The Game and the Candle

"Will you ride with me, Monseigneur?"

A knot of early daffodils was tucked in her girdle, the spring breeze fluttered a bright strand of crinkled bronze against her brighter cheek; all the youth of the year was in the happy face she lifted to him. Stanief paused with his foot on the step to look at her, many thoughts meeting in his drowsily-brilliant eyes.

"Thank you," he answered. "I wonder if you will ever come for me again, Iría, after I have finished here indeed."

An innocent surprise and pleasure dawned in her expression.

"I will come every day, if you like, monseigneur," she offered. "I did not know you cared."

He took the seat beside her, with a courteous salute to Marya.

"You are gracious, as always. I did not mean exactly that, although you can not guess how pleasant it was to find you here to-day. Live your pretty routine and fancies, Duchess of Dreams, and give me the alms of time you can not use."

They spoke in Iría's soft native tongue, which the Countess Marya did not understand and which Stanief had learned long before in some of the Nadeja's nomadic voyages. Always gentle to the gentle Iría, to-day his voice carried an added tenderness which stirred her to vague unrest and wistfulness.

"You do not mean that," she said, troubled. "How should I have any time that is not yours, monseigneur? And my fancies—you can not know how many of them are wishes that I might prove a little, only a little, of all your kindness makes me feel. I wish, how much I wish, that I could do something for you!"

The victoria was rolling through the busy, cheerful streets; vehicles making way for it in respectful haste, people saluting with more than mere formality and following the Regent with grateful eyes. Stanief's city, Stanief's country this, drawn by him out of anarchy into order, out of suffering into peace. The people knew, and he knew. He looked across it all now before answering, battling with fierce loneliness and rebellion.

"Iría, what I have done for you is nothing. You are my wife," there was no mockery in the quietly spoken word, "and claim all I can give. But, since we are alone except for each other and have been placed together, would you care to save my pride some day by stepping at my side out of this court? By giving me the dignity of holding my household above the wreck?"

Startled and dismayed, she turned to him.

"Monseigneur, I do not understand! You, you to speak of wreck! Oh, and you ask me that, you doubt?"

He laid his hand warningly on hers.

"We are under a hundred eyes, Iría. You live aloof from politics and intrigues, but yet you know my regency ends in a few months."

"You mean—the Emperor?"

"The Emperor has never trusted me, never forgiven me for the chance which set me as ruler of his country. There is no danger of the old kind; the days of state executions are past, or I would never have survived the last reign. But when Adrian assumes command it will undoubtedly mean that I lay aside all you have seen of me, and retire a simple gentleman of leisure to my estates. No more will I play 'the regal game,' as Adrian expressed it to-day. Could you brave that, Iría, to be no longer the center of a brilliant court? To live the stately monotony of my life in the old castle among the mountains, or perhaps travel to other countries as just the wife of the Grand Duke Feodor Stanief, who is of no more importance than any noble? For Adrian will want to keep you, if you will stay."

The little hand under his turned to clasp his fingers; star-eyed, richly tinted with excitement, Iría leaned to him.

"With you, let me be with you. I am afraid of nothing with you, without you of everything. Oh, monseigneur, do you not see that what you lose are a man's desires, not a woman's? Power, political influence, to guide and rule—what do such names mean to me? I shall miss nothing; it is only you who will grieve and regret."

"My dear, my dear," said Stanief unsteadily, and turned away his face before a new hope which out-dazzled all the morning's pictured loss.

"It is so, only do not speak again of leaving me here. I love the Emperor, but I am afraid of him. And if he can treat you in this way—"

"Hush; never blame him, however alone you fancy us. If you can help it, do not let him guess that I have told you of this. And for the rest, the fault is more Dalmorov's than his."

"I will not," she promised. And after a moment, "Some one else will follow you always, monseigneur."

He knew the answer before he asked the question, and the light went suddenly from his face, leaving it to all the old grave endurance.

"Who, Iría?"

"Monsieur Allard," she replied.

Stanief again looked across the teeming streets; it was as if a chill, intangible mist stole up from the near-by river and drew its cold grayness between the two who sat side by side.

"John is a loyal gentleman," he said, without anger; "I value you both above all else. For two years I have walked without seeing beyond a certain point, to-day I have come to a turn in the road and on ahead I see my destination. Not the end I hoped, perhaps, but at least I know. And I thank you for the household security which you have given to me, my poor child."

The carriage stopped in front of the quaintly splendid Palace Stanief. Iría lingered before accepting the Regent's aid to descend, her delicate lip curving distressedly.

"Do not call me that, please," she begged. "Because you have made me very happy, monseigneur."

The perfume of her daffodils was about him, faint, virginal, bitter-sweet as her presence in his house. Stanief deliberately painted to himself the fierce delight of catching her in his arms, of pressing the little sunny head to him and crushing her sweet ignorance out of existence with one kiss she could never forget. But his hand did not even close upon the small one resting in it.

"Then I have lived to some purpose," he responded serenely.

THE INTERVENTION OF ADRIAN

For Iría to attempt to hide a change of thought from the keen-eyed and sophisticated Adrian with his clairvoyant faculty of penetration was as futile as for a flower to resolve to shut from the sun the drop of dew in its golden heart. A week after her morning drive with Stanief, when Iría was passing one of her usual hours with the Emperor, he coolly put his finger on her secret.

"You are not yourself, cousine," he observed. "What has Feodor been telling you of me?"

"Oh!" Iría exclaimed in distress, regarding her youthful sovereign with wide, astonished eyes.

Adrian smiled with his fine malice.

"Come, confess. Or shall I guess? I am ungrateful, unappreciative, and swayed by Dalmorov; not so? Moreover I am dangerous, and making my Regent extremely uncomfortable."

"Oh, no, sire. He bade me never blame you, indeed. He said nothing like that," denied madame impetuously, then stopped short.

"Then what did he tell you?"

"But I was not to repeat," she pleaded.

This time Adrian laughed outright and leaned forward to capture one of the lily-leaf hands and lift it to his lips. They were seated in the great octagonal library, which of all the palace was the Emperor's favorite room, Iría employed with a bit of the intricate embroidery always brought at his especial request. He was fond of watching her while her attention was fixed on the pretty task; and until a few months before Stanief had not infrequently made a third at the gracious pretense of domesticity. To-day, at the opposite side of the apartment and out of hearing, Allard chatted with two of Iría's ladies.

"You have not repeated, cousine," the inquisitor assured her. "I myself guessed. And since I appear to have guessed worse than the truth, you had better correct me. I will not tell Feodor."

She looked up at him then, flushing all over.

"If I tell you, sire," she retorted with pride, "I shall say so to monseigneur as soon as I see him. Must I speak?"

"I think you had better, chère cousine."

She laid the glowing tissue in her lap and met the raillery of his glance quite seriously.

"Then I will try to remember, sire, because the truth is always much the best to know. And I am certain you would not ask me to hurt him. He asked me if I would be ready to go with him when the regency ended and you sent him from court. He said that you had never trusted him, and could not forgive him for the government forced upon him. That was all, indeed. Except that he did say you thought highly of Baron Dalmorov; and, and, a few words just for me."

Adrian passed his hand across his eyes as if to push back the hair from his forehead, and remained silent for a few seconds.

"If Feodor is not happy, he pays the penalty of having ruled," he returned, his strange unyouthful bitterness most repellant. "I am not happy, nor was my father, nor his father before him. And you would leave me to go with him, cousine? Think of it again. I offer you your household in the capital; until some day I marry, you will be still the first lady of my court. I loved you the first time I met you in Italy; you were so gentle, so different from all I knew. I was only a boy, Iría, but I resolved to bring you to my country some way; and I succeeded. What has Feodor to give compared with all I hold for you? Will you stay?"

"But I am his wife," she answered simply. "How could I stay, sire?"

"You love him so?"

Iría grew pale, then raised her hands to her cheeks to cover the returning color that dyed even her temples.

"I—I do not know," she faltered, aghast at a question never asked even of herself. "I—no—he does not me—"

He stared at her, for once thoroughly amazed.

"He does not love you?" he echoed. "You do not know? Why, Iría—"

She flashed into the first and last anger he ever saw in her.

"You forced us to marry each other, sire. We did not want it, no!" she cried, and raised the little, useless handkerchief to her eyes.

There was a pause, then Adrian dismissed the subject with a sentence that gave his companion food for thought during many a day to come.

"Poor Feodor," he said very compassionately. "Twice."

At the other end of the library Allard hesitated, broke the thread of his gay speech, and caught it up again incoherently.

"What is it?" queried the Countess Marya playfully.

"Monsieur Allard looks at the agitation of madame," murmured the petite Baroness Alexia.

All three regarded the pair opposite, and exchanged significant glances.

"Lieutenant Vasili told me that Baron Dalmorov spent two hours with the Emperor last night. Is it so, monsieur?" added Alexia.

"Yes, Baroness," admitted Allard soberly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I am to be married in September, myself. But I do care for the Grand Duchess; I am sorry for—this."

"I love the Grand Duchess," said Marya quickly. "And the Regent has been most good to me. Where they go, there go I."

Allard winced even in the approving smile he sent the pale young maid of honor, so hard it was to hear Stanief's fall predicted and discussed.

Iría recovered herself almost immediately and brought her gold-and-topaz eyes back to those of the Emperor.

"I would like to go, if I may, sire," she said.

"Are you offended with me, cousine?"

"Certainly not, sire."

He watched her fold the gleaming embroidery, tapping his fingers restlessly on the arm of his chair.

"You would go, and Allard," he mused aloud, "each after a duty, a love, an aim. I wonder if there was ever but one who centered all such thoughts in me, who made me the axis of his world?"

"You think of Baron Dalmorov, sire?" she ventured.

He gave her the desired permission by rising.

"You are anxious to go, cousine; pardon. Why, yes, Dalmorov; who else? Allard," he turned to summon the others, "Allard will have the honor of accompanying you to the carriage."

"No," protested Iría, but too late.

"No? You do not wish Allard's escort?" he demanded.

"Oh, yes, I—of course." She turned hurriedly from him, then looked back with a gesture of helpless bewilderment and distress. "I wish you had not spoken, sire; I wish you had not spoken."

And as the others came up, she passed her hand through Marya's arm and left Allard and Alexia to follow.

All that day Stanief was immersed in councils and affairs. Not until evening did he and Iría meet, when she stopped in his study on her way to the opera, where no less a cavalier than the Emperor was to take her husband's place with her.

Standing straight and slim before him, her head drooping under its weight of silken floss and spanning jewels, her soft throat and dimpled shoulders crossed and recrossed by the manifold strands of the wonderful Stanief pink pearls, she repeated the conversation of the morning. Repeated it, all except the last part. Her eyes downcast, her gloved fingers twisted nervously together, the rosy gems gleaming uneasily with her rapid breathing, it was the Iría of long ago he saw the timid, shrinking girl whom Allard had brought from Spain.

Sensitive as a woman to the change, Stanief gazed and listened, finding no explanation in the story she related.

"That is all?" he asked gently, when she ended.

"Yes," she said faintly. "All that matters, monseigneur."

"You," he hesitated a moment for the right words. "You are not troubled, or displeased, Iría?"

She retreated a step, bending to gather round her the trailing satin and lace folds.

"No," she answered. "No, monseigneur. Good night."

Without his will, without his act, the delicate confidence between them was shattered. The frail, exquisite understanding that was too slight for friendship, too pale for love, had been destroyed. Afterward, in the days which followed, Stanief came to look back on that month as the time when two existences crumbled under his touch.

When she had gone, he sat still for many moments.

"Adrian or Dalmorov," he decided. "I wonder—"

He touched the bell, the old dangerous drowsiness settling over his expression.

"Dimitri, you remember that I once placed in your charge a man found in this room?"

"Certainly, your Royal Highness."

"Have him brought to me; I am ready to see him."

Dimitri saluted and vanished. All unconsciously, Iría's taper, snowy fingers had touched the pieces on the grim chess-board, and moved them ever so slightly.

THE ORDEAL

For Allard that last summer of the regency brought the hardest of all things for a loving heart to bear: to stand in the shelter and watch a friend in the storm, to be forced to witness where unable to aid. No personal humiliation could have affected him so painfully as to see Stanief under the Emperor's stinging sarcasms and cold, young insolence, to note the furtive words and glances of the men who still courted present power while predicting its future fall.

Never after that morning of the contest of wills between the cousins, did Adrian's unforgiving sullenness lessen or relent. Day after day the Regent paid his formal visit and endured the ordeal with chill dignity. Day after day Adrian received him in the presence of Dalmorov or half a dozen young nobles of the capital; usually on the point of going out, and so making the brief interview a mere farce. Only one courtesy the Emperor conceded to the self-respect of both; never did he make the least hint of menace or future reckoning except when the cousins were alone or with Allard. By inference alone could the rest of the court foretell the coming end.

And Dalmorov was radiant. His spare figure actually dilated and gained weight in these days of victory, his eye-glasses poised a trifle more superciliously before his pale eyes. Stanief looked above and past him with a certain lofty indifference, but between Dalmorov and the chafing, aching Allard a clash was inevitable. As they seldom met except when Adrian's desire for both compelled, it was not surprising that in his presence that clash occurred.

It was after Stanief had passed an especially difficult and trying hour with the Emperor, an hour which left Allard's nerves in quivering exasperation. When at last the Regent took leave, Adrian rose at the same time and crossed to a window with his nonchalant languor of movement.

"Bring me those glasses we were trying this morning, Allard," he directed. "I want to see that ship entering the river."

But Allard did nothing of the kind. The fourth one present, Dalmorov, had just moved aside from the door with an indescribable smile and bow to the Regent.

"I have the honor to wish your Royal Highness good morning," he said sweetly.

Stanief glanced down at him, outwardly unmoved by the neglect of a courtesy compelled by every rule of custom and etiquette; but before embarrassment was possible Allard sprang forward and himself held back the door.

"Thank you," Stanief said only, but his eyes met the gray ones in passing.

"Really, Baron, for a diplomat you grow too absent-minded," commiserated Allard softly to his vis-à-vis. "One might have imagined you intended that his Royal Highness should open the door himself."

"Since Monsieur Allard has become so learned in etiquette, he might observe that the Emperor is waiting," Dalmorov retorted viciously.

Allard shot a glance at Adrian, who had turned round just in time to witness the whole scene.

"At least, if I offend, I am careful to offend one who can retaliate, Baron," he flung back in an undertone, as he moved in quest of the article demanded.

"Who can, and whom you are in no position to provoke," Dalmorov sent after him, incautiously raising his tone with a bitter significance which the other failed to comprehend.

"When you are at leisure, gentlemen," Adrian's voice interposed coolly. "Dalmorov, I would suggest that you follow my cousin and explain your unfortunate lapse of memory. Allard, I believe I made a request."

There was little Allard could not have forgiven to Adrian for sending Dalmorov to make that apology.

"I beg a thousand pardons, sire," he answered contentedly as he crossed the room.

After all Adrian did not look at his ship, but remained leaning against the window with his reflective gaze fixed on the other's face.

"I wonder," he remarked, when the door had closed behind Dalmorov, "if you do things like that because you are an American."

Surprised, Allard smiled involuntarily.

"Perhaps, sire, we are rather sans gêne."

"You misunderstand me," he corrected. "I mean, do you act as the others would not, because you are not my subject as they are?"

Allard understood then, and the implied accusation stung him to hot anger.

"No, sire," he flashed. "I have not lived under your shelter and eaten your bread to hide beneath another flag when the scale turns. I am an American, yes, but I do not use my nationality as a cloak for cowardice. So far, I have become your subject by entering your service."

Not until long afterward did Allard read the slow, half-amused smile that rose to the surface of the Emperor's dark eyes.

"Very good, we shall remember, Monsieur l'Américain," he returned, quite untroubled by the other's indignation. "Do not complain if some day I interfere with your affairs."

His affairs? Allard puzzled mentally. But he received no further explanation, and neither to him nor Dalmorov did Adrian again mention the incident.

Stanief looked very grave when Allard repeated the scene to him.

"You have made an active enemy of Dalmorov instead of a passive," was his comment.

"Why should I care, monseigneur? Where you go, I follow, when the end comes."

"The end," Stanief echoed dreamily. "Everything does not end for us at once, John; we leave our treasures all along the path as we journey."

Down his self-appointed path Stanief was moving steadfastly in those months. And the first treasure left behind, the hardest to resign, had been Iría's confidence. Locked within the old timidity, she avoided her husband whenever it was possible to do so, hiding her eyes from him when necessity brought them together, coming no more to his study.

But there was one exception: every morning, after Stanief's visit to the palace, she waited for him in her carriage. Silent, her hands clasped in her lap, replying with hesitating monosyllables, she sat by his side during the drive home, one of her ladies opposite them.

Before Adrian, Stanief lifted his head a little more proudly, let his lashes fall a little lower, and went on his way without protest. He had enough to do, as he toiled to place the country in a position to continue without him. Wisely, tactfully, striving not to antagonize the Emperor to the right policy by claiming it as his own, he prepared the guiding lines to lie peacefully in the inexperienced grasp soon to take them.

It was not a happy task, or a light one, and he worked at it absolutely alone except for Allard's passionate and powerless sympathy. But still he worked. And because there was so much to be done, it seemed to him that the days slipped through his fingers like beads of a broken chain.

So winter set its seal of silence on river and snow-muffled street before he realized the fading summer. With spring would end the regency.

"How many months now, cousin?" drawled the Emperor, returning from the races held upon the glittering ice of the river, and pausing on the steps of the palace to unclasp his too oppressive furs.

"Five, sire," answered the tranquil Regent. "I believe I have to congratulate your Imperial Majesty upon the victories in to-day's sport."

"My horses? Ah, yes; this is my fortunate year. Thank you, cousin."

And Allard, in attendance, bit his lip until a tiny thread of crimson sprang beneath the pressure.

Faster and faster the beads were slipping from the chain; the path was straight to the end and very short.

AT THE GATES OF CHANGE

Once more Stanief was alone in his study, on the morning when Allard made his first rebellion. The windows were open and a warm, sweet breeze drifted the curtains into the room like snowy mists from the past winter, rustling on among the papers upon the writing-table, as Stanief laid down his work to listen to the visitor. It was so rare to see Allard excited and he was so vibrant with indignation as he stood before the other.

"Like that," he was declaring hotly, speaking English in his preoccupation, "and Dalmorov sneered, listening. 'My cousin is having his fine old country-place in the mountains renovated, Allard, so I am informed.' 'I know nothing, sire,' I said. 'He is very far-sighted,' he answered coolly. Monseigneur, I will not go back; I came here to tell you that. I am weary of watching it; I will stay with you. I can come here as I always hoped to do, giving to you, not asking. Let me finish, please. The Emperor has been generous to me, however little so to you, and I am modestly rich in my own right. Why, the pension accompanying the star and order he gave me after that attempt to kill him, that alone is more than my solitary life requires. My tastes are simple—that automobile about which you laugh at me is not as you think. It is my pride to have regained my independence, monseigneur; to be able to come to you, free, and offer to do your secretary's work, Vasili's, what you choose, but to do it as a service of love. Long ago, on the Nadeja, I lent myself to aid your purpose, to make it mine. And now you have carried it through; next week the Emperor will be crowned. Now I claim the right to return to you; the work is done."

"John—"

"You can not refuse me that," he cried. "You have taken my life and made it center around you, now you can not bid me tear that core out and go on."

As on their first night together, Stanief stretched his hand across the table for his companion's clasp.

"No," he answered lovingly, "we can not go on without each other. If you will stay with a sinking ship, come; I am selfish enough to let you. But the charge I gave you is not finished, nor my purpose yet fulfilled. You must go back until next week is over."

"The Emperor—" Allard began incredulously.

"The Emperor needs you more than ever before. There are too many people who cling to the peace of the last years, who dread change and would force me upon the throne at any cost. The Empire—not Adrian's court—the vast middle class, the merchants, the quiet, staid aristocracy, the very peasants, want all to continue as it is. If I were still to govern with the Emperor they would rest content, but they see it will not be so. They fear Adrian, they know and detest Dalmorov and the party he represents. And they are not careful in their methods of obtaining what they want. John, if you knew the veiled insinuations, the bold offers, the tempters who pursue me night and day; if you knew how they watch for the hours when Adrian has been most hard, how they skilfully touch my pride, my patriotism, my resentment and knowledge of injustice, if you lived my life for twenty-four hours, then you might speak of weariness. But the worst—"

Aghast, Allard stared at him, deep after deep of the inner court opening before his dizzy gaze.

"The worst?" he repeated mechanically.

The hand on the table clenched; all the inherited lawlessness and ambition of a royal line blazed up in Stanief's darkly brilliant eyes.

"I want it," he said deliberately. "I want to rule this country, to toss Dalmorov from my path, to stamp out the satisfied triumph from these time-serving faces about me. I want to play this splendid game and remain chief in the battles of diplomacy and statecraft. I want my wife to continue in the life to which she was born. And I know the power to accomplish all this lies ready at my hand; I have only to take. Oh, I am no Galahad or Cincinnatus, no patient despiser of earthly good; no longer even the idealist who spun his dreams on the Nadeja. I have tasted of a dangerous fountain, and I shall thirst for its purple-tinted water all the rest of my time. I have no bent, no inclination, for obscure inactivity."

"Yet?" Allard wondered.

Stanief leaned back and idly picked up the pen on his desk.

"Yet Adrian's coronation takes place next week, exactly. Are we sufficiently inconsistent, we others? And I will pass my life in a castle of the north, or wandering over Europe. I only spoke to show you that my days are not serene either, and why you must go back to keep your guard of honor with Adrian. I believe he is safe; the secret police watch him ceaselessly and report to me. But I want you near him."

"I will go back now," assented Allard, utterly subdued. "You are right, I knew nothing of this. I owe so much to him, as well as to you. I wish I were a wiser guardian; I—that automobile—"

"Your automobile! My dear John, what has it to do with the matter? Or do you mean that Adrian gave it to you? I never knew that."

"Yes, he gave it to me," Allard smiled and frowned together. "It is nothing, of course. But I will not leave him again unless you wish or he compels."

"Thank you. You are going direct to the palace?"

"Yes; he sent me with a letter to madame."

Stanief winced, sighing. One trial he had not told Allard, yet exile would have been a light thing to bear if the fearless child Iría had still walked with him.

"Wait and I will go with you," he offered. "I must have the Emperor's approval of these plans for next week. Have you delivered madame's letter?"

"Not yet, monseigneur. I am afraid I forgot it."

"Give it to me and I will leave it with her in passing. I have not seen her to-day."

It had come to that point; the cold and self-contained Stanief sought a pretext in these days to see the delicate face he loved. The Gentle Princess was hurting him as no one else could.

Up in her cream-and-azure boudoir, Iría was alone when Stanief entered. She was bending over a table heaped with water-lilies and purple Florentine irises from the conservatory, herself quite radiant with their reflected brightness as she lifted the heavy petals and breathed their fragrance. Her back to the door, she did not turn at once to see who came unannounced.

"Look, Marya," she called gladly and sweetly. "Come here; were ever things so lovely? So the irises grew at home, knee-deep in the clear pools, like enchanted princes. And the lilies,—over them the dragon-flies hovered all day and between their stems the goldfish slept and played."

She moved with the last word and saw Stanief; a tall, soldierly presence in the filagree room.

"Oh," she exclaimed faintly, "pardon, monseigneur!"

"For what?" he demanded. "It is I who should apologize for disturbing you here. I have a letter from the Emperor for you."

"Thank you, monseigneur," she murmured, and accepted the massive envelop to lay it listlessly on the table.

Stanief looked at her. Like one of her own slim flowers she stood, her shimmering white morning dress leaving her round throat and arms bare. The full soft hair was caught in a great coil low on her neck, she wore no jewel except the slender gold chain and cross gleaming through the lace at her bosom.

"Why are you afraid of me?" he asked abruptly. "Why do you shrink from me as if my touch were pain? What has come between us, Iría?"

"Nothing, monseigneur," her fingers inter-laced in feverish nervousness.

"Nothing? Iría, Iría, will you tell me now to take you with me into my exile?"

"Yes, monseigneur," came the low reply, but her head drooped.

"And you think I would accept the sacrifice? You think—" He checked himself with a violent effort.

"I am sorry," she responded confusedly. "I—I have not changed."

"Then it is I?"

"No, no; please let me go, monseigneur."

"It is I who will go," he answered, shaken out of self-mastery for once. "Iría, I do not know who awakened you, who showed you the truth, perhaps it was my kindly cousin. But it is clear that you have seen. Iría, was your trust also so weak that it went down before a breath? Because I loved you, must you shrink from me? Child, I loved you the first day that you gave me your shy friendship, I loved you all the months afterward, and was my care of you less careful for that? If you could have continued in your ignorance, would I have failed you?"

Before his passion and grief she retreated, mute, colorless, her dazed eyes upon him.

"You!" she gasped, "You—" then suddenly turned and hid her face among the heaped flowers.

"I did not hope that you could love me; I knew better than that," he said. "But I did hope that you would trust me. I thought I had earned that much, Iría. Let my fancies go; I will undo this as far as I may. You shall stay in the capital or go to your own home, whatever you choose. Only this week remains, and I lay down both my charges. Hush, and do not grieve; this is no fault of yours."

She was sobbing helplessly, her golden head among the white and purple blossoms. He drew a quick breath and stood for a moment, struggling to regather around him the poor tattered cloak of reserve. But it was a relief to him that she could not see his expression when he crossed to her side.

"Forgive me," he said sadly. "I am not very wise to-day, or very kind, I am afraid. I have loved you; yes, and I loved Adrian during our quiet years. Some flaw in me there must be, that neither of you could give me the simple gift of trust. We will speak of this no more; somehow I will find a way for you. 'A Stanief guards his own.'"

His voice shook on the sentiment he would have spoken lightly; stooping with the fierceness of pain suppressed, he touched his lips to her bright hair.

"You," panted Iría, as the door closed. "You, monseigneur!"

He had gone; only the silver-fringed curtain still swayed to tell of his passage, the frail, feminine atmosphere of the place still quivered from the presence of a dominant energy.

Down in the open carriage—a massively luxurious vehicle with the imperial arms enameled upon the door—Allard waited for Stanief a long time. The Emperor, just returning from a drive and apparently in haste to have his note reach Iría, had sent the nearest messenger in his own carriage.

"Do you know what one might imagine, seeing this carriage here and you waiting in it?" playfully demanded Vasili, as he lounged against the wheel.

"What?"

"That the Emperor was paying a visit to his cousin."

"I wish he were," Allard sighed unguardedly.

"I never meddle with politics; pas si bête. But I wish I were the Emperor's favorite just now, as you are. There will be changes soon, hein?"

"I suppose so. No one can tell."

"No, of course not. Do you know, I would like to be off in the Nadeja next week."

"The Regent is coming," Allard warned, gladly seizing an escape from the conversation.

Vasili swung around and clicked his heels together, saluting stiffly. Allard stepped down from the carriage.

"You need not come, Vasili," Stanief remarked, as he took his seat. "Monsieur Allard will accompany me. Come, John; we are late."

The horses sprang forward.

The drive through the streets, gay with preparations for the coronation and crowded with busy people, was attended by the manifestations grown familiar. More eager way was made for Stanief than for the Emperor himself; the glances which followed him were grateful and keenly anxious. Once a girl in a passing farmer's cart rose to toss into the carriage a sheaf of wildflowers.

"Little Father of the People!" she called in the soft, guttural vernacular.

It was a title given only to sovereigns; Stanief flushed and frowned together.

"That will not do," he commented drily, leaning back in the shadow of the victoria top.

"You have permitted them to think, and they give you their verdict," Allard answered.

The carriage turned from the great square to an avenue leading toward the palace. Densely packed with people, there was a brief pause before the way could be cleared. Noting a change in the atmosphere, a chill and more nervous haste, Allard lifted his eyes to his companion.

"This carriage, and with you in the shadow, monseigneur," he observed,—"they think it is the Emperor who passes."

The reply was not made by Stanief. Straight and surely aimed, a missile hurtled from an upper window in one of the buildings and fell on the cushions beside him.

"For peace and freedom!" shrieked a man, leaning from the window in half-insane excitement and waving his arms above his head. "No Adrian—for the Emperor Feodor!"

The crowd grew white with upturned faces; then, comprehending, broke into tumult and panic. Screaming, frantic, one and all turned to fly from the vicinity of the carriage. Allard snatched the bomb from the seat and rose to fling it from him, but even as he checked himself, Stanief seized his arm.

"Not into the people, John," he ordered sharply. "Better keep it here than that."

"Go, you!" Allard implored, turning the smoking object in his hands for examination. "Go, monseigneur!"

Above the uproar of the fighting, shrieking mob rose the agonized cry of the man at the window as he saw the Regent's face:

"You! You! The fuse, pull the fuse!"

"Fuse?" echoed Allard, catching at a small hanging thread of cotton. "Monseigneur, go, go! I can handle this—"

The cotton broke off short; a steady hissing warned them that it still burned inside.

"Give it here," Stanief commanded collectedly. "Get your penknife."

The two men bent above the oval, gray messenger of hate and death. Around them raged indescribable disorder; the very coachman and footmen had fled from the carriage.

"If you would go!" Allard panted, his voice tense.

"Bah," said Stanief, and forced the bomb from him.

An ominous snapping came from within. Stanief's strong white fingers fitted themselves to the crack and with a superb effort he twisted the thing in half.

"Ah!" gasped Allard, blinded, as a great cloud of smoke rushed forth.

Stanief drew out the fuse as it reached the end, and flung it into the street.

"Lighted too late," he explained. "Our terrorists are clumsy."

"They meant it for Adrian," he answered. "You were right."

They found each other's hands through the choking fumes; Allard's fingers scorched by the guncotton, Stanief's bruised and bleeding from the force used to open the machine.

As the smoke cleared they looked around, then back at each other. They were alone in a deserted street. Distant cries, increasing tumult, announced the spreading panic. Three blocks away flashed the green-and-gold of the palace guards as they charged to the scene, over pavements littered with fallen garments, the contents of overturned vehicles, and the vehicles themselves. The well-trained horses of the royal carriage had stood still, accustomed to public demonstrations of a different nature but similar violence.

"Really," Allard exclaimed, on the verge of laughter. "Really, monseigneur—"

"There has been some excitement," Stanief assented. "Will you go on to the palace and explain to the Emperor? I am going back to reassure madame."

Their attendants were creeping shamefacedly back to their posts, seeing all was over. The line of soldiers swept down upon the carriage, a very pale officer in command.

"I will do," said Allard, "anything you want."

If the uproar had been great at the attack, it trebled as the furious crowd surged back in search of the assailant. The guards were obliged to close around the Regent to shield him from the frenzied and hysterical joy of the people at his safety. The slow return to his home was one continuous ovation, almost the cheering masses prevented advance.

Long before Stanief reached his goal, Allard had arrived at the palace. No less excitement reigned there. Without need of explanation, Allard was hurried to the Emperor, questioned and congratulated on every side.

He met Adrian in the hall, and at sight of his messenger, blackened with smoke, hatless, still pale with the strain of those perilous moments, the Emperor sprang forward and caught his arm.

"Feodor?" he cried fiercely, his voice ringing through the lofty corridors. "Speak, speak; where is Feodor?"

"Sire, he has returned to madame the Grand Duchess."

"Safe? You are not deceiving me, he is safe?"

"He is unhurt; he destroyed the bomb before it exploded," Allard explained incoherently. "His hands are cut, no more."

Adrian dropped the other's arm and drew back; for hours Allard felt the bruise of that feverish grasp.

"To madame," he repeated.

"Sire, he ordered me to bring an account of the affair to your Imperial Majesty. He can be sent for," Allard suggested eagerly, catching a daring hope from the apparent emotion.

Adrian favored him with a saber-keen glance.

"Why should I wish to see him?" he demanded harshly. "If he is uninjured, very good; we will send our congratulations. You are exhausted, Monsieur Allard; go to your apartments and recover yourself. Alisof," he turned upon the group of listeners, "you will inform the chief of police that I shall replace him next week if he completes this exhibition of inefficiency by letting the assassin escape. And when he captures the man, he will report to me, not to the Regent."

Scarlet enough now under the streaks of grime, Allard moved aside to let him pass. All his self-control could not smother the blazing indignation in his gray eyes. But Adrian brushed past without regarding him, and went alone into the room beyond.

FIRE LILIES

Through the uproar, between the crowding people, Stanief at last gained his own hall and partly quelled the confusion by his mere presence.

"Tell madame that I have returned and will visit her as soon as this smoke is removed," was his first direction on setting foot upon the steps.

But when he reached the head of the great staircase a white figure flashed down the hall to meet him.

"Monseigneur, monseigneur," moaned the silver voice. Before all the household, and Adrian's guards, Iría clutched Stanief's stained and blackened coat with small, eager hands and fainted on his breast.

"Stand back!" the master commanded as a score of dismayed attendants rushed forward and the Countess Marya sprang toward her mistress. And lifting her easily in his arms, he carried her back to the cream-tinted boudoir left so shortly before and so nearly left for ever.

On the way the gold-and-topaz eyes opened, but she did not protest or move until Stanief set her down.

"John is safe," he said, with a tenderness that had long passed beyond jealousy. "Did they not tell you, dear?"

Iría caught the chair beside her.

"You," she panted. "They said you were hurt. Oh, your hands—"

"It is nothing."

"It is, to me. I thought you would die and never know that I loved you so, monseigneur."

"Iría!" he cried.

She held out her hands to him with passionate innocence and grief, the loose sleeves falling back to her shoulders with the gesture.

"I do, I do. Never say those things to me again, never leave me like that."

Dazzled, incredulous, he swept her to him, almost rough in his unbearable doubt and joy.

"And John? What of John?"

"You knew—"

"Knew? Child, you betrayed yourself the first time you spoke of him, the first time I saw you together. Why should I blame you for no fault of yours? How could I blame him, who never even guessed your thought? I never wondered at your choice; only, give me the truth now."

"But I love you," she said. "Monsieur Allard; I never thought of him like that after our wedding-day. You were so calm, so strong, I just rested with you and found no room for any other. On the voyage from Spain, I imagined somehow that Monsieur Allard was you, that you had come secretly to meet me, and so I almost taught myself to care for him. No more than that it was."

Closer he held her, searching the face of rose-and-pearl with his splendid, lonely eyes.

"Love of mine, make no mistake. I want you; my dear, I have wanted you so bitterly long, and you have shrunk from me. You care now, Iría?"

"I have always cared, only I never knew until last year. Since then I have hidden from you because I feared you would see; because I never dreamed you cared."

With a tinkling crash the silver pin slipped from her hair, like a golden serpent the heavy coil unwound and fell over his arm, draping them both with rippling silk as he stooped to kiss her quivering lips.

After a moment she stirred slightly, her head still on his arm as she looked up.

"Now you will take me with you?" she breathed, in delicious content. "Now you will not leave me with the Emperor, Feodor?"

For the first time in many weeks Stanief laughed, reveling in their knit gaze.

"Poor Adrian! How can he punish his rebellious Regent, since he must leave me you? In a garden of fire my lily has opened. Where shall we go, Iría, on our golden journey? To your perfumed South?"

"May I choose?"

"You may command."

"Then take me to your own old castle in the hills. Shall it not be our home?"

"Hush, you have spoken a word I never knew; let me listen to it for a moment."

Outside the city roared unheeded, unheard.

AN ARABIAN NIGHT

The Emperor's congratulations and formal inquiries duly arrived, borne by a glittering officer who was so impressed by the coldness of the message intrusted to him that he scarcely raised his eyes during its delivery. He had the misfortune to be attached to the Regent.

But Stanief received all unmoved. A clear scarlet burned in his dark cheek, his drowsy eyes glowed with some inward fire. He had just left the Grand Duchess and still carried traces of the recent accident, but he smiled in utter tranquillity as he listened, and gave his reply. It was too unaccountable; actually dismayed by the indifferent composure, the officer retired, and found himself stammering again when he repeated the answering message to the Emperor.

Adrian was at dinner, or rather had just concluded, when he found time to receive the envoy; and he set down his glass to study this embarrassment in a courtier of twenty years' standing. He was always cynically interested in such situations.

"What else did the Grand Duke say?" he demanded.

"Sire, nothing was said except that which I have had the honor to report to your Imperial Majesty."

"Nothing to you?"

"Nothing, sire."

Adrian made no sign, yet the unfortunate equery was conscious that he was not believed.

"My cousin appeared well?" came the inquiry.

"Perfectly well, sire. Remarkably so."

"I am enchanted to hear it; he has need of steady nerves. That will do."

He pushed away the glass and rose, his glance encountering that of Allard near him.

"You almost hate me to-night, Allard?" he questioned softly.

Allard, in evening dress, the tiny jeweled star of honor flashing on his coat, was very different in appearance from the smoke-grimed gentleman of noon, but his gray eyes met Adrian's in the same indignation with which they had shone from beneath the stains of the explosion.

"Almost, sire," he acknowledged.

Staggered by the unexpected frankness, Adrian nearly lost his self-possession for the first time in his seventeen years. But he recovered immediately.

"Thanks for the 'almost'," he said with nonchalance. "Just bring my cloak; I want you to go with me."

Amazed at himself, Allard obeyed, humiliatingly aware that he had been scarcely decorous and certainly unwise.

"I beg your pardon, sire," he said seriously, as he offered the cloak.

Adrian surveyed him calmly.

"Was it true?" he queried.

In spite of himself Allard smiled.

"Almost, sire," he confessed.

"Truth is a virtue, at least theoretically, and needs no apology. Moreover, I challenged you. Come."

And Allard followed.

It was, of course, impossible to question the Emperor, but Allard's anxiety nearly betrayed him into the indiscretion as Adrian slipped on the cloak and led the way to a small private salon from which a staircase permitted reaching the street unobserved. For, in common with Peter the Great and Harun-al-Rashid, Adrian occasionally indulged in rambles about his capital, incognito, and with Allard for sole companion. It was a habit only a year old, of which even the omniscient Stanief was ignorant. The Emperor had made it a point of honor with his confidant to guard the secret absolutely; and many a bad hour had Allard passed in consequence. No one suspected the true reason why the American had bought a compact, exquisite Italian automobile during the summer before; or guessed the identity of the slim young chauffeur, masked and wearing the usual shapeless coat, who drove the machine through the streets at dusk or later. But it was a current tale for laughter in the clubs that Monsieur Allard had been arrested four times for over-speeding his car and each time had paid his fine without a murmur, himself assuming the blame and exonerating his chauffeur.

Perhaps, being young himself, Allard also had enjoyed the variety and slight peril of these excursions. But then the city had lain quiet under the Regent's strong hand, while now—

For once he was pleased to see Dalmorov, who rose at their entrance into the salon. At least his presence proved that nothing wholly secret was intended.

"The carriage is ready, Baron?" Adrian asked, drawing on his gloves with his leisurely decision of movement.

"It waits at the lower door, sire."

"Very good. Are you ready, Allard?"

"Sire, I did not understand—"

"Well, you have always a coat here, I think."

That was true, and taking a key from his waistcoat pocket Allard silently opened the wardrobe that held their apparel for the motor trips. It was Adrian's affair, not his, if the proceeding awakened Dalmorov's ever-active curiosity.

However, the baron's attention was fixed on the master, not the man; he was watching Adrian with intent and crafty eagerness. He barely glanced at Allard when he came back ready to go out.

"I also may have the honor of accompanying your Imperial Majesty?" he urged.

"No," Adrian returned.

"Sire—"

"No, Dalmorov. Come, Allard."

But Allard stood still.

"Sire, dare I ask where?" he said, with firm respect.

"To drive to the cathedral and observe the preparations for next week," was the dry explanation.

"Pardon me yet again; without escort?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps Monsieur Allard disapproves," suggested Dalmorov sarcastically.

"I do," Allard declared, taking a step toward Adrian and throwing back his head obstinately. "It is not fit for the Emperor to go on the streets to-night. Sire, I have talked with Captain Alisov of the guards and with Zaliski of the secret police, and it is a seething frenzy of excitement out there. This morning's attack has brought to the surface the most dangerous elements in the capital. To-morrow all may be under control, but to-night it is not fit."

"Your affectionate solicitude overwhelms me, Allard," Adrian retorted.

The irony and the allusion brought Allard's color, but he maintained his position.

"Sire, I state a fact. There is real and serious danger in such a drive this evening. I beg you to consider seriously the event occurring at noon."

"I am not Feodor; the attack was on him. Let him keep his house if the people make it necessary."

This of the adored Regent, for whom the whole Empire mourned in bitter regret! It was too much.

"Sire, the attack this morning was intended for you," Allard flung with exasperated bluntness. "When the assailant saw the Grand Duke, he shouted directions how to prevent the explosion. It was meant for you; all the court and city know it."

Adrian stood quite still, looking from one to the other. Aghast at the introduction of rude truth, not venturing to deny what could be verified, Dalmorov found no words.

"For me?" the Emperor repeated.

"Yes, sire. And for that I am amazed at Baron Dalmorov's willingness that you should go out."

"It is safe," cried Dalmorov furiously. "If you are afraid, Monsieur Allard, of your own tales, ask to be left here and let me attend his Imperial Majesty."

If the statement regarding the morning had made any impression on Adrian, he shook it off as soon as received.

"So; suppose I adopt that suggestion, Allard?" he remarked.

"Sire, if you go out I shall have the honor of going also."

"If I choose that you shall," the Emperor replied.

His eyes afire, Allard touched the star upon his coat.

"If this gives me any claim to your consideration, sire, you will not refuse me the privilege of accompanying you. I did not speak for myself, indeed I think you scarcely believe so; I spoke because the imperial carriage will attract every eye and recognition will be certain. There is no one in the Empire for whom the worst districts would be so dangerous as the brightest avenues will be for you, sire."

"You invited me out into that, Baron?" was the incredulous question.

"Because it is safe, sire. Because the Regent keeps the secret police on guard and I informed—" he checked himself abruptly.

The comprehension that rushed to Adrian's expression was far from pleased.

"Oh; I was to go out for a private tour of observation, surrounded by the secret police. All my compliments, Dalmorov. It would doubtless have been safe, if somewhat misleading."

"No, sire—"

"Let me explain, Allard," he went on, mercilessly ignoring the baron's dismay at the exposure of his designs before Stanief's friend. "Dalmorov has long been interested in showing me the spirit of the capital and the necessity for various changes in the government. And regarding to-day as the climax of dissatisfaction with the Regent's methods, he proposed a quiet drive through the principal streets as a means of gaging the public feeling. He suggested that I would find such a trip an amusing novelty."

Remembering their many expeditions Allard's lips twitched, in spite of his indignant disgust at the intrigues which were dragging Stanief down with myriad nets of cobweb spinning.

"So I consented. The baron felt very strongly the conviction that the people themselves would prove to me the necessity of a different mode of rule at once. Now it appears that his zeal deceived him, and we can very well wait to conclude affairs with dignity next week. That will do, Dalmorov; the loving care that made you surround me with secret guards might also have impelled you to arrange the crowds from which I was to gather my opinion. I shall remain at home to-night. Pray say so to the police with whom you and the Regent annoy me, and send the carriage back to the stables."

Dalmorov waited an instant for the storm to settle. It was not the first stinging rebuke he had endured from the young autocrat, but he had the consolation of knowing that few or none of the court escaped the same infliction.

"I acted from the purest motives," he began, with profound humility. "If my too-great anxiety has displeased your Imperial Majesty, I am grieved to the heart."

Adrian turned to him again, his brow quite clear.

"Nothing can alter my regard for you, my dear baron," he interrupted kindly. "Only, do not interfere another time. Go, do my errand; I shall spend this evening looking over some plans with Allard. Good night."

There was a pause after the door closed. Adrian stood slowly removing his gloves, which he abstractedly tossed with his cloak upon the nearest chair, and Allard remained waiting patiently. With the latter's relief at the decision was mingled a vague wonder at the parting glance he had received from Dalmorov. Certainly worsted in the late passage of arms, the baron nevertheless had looked at his antagonist with malevolent and sinister triumph, a distinctly gratified hate. Was it because he divined that the American suffered with Stanief's hurt, and would go with him into voluntary exile? There seemed no other solution, yet—

"Open the wardrobe and take out our wraps," Adrian's matter-of-fact tones broke in upon the reverie. "I will walk to the garage with you, since the palace is watched, instead of letting you bring the car here."

"Sire!" gasped Allard.

"I told you after dinner that I was going out; I never change my mind. Simply, Dalmorov is eliminated. Make haste, please."

In despair of gaining more, Allard obeyed, his brief satisfaction ended. Resignedly he assisted Adrian into his long coat and put on his own, finding what comfort he could in the fact that they had taken many such journeys undetected.

In spite of his injunction to make haste, the Emperor did not take at once his cap and gauntlets but remained dangling his mask by its ribbons and watching his companion's preparations.

"Allard," he said, "you have the faculty of finding yourself in posts of danger and making yourself famous. It is an art, or a destiny, that of being apropos. Three years ago you acquired a scar and a star in protecting me; now you have repeated the exploit for Feodor. Come here."

Wondering, Allard turned.

"Pardon, sire," he objected, "I did nothing at all for the Grand Duke. He himself destroyed the bomb; I merely looked on and tried to help."

"Ah? Well, the Grand Duke and the rest of the capital do not agree with you. In the newspapers of several continents you are figuring as an example of self-possessed bravery and devotion to our house; probably you do not care, but the world must have its sensations. And since Feodor can not give the tinsel toys that accompany such events, affairs are left in my hands. Bend your head—so."

He had lifted a slender, glittering cordon he himself wore, and deftly threw it around the other's neck with the last word. Completely taken by surprise, Allard had no time for retreat.

"Sire, I should prefer not!" he exclaimed decidedly, almost angrily. "I—the Grand Duke is my friend; such things have no place between us. Forgive me, and allow me to decline."

"I do not care in the least whether you prefer or not," Adrian replied, with the most perfect indifference. "Or whether you earned it or not. It is simply a question of dignity. This is expected of me, and I refuse to have it said that I place a higher valuation on my own life than on that of any one else. You will accept, and wear the order. Of course you do not prize the plaything; neither do I. Shall we go?"

The presentation was sufficiently incongruous, indeed the whole scene was typical of Adrian himself in its mingling of medieval and ultra-modern: the two men in their half-opened motoring coats, and beneath, the gleam of the quaint, ancient, gemmed symbols. And the Emperor added the final touch by picking up the hideous goggled mask and putting it on.

"Let us go," he repeated.

Allard looked down at the pendant Maltese cross of rubies as he buttoned his coat, then caught up gauntlets and cap, and went to open the door.

"Dare I offer my thanks after being so ungracious, sire?" he asked contritely.

"If you choose. But I would rather have you remember in the future that I gave you the decoration before we took this drive, not after."

It was useless to endeavor to understand Adrian's enigmatical moods, but that sentence puzzled Allard for many hours, whenever it recurred to him.

The walk to the garage was accomplished as often before. Several times they passed men whom Allard recognized as belonging to the secret service, and doubtless passed many more whom he did not know, all letting the Emperor's favorite go by, unquestioned, with his companion. But he sighed with relief when they finally reached the garage and he stepped into the low, silver-gray machine beside his pretended chauffeur. A man flung open the wide doors, Adrian bent forward with truly professional ease and nonchalance, and they were out in the damp night air.

Through the humming, fevered city they slipped, merely one of many vehicles. The streets were filled with walking people, without destination or object, walking only from consuming restlessness or excitement. The murmur of countless voices rose above the throbbing voice of the automobile as it wound in and out among the crowds. On every corner men were collected in groups, noisy or quiet according to their class, but alike in grim earnestness. Policemen and soldiers were everywhere; spurred by the Emperor's threat, the chief of police was sifting the city grain by grain for the criminal of the morning.

Not to the cathedral did the gray car take its flight, and Allard's amazement reached its culmination when they halted before one of the capital's main hotels, under the glaring electric lights. For the first time it dawned upon him that there was an object behind the apparent capriciousness of the trip.

"I am to descend?" he hazarded, as his companion did not speak.

"No; you are to wait for me."

"I—you—"

Adrian deliberately stepped down and crossed the bright, crowded sidewalk into the lobby, deigning no explanation whatever. Utterly stupefied, powerless to interfere, Allard watched him; saw him hand a card to the attendant who advanced, then follow on into an elevator and disappear. The huge hall was filled with chatting men and women, many of them moving in the court or diplomatic circles; to the watcher's excited fancy it seemed impossible that they should not recognize the slight, erect figure; it seemed that Adrian's identity cried out from every leisurely movement, every turn of the small imperious head. But presently the attendant returned alone, tranquil and smiling.

It was fully an hour that Allard waited, each of the sixty minutes an hour in itself. Many of those passing knew and bowed to him; some came over to congratulate him on the day's escape or to ask questions concerning it. One or two ladies paused with their escorts to shower him with effusive compliments. Knowing nothing of Adrian's intentions, he dared not even assume the partial protection of his mask. The climax arrived with the vibrating roar of another automobile, which fell into silence behind him as Count Rosal came placidly around to greet his friend.

"You, Allard," he welcomed languidly. "I thought you were on duty every night."

"Not this evening; the Emperor," he recollected the fiction told Dalmorov, "the Emperor is busy with some plans."

"I have been with the Regent. Do you believe it, the accident has made him look years younger. There must be some tonic in gunpowder and sulphur fumes. But you, you appear rather upset and pale; or is it these abominable lights?"

"It has been a hard day. I am too tired to be amusing, Rosal."

Rosal put his foot on the running-board without the least sign of going away.

"Then why are you not at home?" he very naturally inquired.

"Because I had an errand; I was too nervous to rest."

"Waiting for some one?"

"My chauffeur."

Rosal settled his eye-glass, extracted a case of cigarettes which he proceeded to offer to Allard, and himself selected one of the contents.

"Tell me," he said confidentially, "is it true that the Emperor took scarcely any interest in the Regent's escape?"

"No." Allard watched a descending elevator with keen anxiety; the fear that Adrian had been decoyed into some trap was becoming unbearable, yet it was impossible to go in search of him.

"They say so at the palace, and all over the city. They say he did not even give a word of praise to you."

Aroused to justice as well as a desire to shield Stanief, Allard withdrew his eyes from the hotel entrance to regard his visitant.

"Does this seem so?" he demanded irritably, and pushed aside his coat to permit a glimpse of the fiery gem he wore.

Rosal's cigarette fell to the pavement; the idle patrician was well skilled in matters heraldic.

"That!" he cried, dazzled and envious.

Allard shrugged his shoulders and leaned back.

"Were you going somewhere?" he asked.

"Oh, no; just trying to avoid being bored. Every felicitation, my dear Allard; that is superb. You have nothing to fear from next week, evidently. Vasili told me yesterday that Dalmorov was speaking so kindly of you that it positively alarmed him. The baron praised everything you had ever done, from the time you came aboard the Nadeja at New York. And he asked all manner of questions about the trip over and the Grand Duke's fondness for you."

"Yes?" Allard responded absently. He could see an illuminated clock down the street, and he resolved that when the hand reached the hour he would defy Adrian's order and go in quest of him.

"Yes. A jealous animal, Dalmorov. New family; the title is only three generations old. I shall go to Paris next week; he never liked me very much, and there is a new singer at the Théâtre Français. Tiens, here is your man!"

Allard turned sharply, catching his breath. Rosal, who knew the Emperor so well,—could he be deceived? Certainly he could not keep the secret if it were learned, not if the mines, exile and sudden death itself awaited his disclosure; every club in the capital could have afforded tales of "ce bon bavard Rosal."

Adrian came through the vestibule and across the sidewalk with absolute composure. At Rosal he barely glanced while raising his gloved hand in conventional salute to the owner of the car.

"Good night, Rosal," Allard said pointedly.

Rosal did not move from his position, blocking entrance to the machine and surveying the arrival with mild interest.

"This is the chauffeur who drives over the limit about once a month?" he asked, with genuine continental and aristocratic insolence to a supposed inferior. "My man, do not apply to me for a position when your master tires of you; you are too expensive a luxury."