CONTENTS.

PROLOGUE.

I. PRACTICAL POLITICS.

II. REVOLUTION AND ROSE-WATER.

III. THE RIVAL HEIR.

IV. THE STERN PARENT.

V. TWO DIPLOMATISTS.

VI. THE RED GODS CALL.

VII. THE ENEMY IN THE WAY.

VIII. A PORT OF REFUGE.

IX. ARTS OF PEACE.

X. THE INTERVENTION OF THE ADMIRAL.

XI. THE SYMPATHY OF EUROPE.

XII. A BAPTISM OF FIRE.

XIII. KNIGHTLY EMULATION.

XIV. IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO.

XV. THE TOWER OF SEGRETI.

XVI. THE CONSULS TO THE RESCUE.

XVII. THE HOPE THAT FAILED.

XVIII. A RUSE DE GUERRE.

XIX. THE BITTER END.

XX. FUGITIVES.

XXI. THE BRITISH FLAG.

XXII. CHANGES AND CHANCES.

XXIII. AN UNHOLY COMPACT.

XXIV. THE WAGES OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.

XXV. A CONTESTED ELECTION.

XXVI. PAYING THE BILL.

THE HERITAGE.

PROLOGUE.

Night was falling in the leafless beech forest which covered a spur of the Balkans. There was a thin sprinkling of snow on the rocky ground, but it was frozen hard, and showed no trace of the leather moccasins of the two men who were climbing the slope. Both wore unobtrusive uniforms of dull grey, almost concealed by huge brown greatcoats with hoods, and carried rifles slung across their backs; but while one was a stolid peasant, the other had a keen intellectual face, not devoid of a certain tincture of what may without offence be termed “slimness.” It was a face familiar to many Emathian mountaineers, and to a few startled Roumis, as that of Lazar Nilischeff, a prominent leader of revolt. As he and his follower mounted the path, two men, somewhat similar to them in aspect, but with a slight difference in their equipment, came out from among the trees to meet them, and one of them greeted Nilischeff with the formal politeness natural between those who are pursuing the same end with distinct purposes in view. Both were Thracian by race, and had received their university training at the city of Bellaviste; but while Nilischeff was a Thracian subject, and had crossed the frontier in the hope of adding a freed Emathia to his sovereign’s dominions, Dr Afanasi Terminoff was Emathian-born, and scouted any prospect other than that of actual independence for his unrestful country.

“You sent an urgent message for me?” said Nilischeff, as the two leaders went on together up the hill, leaving their subordinates to guard the path.

“The rich Englishman is dying,” said Terminoff gloomily, “and he begged me to find him a lawyer.”

“No doubt he wishes to make his will.” The only available lawyer tried hard not to exhibit indecent exultation. “He will leave his money to the Organisation, you think?”

“He has not told me,” was the curt answer, and the two men continued their climb in silence, the minds of both running riot over the possibilities of unlimited action called forth by the suggestion. The rich Englishman’s money had already provided a pleasurable earnest in the shape of rifles, ammunition, dynamite, and other materials of the revolutionary craft, but its owner had exercised a control over their employment which the recipients found somewhat galling.

“Why are you in these parts?” was the next question, for this particular spur of the mountains was situated in the region sacred to Nilischeff’s band.

“We were betrayed to the Roumis—by a Greek,” replied Terminoff. “Our scouts had only just time to warn us.”

“Did the Greek get away?”

“For the moment; but we fastened up his wife and daughters in their house, and set light to it. Then we ambushed the Roumis in the river-gorge, and scattered them and caught him. So there was an end of the lot.”

“If we are not to be left in peace in the winter, things are coming to a pretty pass,” said Nilischeff sympathetically. “You are in the cave, I suppose?”

The question was asked with renewed sharpness, for it was not etiquette for any other band to imperil one of Nilischeff’s villages by seeking shelter in it, but Terminoff was able to give a satisfactory answer. The cave was common property, and there were few nights in the year when a sufficiently energetic force of Roumis might not have made a valuable capture by visiting it, but the forests and defiles through which it was approached were a country notoriously ill-suited to Roumis who had any care for their health. Every now and then a murmured greeting to Terminoff showed the presence of a scout in ambush, and when the forest was left behind, the rest of the ascent was commanded, every foot of it, by the rough breastwork at the cave’s mouth. The two leaders climbed the almost invisible path, and wriggled into the cave between the great stones heaped before it. A fire was burning behind a sheltering rock, casting a fitful glimmer into the dark recesses at the back, where the only other light came from a candle flickering before a sacred picture fixed crookedly on the wall. On a couch of rugs and greatcoats, spread upon a foundation of dead beech leaves brought from the forest below, lay a very tall man with strongly marked features and a pointed white beard. He held out his hand feebly to Nilischeff.

“They’ve got me at last, you see, though not by a bullet,” he said, speaking with difficulty. “A lifetime spent in the West Indies is a bad preparation for the Balkans in mid-winter, and it’s rough on a sick man to have to turn out of bed and tramp all night through the snow. But now about that little bit of business I want you to do for me. You have brought writing materials, of course?”

He lay back and gasped while Nilischeff brought out a fountain-pen and a writing-pad, but there was a cynical smile on his drawn face.

“It’s not my will,” he murmured, with obvious enjoyment of the two men’s discomfiture. “That was made and left in safe keeping before I started. This is merely a codicil that I wish to add.”

The words came slowly and painfully from him in French, and as he spoke his thumb moved rapidly backwards and forwards over his forefinger, in the familiar Eastern gesture denoting the telling of money. They watched him as if fascinated.

“I have never concealed from you my object in taking part in your operations,” he went on. “You, gentlemen, are solely actuated, as I know, by the high and noble desire of freeing Emathia from the Roumi yoke. I confess without shame that my aim is the grovelling one of restoring my family to its ancient position. My fortune is left in trust for my cousin Maurice Teffany, head of the house of Theophanis, his wife Eirene, representative of the younger line of the Imperial house, and their children, to be used in regaining for them the throne of the Eastern Empire, and maintaining the dignity when they achieve it.” He watched narrowly with his sunken eyes the gloomy looks of Terminoff, and the protesting face of Nilischeff, and spoke with hoarse passion,—“But in acting for the good of my family, I am doing the best thing for you, and you know it. I am giving you a head, a master, who will weld you into a nation with or without your consent. Why, if the Roumis left Emathia to-morrow, you and the Greeks would be at each other’s throats before night, with Thracia and Mœsia, and perhaps Dardania and Dacia, mobilising in feverish haste to seize whatever they could, until Scythia and Pannonia stepped in and divided the country between them! This is your one chance.”

“As well hand ourselves over to Panagiotis and his Greeks at once,” muttered Nilischeff. “The old time-server will come over to your cousin’s side again as soon as he hears of your legacy. They say that Prince Christodoridi refuses to contribute one single drachma towards the Greek propaganda, though it is to put himself on the throne.”

“Then he is penny wise and pound foolish,” said the sick man; “and you are worse, if you don’t welcome Panagiotis and the Greeks, whatever brings them over to your side. Europe will never see Emathia annexed to Thracia, but she will allow you to build up an autonomous state if you can only keep your hands off your knives. And meanwhile, you shall each have a thousand pounds, which will provide your bands with cartridges and dynamite until Maurice Theophanis is ready to move. So call two of your men as witnesses.”

Two members of the band who were not on guard were summoned, and Nilischeff prepared to write. The cynical smile was again on the invalid’s face.

“My cousin is too fond of waiting to be called upon,” he said. “I wish to make him act of his own accord.”

“A bomb, sir?” suggested one of the witnesses, an eager-faced student who had run away from a theological seminary to join the band. “Only a small one, of course—merely to frighten, not to hurt any one.”

“You might blow up all England before you would frighten Maurice Teffany back to Emathia. No, what I mean to use is a domestic bombshell. Write down that while the principal of the trust-money can only be touched by husband and wife acting together, the interest may be used, for the purposes of the trust, by the Princess Eirene at her own discretion. I think my friend Maurice will find himself in Emathia sooner than he expects. You will write out the codicil twice, if you please,” he added to Nilischeff, “and I will sign both copies, so that you and our friend Terminoff may each keep one.” The smile expressed what he did not add, that the mutual jealousy of the two men would ensure the due production of the document.

“Maurice Teffany?” said the second witness, when the matter had been explained to him. “Why, that was one of the European travellers we captured four years ago, when I was in Stoyan’s band. He called himself Ismit (Smith), but we heard afterwards that he was a Greek prince, and we ought to have killed him. ‘If I were your leader——!’ he said one day, and we laughed, not knowing. And will the other man come with him, the Capitan with the blue eyes? If he does, I tell you there is no one left of Stoyan’s band that will not rather fight with him than against him!”

With some difficulty the garrulous ex-brigand was silenced, and induced to affix his mark to the two papers. When this had been done, and the sick man was resting, Dr Terminoff escorted Nilischeff down the hill again and past his outposts. The lawyer’s brain was working busily.

“I see a way of turning this to account,” he said. “I am sending off despatches to-morrow, and I will mention the sad death of the noble-hearted British philanthropist, Teffany-Wise. It will appear in all the English papers how he gave his declining years to the service of freedom, visiting Emathia with relief for the oppressed, and was pursued from place to place by the Roumis thirsting for his blood. Imagine it—he dies in a cave, deprived of every comfort, but with his last breath bequeathing to the cause all he has to leave. A fine moral effect, is it not?”

CHAPTER I.
PRACTICAL POLITICS.

“It is Colonel Wylie, isn’t it? I say, I beg your pardon if I’ve made a mistake.” The speaker’s boyish tones grew doubtful as he looked at the grey hair and hollow cheeks of the fellow-passenger to whom he spoke, but the sunken eyes, peculiarly blue in contrast with the leaden complexion, reassured him. “It is you, Wylie, after all. But what have you been doing to yourself?”

“Spending five years in the Nile swamps. I don’t wonder you didn’t know me. I came face to face with myself in a big mirror on the hotel stairs at Cairo, and got a shock—wondered who the poor devil was with the cadaverous countenance.”

“Miss Teffany knew you at once.”

“Now that’s what I call really flattering. I can’t be so absolutely unrecognisable if she knew me.”

“Did you guess she was on board?”

“Saw her come on deck before you did.”

“But you haven’t spoken to her.” There was wonder in the younger man’s voice.

“How was I to know that she would recognise me? And when you found her out, I hadn’t the heart to disturb you.”

“She sent me to fetch you to her now, though.”

Wylie laughed at the faint sigh that accompanied the words. “Rough on you,” he said. “Well, you’re not changed at any rate—not a day older. Come, don’t let us keep her waiting.”

They crossed the deck towards a lady in a noticeably well-cut tweed travelling-coat and hat, who sat alone, protected by the presence at a little distance of an elderly maid of the most rigid type of respectability. She looked up eagerly, almost anxiously, as Wylie approached, but the blue eyes met hers with curiosity rather than interest. The seven years since their last meeting had worked no such doleful change in Zoe Teffany as in the man who had once loved her; she had worn well, as women say of one another. She was a woman not to be passed over, alert, keenly interested in life, though an occasional fugitive look of wistfulness betrayed that life had not brought her all she had once confidently expected from it. She shook hands heartily with Wylie.

“Now I really believe in this adventure,” she said. “With you our old party is complete.”

“Your brother and his wife are here?” asked Wylie.

“No, I am to meet them when I land. But have they told you nothing of their plans?”

“Nothing. I was lounging about on the Riviera, desperately dull, when your brother’s letter reached me. He merely said that things were moving in Emathia, and reminded me of my old promise to back him up. It was only a joke at the time, but as I am forbidden the tropics, and can’t face an English spring, it seemed good enough now, so here I am.”

His glance forbade her to pity him, and Zoe looked hastily away. “Then you have a great deal to learn,” she said, making room for him beside her. “Lord Armitage, if you will bring that deck-chair closer, we can talk without being overheard.”

“Lord Armitage?” asked Wylie.

“Oh, you didn’t know?” groaned the bearer of the title. “Second cousin three times removed dies to bother me, and leaves me the family honours—me, if you please. I have to chuck my work, and buy pictures instead of making them, and if I go into a studio, there’s no hope of getting the old chaff, for the fellows hang on my words with bated breath, because I’m a patron of art! So that’s why I’m here.”

“You will be the Byron of Emathian independence,” said Zoe encouragingly. “Think of the halo of respectability that the presence of an English nobleman and his yacht will throw over our proceedings!”

Something in Armitage’s face warned Wylie that aspirations less abstract than a yearning for Emathian independence had drawn him into the adventure, and he smiled grimly to himself. Zoe looked a little hurt.

“You are laughing at our having to begin again from the very beginning,” she said. “Seven years does seem a long time to waste, I suppose—especially as when we saw you last we were full of golden anticipations, thinking that in a few months Maurice and Eirene would at any rate be on their way to a throne. The blow fell the very same day, you know.”

“You think your brother should have decided differently?”

“Never for one moment. But I am not sure that Eirene doesn’t—sometimes. It was really very galling to see Professor Panagiotis fling himself heart and soul into the cause of the rival claimant, the instant Maurice had refused his terms.”

“It doesn’t seem to have done the rival claimant much good, so far.”

“Ah, but that’s because they had a violent quarrel just two years ago. Prince Christodoridi swore that the Professor was only working for his own advantage all along, and the Professor declares that the Prince has shown the blackest ingratitude.”

“And the thieves having fallen out, the honest man comes by his own? Or is it a case of everything coming to him who knows how to wait?”

“Both, I think,” said Zoe, laughing. “Eirene would certainly tell you that Maurice knows how to wait only too well. Of course, it was hard on her—the way their marriage fell flat, I mean. The Scythian Court simply ignored the whole thing, and all her other royal acquaintances followed their example. She just dropped out, and it was as if she didn’t exist. Well, you know, she had begun at Stone Acton by being very much on her dignity—expecting royal honours, in fact. The people round were tremendously interested at first, but they very soon began to ask what sort of a Princess this could be, who was never noticed by any of our own royalties. They bored her, too,—I don’t wonder at that; they have often bored me,—and she snubbed them, and gave a great deal of offence. And then there came the Romance of the Long-Lost Uncle.”

“This is thrilling,” said Wylie. “Princess Eirene’s uncle?”

“No, ours—our cousin, at least; a very very distant cousin. His name was Teffany-Wise, and he was descended from the daughter of Prosper Teffany, a younger son who emigrated from Penteffan to the West Indies about the end of the seventeenth century. I met him in Jamaica when I went round the world, and I wrote home that he looked ineffably old, and capable of any wickedness. He had a sort of inscrutable parchment-like face, you know. I always thought he made his money by slave-trading, but Maurice says its palmy days were over long before his time, unless he was as old as the Wandering Jew, and that he was probably only a speculator in Chicago slum tenements. At any rate, there he was, immensely rich, without a relation nearer than ourselves, and frightfully excited over the newspaper accounts of our Emathian adventures. You see, if the royalties ignored Maurice, the journalists didn’t, and he let himself be interviewed pretty often, because he thought it was only due to Eirene to make her position perfectly clear. It seemed that Mr Teffany-Wise had always had an ambition to use his money in restoring the fortunes of the family, but until he heard about us he didn’t know who there was left. So he talked to me, and then suddenly sailed for home, and descended on Stone Acton in a shower of gold, and supplied Eirene with the object in life she wanted.”

“And that was——?”

“To hustle Maurice into putting himself forward publicly as a candidate for the throne of Emathia. He was determined not to move until he received an invitation, and she was determined he should. She has made a sort of religion of the Theophanis claims since the Long-Lost Uncle appeared. Why, she has turned the library at Stone Acton into a regular throne-room, with crimson hangings—imperial purple, you know—and two gilded chairs on a daïs under a canopy. Oh, it mayn’t seem very dreadful to you, but you don’t know Stone Acton. It was always such a sensible house! And she has been having the most extraordinary people there—refugees and conspirators and so on—till the neighbourhood was scandalised. That was Mr Teffany-Wise’s doing. He saw that there was no hope of Professor Panagiotis and the Emathian Greeks for the present, so he turned boldly to the Slav party—the Thracian Committees and their followers—and bid for their support.”

“Backing his offer with hard cash, I presume?” said Wylie. “That explains the increased activity and boldness of the Emathian insurgents this last year or two. But the Roumis mean business now. I suppose your long-lost relative has no objection to being morally guilty of a massacre or two?”

“He thought they were unavoidable but disagreeable incidents—useful, too, since they would stir the indignation of Europe.”

“Well, so far as I can see, he is likely to be gratified. And has his game been worth the candle?”

“I believe he thought so. At any rate, the national sentiment is much more strongly developed than when we were in Emathia. Then the reformers talked of uniting with Thracia or Mœsia or Morea, according to their tastes, but now they are all inclining to the thought of an Emathian nation. Most of them would like a republic, of course, but they know the Powers would never hear of that, and Maurice’s refusal to bind himself body and soul to the Greeks pleased them. So before Mr Teffany-Wise died, he had practically got things settled.”

“Oh, he is dead, then?”

“Yes; he insisted on interviewing the Committees and leaders of bands for himself, and inspecting their work, and they passed him on from one to another all through the disturbed districts. It was winter, and he was chased by the Roumis, and the hardships were too much for him. Of course you think I’m a brute to talk like this, but I can’t forgive that man. He has spoilt Maurice’s life.”

“If your brother is what I remember him, it would be difficult for any one to do that,” said Wylie.

“No one could, except through Eirene. But you must expect to see Maurice a good deal changed. It isn’t either comfortable or dignified for a man to have to go through life as a drag on his wife’s wheel.”

“Then I gather that your sister-in-law has not changed?”

“No, Eirene is Eirene still—only more so. She would not have been quite so bad but for the Uncle. He left his property in trust, to be used for restoring the family to the Imperial throne. That was natural enough, but he gave Eirene power to use the interest as she thought best, though she can’t touch the capital without Maurice’s consent.”

“Injudicious,” said Wylie.

“Injudicious? It was mad! And Eirene is so unfair. She has no sense of what can be done and what can’t. Little Constantine—their boy—was born just after the news of the will came, and she was very ill. Their two first babies died—really and truly I believe it was because she always worried and excited herself so much—and she knew how anxious Maurice was. Well, she sent for him and made him promise that he would open communications with the Slav leaders, instead of waiting for them to approach him. She got better, and little Con is all right, and of course Maurice had to keep his promise. So he wrote to say that if he received a definite invitation from them, he would place himself at their head, and negotiations have been going on ever since. Then Professor Panagiotis threw himself into the fray, and now there is really some prospect of Maurice’s being accepted as candidate both by the Greek and Slav parties.”

“Well, surely that was worth waiting for?”

“Oh, I suppose so, but I hate its having come about in this way! The massacres, you know—the Committees are really provoking them, so as to force the hand of Europe, and things may be much worse yet.”

“Probably; but I see their drift now—to get to work while Scythia and Pannonia are both too busy with their own internal concerns to interfere. But why are we starting from this side?”

“Oh, we have to settle the preliminaries first,—‘a conference of the powers,’ you know,—and it is to be done under cover of this great Pan-Balkanic Athletic Festival that the Prince of Dardania is holding.”

“Armitage representing the athletic capabilities of the party, I suppose?” said Wylie, with a humorous shrug. “I’m afraid you can’t depend on me much.”

“No, we go as spectators. The Princess of Dardania is a lady of literary tastes, and was kind enough to want to see me,” said Zoe, with a side glance at him as she rose. “It is getting a little cold here, I think. I will write one or two letters in the cabin.”

There was nothing to show whether Wylie had detected any special meaning in her tone as he escorted her across the deck, and when he returned to Armitage it was to smoke in silence, as if all his interest was concentrated on the rocky coast they were passing. The younger man lost patience.

“Well?” he said, with repressed excitement.

“Well?” returned Wylie.

“Do you find her altered, or not?”

“Much as she was, only more so,” cruelly adapting Zoe’s own description of her sister-in-law.

Armitage was obviously disappointed. “You have kept up with her doings, perhaps? I suppose even your exile was lightened by a Society paper now and then?”

“Don’t know. Didn’t read them if it was.”

“Then you have heard people talk of her? Of course she’s an awfully well-known woman. When she is in town, one meets her everywhere. Her travels, you see—and her personality—and her books——”

“Ah, I thought I was intended to understand that she had succeeded in perpetrating something in that line.”

“Rather!” said Armitage vivaciously, encouraged by the faint hint of interrogation in the tone. “She’s a success, you know. Not a popular success—five hundred thousand copies and all that—but with the right people. All the clever women swear by her. They say she voices the unrest of the modern woman better than anybody else.”

“Oh yes—misunderstood by her family, unappreciated by her husband, too lofty to be happy, and too self-contained to be wicked—the usual jargon,” muttered Wylie impatiently.

“More head than heart,” pursued Armitage, then broke off quickly. “I say, I believe you’ve been reading them. She calls herself Zeto.”

“What, her books? No, thank you.”

Again a dead stop. But Armitage was not to be baulked.

“I don’t know why you shouldn’t. It would be only natural, surely? You seemed pretty hard hit when you went.”

“You seem to forget that when I went to the Soudan I put her out of my head.”

“But could you manage it?”

“Generally, I’m thankful to say.”

“Ah, but not always? Don’t think I’m trying to pry into your affairs,” burst out Armitage in his boyish way, “but it means a lot to me. I’ll stand aside without a word if you’re going to ask her again, but if not—— Well, I might have some little chance.”

“Oh, don’t mind me. I told her I should never ask her again, and I haven’t the slightest wish to do it. If my swamps and slave-raiders have done nothing else for me, they have cured me of all that sort of thing. I’m not bragging—or whatever you might call it—but telling you a simple fact. Women don’t interest me now, and other things do. I used to imagine I could combine the two, but now I know better. If my blessing is all you want to make you happy, go in and win. But if this business comes to anything, she will be for neither of us. You see that?”

And while Armitage acquiesced, with a rueful face, Zoe was saying to herself, as she adjusted her hat in the cabin mirror, “Of course I never expected him to forgive me the moment he saw me again. It would have been nice if he had, but it wouldn’t have been a bit like him.”

During the remainder of the voyage down the coast the adventurers made no further attempt to discuss their prospects. They excited considerable interest on board the Ungaro-Croata steamer, where the mutual relations of the handsome lady who had the history and archæology of the region at her fingers’ ends, the sick officer, and the “Milordo” with the artistic neckties, who from force of habit was constantly pulling out a sketch-book and jotting down the bold outlines of a headland or the handsome face of a fisher-lad, were freely canvassed, but even the urbane and polyglot captain confessed himself at a loss. The sick officer knew something of a good many languages, and asked very telling questions, and both the lady and the “Milordo” had visited these parts before; but they all talked so freely that there was no chance of finding out anything more about them, averred the worthy sailor. He and a few of his passengers enjoyed a mild sensation when the steamer reached the little red-roofed town, whose white houses seemed to rise sheer from the blue water, where the three English were to land. Here an elderly man, whose spectacled eyes gave the impression of an incongruous contrast with his aquiline profile, came on board to meet them, and bowed over Zoe’s hand with a respect that was almost reverential; but the spectators could hear nothing of the colloquy that ensued while the luggage was being got on shore.

“I come as the messenger of your august brother, madame,” he said. “He thought it well you should know that he enters on this campaign not as Mr Teffany, but as Prince Maurice Theophanis.”

“Which means that I am to call myself Princess Zoe, I suppose? This is the Princess’s doing, of course?”

“Her advice, and mine also, went farther, madame, but the Prince declines to style himself Imperial Highness—far less Emperor—until his claims are recognised. He has taken the present step almost entirely with the view of preventing embarrassment to the Prince of Dardania.”

“Surely it will rather cause him embarrassment?” began Zoe hesitatingly, and Wylie broke in.

“Have you made sure of your ground, Professor? An ambiguous position is awkward enough, but the Prince of Dardania may not relish finding himself committed to support the Theophanis claims, and it would be more awkward if he repudiated his invitation.”

The Professor scarcely vouchsafed him a glance. “Madame,” he said to Zoe, “your brother’s friends have not been idle in anticipation of his arrival. The Prince of Dardania is already committed in private to our cause, which will assure him, if it succeeds, the possession of Illyria. In this his brother-in-law, the King of Magnagrecia, is equally interested, so that we have already attached one of the great Powers to our side. It is to the three Liberal Powers, England, Neustria, and Magnagrecia, that we look for support in our effort to rescue Emathia from the Roumi yoke, and in bringing forward as our proposed High Commissioner—for we go no further as yet—a man not only chosen by the Emathian leaders themselves, but distinguished by European approval, we offer them a means of intervention such as they have never yet enjoyed.”

“Oh, Professor Panagiotis has thought it all out!” laughed Armitage. “Wylie, you and I must take a back seat. You are aide-de-camp, I suppose—or equerry, which is it?—and I am—what am I? Oh, lord-in-waiting, of course.”

“You are both Maurice’s good friends, who have come to help him, not to be his servants,” said Zoe quickly.

“Pardon me, Princess,” said Wylie, very distinctly. “We are your brother’s servants. We have come here for nothing but to put ourselves under his orders—to help him to his rights if we can, but not to claim any share in his confidence.”

He fell behind with Armitage, perhaps not caring to face the blankness of Zoe’s look as she accepted mechanically the Professor’s assistance across the rough stones of the jetty. The younger man seemed hardly satisfied, and Wylie answered his unspoken question.

“Must show at once that we see how the land lies. I know these fellows’ jealousy of any influence but their own. If they are not to bring Teffany’s future to smash by working against us, we must be content to remain in the background. I suppose he’s not much better fitted to cope with them than he used to be—not a full-blown statesman yet, or even a diplomat?”

“Thank goodness, no! Absolutely straight, good man of business, steady as Old Time, happiest when he’s playing the country squire. But the Princess—she’s a diplomatist, or anything you like. You’ll understand what an imperial bearing means when you see her, if you don’t now.”

CHAPTER II.
REVOLUTION AND ROSE-WATER.

Princess Eirene Theophanis sat alone in the garden at Bashi Konak, her fingers busied with embroidery, her mind with the progress made by her husband’s cause since their arrival at the little Dardanian capital. The Prince of Dardania was a true friend, an ally to be depended upon. Eirene had felt this from the moment she perceived that he had sent his brother-in-law in command of the guard which was to meet the travellers at the frontier and escort them to the city. True, Colonel Roburoff was only a handsome Scythian officer with whom Princess Ludmilla of Dardania had made a runaway match, but her brother had taken the couple back into favour, and the successful adventurer commanded his Guard. That he should be sent to receive Prince and Princess Theophanis showed a just sense of their exact position, as claimants de jure of a right not yet recognised de facto, paying a private visit from which important public events might hereafter develop. The same consideration had been shown in allotting them quarters. Colonel Roburoff had apologised for the fact that they were accommodated, not at the Palace, but in a house hired for the occasion, on the ground that the royal dwelling was already inconveniently crowded, but had pointed out, with due mystery, the superior opportunities thus afforded for conference with friends and supporters. Moreover, on the occasion of the meeting at the frontier, Zoe had received, from a confidential attendant of the Princess of Dardania, a bouquet gathered, so she was assured, by the royal hands themselves, and concealing a little scented note which read, “To the profound, the accomplished Zeto, from the humblest of her admirers, Emilia.” Even now Zoe was spending the morning at the Palace, whither she had been summoned by a special messenger to cheer the Princess, who was prevented by slight indisposition from accompanying her husband to the arena to watch the games. Eirene reflected with pleasure that not only was this romantic friendship beneficial in the extreme to the Theophanis cause, but also that the Princess’s devotion was likely to keep Zoe a good deal out of Wylie’s way.

There was an old feud between Eirene and Wylie, which had only been temporarily bridged over when Zoe’s rejection of him called forth her sympathies. He had seldom shown the Princess sufficient deference to satisfy her, though he was never otherwise than polite, and she had an uneasy suspicion that he despised the various little assumptions by which she sought to assert her dignity. Maurice gave her no support in these matters, she thought bitterly, and she was sure she had caught Armitage laughing when she hinted that it was more correct to say he had gone out “in attendance on” the Prince than merely “with” him. Why, even when they were about to enter the royal carriages sent to convey them to Bashi Konak, Maurice had flatly refused to let Zoe sit with her back to the horses. “But you are the Emperor, Maurice,” his wife had pleaded. “I’m not Emperor yet,” he replied promptly; “and when I am, if the imperial funds don’t run to a separate carriage for Zoe, one or other of us will stay at home.” Trials like this made Eirene almost despair of her husband. Other people might think such things trifles, but to her, brought up in a Court, their real importance was manifest. How was Maurice ever to assume his proper place if he would not submit to the rules governing his caste? Even his wife could not prevent him from taking his own line. When she had succeeded in goading him to a certain course of action, as often as not he would somehow contrive to carry it out in a wholly unexpected way. It was he who had sent for Wylie, and disconcerted her grievously by doing so, for she had relied on his English dislike for foreigners to keep him isolated from his supporters and dependent on her for counsel. It did not mollify her displeasure when, in answer to her remonstrances, he remarked, “I want one honest man at my back that I can trust, to look after you and Zoe and the little chap, if anything happens to me.” “I could trust our people,” she had said reproachfully; to which he replied, “Oh, could you? I couldn’t,” and went out to post his letter. And here was Wylie established as Maurice’s guide, philosopher, and friend, in no way inclined, apparently, to presume upon the favour shown him, but still the one man in whom Zoe had ever shown more than a contemptuous interest. Almost unconsciously, Eirene had come to regard her sister-in-law, during the last few years of planning and plotting, as an asset that might be valuable, rejoicing when she refused various eligible offers. But of what avail were those refusals if she turned again, after all, to the man for whose sake they were made? If only Zoe could have been safely engaged to some desirable person before Wylie reappeared on the scene! As that was not the case, however, it was a moral duty to keep her from throwing herself away on an obviously unsuitable man, who could contribute nothing but his sword to further the great cause, and whose loyalty was already certain.

While these thoughts were passing through Eirene’s mind, some one came into sight at the end of the garden path, some one who was cheerfully contributing a good deal more than a sword to the cause. Princess Theophanis knew, though her husband did not, the exact nature of the cargo carried at the present moment by Armitage’s yacht, which was cruising at large without its owner in the eastern Mediterranean, and paying only rare and hurried visits to territorial waters. Armitage was a valuable asset without any drawbacks such as attached to Wylie, and Eirene felt that Maurice had shown even more than his usual unwisdom in declining to accede to her suggestion, and dispense with his old friend’s services, when she announced that Armitage would take part in their venture. She met him with a friendly smile as he came towards her down the path.

“I have just had a letter from Waters—that’s my captain—which will relieve your mind, ma’am,” he said. “It was all a false alarm about that Pannonian man-of-war they thought was shadowing them. Waters took a bold course and went on board her to ask if they could give him any news of me, and they paid him a return visit quite in an unsuspicious spirit.”

“I wish we could get rid of the arms,” said Eirene anxiously. “The slightest accident, or an incautious remark from one of your crew, might——”

“Give the whole show away,” supplied Armitage, as she paused. “I suppose we could arrange to hand the things over to one of the bands if we could fix on the right spot to land them; but I thought that wasn’t what you wanted, ma’am?”

“No, no; of course not! It is absolutely essential that we should keep a supply in our own hands, that we may not be dependent upon any of the Committees. And we must not land and conceal it on any of the islands, in case it should be necessary to act suddenly. Even now I fear we may not be able to communicate with your yacht quickly enough in case of a crisis.”

“I have thought of a way of doing that, ma’am. Waters is lying at present in a little harbour called Pentikosti, just to the south of the Dardanian frontier. He has made friends with the Roumi officials, and applied a little palm-oil judiciously, giving them to understand that I may come down over the mountains at any time, and the yacht is to wait for me. They will give him every facility for hearing from us, and he will stand on and off outside the harbour, and keep a good look-out both ways.”

“It is excellent!” said Eirene warmly. “Your ingenuity is as admirable as your helpfulness, Lord Armitage. I trust that one day I shall be able to reward both.”

Such phrases were often on Eirene’s lips, as in the days when they had been received with mingled scorn and resentment by her ignorant fellow-travellers, but it was a novelty for them to be welcomed as this was.

“I don’t know about one day,” said Armitage, with desperate boldness. “You could do something for me now, ma’am, that would leave me in your debt for ever.”

She looked at him with surprise plainly tinged with displeasure, but her voice was no less gracious than before. “In our present circumstances I had hardly hoped to be able to reward our friends otherwise than by my thanks, so I am happier than I thought. What is there that the Prince and I can do for you, Lord Armitage?”

“It is Princess Zoe—I love her,” he broke out. “If I could make her care for me, would you oppose it?”

Eirene’s first impulse was to gain time for thought. “But you—I never thought of you,” she said confusedly. “It was always—I mean, you are not the person.”

“I have cared for her ever since the night I first saw her by the camp-fire under Hadgi-Antoniou,” he answered; “but of course I knew how it was with Wylie, and I tried to put all thought of her out of my head. And I was always so hard-up in those days, too; I had nothing to offer her. Then when the title and all the rest of it came to me, there was still Wylie to think of; I made sure he would come back some day and ask her again, and she would have him. But now that he has given up all thoughts of her——”

“Given up all thoughts of her!” repeated Eirene. “How can you possibly know?”

“He told me,” said Armitage, unshaken. “Said that that sort of thing didn’t interest him now.”

“Oh, but that’s only because he is feeling ill and miserable,” said Eirene quickly, but checked herself. After all, even if this change of feeling on Wylie’s part was only temporary, why not take advantage of it? A marriage between Armitage and Zoe might not be all that her ambition had planned, but it offered certain solid benefits. Eirene was not blind to the fact that the support of a British peer, with an ancient title and a fair amount of wealth, had already proved useful in investing the Theophanis cause with an atmosphere of plausibility—even respectability, and it would be a wise stroke to attach him permanently to the family. There could be no question of putting pressure on Zoe, of course, and Maurice, in his unreasonableness, would see to it that the final decision rested freely with her; but pending the prospect of a more magnificent alliance, there could be no harm in not destroying Armitage’s hopes. Eirene spoke low and confidentially. “I can make no promises for Zoe,” she said; “for what you have told me may surprise her as much as it does me, but I see no reason—at any rate at present—why she should refuse you. Certainly I can promise that I shall not set myself against the idea.”

“You are awfully good, ma’am. I don’t think I could be more interested in Teffany’s—I mean the Prince’s—cause than I was before, but it makes one frightfully keen to feel that one’s in it oneself in a sort of way. I know I have nothing to offer Princess Zoe compared with what she might expect, but——”

“I have found my happiness in marrying an English gentleman, and I can wish nothing better for my sister,” said Eirene, with something of reproof in her voice, and Armitage wondered how he had erred. He could not know that the mere suspicion of failure in the great scheme, the hint at a possible future in which Lord Armitage would once more be a bridegroom in no way to be despised by the sister of Maurice Teffany of Stone Acton, had become intolerable to Eirene. Zoe had misjudged her when she told Wylie that Mr Teffany-Wise’s legacy had led her to make a religion of the Theophanis claims. It was the birth of her son, in whose veins ran the blood of both the elder and younger lines of the descendants of John Theophanis, that had roused afresh in Eirene the ambition which had slumbered a little under her husband’s influence during the first years of their marriage. Constantine Theophanis must yet sit on the throne of Czarigrad, and be invested with the imperial diadem in the cathedral of Hagion Pneuma, and to this end his parents must submit, if necessary, to the humiliating task of accepting office as the nominees of the Powers, to masquerading as temporary tenants where they were the rightful inheritors. This Eirene could do without a murmur, but she could not contemplate returning unsuccessful to Stone Acton, to meet the half-veiled contempt of the acquaintances whose friendly advances she had rebuffed, and to hear them ask whether she and Mr Teffany thought of sending their little boy to the Grammar-school in the neighbouring town? “No? and the education is so thoroughly good! A public school? Mr Teffany was at Harrow? Oh, of course, but in these days of reduced rents—— And boys picked up such expensive ideas at public schools.” Eirene drew in her breath sharply, and said, in the tone which Armitage had learnt to interpret as a dismissal, “You may rely on me. If you want my advice at any time I shall be delighted to give it. Do I see Professor Panagiotis coming through the house? Bring him to me at once, please.”

Armitage obeyed, retiring when he had finished his errand. The Professor waited until he was out of sight before he spoke. “You have received further news from Scythia, madame?” he asked then, but rather as though stating a fact than putting a question. Eirene, who had guessed before this that he contrived to make acquaintance with at least the outside of the letters intended for his nominal employers, betrayed no resentment.

“Yes, I have another letter from the Grand-Duchess Sonya,” she said; “and I can hardly doubt that she writes with the knowledge of the Empress. The tone is markedly friendly, and she speaks more than once of the sympathy with which they are watching events here, and their strong hope that the Prince will be able to prove his title.”

The Professor’s face did not show the satisfaction that might have been expected. “It is too good,” he said. “I distrust this excessive amiability.”

“I think they are surprised at our strength,” said Eirene quickly, “and already bidding for our future support.”

“Without an effort to realise the hopes of centuries, which our success would frustrate?” asked the Professor. “No, madame. There is something behind. It is this warm encouragement that perplexes me. Tacit sympathy I should have expected, but coupled with warnings against rashness, and with every other recommendation that might tend to cause delay.”

“But they cannot know how fast we are moving,” she urged eagerly. “You yourself have said that the reasonableness of the delegates astonishes you.”

“True, madame; the impression produced by his Highness is most gratifying, Greek and Slav both believing that they have found their champion in him. The military proposals of Colonel Wylie have also been well received. But as I said just now, it is too good. I should wish to see more opposition. Knives have not been drawn once during the sittings. One delegate’s hand went to his revolver during a discussion which had become a little heated, but the Prince borrowed the weapon at once to look at, and kept it on the table before him the rest of the morning.”

“Ah, you see, they know him already, and they do not care to oppose him. Our task will be shorter than we expected. The delegates will swear allegiance to him, and he will have Christian Emathia at his feet. Then——”

“Then, madame, we shall have to deal with the Powers—a very different matter. The conscience of Europe has to be roused before they can be induced to intervene.”

“By massacres, I suppose?” Eirene shuddered. “The Prince will never agree to that.”

“The Prince will not be consulted, madame. The lamented philanthropist to whom the Emathia of the future owes so much recognised that in certain qualities your Royal Highness has the advantage over your husband, while in other respects he is superior. It is this combination that is of such promise for your future rule. You will not shrink from the measures necessary to bring that rule about.”

“No, it would be criminal to hold back now.”

“Madame, you put into words my very thoughts. Assume—though I cannot believe it possible—that this conference closes next week, having arrived at a unanimous decision to support your husband. There will be just time for the delegates to return to their districts before the snow melts sufficiently to allow of the movement of troops. The Roumis are already irritated by our successes of the autumn, and the attacks that have been made even during the winter on their outposts. They will be in a mood to act energetically, and repress all outbreaks with severity. You know what that means. Outbreaks will occur. They will be put down. The details will be spread far and wide. Christendom will be roused, will send representatives to inquire into the state of affairs. We shall continue to resist. The Roumis will continue to act with vigour. The Powers inquire into our demands. We desire a constitutional government under the suzerainty of Roum, but with a Christian Governor appointed by the Powers and responsible to them, and for the post we suggest the descendant of our ancient Emperors, to whose banner all sections of Christians in Emathia are willing to rally. We may not at first obtain all we ask, but Minoa has taught us the value of perseverance.”

“But if the Roumis should not act with severity?” broke in Eirene. “This new Greek Vali of Therma, appointed in response to the protests of the Powers in the autumn—he will not promote massacres.”

“For Skopiadi Pasha’s influence I would give that!” cried the Professor, snapping his fingers. “It is not he who rules,—he has enough to do to look after his own safety,—but the Military Governor, Jalal-ud-din Pasha. He commands the troops in the city and in the field; he is one of the old school, and believes in prompt repression. He would not hesitate to arrange for Skopiadi’s removal if he opposed him—and truly we could ask for nothing better!”

“At least,” urged Eirene, “let there be as little bloodshed as possible. Could we not contrive to rescue and arm the threatened Christians before they could be massacred? Lord Armitage’s yacht, with plenty of rifles and cartridges on board, is lying at Pentikosti, ready to sail night or day.”

“And then where would be our moral effect on the minds of the Powers, madame? You are like most ladies who indulge in revolutions—willing to assent to any amount of bloodshed provided it takes place out of your sight and hearing. A massacre is necessary, but you may well salve your conscience by laying the blame on the Powers, who will be moved by nothing else.”

“I think you have an appointment to meet Dr Terminoff now that the games are over for the morning?” Eirene rose with marked displeasure, which the Professor chose to disregard.

“I am honoured by your recollection, madame. You may rely on me to keep you informed of any new points that may arise. May I also depend on you for early information of any suspicious circumstances that strike you? It is some underground action on the part of Pannonia that I fear, for her silence, coupled with the benevolence of Scythia, upsets all my calculations.”

CHAPTER III.
THE RIVAL HEIR.

At the Palace, Zoe was enjoying a new experience, and enjoying not least the humorous side of it, for she was not one of the people who can never see anything funny in what concerns themselves. Entertainments given in her honour, and lavish compliments, were no novelty to her, but she had never hitherto met with the whole-hearted devotion shown by her youthful hostess. A very young girl when the Prince of Dardania carried her captive by the force of a masterful personality and a touch of Eastern fascination, Princess Emilia had felt it to be extremely romantic that after one sight of her he should have broken off the engagement arranged for him by his mother, and refused to marry any one but the little sister of the Magnagrecian monarch. Her brother, the king, yielded to the demand of the two lovers, and Princess Emilia left the greatest centre of culture in Southern Europe to reign over a nation of half-barbarous mountaineers, and incidentally to introduce a new issue and a new complication into the Balkan question. Dardania was now no longer to be regarded as the faithful henchman of Scythia, she looked westwards instead of east; and her Prince had announced publicly that he desired no accession of territory on the Emathian side, while not denying that the rocky coast region of Illyria had attractions which would make him and his Magnagrecian brother-in-law very willing to police and civilise it in unison. Princess Emilia cared nothing for politics, save in their romantic aspect. She thought her husband’s self-denying ordinance with respect to Emathia was most noble, and the Theophanis claim to the throne of the Eastern Empire filled her with enthusiasm, though this was less by reason of its intrinsic merits than because Maurice was Zoe’s brother. Brought up in a highly literary society, the Princess suffered from a kind of mental starvation in her new sphere, for which she tried to compensate herself in every way open to her. She was an omnivorous reader and a born critic, and her favourite maid-of-honour, Donna Olimpia Pazzi, shared her mistress’s tastes, though in a minor degree, as was becoming. Together they plied Zoe with questions and comments on every book ever written, made her read portions of her own novels aloud to them, recited the great poems of their native land with an accent that enhanced the beauty of the words, and called in the Court bard, who held a hereditary place in the household of the Alexeiévitch family, that they might translate to her his wild ballads of border war and revenge. On this particular morning they enjoyed themselves so thoroughly that when the Prince returned from the games he scoffed openly at his wife’s plea of indisposition, and wished he had thought of escaping some very dull gymnastic contests in the same way. When he left them, Princess Emilia linked her arm in Zoe’s, and walked down with her through the Palace garden to the gate by which the house allotted to the Theophanis party was reached.

“You must promise me again that nothing shall prevent you from coming to the reception to-night,” she said. “It is our last chance of welcoming our own friends in peace before my mother-in-law arrives.”

“The Dowager Princess comes to-morrow, doesn’t she?” asked Zoe. Princess Emilia assented with a little grimace.

“Yes, and she says it is because she is yearning to see us again, though she hates me, and can’t forgive Alexis for marrying me. She is really coming to spy, I know. She wishes to see whether your brother is likely to succeed, and endanger her dear Kazimir’s future. You know she hopes to make him Prince of Emathia?”

“I know, and I have often wondered—though perhaps I ought not to say it—why the Prince of Dardania doesn’t support his brother rather than a stranger.”

“Oh, Kazimir is a thorough Scythian,—he is in the Imperial Guard, you know,—and Alexis and he have never agreed. And perhaps it was a little my doing, too. The Princess Dowager had made herself so very disagreeable that I wasn’t sorry when I found out a way to punish her. You think me very wicked? Wait till you see my mother-in-law!”

“I have heard plenty about her,” said Zoe, with an involuntary smile, “and I certainly don’t expect to like her. But she has had rather a sad life lately, hasn’t she? All her plans seem to have gone wrong for the last few years.”

“Then she shouldn’t make such unpleasant plans. You can’t expect me to be glad that her plan for marrying Alexis to that Scythian girl failed?” She drew up her small figure with mock dignity, and Zoe acknowledged that this would be too much to expect. “My mother-in-law has no feeling for romance,” Princess Emilia went on, “though her own marriage was so romantic. All the matches she promotes are cold, calculating, political things. Now I—I palpitate with romance to the tips of my fingers!” she flung them out airily. “That is the sole want I find in you, my sweetest Zeto. You have plenty of romance somewhere about you, but it is all shut up inside you and locked tight, when it ought to overflow into your life. Dearest, indulge me; allow me the chance of arranging a little romance for you!”

“No, thanks,” said Zoe, with a little shiver. “Romances in real life are uncomfortable things, and I’m not sure that people are not happiest without them.”

“Ah, there is your cold, cautious English spirit—afraid to take the plunge for fear of the consequences! We Magnagrecians are not like that. I waited—oh, so eagerly!—for my romance, and now I live in it. And Olimpia, she is waiting for hers. You can see it in her eyes, can’t you? But you—you hold back; you put out your hands to push romance away; you cry out, ‘Leave me alone! I don’t wish to lose my peace of mind for the sake of a possible overwhelming joy.’”

The vivacious pantomime with which the Princess illustrated her idea of her friend’s mental attitude was irresistible, and Zoe was moved, for peace’ sake, to an imperfect confession.

“You and Donna Olimpia are both very young,” she said. “I have had my romance, and it is over.”

Momentary dismay was succeeded by renewed satisfaction on Princess Emilia’s face. “You shall tell me all about it some day,” she said. “But it is over, is it not?—quite over?” Zoe’s unwilling affirmative seemed to herself like the irrevocable stamping-down of earth upon a grave, but the Princess did not realise the reason of her reluctance. “Then all is well,” she continued enthusiastically. “That is past, done with, but romance is still alive in your heart, and you shall forget that old sadness in a happier present. You will not hold aloof; you will yield yourself to me; is it not so? Do not make me unhappy by refusing happiness if I can put it into your power.”

For a moment Zoe really imagined that the Princess had in some way learnt her story, had penetrated the secret of the gradual death of her hopes as Wylie went serenely on his remorseless way, seeming to be utterly oblivious of the old days when he had been the suppliant, and Zoe had shown herself callous. The bitterness of hope deferred was in her voice as she answered with a catch in her breath, “If I have learnt nothing else since those days, I have, at any rate, learnt to take happiness when it is offered—not to put it off to the future.”

“Ah, I knew you would be reasonable!” cried the Princess, not realising that she was about to destroy the hope so lightly raised. “Then listen. Dear, dear Zeto, you have never met Apolis?”

“The author of ‘Rêves d’Exil’?” Zoe forced herself to answer. “No—I think not; I am sure I have not.”

“He is coming to-night!” announced Princess Emilia, almost with awe. “We met him in Paris; he is the incarnation of romance. You see my plan, then? Here is this gifted poet, himself a disappointed being,—his works show that, don’t they?—and you, cherishing the memory of a dead romance. Why should you not console one another? Think what books you might write in collaboration!”

Zoe’s first impulse was to laugh at the thought of this unknown poet and herself uniting the pageants of their respective bleeding hearts for the edification of Europe, but Princess Emilia was gazing at her with an affection and anxiety hard to resist. “Say you will be kind to him. It is my dearest, most cherished scheme,” she was murmuring.

“I won’t turn my back on him when he is introduced, Principessina,” Zoe assured her. “But I must honestly tell you that your prospect doesn’t appeal to me. I never do care for men of letters in daily life—as witness the Professor. What I like is a man of action.”

“But if Apolis is also a man of action?” said the Princess mysteriously. “Ah, I must not say more, but you cannot imagine how much it might mean to your brother if you could attach him to your cause, and that can only be by attaching him to yourself.”

“A sort of private Byron?” suggested Zoe scoffingly, but Princess Emilia was evidently deeply in earnest.

“You don’t know what hangs upon it,” she repeated as she let Zoe out of the gate, and again Zoe wondered at the importance in her voice.

At the Palace in the evening the reception was of an informal kind, the Prince and Princess moving about among their guests and talking freely. It was especially a literary party, so that instead of the Balkanic athletes who had been prominent at these gatherings of late, the winners in the poetic competitions and the European press representatives formed the majority of those present. Very early in the evening Princess Emilia brought a slender, handsome young man, of an unmistakably Greek type of face, up to Zoe.

“I now have the pleasure of fulfilling one of my life’s ambitions,” she said prettily, “in presenting Apolis to Zeto.”

“And in doing so, madame, you gratify my own chief desire,” was the ready reply of the poet.

Zoe sought in vain for any remark equally compatible with truth and responsive to his politeness, but her failure passed unnoticed, for he was quite capable of taking charge of the conversation without her assistance. He had solved the difficulty of talking about himself without appearing egotistical, by regarding his own history entirely from a literary point of view, producing, as it were, a monograph from it in response to any turn of the talk. Zoe found it quite interesting to note the ingenuity with which he adapted the most hopeless conditions to his purpose, though she was conscious of an uneasy doubt as to the literal veracity of all the experiences he described. When she came to analyse them afterwards, however, she discovered that he had mentioned very few facts, since most of his descriptions concerned feelings and impressions which he had experienced, or might have experienced, in given circumstances. The principal landmarks which emerged from the flood were a long sojourn in Paris, and the cause which led to it, a quarrel with his father—recounted with exquisite but not exactly filial humour—over a beautiful girl whom he had not been allowed to marry. For her sake, therefore, he was an exile from the rocky island, the beloved home of his forefathers, in the unsympathetic West.

“That is the lady to whom you have written as Meteora?” asked Zoe. “Was it her real name?”

“In my earlier poems—yes, mademoiselle. Let me see, what was her real name—Xenocraté? Praxinoë? I cannot remember! How a man’s memory betrays him!”

“But some of the poems to Meteora were among the latest in the book!” objected Zoe.

“To her latest incarnation, mademoiselle. I see the ideal Meteora under the form of many a very unideal woman, alas! Love is one, but the lover perceives it in more places than one.”

“You are frank, monsieur.” Zoe was reflecting how singularly agreeable this theory must be for the poet, and how very inconvenient for the ladies who enjoyed successively the honour of embodying his ideal.

“I am, mademoiselle. I had flattered myself that frankness was the personal note of my work, but it seems that this has not suggested itself to you.”

“Certainly I noticed that Meteora’s personal appearance seemed to vary.”

“Exactly, mademoiselle. Where beauty is, there is the loved one.” His eyes strayed to the graceful figure of Donna Olimpia Pazzi, as she passed them on an errand for the Princess. “Why should such details as the colour of eyes and hair interfere with the course of love?”

“Why, indeed?” said Zoe. “What a poseur the man is!” she thought impatiently. “Would Emilia consider it unkind if I passed him on to some one else now?” Looking round for a way of escape, her eyes encountered the fixed gaze of Professor Panagiotis, who had been walking through the rooms with Maurice, but had stopped dead, and was staring at her companion with something like stupefaction. Maurice turned impatiently to see why he was waiting, but the Professor grasped his arm and drew him towards Zoe, whom he addressed in tones like distant thunder.

“Will you have the goodness, madame, to present that gentleman to his Highness your brother?”

“It is rather difficult, since I only know his pseudonym,” said Zoe. “This is Apolis, the poet, Maurice.”

“Say, rather, this is Prince Romanos Christodoridi, the hereditary enemy of your line,” the Professor corrected her savagely. “Pray, monsieur, how did you come here?”

“I do not acknowledge the right of this person to question me,” said the poet, turning from the Professor and addressing himself to Maurice. “You, sir, are my opponent, I presume. Have you anything to ask?”

“I should certainly be glad to know your object in coming to Bashi Konak,” said Maurice.

“Nothing is simpler, sir—to assert my cause. I learn that negotiations are proceeding here which may gravely prejudice my rights, and I determine to watch over them in person. The Christodoridis are not entirely without friends, even though Professor Panagiotis has chosen to transfer his valuable support to the opposite party.”

“It was time to transfer my support when your father refused to contribute a drachma of his hoarded wealth to the cause on which my whole fortune has been lavished!” burst forth the Professor.

“I refused nothing,—but then I had no hoarded wealth,” said Prince Romanos with dignity. “If money is to liberate Emathia, I acknowledge that Mr Teffany—oh, pardon me; Prince Theophanis, I think?—has the advantage over one who can offer only his pen and his sword; but nothing shall withhold me from contributing my worthless life to the cause of freedom, and requesting Emathia to judge between us.”

“So be it!” said Maurice, holding out his hand. “We are enemies, but friendly ones, I hope. Together we will do our best to free Emathia, and then she shall judge.”

“Sir, you are mad! Impossible!” protested Professor Panagiotis, but Prince Romanos bowed like a duellist about to engage.