess will come to him this morning, if it will not derange her plans."
"You have told madame?"
"No, monseigneur. I thought perhaps you—" he looked at Stanief interrogatively.
"Would accompany her?" Stanief completed the question. "Perhaps."
He touched the bell, and the long regard in which he enveloped Allard held many blended emotions besides its affection.
"Has madame gone to drive, Dimitri?" he inquired of that attendant.
"Her Royal Highness at this moment descends the stairs, Royal Highness."
"Say to her that I would be glad to see her here, now, if she is at leisure."
Dimitri vanished hastily. An instant later he opened the door, and Iría came noiselessly across the threshold with the exotic, Andalusian grace that made her least movement a delight.
Both gentlemen rose at her entrance. Coloring faintly, she inclined her head to Allard, and crossed to Stanief, lifting her eyes to his with a certain delicate confidence and trust.
"You sent for me, monsiegneur?" she questioned, in her rippling southern voice.
"I asked you to come," he corrected. "Monsieur Allard has a message for you."
She turned docilely to Allard, without leaving Stanief's side.
"For me, monsieur?"
Stanief looked from one to the other. Very lovely was the young girl in her trailing blue velvets and furs; her golden-brown hair clustering in full, soft waves under the large hat, her golden-brown eyes warm with expectation. Iría had acquired a dainty poise, not less gentle but more assured, during these months of emancipation and freedom under the Regent's protection. Allard gazed at her with frank admiration and friendliness as he explained:
"Madame, the Emperor requests the happiness of your presence this morning, if the visit will cause no disturbance of your plans."
Her dimpling smile responded to a demand sufficiently familiar. Adrian's love for her had long ago outlived surprise and become an accepted fact.
"Thank you, monsieur," she answered, and again looked up at Stanief. "You are going, monseigneur? We may go together?"
"I intended to ask it of you, if you will wait an instant for me to arrange these papers."
Allard saluted them quietly, and withdrew. Like all the rest of the city, he fancied them most happy in each other. The Regent's aversion to the marriage had been forgotten in his bearing since the first day of his fiancée's arrival.
Iría sank down in an arm-chair and loosened the furs under her round white chin, laying the huge muff in her lap. Quite innocently and without shyness she followed Stanief's movements as he tossed into a drawer the writing upon which he had been engaged and dropped on top the thin, keen knife left from the recent conflict.
"Monseigneur," she said at last.
Stanief winced ever so slightly; there were times when the formal title fell like a drop of acid on his nerves.
"Madame la Duchesse?" he retorted.
Iría laughed out in her surprise, all unconscious of his meaning.
"Monseigneur, are you going to send Marya away from me?"
"I! What have I to do with your ladies? Keep or dismiss them as you choose, Iría."
"Marya cried this morning, telling me that last night the Baron Dalmorov warned her of your intention. He said that the Emperor would object to the sister of Count Ormanof remaining at court, so you would dismiss her. But I told Marya that you knew how much I cared for her, and would explain that to the Emperor."
"Some day Dalmorov will learn discretion," Stanief commented, almost too indolently. "It is nearly time. The Emperor did speak to me of the Countess Marya, and I pointed out to him that her brother's misconduct did not affect the matter in the least; since we are not living in China and visiting faults upon entire families. Also I explained that you rule your own household."
"But you govern us all, monseigneur," said the Gentle Princess, most naturally. "I was sure it would be right somehow; I told Marya that no one who belonged to you need be afraid."
He paused abruptly in front of her.
"Then you are not sorry that you trusted me with yourself, Iría? You are not sorry any longer that chance placed you in my keeping?"
She leaned forward across the muff, her eyes suddenly wet in their sincerity.
"Oh, no," she denied with energy. "No, monseigneur. Ah, we do not call such things chance, we women of the South, but a higher name! I have never been sorry since that first day on the winter balcony when you spoke to me so wonderfully. You—you are so good, so kind, monseigneur."
Stanief looked into those clear eyes for a long moment, his own glance veiled. Then he gently took one of the little gloved hands and lifted it to his lips.
"I seem to have been born just for that," he said, the sadness of his voice masked by its even control, "to guard what is mine. I am glad if I do it passably well, Iría. I wish I could hope that my other ward would tell me as much, some day. Come, let us go to the Emperor."
She rose, softly flushed and smiling, yet vaguely troubled by his manner.
"The Emperor?" she ventured. "He is a shadow, monseigneur! You are not satisfied with him?"
"What do you know of shadows, who are all sunshine? If I imagine a cloud on the imperial horizon, it is still no larger than that bit of lace in your hand. Also, the question is rather if he is satisfied with me, than if I am satisfied with him. Adrian is—Adrian."
Together they moved to the door.
It was a few weeks later, when the tardy spring was awaking reluctantly from its long sleep, that Stanief's cloud drew nearer and gained darker substance. Adrian's increasing restiveness took the form of active interference with the government, and not wisely. All that was possible Stanief was willing to yield, if he might keep peace, but finally the impossible was asked.
It was a question of taxes which made the first rift between the cousins, a question with which the young Emperor had nothing to do. The tax had been imposed during the period of readjustment; now, owing to the Regent's skilled government, it was no longer necessary and he proposed to remove it. To the amazement of all concerned, Adrian chose to object.
Plainly enough Stanief saw Dalmorov's influence behind the opposition, and saw himself bound to persistence both by policy and an implied promise to the people. Not as yet had the tax been removed, but he most courteously had reminded Adrian that no one possessed the power of interference with the measure. The result had been inevitable; Adrian sulked and the Regent's enemies furtively rejoiced.
So opened the last year of the regency. If on the first night of the first year Stanief had claimed check of his opponent, now, gazing across the half-cleared board, Dalmorov could return the cry.
Meanwhile the suite of the sullen young sovereign suffered much from his caprices; until finally Iría and Allard were the only two his caustic tongue spared and his ill humor passed by. They alone did not dread the honor of attending him. And at last he even contrived to give Allard the sting of many rewakened memories.
"Allard," he remarked one morning, "you never told me more than just that you were an American. From what state are you?"
They were alone together, two learned and exhausted professors having just taken leave of as trying a listener as could well be conceived. Across the book-strewn table Adrian contemplated the other, meditatively at ease.
"I am a Californian, sire," was the reply.
"Come show me where in this atlas,pour s'amuser. Your California is not small, if I recollect."
Allard came over obediently and found the map, pointing out the city remembered so well and so sadly.
"There, sire, near that little bay. Our place lay beyond the town; we called the house Sun-Kist."
"The house was near the bay?"
"Very near. We used to sail and fish there. Just here lay the yacht club, where Robert kept his motor-boat—" He broke off and turned away more abruptly than strict etiquette allowed.
Adrian deliberately drew his pencil through the name on the map.
"Robert?" he queried.
"Robert Allard, sire, my younger brother. He died two years ago."
"Soon after you came here, then?"
"While I was on theNadeja, sire, making the voyage."
"Have you no other relatives there?"
"Yes; my aunt, Mrs. Leslie, and my cousin, her daughter."
Adrian studied his companion's pallor with a certain scientific interest, idly scribbling on the margin of the atlas without regarding what he wrote.
"You regret your home?" he inquired.
Allard bit his lip to steady its quiver, fiercely unwilling to bare his old pain for the diversion of this coldly ennuied inquisitor.
"There is nothing to call me home, sire," he replied. "My brother is not living, and my cousin, who was betrothed to him, has no wish or need of me. I think I never want to see the place as it is now. My life is here."
"You loved her," Adrian said calmly. "How much you give one another, you quiet, gray-eyed people! Do not look like that, Allard;" he actually smiled. "I am too used to my intricate and intriguing subjects to fail in reading your truthfulness. And I have not watched you with the ladies of the court without learning that some woman, one that you loved, sat at the door of your heart."
Allard wavered between exasperation and helpless dismay at the other's acuteness; there were occasions when his Imperial Majesty was almost uncanny. But he ended by remaining silent, as usual. Adrian at fourteen had been anything but a child; now, at sixteen, he was fairly matched with Stanief himself, and the lesser players stood back at a distance from the contest of wills. From those players Allard had learned the wise habit of drawing aside to let the Emperor's moods sweep past.
"You and Iría," Adrian added, after a moment during which his thin, high-bred face hardened strangely and not happily, "you two at least are transparent, and free from under-thoughts. What time is it?"
Allard glanced at his watch.
"Eleven o'clock, sire."
"You need not go when the Grand Duke arrives; I may want you afterward. Allard—"
"Sire?"
"I have been kind to you, if to no one else, I think. Kind, and constant. Perhaps I have guarded you from more pitfalls set by envy than you can conceive, or would credit. And you have served me, not Feodor or another. If you were forced to the choice now, would you follow the Regent or me?"
The question could not have been more unexpected or more difficult. Allard caught his breath, utterly at a loss. Deceive Adrian he would not. To forsake Stanief even in appearance was not to be considered, and yet to exasperate the jealous and exacting Emperor still further against his cousin was bitterly unnecessary.
"Sire—"
"Go on."
But he could not go on, his ideas in hopeless confusion.
"I am waiting."
"Sire, the Regent," he admitted with desperate candor.
Adrian laid his pencil carefully on the map and closed the atlas, saying nothing at all. Allard flushed to the roots of his fair hair.
"Not that I am ungrateful," he protested in hot distress. "Not that I do not remember, do not understand all that you have done for me, sire. And against you I would serve no one, not even him. I would hold my life a slight thing to give either of you. Sire," he took a step forward, his ardent gaze seeking the other's comprehension, "before the brother I loved, the woman I love, before any call, I would follow the Regent. He—I have no words for it. It is not that my loyalty to your Majesty is less, but that he claims me against the world."
"Happy Feodor," said Adrian coolly. "Do not distress yourself, Allard; if you had told me anything else I should not have believed you. Why," he suddenly lifted to the amazed American a glance all cordial, "it is pleasant to find that loyalty to any one still exists, to find one rock in this shaking quagmire. Here is the Regent; go down the room and find a book to read until we finish."
Dazed, Allard mechanically obeyed so far as to move down the apartment and pick up a book. But keen anxiety for the friend he could not aid kept his attention on the interview that followed, although it was beyond his hearing.
Stanief crossed to his ward with the dignified formality never relaxed between them, and bent over the offered hand. No shade of expression foretold the announcement both knew he was come to make, nor was Adrian on his part less impassive. The petulant boy of two years before had become a slim, self-contained youth, whose bearing, no less than his elaborate uniform, added much to his apparent age and height. If his dark young face did not resemble his cousin's except in feature, the difference was not in lack of equal firmness.
"Iría did not come to-day?" was the nonchalant greeting.
"No, sire. She was fatigued after last night's reception, and we did not understand your desire."
"Oh, I expressed none, except as it is always pleasant to see her. Madame was adorable last night, a very flower of her delicious South. It occurred to me that you yourself, cousin, did not appear to feel so well as usual."
"I was tired, sire," he replied simply.
Adrian frowned with some other emotion than anger, darting a swift regard at Stanief, who leaned back in his chair with a listlessness rare indeed in him. The Regent also had changed in the last two years; one does not mold a chaotic, struggling mass of conflicting elements into a ball to match the scepter without paying a price. Yet if the habit of command had curved a little more firmly the firm lips, if deep thoughts and watchful diplomacy had darkened calmness to gravity, some other and subtler influences had brought a singular underlying gentleness to his expression and kept hardness at bay. Adrian turned away his head half-impatiently, and did not speak at once.
"You devote too close an attention to state affairs, cousin," he rejoined. "Next year we will relieve you of them."
The accent was more than the words; together they brought Stanief's color.
"I shall resign my charge most willingly, sire," he answered, with dignity.
"I am glad to hear it; I fancied you might miss the regal game and find life monotonous. You have taken the task so completely from my hands that it causes no surprise to find you are wearied. I admit that you have spared me even the fatigue of consulting my wishes or opinions in regard to the government."
"The accusation is hardly just, sire. A suggestion of yours has never been disregarded nor has it failed of its serious effect."
"Ah?" drawled Adrian, with his most aggravating incredulity in the inflection.
Stanief raised his lashes and met the other's eyes steadfastly. Both comprehended the situation perfectly, comprehended the imminent break Adrian was forcing. And the Emperor did not soon forget the direct sorrow and reproach of that glance. But Stanief attempted no defense.
"Because," Adrian resumed, fixing his eyes on the table before him, "I have been told otherwise. I am rejoiced to learn the truth from you, cousin; especially as a rumor reached me this morning that a certain tax had been removed, against my wish. You doubtless know the measure of which I speak. I am glad to find it is not so."
"Pardon, sire; it is so," was the calm reply.
"The tax is removed?"
"Yes, sire."
The Adrian of two years before would have burst into furious passion; the one of to-day simply rose and walked to the nearest window. Stanief necessarily rose also, and stood by his chair, waiting. At the opposite end of the room Allard clenched his hands in helpless nervousness, forgetting to keep his pretense of reading. The low voices, the leisurely movements of the two, had not masked from him the crisis for the hopes and plans of years.
But Adrian made no scene. Probably no one realized less than the Regent himself how much the example of his own self-control had taught the same quality to his ward. When the young Emperor came back, only his extreme pallor betrayed the tempest within.
"Very well," he said resolutely. "Amuse yourself, my cousin; I can wait. Eleven months, is it not?"
The break, and the menace. Stanief saluted him quietly.
"A trifle less than eleven months, sire. May I assume your Imperial Majesty's permission to retire? I suppose it is scarcely worth while to reiterate the arguments as to the necessity of my action."
"Scarcely. Do not let me detain you from your many affairs, cousin. Ah, I believe Dalmorov is waiting out there; let me tax your courtesy so far as to ask you to send him to me."
He extended his hand carelessly; no longer as a sign of friendliness, but as a compulsion of homage.
"It is for you to command, sire," was Stanief's proudly unmoved response.
Adrian looked down at the bent head and put out his left hand in rapid, curious gesture, almost as if to touch caressingly the heavy ripples of dark hair,—the merest abortive movement, for the hand fell again at his side before even Allard saw.
"Thank you," he acknowledged composedly, and watched the other go.
Dalmorov entered presently, radiant with satisfaction, but Allard could have borne witness that the baron passed no pleasant hour with his irritable and irritating master. Like the fleck of a lash Adrian's tongue touched each weakness and stung each exposed hope of the courtier three times his age, until even the distrait American found himself compelled to amusement.
Stanief did not ride home that morning with the cheerful Vasili and bored Rosal, who awaited him. As he came down the wide steps between the usual parting, obsequious crowds, a girl leaned from a victoria that stood in the place of his own carriage,—Iría, opposite her the pale young Countess Marya.
"Will you ride with me, monseigneur?" invited the Gentle Princess, with her deliciously confiding glance and smile. "We were on the promenade, and I thought perhaps you would have finished—"