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A Son of the Immortals

by Louis Tracy · English · Gutenberg #25017 · 450,096 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Son of the Immortals

Author: Louis Tracy

Illustrator: Howard Chandler Christy


        
Release date: April 8, 2008 [eBook #25017]
                Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25017

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        Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images generously made available by The
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SON OF THE IMMORTALS ***




Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)









 A Son
 of the Immortals

 By
 LOUIS TRACY

 Author of "The Stowaway," "The Message,"
 "The Wings of the Morning," etc.

 Illustrations by
 HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY

 New York
 Edward J. Clode
 Publisher




 Copyright, 1909, by
 EDWARD J. CLODE

 Entered at Stationers' Hall


 [Illustration: The sight of Alec and his fair burden brought a cheer
 from the crowd
     Frontispiece]




                     CONTENTS

 CHAPTER                                                     PAGE


    I. THE FORTUNE TELLER                                      1
   II. MONSEIGNEUR                                            22
  III. IN THE ORIENT EXPRESS                                  44
   IV. THE WHITE CITY                                         64
    V. FELIX SURMOUNTS A DIFFICULTY                           89
   VI. JOAN GOES INTO SOCIETY                                112
  VII. JOAN BECOMES THE VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES              132
 VIII. SHOWING HOW THE KING KEPT HIS APPOINTMENT             154
   IX. MUTTERINGS OF STORM                                   176
    X. WHEREIN THE SHADOWS DEEPEN                            196
   XI. JOAN DECIDES                                          221
  XII. THE STORM BREAKS                                      241
 XIII. WHEREIN A REASON IS GIVEN FOR JOAN'S FLIGHT           263
  XIV. THE BROKEN TREATY                                     284
   XV. THE ENVOY                                             310




 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


 The sight of Alec and his fair burden brought a
         cheer from the crowd                      _Frontispiece_

                                                             PAGE

 "Gentlemen, here stands Alexis Delgrado"                     75
 Beaumanoir and Felix fortified the position                 153
 Joan laughed at Alec's masterful methods                    199
 Stampoff saluted the King in silence                        268
 In a few minutes the three were securely bound              298
 He felt the thrill that ran through her veins               306




A SON OF THE IMMORTALS




CHAPTER I

THE FORTUNE TELLER


On a day in May, not so long ago, Joan Vernon, coming out into the
sunshine from her lodging in the Place de la Sorbonne, smiled a morning
greeting to the statue of Auguste Comte, founder of Positivism. It would
have puzzled her to explain what Positivism meant, or why it should be
merely positive and not stoutly comparative or grandly superlative. As a
teacher, therefore, Comte made no appeal. She just liked the bland look
of the man, was pleased by the sleekness of his white marble. He seemed
to be a friend, a counselor, strutting worthily on a pedestal labeled
"_Ordre et Progres_"; for Joan was an artist, not a philosopher.

Perhaps there was an underthought that she and Comte were odd fish to be
at home together in that placid backwater of the Latin Quarter. Next
door to the old-fashioned house in which she rented three rooms was a
cabaret, a mere wreck of a wineshop, apparently cast there by the
torrent of the Boule Mich, which roared a few yards away. Its luminous
sign, a foaming tankard, showed gallantly by night, but was garish by
day, since gas is akin to froth, to which the sun is pitiless. But the
cabaret had its customers, quiet folk who gathered in the evening to
gossip and drink strange beverages, whereas its nearest neighbor on the
boulevard side was an empty tenement, a despondent ghost to-day, though
once it had rivaled the flaunting tankard. Its frayed finery told of gay
sparks extinguished. A flamboyant legend declared, "Ici on chante, on
boit, on s'amuse(?)" Joan always smirked a little at that suggestive
note of interrogation, which lent a world of meaning to the
half-obliterated statement that Madame Lucette would appear "tous les
soirs dans ses chansons d'actualites."

Nodding to Leontine, the cabaret's amazingly small maid of all work, who
was always washing and never washed, Joan saw the query for the
hundredth time, and, as ever, found its answer in the blistered paint
and dust covered windows: Madame Lucette's last song of real life
pointed a moral.

Joan's bright face did not cloud on that account. Paul Verlaine, taking
the air in the Boulevard Saint Michel, had he chanced to notice the dry
husk of that Cabaret Latin, might have composed a chanson on the vanity
of dead cafes; but this sprightly girl had chosen her residence there
chiefly because it marched with her purse. Moreover, it was admirably
suited to the needs of one who for the most part gave her days to the
Louvre and her evenings to the Sorbonne.

She was rather late that morning. Lest that precious hour of white light
should be lost, she sped rapidly across the place, down the boulevard,
and along the busy Quai des Grands Augustins. On the Pont Neuf she
glanced up at another statuesque acquaintance, this time a kingly
personage on horseback. She could never quite dispel the notion that
Henri Quatre was ready to flirt with her. The roguish twinkle in his
bronze eye was very taking, and there were not many men in Paris who
could look at her in that way and win a smile in return. To be sure, it
was no new thing for a Vernon to be well disposed toward Henry of
Navarre; but that is ancient history, and our pretty Joan, blithely
unconscious, was hurrying that morning to take an active part in
redrafting the Berlin treaty.

At the corner of the bridge, where it joins the Quai du Louvre, she met
a young man. Each pretended that the meeting was accidental, though,
after the first glance, the best-natured recording angel ever
commissioned from Paradise would have refused to believe either of them.

"What a piece of luck!" cried the young man. "Are you going to the
Louvre?"

"Yes. And you?" demanded Joan, flushing prettily.

"I am killing time till the afternoon, when I play Number One for the
Wanderers. To-day's match is at Bagatelle."

She laughed. "'Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech
betrayeth thee,'" she quoted.

"I don't quite follow that, Miss Vernon."

"No? Well, I'll explain another time. I must away to my copying."

"Let me come and fix your easel. Really, I have nothing else to do."

"Worse and worse! En route, _alors_! You can watch me at work. That must
be a real pleasure to an idler."

"I am no idler," he protested.

"What? Who spoke but now of 'killing time,' 'play,' 'Number One,' and
'Bagatelle'? Really, Mr. Delgrado!"

"Oh, is that what you are driving at? But you misunderstood. Bagatelle
is near the polo ground in the Bois, and, as Number One in my team, I
shall have to hustle. Four stiff chukkers at polo are downright hard
work, Miss Vernon. By teatime I shall be a limp rag. I promised to play
nearly a month ago, and I cannot draw back now."

"Polo is a man's game, at any rate," she admitted.

"Would you care to see to-day's tie?" he asked eagerly. "We meet
Chantilly, and, if we put them out in the first round of the tournament,
with any ordinary luck we ought to run right into the semi-final."

She shook her head. "You unhappy people who have to plan and scheme how
best to waste your hours have no notion of their value. I must work
steadily from two till five. That means a sixteenth of my picture.
Divide two hundred and fifty by sixteen, and you have--dear me! I am no
good at figures."

"Fifteen francs, sixty-two and a half centimes," said he promptly.

She flashed a surprised look at him. "That is rather clever of you," she
said. "Well, fancy a poor artist sacrificing all that money in order to
watch eight men galloping after a white ball and whacking it and each
other's ponies unmercifully."

"To hit an adversary's pony is the unforgivable sin," he cried, smiling
at her, and she hastily averted her eyes, having discovered an unnerving
similarity between his smile and--Henri Quatre's!

They walked on in eloquent silence. The man was cudgeling his brains for
an excuse whereby he might carry her off in triumph to the Bois. The
girl was fighting down a new sensation that threatened her independence.
Never before had she felt tonguetied in the presence of an admirer. She
had dismissed dozens of them. She refrained now from sending this
good-looking boy packing only because it would be cruel, and Joan Vernon
could not be cruel to anyone. Nevertheless, she had to justify herself
as a free lance, and it is the role of a lance to attack rather than
defend.

"What do you occupy yourself with when you are not playing polo or
lounging about artists' studios?" she asked suddenly.

"Not much, I am afraid. I like shooting and hunting; but these Frenchmen
have no backbone for sport. Will you believe it, one has the greatest
difficulty in getting a good knock at polo unless there is a crowd of
ladies on the lawn?"

"Ah! I begin to see light."

"That is not the reason I asked you to come. If you honored me so
greatly you would be the first woman, my mother excepted, I have ever
driven to the club. To-day's players are mostly Americans or English. Of
course there are some first-rate French teams; but you can take it from
me that they show their real form only before the ladies."

"As in the tourneys of old?"

"Perhaps. It is the same at the chateaux. Everyone wants his best girl
to watch his prowess with the gun."

He stopped, wishing he had left the best girl out of it; but Joan was
kind hearted and did not hesitate an instant.

"So you are what is known as a gentleman of leisure and independent
means?" she said suavely.

"Something of the sort."

"I am sorry for you, Mr. Delgrado."

"I am rather sorry for myself at times," he admitted, and if Joan had
chanced to glance at him she would have seen a somewhat peculiar
expression on his face. "But why do you call me Mr. Delgrado?"

She gazed at him now in blank bewilderment--just a second too late to
see that expression. "Isn't Delgrado your name?" she asked.

"Yes, in a sense. People mostly call me Alec. Correctly speaking, Alec
isn't mother's darling for Alexis; but it goes, anyhow."

"Sometimes I think you are an American," she vowed.

"Half," he said. "My mother is an American, my father a Kosnovian--well,
just a Kosnovian."

"And pray what is that?" she cried.

"Haven't you heard of Kosnovia? It is a little Balkan State."

"Is there some mystery, then, about your name?"

"Oh, no; plain Alec."

"Am I to call you plain Alec?"

"Yes."

"But it follows that you would call me plain Joan."

"Let it go at Joan."

"Very well. Good morning, Alec."

"No, no, Miss Vernon. Don't be vexed. I really did not mean to be rude.
And you promised, you know."

"Promised what?"

"That I might help carry your traps. Please don't send me away!"

He was so contrite that Joan weakened again. "It is rather friendly to
hear one's Christian name occasionally," she declared. "I will compound
on the Alec if you will tell me why the Delgrado applies only in a
sense."

"Done--Joan," said he, greatly daring. He waited the merest fraction of
time; but she gave no sign. "My stipulation is of the slightest," he
added, "that I discourse in the Louvre. Where are you working?"

"In the Grande Galerie; on a subject that I enjoy, too. People have such
odd notions as to nice pictures. They choose them to match the
furniture. Now, this one is quite delightful to copy, and not very
difficult. But you shall see."

They entered the Louvre from the Quai.

Joan was undoubtedly flurried. Here, in very truth, was that
irrepressible Henri descended from his bronze horse and walking by her
side. That his later name happened to be Alec did not matter at all. She
knew that a spiteful Bourbon had melted down no less than two statues of
Napoleon in order to produce the fine cavalier who approved of her every
time she crossed the Pont Neuf, and it seemed as if some of the little
Corsican's dominance was allied with a touch of Bearnais swagger in the
stalwart youth whom she had met for the first time in Rudin's studio
about three weeks earlier.

They were steel and magnet at once. Delgrado had none of the
boulevardier's abounding self-conceit, or Joan would never have given
him a second look, while Joan's frank comradeship was vastly more
alluring than the skilled coquetry that left him cold. Physically, too,
they were well mated, each obviously made for the other by a
discriminating Providence. They were just beginning to discover the
fact, and this alarmed Joan.

She could not shake off the notion that he had waylaid her this morning
for a purpose wholly unconnected with the suggested visit to the polo
ground. So, tall and athletic though he was, she set such a pace up the
steps and through the lower galleries that further intimate talk became
impossible. Atalanta well knew what she was about when she ran her
suitors to death, and Meilanion showed a deep insight into human nature
when he arranged that she should loiter occasionally.

Delgrado, however, had no golden apples to drop in Joan's path, could
not even produce a conversational plum; but he was young enough to
believe in luck, and he hoped that fortune might favor him, once the
painting was in hand.

Each was so absorbed in the other that the Louvre might have been empty.
Certainly, neither of them noticed that a man crossing the Pont du
Carrousel in an open cab seemed to be vastly surprised when he saw them
hastening through the side entrance. He carried his interest to the
point of stopping the cab and following them. Young, clear skinned,
black-haired, exceedingly well dressed, with the eyes and eyelashes of
an Italian tenor, he moved with an air of distinction, and showed that
he was no stranger to the Louvre by his rapid decision that the Salle
des Moulages, with its forbidding plaster casts, was no likely resting
place for Delgrado and his pretty companion.

Making straight for the nearest stairs, he almost blundered upon Alec,
laden with Joan's easel and canvas; but this exquisite, having something
of the spy's skill, whisked into an alcove, scrutinized an old print,
and did not emerge until the chance of being recognized had passed.
After that, he was safe. He appeared to be amused, even somewhat amazed,
when he learned why Delgrado was patronizing the arts. Yet the discovery
was evidently pleasing. He caressed a neat, black mustache with a
well-manicured hand, while taking note of Joan's lithe figure and well
poised head. The long, straight vista of the gallery did not permit of a
near view, and he could not linger in the narrow doorway, used chiefly
by artists and officials, whence he watched them for a minute or more.

So he turned on his heel and descended to the street and his waiting
victoria, waving that delicate hand and smiling with the manner of one
who said, "Fancy that of Alec! The young scamp!"

Joan was copying Caravaggio's "The Fortune Teller," a masterpiece that
speaks in every tongue, to every age. Its keynote is simplicity. A
gallant of Milan, clothed in buff-colored doublet slashed with brown
velvet, a plumed cavalier hat set rakishly on his head, and a lace
ruffle caught up with a string of seed pearls round his neck, is holding
out his right palm to a Gypsy woman, while the fingers of his left hand
rest on a swordhilt. The woman is young and pretty, her subject a mere
boy, and her smug aspect of divination is happily contrasted with the
youth's excitement at hearing what fate has in store.

"There!" cried Joan. "What do you think of it?"

She had almost completed the Gypsy, and there was already a suggestion
of the high lights in the youngster's face and his brightly colored
garb.

"I like your copy more than the original," said Delgrado.

"Your visits to Rudin have not taught you much about art, then," said
she tartly.

"Not even that great master would wish me to be insincere."

"No, indeed; but he demands knowledge at the back of truth. Now, mark
me! You see that speck of white fire in the corner of the woman's eye?
It gives life, intelligence, subtle character. Just a little blob of
paint, put there two hundred years ago, yet it conveys the whole stock
in trade of the fortune teller. Countless numbers of men and women have
gazed at that picture, a multitude that must have covered the whole
range of human virtues and vices; but it has never failed to carry the
same message to every beholder. Do you think that my poor reproduction
will achieve that?"

"You have chosen the only good bit in the painting," he declared
stoutly. "Look at the boy's lips. Caravaggio must have modeled them from
a girl's. What business has a fellow with pouting red lips like them to
wear a sword on his thigh?"

Joan laughed with joyousness that was good to hear.

"Pooh! Run away and smite that ball with a long stick!" she said.

"Hum! More than the Italian could have done."

He was ridiculously in earnest. Joan colored suddenly and busied herself
with tubes of paint. She believed he was jealous of the handsome
Lombard. She began to mix some pigments on the palette. Delgrado,
already regretting an inexplicable outburst, turned from the picture and
looked at Murillo's "woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her
feet, and upon her head a diadem of twelve stars."

"Now, please help me to appreciate that and you will find me a willing
student," he murmured.

But Joan had recovered her self-possession. "Suppose we come off the
high art ladder and talk of our uninteresting selves," she said. "What
of the mystery you hinted at on the Quai? Why shouldn't I call you Mr.
Delgrado? One cannot always say 'Alec,' it's too short."

Then he reddened with confusion. "Delgrado is my name, right enough," he
said. "It is the prefix I object to. It implies that I am sailing under
false colors, and I don't like that."

"I am not good at riddles, and I suspect prefix," she cried.

"Ah, well, I suppose I must get through with it. Have you forgotten how
Rudin introduced me?"

She knitted her brows for a moment. Pretty women should cultivate the
trick, unless they fear wrinkles. It gives them the semblance of looking
in on themselves, and the habit is commendable. "Rudin is fond of his
little joke," she announced at last.

"But--what did he say?"

"Oh, there was some absurdity. He addressed me as if I were a royal
personage, and asked to be allowed to present his Serene Highness Prince
Alexis Delgrado."

The man smiled constrainedly. "It sounds rather nonsensical, doesn't
it?" he said.

"Rudin often invents titles. I have heard efforts much more amusing."

"That is when he is original. Unfortunately, in my case, he was merely
accurate."

Joan whirled round on him. "Are you a Prince?" she gasped, each word
marking a crescendo of wonder.

"Yes--Joan."

"But what am I to do? What am I to say? Must I drop on one knee and kiss
your hand?"

"I cannot help it," he growled. "And I was obliged to tell you. You
would have been angry with me if I had kept it hidden from you. Oh, dash
it all, Joan, don't laugh! That is irritating."

"My poor Alec! Why did they make you a Prince?"

"I was born that way. My father is one. Do you mean to say you have
lived in Paris a year and have never seen our names in the newspapers?
My people gad about everywhere. The Prince and Princess Michael
Delgrado, you know."

"I do not know," said Joan deliberately.

Her alert brain was slowly assimilating this truly astonishing
discovery. She did not attempt to shirk its significance, and her first
thought was to frame some excuse to abandon work for the day; since, no
matter what the cost to herself, this friendship must go no farther. The
decision caused a twinge; but she did not flinch, for Joan would always
visit the dentist rather than endure toothache. She could not dismiss a
Serene Highness merely because he declared his identity, nor was she
minded to forget his rank because she had begun to call him Alec. But it
hurt. She was conscious of a longing to be alone. If not in love, she
was near it, and hard-working artists must not love Serene Highnesses.

Delgrado was watching her with a glowering anxiety that itself carried a
warning. "You see, Joan, I had to tell you," he repeated. "People make
such a fuss about these empty honors----"

Joan caught at a straw. She hoped that a display of sarcastic humor
might rescue her. "Honors!" she broke in, and she laughed almost
shrilly, for her voice was naturally sweet and harmonious. "Is it an
honor, then, to be born a Prince?"

"If a man is worth his salt, the fact that he is regarded as a Prince
should make him princely."

"That is well said. Try and live up to it. You will find it a task,
though, to regulate your life by copybook maxims."

"The princedom is worth nothing otherwise. In its way, it is a handicap.
Most young fellows of my age have some sort of career before them, while
I--I really am what you said I was, an idler. I didn't like the taunt
from your lips; but it was true. Well, I am going to change all that. I
am tired of posturing as one of Daudet's 'Kings in Exile.' We expelled
potentates all live in Paris; that is the irony of it. I want to be
candid with you, Joan. I have seen you every day since we met at
Rudin's; but I did not dare to meet you too often lest you should send
me away. You have given me a purpose in life. You have created a sort of
hunger in me, and I refuse to be satisfied any longer with the easygoing
existence of the last few years. No, you must hear me out. No matter
what you say now, the new order of things is irrevocable. I almost
quarreled with my father last night; but I told him plainly that I meant
to make a place for myself in the world. At any rate, I refuse to live
the life he lives, and I am here to-day because the awakening is due to
you, Joan."

A tremor ran through the girl's limbs; but she faced him bravely. Though
her lips quivered, she forced herself to utter words that sounded like a
jibe. "I am to play Pallas Athene to your Perseus," she said, and it
seemed to him for a moment that she was in a mood to jest at heroics.

"If you mean that I regard you as my goddess, I am well content," he
answered quickly.

"Ah, but wait. Pallas Athene came to Perseus in a dream, and let us make
believe that we are dreaming now. She had great gray eyes, clear and
piercing, and she knew all thoughts of men's hearts and the secrets of
their souls. My eyes are not gray, Alec, nor can they pierce as hers;
but I can borrow her beautiful words, and tell you that she turns her
face from the creatures of clay. They may 'fatten at ease like sheep in
the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They
grow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like the gourd,
they give no shade to the traveler, and when they are ripe death gathers
them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out of
the land.' But to the souls of fire she gives more fire, and to those
who are manful she gives a power more than man's. These are her heroes,
the sons of the Immortals. They are blest, but not as the men who live
at ease. She drives them forth 'by strange paths ... through doubt and
need and danger and battle.... Some of them are slain in the flower of
their youth, no man knows when or where, and some of them win noble
names and a fair and green old age.' Not even the goddess herself can
tell the hap that shall befall them; for each man's lot is known only to
Zeus. Have you reflected well on these things, Alec? Be sure of
yourself! There may be Gorgons to encounter, and monsters of the deep."

He came very near to her. Her eyes were glistening. For one glowing
second they looked into each other's hearts.

"And perhaps a maiden chained to a rock to be rescued," he whispered.

Then she drew herself up proudly. "Do not forget that I am Pallas
Athene," she said. "My shield of brass is an easel and my mighty spear a
mahl-stick; but--I keep to my role, Alec."

He longed to clasp her in his arms; but it flashed upon him with an
inspiration from topmost Olympus that, all unwittingly, she had bound
herself to his fortunes.

"Then I leave it at that," he said quietly.

This sudden air of confidence was bewildering. She had been swept off
her feet by emotion, and the very considerations she thought she had
conquered were now tugging at her heart-strings. He must not go away as
her knight errant, eager and ready to slay dragons for her sake.

"Do not misunderstand me," she faltered. "I was only quoting a passage
from one of Kingsley's Greek fairy tales that has always had a peculiar
fascination for me."

"I'll get that story and read it. But I am interfering with your work,
and here comes your friend, the Humming Bee. If he said anything funny
to me just now, I should want to strangle him. So good-by, dear Joan. I
will turn up again to-morrow and tell you how I fared in each round."

And he was gone, leaving her breathless and shaken; for well she knew
that he held her pledged to unspoken vows, that his eager confidences
would apply alike to the day's sport and his future life. With hands
that trembled she essayed a further mixing of colors; but she scarcely
realized what she was doing, until a queer, cracked voice that yet was
musical sang softly in German at her elbow:

          If the Song should chance to wander
          Forth the Minstrel too must go.

It was passing strange that crooked little Felix Poluski, ex-Nihilist,
the wildest firebrand ever driven out of Warsaw, and the only living
artist who could put on canvas the gleam of heaven that lights the
Virgin's face in the "Immaculate Conception," should justify his
nickname of Le Bourdon by humming those two lines.

"I hope you are not a prophet, Felix," said Joan with a catch in her
throat.

"No, _ma belle_, no prophet, merely an avenger, a slayer of Kings. I see
you have just routed one."

She turned and looked into the deepset eyes of the old hunchback, and
for the first time noted that they were gray and very bright and
piercing. At the same time the fancy crossed her mind that perhaps Henri
Quatre had had blue eyes, bold yet tender, like unto Alec's.

"So you too are aware that Monsieur Delgrado is a Prince?" she said,
letting her thought bubble forth at random.

"Some folk call him that, and it is the worst thing I know of him so
far. It may spoil him in time; but at present I find him a nice young
man."

Joan swung round to her picture. "If Alec had the chance of becoming a
King, he would be a very good one," she said loyally.

Poluski's wizened cheeks puckered into a grin. He glanced at the easel
and thence to the picture on the wall.

"Perfectly, my dear Joan," he said. "And, by the bones of Kosciusko, you
have chosen a proper subject, The Fortune Teller! Were you filling our
warrior with dreams of empire? Well, well, I don't know which is more
potent with monarchs, woman or dynamite. In Alec's case I fancy I should
bet on the woman. Here, for example, is one that shook Heaven, and I
have always thought that Eve was not given fair treatment, or she would
surely have twisted the serpent's tail," and, humming the refrain of
"Les Demi-Vierges," he climbed the small platform he had erected in
front of the world famous Murillo.

Back to back, separated by little more than half the width of the
gallery, Joan and Poluski worked steadily for twenty minutes. The Pole
sang to himself incessantly, now bassooning between his thin lips the
motif of some rhapsody of Lizst's, now murmuring the words of some
catchy refrain from the latest review. Anybody else who so transgressed
the rules would have been summarily turned out by the guards; but the
men knew him, and the Grande Galerie, despite its treasures, or perhaps
because of them, is the least popular part of the Louvre. Artists haunt
it; but the Parisian, the provincial, the globe trotter, gape once in
their lives at Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Salvator Rosa, Murillo of
course, and the rest of the mighty dead, and then ask with a yawn,
"Where are the Crown Jewels?"

So the Humming Bee annoyed none by his humming; but he stopped short in
an improvised variation on the theme of Vulcan's song in "Philemon and
Baucis" when he heard a subdued but none the less poignant cry of
distress from Joan. In order to turn his head he was compelled to twist
his ungainly body, and Joan, who was standing well away from her canvas,
was aware of the movement. She too turned.

"I am going," she announced. "I cannot do anything right to-day. Just
look at that white feather!"

"Where?"

"In the boy's hat, you tease! Where else would you look?"

"In your face, _belle mignonne_," said the Pole.

It was true. Joan was not ill; but she was undeniably low spirited, and
the artist's mood has a way of expressing itself on the palette. She
laughed, with a certain sense of effort.

"I like you best when you sing, Felix. Sometimes, when you speak, you
are Infelix."

"By all means go home," he grinned. "One cannot both joke and copy a
Caravaggio."

He began to paint with feverish industry, did not look at her again, but
tossed an adieu over his humped shoulder when she hurried away. Then he
gazed reproachfully, almost vindictively, at the uplifted eyes of the
transfigured Virgin.

"Now, you!" he growled. "Vous etes benie entre toutes les femmes! This
affair is in your line. Why don't you help? _Saperlotte!_ The girl is
worth it."




CHAPTER II

MONSEIGNEUR


The Wanderers beat Chantilly. One minute before the close of the fourth
chukkur the score stood at four all. Both teams were playing with
desperation to avoid a decider on tired ponies, when the Wanderers'
third man extricated the ball from a tangle of prancing hoofs and
clattering sticks, and Alec Delgrado got away with it. He thought his
pony was good for one last run at top speed, that and no more. Risking
it, he sprinted across two hundred yards of green turf with the
Chantilly Number One in hot chase. His opponent was a stone lighter and
better mounted; so Alec's clear start would not save him from being
overhauled and ridden off ere he came within a reasonable striking
distance of the opposing goalposts. That was the Chantilly man's supreme
occupation,--some experts will have it that the ideal Number One should
not carry a polo stick,--and the pursuer knew his work.

A hundred, eighty, sixty, yards in front Alec saw a goal keeping centaur
waiting to intercept him. In another couple of strides a lean, eager
head would be straining alongside his own pony's girths. So he struck
hard and clean and raced on, and the goalkeeper judged the flight of the
white wooden ball correctly, and smote it back again fair and straight.

It traveled so truly that it would have passed Alec three feet from the
ground to drop almost exactly on the spot whence he had driven it. But
there was more in that last gallop along the smooth lawn than might be
realized by any one present save Alec himself. It was his farewell to
the game. From that day he would cease to be dependent on a begrudged
pittance for the upkeep of his stable, and that meant the end of his
polo playing. But he was not made of the stuff that yields before the
twelfth hour. His mallet whirled in the air, there was a crack like a
pistol shot, and the ball flew over the amazed goalkeeper's head and
between the posts.

The yelling and handclapping of the few spectators almost drowned the
umpire's whistle.

"By gad, that was a corker!" said he of Chantilly, as the ponies' wild
gallop eased to a canter.

"I hope that flourish of mine did not come too close, Beaumanoir," said
Alec.

"Don't give a tuppenny now," laughed Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir. "The
match is over, and you've won it, and if you play till Doomsday you'll
never score a better notch."

"It was lucky, a sheer fluke."

"Oh, that be jiggered for a yarn! A fellow flukes with his eyes shut.
You meant it!"

"Yes, that is right. So would you, Berty, if it was your last knock."

"Well, time's up, anyhow," said Beaumanoir, not comprehending.

They trotted off to the group of waiting grooms. Delgrado ran the
gauntlet of congratulations, for Paris likes to see Chantilly's flag
lowered, and escaped to the dressing room. He gave a letter, already
written and sealed, to an attendant, and drove away in his dogcart.
Bowling quickly along the broad Allee de Longchamps, he turned into the
Route de l'Etoile, and so to the fine avenue where all Paris takes the
summer air.

He found himself eying the parade of fashion in a curiously detached
mood. Yesterday he thought himself part and parcel of that gay throng.
To-day he was a different being. All that had gone before was merged in
"yesterday's seven thousand years."

His cob's pace did not slacken until he drew rein at the giant doorway
of a block of flats in the Rue Boissiere. It was then about five
o'clock, and he meant to appear at his mother's tea table. He was far
from looking the "limp rag" of his phrase to Joan. Indeed, it might have
taxed the resources of any crack regiment in Paris that day to produce
his equal in condition. Twenty-four years old, nearly six feet in
height, lean and wiry, square wristed, broad shouldered, and straight as
a spear, he met the physical requirements, at least, of those classic
youths beloved of Joan's favorite goddess.

Usually his clean cut face, typically American in its high cheekbones,
firm chin, mobile mouth, and thoughtful eyes, wore a happy-go-lucky
expression that was the despair of matchmaking mamas; but to-day Alec
was serious. He was thinking of the promise that to the souls of fire
would be given more fire, to the manful a might more than man's.

If he had not been so preoccupied, he would certainly have heard the
raucous shouts of newsboys running frantically along the boulevards.
That is to say, he heard, but did not heed, else some shadow of a
strange destiny must have dimmed his bright dreams.

Their nature might be guessed from his words to Joan. The question he
addressed to the concierge proved that his intent was fixed.

"Is Monseigneur at home?" he asked.

"_Oui, m'sieur._ His Excellency has mounted a little half-hour ago,"
said the man.

Alec nodded. "Now for it!" he said to himself.

His father, a born fop, a boulevardier by adoption, cultivated habits
that seemed to follow the mechanical laws of those clockwork manikins
that ingenious horologists contrive for the amusement of children, big
and little. Whether eating, sleeping, driving, strolling, chatting or
card playing, the whereabouts and occupation of Prince Michael Delgrado
could be correctly diagnosed at any given hour of the day and night.
Fortune delights at times in tormenting such men with great
opportunities. Prince Michael, standing now with his back to the
fireplace in his wife's boudoir, was fated to be an early recipient of
that boon for which so many sigh in vain.

Of course he knew nothing of that. His round, plump, rosy face, at first
sight absurdly disproportionate to his dapper and effeminate body, wore
a frown of annoyance. In fact, he had been obliged to think, and the
effort invariably distressed him. Apparently he had a big head, and big
headed men of diminutive frame usually possess brains and enjoy using
them. But closer inspection revealed that his Highness' skull resembled
an egg, with the narrow end uppermost.

Thus, according to Lavater, he was richly endowed with all the baser
qualities that pander to self, and markedly deficient in the higher
attributes of humanity. The traits of the gourmand, the cynic, the
egoist, were there; but the physiognomist would look in vain for any
sign of genius or true nobility. Recognition of his undoubted rank had,
of course, given him the grand manner. That was unavoidable, and it was
his chief asset. He liked to be addressed as "Monseigneur"; he had a
certain reputation for wit; he carried himself with the ease that marks
his caste; and he had shown excellent taste in choosing a wife.

The Princess did indeed look the great lady. Her undoubted beauty, aided
by a touch of Western piquancy, had captivated the Paris salons of an
earlier generation, and those same salons repaid their debt by
conferring the repose, the dignity, the subtle aura of distinction, that
constitute the aristocrat in outward bearing. For this reason, Princess
Delgrado was received in poverty stricken apartments where her husband
would be looked at askance, since the frayed Boulevard Saint Germain
still shelters the most exclusive circle in France.

Here, then, was an amazing instance of a one-sided heredity. Alexis
Delgrado evidently owed both mind and body to his mother. Looking at the
Princess, one saw that such a son of such a father did not become
sheerly impossible.

To-day, unhappily, neither Prince Michael nor his wife was in tune for a
family conclave. Monseigneur was ruffled, distinctly so, and Madame was
on the verge of tears.

When Alec entered the room he was aware of a sudden silence, accentuated
by a half-repressed sob from his mother. Instantly he took the blame on
his own shoulders. He expected difficulties; but he was not prepared for
a scene.

"Why, mother dear," he said, bending over her with a tenderness that
contrasted strongly with Prince Michael's affected indifference, "what
is the matter? Surely you and dad have not been worrying about me! You
can't keep me in the nest always, you know. And I only want to earn the
wherewithal to live. That is not so very terrible, is it?"

The distressed woman looked up at him with a wan smile. She seemed to
have aged since the morning. There was a pathetic weakness in her mouth
and chin that was noticeably absent from her son's strong lineaments,
and it occurred to Alec with a pang that he had never before seen his
mother so deeply moved.

"I suppose one must endure the world's changes," she murmured. "It was
foolish on my part to imagine that things could continue forever on the
same lines; but I shall not grieve, Alec, if no cloud comes between you
and me. It would break my heart----"

"Oh, come now!" he cried, simulating a lively good humor he was far from
feeling. "What has dad been saying? Clouds! Where are they? Not around
my head, at any rate. I have dispelled the only one that existed, the
silly halo of class that stops a fellow from working because he happens
to be born a Prince. It was different for dad, of course. My respected
grandfather, Ferdinand VII., was really a King, and dad was a grown man
when the pair of them were slung out of Kosnovia. Sorry, sir; but that
is the way they talk history nowadays. It has ceased to be decorous. I
am afraid Paris is largely responsible. You see, we have an Emperor in
the next block, two Kings in the Avenue Victor Hugo, and a fugitive
ex-President in the Hotel Metropole. I have seen the whole lot, even our
noble selves, burlesqued in a Montmartre review. And I laughed! That is
the worst part of it. I roared! We looked such a funny crew. And we were
all jolly hard up, borrowing five-franc pieces from one another, and
offering to sell scepters at a ridiculous sacrifice. That came rather
near home. We haven't got what the storybooks calls an embarrassment of
riches, have we? So, a cup of tea, please, mother, and I'll hear the
Czar's edict. It is pending. I can see it in his eye."

Usually Prince Michael responded to that sort of airy nonsense. When
sure of his audience, he had spoken much more disrespectfully of the
Parisian band of Kings in exile. But to-day his chubby cheeks refused to
crease in a grin. He remained morose, oracular, heavy jowled. In fact,
he had set himself a very difficult task. Now that the moment had
arrived for its fulfilment, he shirked it.

"May I ask, Alec, if you have any scheme in view?" he said, strutting on
the hearthrug in front of a grate filled with ferns. He always stood
there,--in winter because it was warm, and he was a martyr to
chilblains; in summer because of the habit contracted in winter.

"Well, sir, candidly speaking, I have not. But I saw in a newspaper the
other day a paragraph of advice to a young man. 'No matter how small
your income may be, live within it: that is the beginning of wealth,' it
said. How profound! I applied it to myself. My income is nil. There I
encountered a serious obstacle at the very start of the Great Money
Stakes. But----"

"This is a grave discussion, Alec. I have that to say which may pain
you. Pray be serious."

"Oh, I am--quite serious. My ponies and the dogcart are in Dumont's
catalogue for the next sale. I resigned my membership of the polo club
to-day. To-morrow, or eke to-night, I look for a job. As you, mother o'
mine, have heard men say in your beloved west, I'm going to butt in."

"I--er--suppose you--er--look to me for some assistance?" coughed Prince
Michael.

His wife rose. Her face was gray-white, her eyes blazed. "Alec knows we
are poor. Why torture him--and me? I refuse to allow it. I refuse!" Her
voice took a tragic note, thin and shrill; there was a pitiful quivering
of her lips that wrung her son's heart, and he was utterly at a loss to
understand why a discussion as to his future should lead to this display
of passion.

"But, mother darling," he cried, "why are you grieving so? You and dad
must maintain a certain state,--one begins by assuming that,--and it is
no secret that the Delgrado side of the family was not blessed with
wealth. Very well. Let me try to adjust the balance--the bank balance,
eh? Really, why weep?"

Alec's gallant attempt to avert the storm failed again. His Serene
Highness muttered words in a foreign tongue that sounded anything but
serene. The Princess did not understand; but her son did. His brows
wrinkled, and the good humored gleam died out of his eyes.

"Perhaps, sir," he said stiffly, "this subject had better be discussed
when my mother is not present."

Prince Michael looked at him fixedly. For some reason the little man was
very angry, and he seemed to resent the implied slur on his good taste.

"I am determined to end this farce once and for all," he vowed. "Before
you joined us, I told the Princess----"

The door was flung open. The young man who had followed Joan and Alec
into the Louvre that morning rushed in. His pink and white face was
crimson now, and his manner that of unmeasured, almost uncontrollable
excitement. He gazed at them with a wildness that bordered on frenzy,
yet it was clear that their own marked agitation was only what he
expected to find.

"Ah, you have heard?" he snapped, biting at each syllable.

"Heard what, Julius?" demanded Monseigneur, with an instant lowering of
the princely mask, since Julius dabbled in stocks and was reputed well
to do.

"The news! The news from Kosnovia!"

Prince Michael affected to yawn. "Oh, is that all?" he asked.

"All! _Grand Dieu_, what more would you have? It means--everything."

"My good Julius, it is long since I was so disturbed. What, then, has
happened? The Danube in flood is no new thing."

"The Danube!" and the newcomer's voice cracked. "So you do not
know--sire?"

The little word seemed to have the explosive force of nitroglycerine.
Its detonation rang through the room and left them all silent, as though
their ears were stunned and their tongues paralyzed. Alec was the first
to see that some event far out of the common had reduced his cousin,
Count Julius Marulitch, almost to a state of hysteria.

"We are at cross purposes," he said quietly. "My father, like the rest
of us, read this morning's telegram about the overflowing of the
river----"

Count Marulitch waved his hands frantically. He was literally beside
himself. His full red lips, not at all unlike those of the youth in
Joan's picture, moved several times before sounds came.

"It is at least my good fortune to be the first to congratulate my
King!" he cried at last. "Be calm, I pray you; but a tremendous change
has been affected at Delgratz. Last night, while Theodore and the Queen
were at dinner, the Seventh Regiment mutinied. It was on guard at the
Schwarzburg. Officers and men acted together. There was no resistance.
It was impossible. Theodore and Helena were killed!" This man, who
appealed for calmness, was himself in a white heat of emotion.

A stifled scream, a sob, almost a groan, broke from the Princess, and
she clung to her son as though she sought protection from that
bloodthirsty Seventh Regiment. Prince Michael, fumbling with an
eyeglass, dropped it in sheer nervousness. Alec, throwing an arm round
his mother, recalled the hoarse yelling of the newsboys on the
boulevards. Was it this latest doom of a monarchy that they were bawling
so lustily? He glanced at his father, and the dapper little man found it
incumbent on him to say something.

"But, Julius--is this true? There are so many canards. You know our
proverb: 'A stone that falls in the Balkans causes an earthquake in St.
Petersburg.'"

"Oh, it is true, sire. And the telegrams declare that already you have
been proclaimed King."

"I!"

Prince Michael's exclamation was most unkingly. Rather was it the wail
of a criminal on being told that the executioner waited without. His
ruddy cheeks blanched, and his hands were outstretched as if in a
piteous plea for mercy. There was a tumult of objurgations in the outer
passage; but this King in spite of himself paid no heed.

"I?" he gasped again, with relaxed jaws.

"You, sire," cried Marulitch. "Our line is restored. There will be
fighting, of course; but what of that? One audacious week will see you
enthroned once more in the Schwarzburg. Ah! Here come Stampoff and
Beliani. You are quick on my heels, messieurs; but I promised my cabman
a double fare."

A scared manservant, vainly endeavoring to protect his master's private
apartments, was rudely thrust aside, and a fierce looking old warrior
entered, followed by a man who was obviously more of a Levantine than a
Serb. The older man, small, slight, gray haired, and swarthy, but
surprisingly active in his movements for one of his apparent age, raced
up to Prince Michael. He fell on his knees, caught that nerveless right
hand, and pressed it to his lips.

"Thank Heaven, sire, that I have been spared to see this day!" he
exclaimed.

The Greek, less demonstrative, nevertheless knelt by Stampoff's side. "I
too am your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subject," said he.

The Prince did then make a supreme effort to regain his self possession.
"Thank you, General," he murmured, "and you also, Monsieur Beliani. I
have only just been told. Theodore and Helena both dead! What a thing!
They were my enemies; but I am shocked, I may almost say grieved. And
what am I to do? I am practically powerless,--few friends, no money. One
does not merely pack a valise and go off by train to win a throne. You
say I am proclaimed King, Julius. By whom? Have the representatives met?
Is there an invitation from the people?"

Stampoff was on his feet instantly. A man of steel springs and volcanic
energy, his alertness waged constant war against his years. "The
people!" he shouted. "What of them? What do they know? There is talk of
a Republic. Think of that! Could folly go farther? A Republic in the
Balkans, with Russia growling at one door, Austria picking the lock of
another, and the Turk squatting before a third! No, Monseigneur. Start
from Paris to-night, cross the Danube, reveal yourself to your
supporters, and you will soon show these windbags that a man who means
to rule is worth a hundred demagogues who exist only to spout."

His Serene Highness was slowly but surely recovering lost ground. He
grasped the eyeglass again, and this time gouged it into its accustomed
crease.

"You, Beliani, you are not one to be carried away by emotion," he said.
"Count Marulitch spoke of a proclamation. Who issued it? Was there any
authority behind it?"

"God's bones! what better authority is there than your Majesty's?"
roared Stampoff.

But the Prince extended a protesting palm. "An excellent sentiment, my
friend; but let us hear Beliani," he said.

The Greek, thus appealed to, seemed to find some slight difficulty in
choosing the right words. "At present, everything is vague,
Monseigneur," he said. "It is certain that a battalion of the Seventh
Regiment revolted and declared for the Delgrado dynasty. Two other
battalions of the same regiment in the capital followed their lead. But
the Chamber met this morning, and there was an expression of opinion in
favor of a democratic Government. No vote was taken; but the latest
reports speak of some disorder. The approaches to the Schwarzburg are
held by troops. There are barricades in the main streets."

Prince Michael's hands went under his coattails. His face had not
regained its claret red color, and its present tint suggested that it
had been carved out of a Camembert cheese; but he was gradually taking
the measure of current events in Kosnovia.

"Barricades seem to argue decided opinions," he said, and there was a
perceptible tinge of cynicism in the phrase that jarred on his hearers.

"One must be bold at times," muttered Count Julius.

General Stampoff was chewing an end of his long mustaches in impotent
wrath, and Beliani merely shrugged.

"Of course, my father means that prudence must be allied with boldness,"
broke in Alec, who had placed his mother in a chair and was now gazing
sternly at Marulitch as if he would challenge the unspoken thought.

"Exactly, my boy. Well said! One looks before one leaps, that is it! Now
I am not so young, not so young, and I have not forgotten the pleasant
ways of Kosnovia. Theodore thought all was well; but you see what has
happened after thirty years. Just think of it. A lifetime! Why, I came
to Paris twenty-four years ago, just after you were born, Alexis, and
even then the Obrenovitch line seemed to be well established. And here
you are, a grown man, and Theodore and his Queen are lying dead in the
Black Palace. It gives one to think. Now, our good Stampoff here would
have me rush off and buy a ticket for Delgratz to-night. As if Austria
had not closed every frontier station and was not waiting to pounce on
any Delgrado who turned up at this awkward moment on the left bank of
the Danube!"

Beliani was stroking his nose; Stampoff evidently meant to shorten his
mustache by inches; and Julius Marulitch was waxen, and thereby rendered
more than ever like a clothier's model.

Alec was a dutiful son. There were elements in the composition of the
senior Delgrado that he did not admire; but he had never before
suspected his father of cowardice. His cousin Julius, whom he thoroughly
disliked, was betraying a whole world of meaning in the scorn that
leaped from his eyes, and there was no mistaking the thoughts that
inspired the furious General and the impassive Greek. For the first time
in his life, Alec despised Prince Michael. There was a quickening in his
veins, a tingling at the roots of his hair, a tension of his muscles, at
the repulsive notion that a Serene Highness might, after all, be molded
of common clay. And in that spasm of sheer agony he remembered how
Joan's sweet voice had thrilled him with the message of Pallas Athene.
Was he, indeed, one of those sons of the immortals whom the goddess
"drives forth by strange paths ... through doubt and need and danger
and battle?" Surely some such hazardous track was opening up now before
his feet! His whole nature was stirred in unknown depths. It seemed to
him that there was only one man in the room whose words had the ring of
truth and honest purpose. He strode forward and caught old Paul Stampoff
by the shoulder.

"I'll tell you what," he said, unconsciously adopting the free and easy
style of speech that came naturally to him, "you and I must carry this
thing through, General! My father is glued to Paris, you know. He has
lost some of his enthusiasm, and one must be enthusiastic to the point
of death itself if he would snatch a Kingdom out of such a fire as is
raging now in Kosnovia. Austria has never seen me, probably has never
even heard of me. I can slip through her cordon, swim ten Danubes if
need be. What say you, General? Will I fill the bill? If I fail, what
does it matter? If I win--well, we must reverse the usual order of
things, and my respected parent can step into my shoes."

"Alexis, I am proud of you----" began Prince Michael pompously; but a
sigh that was blended with a groan came again from his wife, and
Princess Delgrado drooped in a faint.

Alec lifted her in his arms and carried her to a bedroom. A queer
silence fell on the four men in the boudoir. Even his Serene Highness
was discomfited, and abandoned his position on the hearthrug to gaze
out of the window. To his displeased surprise, a small crowd had
gathered. A man was pointing to the Delgrado apartments. Another man,
carrying a bundle of newspapers, bore one of the curious small Parisian
contents bills, but its heavy black type was legible enough:
"Assassination of the King and Queen of Kosnovia! King Michael in
Paris!"

Alec, having given the Princess to the care of her maid, came back. He
found his father looking into the street, General Stampoff standing on
the hearthrug, and Count Julius whispering something in Beliani's ear.

"My mother will soon be all right," he announced cheerily. "She was a
bit upset, I suppose, by our warlike talk; but we were so excited that
we forgot she was present. Well, father, what say you to my proposal?"

Prince Michael turned. His face was no longer in the light. Perhaps that
was his notion when he first approached the window. "I think it is an
excellent one," he said. "Of course, there is a regrettable element of
risk----"

"But what are we to understand?" broke in Stampoff's gruff accents.
"These things are not to be settled as a shopkeeper appoints an agent.
Does your Highness renounce all claim to the throne of Kosnovia in favor
of your son?"

Words have a peculiar value on such occasions. The substitution of
"Highness" for "Majesty" was not devoid of significance; for Stampoff,
though loyal to the backbone, was no courtier.

"No!" cried Alec sharply.

"Yes," said Prince Michael, after a pause.

Count Julius Marulitch breathed heavily, and Constantine Beliani threw a
wary eye over Alec.

"Good!" said Stampoff. "That clears the air. I shall be ready to
accompany your Majesty by the train that leaves the Gare de l'Est at
seven-thirty P.M."

Prince Michael laughed dryly. "You see," he said. "I was sure Stampoff
would interfere with my dinner hour."

There was almost a touch of genius in the remark. Its very vacuity told
of the man's exceeding unfitness for the role thrust upon him by certain
desperadoes in the far off Balkans.

"We must have money," growled Stampoff with a most unflattering lack of
recognition of the elder Delgrado's humor.

"Ah!" said Prince Michael, plunging both hands into his trousers'
pockets and keeping them there.

"How much?" inquired Beliani.

"To begin with, fifty thousand francs. After that, all that can be
raised."

"It is most unfortunate, but my--er--investments have been singularly
unremunerative of late," said his Serene Highness.

"Why fifty thousand francs?" inquired Alec, half choked with wrath at
sight of his father's obvious relief when the terrifying phantom of the
Black Castle was replaced by this delectable Paris. Yet, with it all, he
was aware of a consuming desire to laugh. There was a sense of utter
farce in thus disposing of the affairs of nations in a flat in the Rue
Boissiere. He recalled the exiled potentates of the music hall review,
and the bitter wit of the dramatist was now justified. It was ludicrous,
too, of Stampoff to address him as "your Majesty."

"Even Kings must give bribes occasionally," explained the impetuous
General.

"Or promise them," said Count Julius.

"Or take them," said Beliani.

"If I am to be a King, I mean to dispense with these bad habits," said
Alec. "We need our railway fares only, General. Once at Delgratz, our
fickle Kosnovia must either maintain us or shoot us. In either event, we
are provided for."

"Still, we must have sufficient funds to secure a foothold," urged
Stampoff.

"I charge myself with providing ten thousand francs," said the Greek.

Alec glanced at his watch. "Give the money to Stampoff. He may want it.
I do not," he said. "Dumont, though a horse dealer, is fairly honest. My
four ponies are worth another ten, and he will surely pay me five, cash
down. We meet at the Gare de l'Est. Who goes? You, Julius?"

"No," said the Count, "I shall follow when you have made a beginning. My
presence would hamper you now. I am too well known, and secrecy is
all-important until you are at the head of the army."

Alec turned on him with an air that would have delighted Joan, could she
have been present.

"The army!" he cried. "I know nothing of leading armies. I mean to place
myself at the head of the people."

"Nonsense, Alexis! Make for the troops. They alone can make or mar you,"
said Prince Michael.

"We shall settle those points at Delgratz," declared the brusk Stampoff.
"You will bring the money, half in gold, to the station?" he added to
Beliani.

"Yes. Gold is best. For the remainder, you will want Russian notes."

Something seemed to be troubling the august mind of Prince Michael. "By
the way, my dear Beliani," he began; but the Greek awoke into a very
panic of action.

"Pray forgive me, your Highness," he said. "If I have to raise such a
large sum before seven o'clock I cannot lose an instant."

"I shall see you off from the Gare de l'Est," cried Marulitch hurriedly,
and the two quitted the room in company. Alec went to pay a brief visit
to his mother, and Prince Michael was left alone with the rugged old
General. Then, for a few seconds, he became a man.

"You must forgive me, Paul," he said huskily. "I am not fitted for the
work. I am broken down, a trifler, a worn out old dandy. You have got
the right metal in Alexis. See to it that he does not follow my example,
but keeps unstained the family name."

"God's bones! he will do that at least," muttered Stampoff. "If you or
your father had possessed half his spirit, there would never have been
an Obrenovitch on the throne of Kosnovia! Ferdinand VII., Michael V.,
Alexis III.! By the patriarch! somehow you Delgrados have managed at
last to breed a King!"




CHAPTER III

IN THE ORIENT EXPRESS


After some haggling, Alec wrung four thousand five hundred francs out of
Dumont. Then, at five minutes past six, he jumped into a cab and was
driven to the Place de la Sorbonne.

Of course he had ascertained Joan's address easily. He made no secret of
the fact that he had seen her on her way to the Louvre nearly every day
of the twenty that had elapsed since their first meeting. His knowledge
of the route she followed advanced quickly until he found out where she
lived. He would not have dared to call on her now, if it had not been
for the tremendous thing that had happened in his life; for he was sure
he would become King of Kosnovia. The art that conceals art is good; but
the art that is unconscious of artifice is better, and never had
soothsayer arranged more effective preliminaries for astounding
prediction than sibyl Joan herself.

Paris, too, might well witness the rising of his star. What other city
stages such memorials to inspire ambition? Behind him, as his cab sped
down the Champs Elysees, rose the splendid pile of the Arch of Triumph;
in front, beyond the Place de la Concorde, the setting sun gilded a
smoke blackened fragment that marked the site of the Tuileries; while
near at hand the statue of France, grief stricken yet defiant, gazed
ever and longingly in the direction of her lost Provinces. Here, within
a short mile, stood the silent records of three Empires, founded, as
time counts, within a few years. Two were already crumbled to the dust.
The survivor, consolidated on the ruins of France, flourished beyond the
Rhine.

Perhaps, if read aright, these portents were not wholly favorable to one
about to try his luck in that imperial game. But Alec, though a good
deal of a democrat at heart, was cheered by the knowledge that so long
as the world recognizes the divine right of Kings, no monarch by descent
could lay better claim to a throne than he. And he was young, and in
love, and ready to believe that youth and love can level mountains, make
firm the morass, bridge the ocean.

He wondered how Joan would take his great news. He thought he could
guess her attitude. At first she would urge him to forget that such a
person as Joan Vernon existed. Then he would plead that she was asking
that which was not only impossible but utterly unheroic. And the minutes
were flying. He would remind her that time does not wait even for Kings,
nor would the Orient Express delay its departure by a single second to
oblige such a fledgling potentate as he.

"We must part now, my sweet," he would say. "I am going to demand my
birthright. When I am admittedly a King, I shall send for you. If you do
not answer, I shall become my own envoy. You will make a beautiful
Queen, Joan. You and I together will raise Kosnovia from the mire of
centuries."

Somewhat stilted lovemaking this; but what was a poor fellow to do who
had been taken from the Rue Boissiere and plunged into empire making,
all in the course of a summer's evening?

He crossed the Pont Neuf without ever a look at Henri Quatre. That was a
pity. The sarcastic Bearnais grin might have revealed some of the
pitfalls that lay ahead. At any rate, the King of Navarre could have
given him many instances of a woman's fickleness--and fickleness was the
ugly word that leaped into Alec's puzzled brain when an ancient dame at
Joan's lodgings told him that Mademoiselle and her maid had gone away
that afternoon.

"Gone! Gone where?" he asked blankly.

"It is necessary to write," said Madame, and shut the door in his face,
since it is forbidden in the Quartier for good looking and unknown young
men to make such urgent inquiries concerning the whereabouts of discreet
young women like Mademoiselle Joan.

Leontine, still scrubbing, came to the rescue. Never had she seen any
one so distinguished as this Monsieur. _Mon Dieu!_ but it was a pity
that the belle Americaine should have packed her boxes that very day!
And diminutive Leontine was romantic to the tips of her stubby fingers.

"M'sieu'? wishes to know where he will find the young lady who lives
there?" said she archly, jerking her head and a broom handle toward the
neighboring house.

"But yes, my pretty one," cried Alec.

"Well, Pauline said--Pauline is her domestic, see you--said they were
going to the forest to paint."

"To Fontainebleau?"

"Perhaps, m'sieu'--to the forest, that was it."

"No name? Barbizon?"

"It might be. I have no head for those big words, m'sieu'."

Alec gave her a five-franc piece. It was the first coin he found in his
pocket, and the sight of it caused a frown. Confound those Montmartre
playwrights! Why was their stupid travesty constantly recurring to his
mind? He frowned again, this time at Auguste Comte's smugness, and
looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes to seven! It was too late now
to do other than write--if he succeeded. If not--ah, well! "Some of them
are slain in the flower of their youth." At least, she would remember,
and those glorious eyes of hers would glisten with tears, and the belief
helped to console him. Still, he was saddened, disappointed, almost
dulled. Doubt came darkly with the dispelling of the dream that he might
commence his Odyssey with Joan's first and farewell kiss on his lips.
Love and ambition seemed to be at variance; but love had flown, whereas
ambition remained.

Back, then, to the Rue Boissiere, to an uproar of visitors, sightseers,
journalists. Prince Michael had become Monseigneur again. He was holding
a reception. Alec, pressing through the throng, was waylaid by a
servant.

"This way, monsieur," whispered the man, drawing him into a passage and
thence to the room of Princess Delgrado. Alec was soothing his mother's
grief when his father entered secretly on tiptoe with the hushed voice
and stealthy air of a conspirator. He carried a parcel, long and narrow,
wrapped in brown paper.

"I have been consumed with anxiety," said he. "Julius came and warned me
that your departure from Paris ought to be incognito. This is wise; so I
remain King-elect till you reach Delgratz. The newspapers are pestering
me to declare a program. They all expect that I shall leave Paris
to-night or early to-morrow. Indeed, an impudent fellow representing
'_Le Soir_' says that if I don't bestir myself I shall be christened the
Sluggard King. But I shall humbug them finely. Leave that to me. Your
portmanteaus have been smuggled out by way of the servants' quarters,
and you must vanish unseen. Buy a ticket for Vienna, ignore Stampoff
during the journey, accept my blessing, and take this." He held out the
parcel.

"What is it?" inquired Alec.

"My father's sword, your grandfather's sword. I have kept it bright for
you."

Alec squirmed. He knew the weapon, a curved simitar inlaid with gold,
and reposing in a scabbard of gilt metal and purple velvet. In its
wrapping of brown paper and twine it suspiciously resembled a child's
toy, and Prince Michael's grandiloquent manner added a touch of
buffoonery to a farewell scene made poignant by a woman's tears.

"I shall use it only on the skulls of eminent personages," said Alec
gravely. In truth, this Parisian kingship was rapidly becoming farcical.
What a line, what a situation, for that review!

But there was worse to come. Checked in his outburst of family pride,
Monseigneur became practical. "What of Dumont?" said he.

"He was touched; but he knocked off five hundred francs."

"Ah, bah! I rather hoped--well, I must return to the salon and play my
part. Remember, you will see no one except a servant at the Gare de
l'Est. Julius has arranged passports, everything."

"He is taking an extraordinary interest in me. Of course, if I pull
through, he becomes heir presumptive."

"Parbleu! That is so. But--you will marry. Bide your time, though.
Choose a Queen who--" his shifty eyes fell on the trembling form of his
wife, who had remained strangely silent during this somewhat strained
interview,--"who will be as good a wife to you as your mother has been
to me. Farewell! may God guard you!"

Twice in one day had the pompous little man been betrayed into an avowal
of honest sentiment. But he soon recovered. Once reestablished on the
hearthrug, with his eyeglass properly adjusted, his hands tucked under
his coattails when they were not emphasizing some well turned phrase,
Prince Michael enjoyed himself hugely.

And then Alec clasped his mother in his arms. She was almost incoherent
with terror. Bid him remain she dare not; she lacked the force of
character that such a step demanded. She had given too many years to
this chimera of royalty now suddenly grown into a monster to be sated
only by the sacrifice of her son! But she mourned as if he was already
dead, and a lump rose in Alec's throat. He had always loved his mother;
his father had ever been remote, a dignified trifler, a poser. The three
held nothing in common. It could hardly be doubted that every good
quality of mind and body the boy possessed was a debt to the
brokenhearted woman now clinging to him in a very frenzy of lamentation.
Small wonder if his eyes were misty and his voice choked. Ah! if Joan
but knew of this sorrowing mother's plight, surely she would come to
her!

At last he tore himself away. Grasping that ridiculous parcel, he
hurriedly descended a back staircase. Owing to the paternal watchfulness
that the French Government exercises over its subjects, he was obliged
to pass the concierge; but none paid heed to him. If it came to that,
all Paris would guffaw at the notion of dear Alec becoming a filibuster.

He hailed a passing cab. If he would catch his train, they must drive
furiously, which is nothing new in Paris. Climbing the Rue La Fayette,
he passed Count Julius Marulitch and Constantine Beliani coming the
other way in an open victoria. They were so deeply engaged in
conversation that they did not see him. Julius was talking and the Greek
listening. It flashed into Alec's mind that the presence in Paris of the
Greek on the very day of the Delgratz regicide offered a most remarkable
coincidence. Beliani was no stranger to him, since he and General
Stampoff, the one as Finance Minister and the other as Commander in
Chief, were exiled from Kosnovia after an abortive revolution ten years
ago.

But Beliani usually lived in Vienna, indeed, he was sometimes regarded
as an active agent in Austria's steady advance on Salonica,--whereas
dear old Paul Stampoff hated Austria, was a frequent visitor to the
Delgrado receptions, and it was largely to his constant urging and
tuition that Alec owed his familiarity with the Slav language. The
Greek, it was evident, heard of the murders at the earliest possible
moment; Julius too was singularly well informed, though his interest in
Kosnovian affairs had long seemed dormant; even the fiery Stampoff was
no laggard once the news was bruited. Alec went so far as to fix the
exact time at which Julius appeared in the Rue Boissiere. He knew
something of the ways of newspapers, and was well aware that no private
person could hope to obtain such important intelligence before the
press. He himself had unwittingly heard the first public announcement of
the tragedy, and the three men had certainly lost no time in hurrying to
greet their new sovereign.

What a madly inconsequent jumble it all was! Little more than two hours
ago he was driving through the Bois with no other notion in his brain
than to seek a means of earning a livelihood; yet here he was at the
Gare de l'Est carrying a sword as a symbol of kingship. A sword, wrapped
in brown paper, tied with string! Suppose, by some lucky chance, Joan
met him now, would she sympathize, or laugh?

He found his father's valet waiting with his luggage near the ticket
office. The man gave him an envelop. It contained a passport, vised by
the Turkish Embassy, and a few scribbled words:

     Note the name. It is the nearest to your initials B. could procure.
     I shall come to you on the train. Destroy this. S.

The name was that on the passport, "Alexandre George Delyanni;
nationality, Greek; business, carpet merchant; destination,
Constantinople."

Alec smiled. The humor of it was steeling him against the canker of
Joan's untimely disappearance. "I don't look much like a Greek," he said
to himself; "but the 'Alexandre' sounds well as an omen. I'm not so
sorry now. This business would tickle Joan to death."

So, on the whole, it was a resigned if not light-hearted adventurer who
disposed himself and his belongings in the Orient Express, after
experiencing the singular good luck of securing a section in the
sleeping car returned by a Viennese banker at the last moment. He went
about the business of buying his ticket and passing the barrier with a
careless ease that would have excited the envy of a Russian Terrorist.
Sharp eyes attend the departure of every international train from Paris;
but never a spy gave more than casual scrutiny to this broad shouldered
youth strolling down the platform, the latest passenger to arrive, and
the least flurried.

He neither saw nor looked for Stampoff. Having a minute to spare, he
obtained a newspaper, took a seat voucher for the first dinner, lighted
a cigarette, entered his reserved compartment, arranged his luggage, and
burnt General Stampoff's scrawl just as the train moved out of the
station.

Then he read an account of the Delgratz crime,--for it was only a crime,
a brutal and callous murder, not worthy to be dignified by the mantle of
political hate. The unhappy King and Queen of Kosnovia were dining in
company with the Queen's brother and the Minister of Ways and
Communications when the regiment on duty in the palace burst in on them.
King Theodore was shot down while endeavoring to protect the Queen. She
too fell riddled with bullets, and both corpses were flung into a
courtyard. The unhappy guests were wounded, and still remained prisoners
in the hands of the regicides, who vaunted that they had "saved" the
country, and meant to restore the ancient sovereignty.

Beliani's summary of subsequent events was accurate; but it struck Alec
at once that he had said nothing of the minister nor of Sergius
Vottisch, Queen Helena's brother, who was mainly instrumental in
defeating Beliani's half-forgotten revolt. Did he know of their
presence? How peculiar that he should utter no word of triumph
concerning Vottisch!

Alec threw aside the paper. He was sick at heart. He loathed the thought
that the first step toward his throne lay across the body of a woman.

"Nice guards, the noble Seventh Regiment!" he muttered. "Now, when I am
King----"

Then he realized that during the few minutes that had elapsed since the
train started, the whole aspect of the adventure had changed completely.
It was no longer a snatch of opera bouffe, a fantastic conceit
engendered in the brain of that elderly beau whom he had left in the Rue
Boissiere, a bit of stage trifling happily typified by the property
sword. It had become real, grim, menacing. It reeked of blood. Its first
battle was there, recorded in the newspaper. He pictured those brutal
soldiers mauling the warm bodies, thrusting them through an open window
and proclaiming their loyalty--to him!

The train was rushing through an estate noted for its game, and he had
been one of a party of guns in its coverts last October. He remembered
shooting a pheasant of glorious plumage, and saying: "Ah! What a pity! I
ought to have spared him, if only on account of his coat of many
colors."

"When birds are flying fast, even you, Alec, have to shoot _passim_,"
said a witty Hebrew, and Delgrado did not appreciate the _mot_ until
some one told him that _passeem_ in Hebrew meant "patchwork," and that
Jacob's offense to Joseph's brethren lay in the gift of a Prince's robe
to his favorite son.

The quip came to mind now with sinister significance; he wished most
heartily he had missed that pheasant. It was quite a relief when dinner
was announced, and he made his way to the dining car, where a polyglot
gathering showed that although the Orient Express had not quitted Paris
fifteen minutes it had already crossed many frontiers. There were few
French or English on board, and not one American. A couple of Turks, a
Bulgarian, a sprinkling of Russians and Levantines, and a crowd of
Teutons, either German or Austrian, made up the company. Stampoff
remained invisible, and Alec shared a table with an Armenian, who
insisted on speaking execrable English, though he understood French far
better.

Then this newest of all Kings felt very lonely, and he began to
understand something of the isolation that would surround him in that
Black Castle of his daydream, where, if all went well with him, he
alone would be the "foreigner." A longing for companionship came upon
him. He wanted some one who would laugh and talk airy nonsense, some one
whose mind would not be running everlastingly in the political groove,
and an irresistible impulse urged him to ask for a telegraph form and
write:

     BEAUMANOIR, Villa Turquoise, Chantilly.
          Come and join in the revel. ALEC.

He gave the message to an attendant, bidding him despatch it from
Chalons. He reasoned that Beaumanoir would be puzzled, would call at the
Rue Boissiere, see his father, and solve the mystery. In all likelihood,
Lord Adalbert, who cheerfully answered to the obvious nickname--would
accept the invitation, and by the time he reached Delgratz the
succession to the throne of Kosnovia would be in a fair way toward
settlement. Moreover, by depriving the Chantilly team of their crack
Number One, Alec would equalize matters for the Wanderers, and the love
of sport is ever the ruling passion in healthy and vigorous youth.

"By gad!" he said to himself, "I'm showing craft already. That is a
Machiavellian wire!"

It was, as it happened, a stroke worthy of the wily Florentine himself;
but neither he nor his latest pupil could possibly have estimated its
true bearing on events.

After dinner Stampoff found him. Delgrado was astounded at first.
Stampoff, shorn of his immense mustache, ceased to be a General. In
fact, the wizened, keen faced old man bore a striking resemblance to a
certain famous actor of the Comedie Francaise; but he was not seated in
Alec's compartment ten seconds with the door closed ere he showed that
the loss of his warrior aspect had in no way tamed his heart.

"Yes," he said, passing a lean hand over his blue-black upper lip, "it
was necessary to disguise myself. Ten years are not so long, and I am
known on the Danube. You see, we must get through to Delgratz and the
Schwarzburg. Once there, with three thousand bayonets behind us, we can
do things. Leave the fighting to me, your----"

He stopped, and glanced at a fat Turk lumbering along the corridor.

"Exactly, my dear old friend," said Alec. "Drop titles, please, until we
have a right to use them. Even then they can be left to gentlemen ushers
and court chamberlains. Alec and Paul sound better, anyhow. But you were
outlining a scheme. I go with you as far as Delgratz; but those bayonets
in the Schwarzburg will not be behind me, I hope. Some of them may come
within measurable distance of my manly chest; but even that is
improbable, for I have always noticed that vulgar assassins are
cowards."

Stampoff's bushy eyebrows had been spared, and they formed a hairy seam
now straight across eyes and nose. "You forget, perhaps you do not
know, that these men alone have actually declared for you--for a
Delgrado," he growled.

"And a pretty gang of cutthroats they must be! I read the details after
leaving Paris. That poor woman, Paul! She was pretty and vivacious, I
have been told. Just picture the scene in the dining hall. One woman,
three unarmed men, the King leaping up and endeavoring to shield
her--and the gallant Seventh firing volleys at them. Then, when the last
sob is uttered, the last groan stilled, husband and wife are pitched to
the dogs. Oh, it makes my blood boil! By the Lord! when I am King I
shall hang the whole crew!"

He spoke very quietly. Any one looking through the window in the upper
half of the door would have seen a young man seemingly telling an older
one something of ordinary import. But the words were crisp and hot. They
came like drops of molten steel from the furnace of his heart.

Stampoff's thin face grew swarthier. He bent forward, his hands on his
knees. "Will you tell me why you are going to Delgratz?" he asked with a
curious huskiness in his voice.

"To occupy a throne--or a tomb. In either event, I am only copying the
example of the vast majority of my revered ancestors."

"The throne is yours by right. Theodore has fallen almost precisely as
your grandfather fell. Ferdinand was shot, and escaped with his life
only because there was a struggle and a few faithful followers carried
him into safety."

"If I depended on the fealty of the Seventh Regiment, I should not
expect to find even the faithful few. Poor Theodore may have looked for
them; but they did not exist."

"Then we had better leave the train at Chalons and return to Paris."

"Certainly, if the butchers of the Schwarzburg are to form my cohort."

"God's bones! never have I been so mistaken in a man! Your father,
now,--one feared he might have lost his nerve,--but you, Alec! The devil
take it! I thought better of you. I suppose then, it will have to be
Marulitch."

"Julius! Is he a candidate--or a rival?"

Stampoff paused, irresolute. He was deeply troubled, and his fierce eyes
searched Delgrado's face. "I had real hope of you," he muttered. "You
would appeal to the women, and they are ever half the battle. Why are
you so squeamish? You needn't embrace the men of the Seventh. You can
use them, and kick them aside. That is the fate of ladders that lead to
thrones. I know it. I am old enough not to care."

"I am not thinking of ladders as yet, Paul. Sufficient for the day is
the foundation thereof, and I refuse to build my Kingdom on the broken
vows of traitors."

"Ha! Stupid words! The ravings of cheap philosophers! By your own
showing, I am a traitor."

"Yes, but an honest one. You fought fairly and were beaten. Were it
otherwise, Theodore would never have tried so often to tempt you to his
service."

The General flung himself back in the carriage and folded his arms. The
steel spring was relaxed. He was baffled, and the weariness of life had
suddenly enveloped him in its chilling fog. "Very well, then. We descend
at Chalons," he said, with a sigh that was a tribute to adverse fate.

"Having paid for your ticket, you may as well come on to Vienna," said
Alec with irritating composure.

"Curse Vienna! Why should I take that long journey for nothing?"

"To oblige me."

"You'll drive me crazy. How will it oblige you?"

"Because I am going to Delgratz, General, and there is a whole lot of
things I want to ask you."

Stampoff bounced up again. "Will you be so kind as to explain what you
mean?" he cried indignantly.

"Oh, yes. We are going to talk far into the night, and it is only fair
that you should know my intentions. Otherwise, the valuable counsel you
will give me might be misdirected, as it is, for instance, at the
present moment, when you are heatedly advising me to throw in my lot
with a set of rascals who, when I fail to satisfy their demands, would
turn and rend me just as they have rended Theodore. Be sure that their
object was selfish, Stampoff. Not one of these men has ever seen Prince
Michael or myself. Even their leaders must have been mere boys when
Ferdinand VII. was attacked--probably by their fathers. Well, I shall
have none of them. They and their like are the curse of Kosnovia. Who
will pay taxes to keep me in the state that becomes a King? Not they.
Who will benefit by good government and honest administration of the
laws? Assuredly not they, for they batten on corruption; they are the
maggots not the bees of industry. Over whom, then, shall I reign?

"I am young, Paul; but I have read and thought,--not very deeply,
perhaps, but I have looked at things in that strong, clear light of
Paris, which is heady at times, like its good wine, but which enables
men to view art and politics and social needs in their nakedness. And I
am half an American, too, which accounts for certain elements in my
composition that detract from French ideals. A Frenchman cannot
understand, Paul, why some of my excellent kith and kin across the
Atlantic should condemn studies of the nude. But somehow I have a
glimmering sense of the moral purpose that teaches us to avoid that
which is not wholly decent. So I am a blend of French realism and
American level headedness, and both sides of my nature warn me that a
King should trust his people. Sometimes the people are slow to learn
that vital fact. Well, they must be taught, and the first lesson in a
State like Kosnovia might well be given by trying those felons of the
Schwarzburg before a duly constituted court of law."

"Fine talk, Alec. Fine talk! You do not know our Serbs," yet Stampoff
was moved, and his Slavonic sympathies were touched.

"Well, 'A King should die standing,' said one poor monarch, who thought
he did know Frenchmen. I ask only for a few hours in my boots once I
reach Delgratz. I shall say things that will not be forgotten for a day
or two. Come, now, my old war-horse, join me in this new campaign! It
may well prove your last as it is my first; but we shall fall honorably,
you and I."

There were tears in Stampoff's eyes when Alec made an end. "Perhaps you
are right," he said. "I have always given my mind to the military
element. It seemed to me that the common folk require to be driven, not
led, into the path they should tread. I am growing old, Alec; yours is a
new creed to me. I never thought to hear it from a Delgrado, and it will
make a rare stir in more places than Kosnovia; but by Heaven it is worth
a trial!"

So Alec had won a convert, and that is the first essential of a
reformer. Long and earnestly did they discuss the men and manners of
Kosnovia and its chief city, and ever the Danube drew nearer; but not a
word did Alec say of his telegram to Beaumanoir until a man met him in
the Western Station at Vienna, wrung his hand, and rushed away again
with the words:

"Beaumanoir leaves Paris to-night. He understands. So do I. Good luck,
old chap! If you have to hit, hit hard and quickly."

Stampoff did not speak English. He was greatly distressed that Alec
should have been recognized the instant he alighted from the train,
though Paris was then twenty-two hours distant. "Who is that?" he asked
anxiously.

"A friend from the British Embassy."

"From an Embassy! Then we are lost."

"It seemed to me that I was found, rather."

"But if the Embassies know----"

"They are invariably the worst informed centers in any country. The
facts of which they profess total ignorance would fill many interesting
volumes. Have no fear, General. I said 'a friend.' He gave me a pleasant
message."

"Ah, from a woman, of course?"

"No. But----"

Delgrado wheeled round to face a tall burly man standing stiffly at his
side as though awaiting orders. Stampoff, who had been following the
vanishing figure of Beaumanoir's emissary with suspicious eyes, turned
and looked at the newcomer.

"Oh, that is Bosko," he said, "my servant--yours, too, for that matter.
You can trust Bosko with your life. Can't he, you dog?"

"_Oui, m'sieur!_" said Bosko.




CHAPTER IV

THE WHITE CITY


Alec was sound asleep when the Orient Express rumbled over the Danube
for the last time during its slow run to the Near East. He was aroused
by an official examining passports, which he was informed would be
restored in the railway station at Delgratz. He disliked the implied
subterfuge; but it could not be helped. Austria, gracious to travelers
within her bounds, excepts those who mean to cross her southeastern
frontier. There she frowns and inquires. If it was known that a Delgrado
was in the train, he would have been stopped for days, pestered by
officialdom; and possibly deported.

A curious element of safety was, however, revealed by newspapers
purchased at Budapest. The various factions in Delgratz had declared a
truce. The Delgrado partizans had telegraphed an invitation to Prince
Michael to come and occupy the throne, and the Prince, or some wiser
person, had sent a gracious reply stating that his matured decision
would reach Kosnovia in due course. The National Assembly was still
coquetting with the republican idea; but, in the same breath, avowed its
patriotic impartiality. In a word, Delgratz wanted peace. Toward that
end, the Seventh Regiment continued to occupy the Black Castle, the
remainder of the troops stood fast, and the citizens pulled down their
barricades.

Oddly enough, the Paris correspondent of "The Budapest Gazette" pointed
out that Prince Michael's son was playing polo in the Bois during the
afternoon of Tuesday. The journalist little dreamed that Alec was
reading his sarcastic comments on the Delgrado lack of initiative at
Budapest at midnight on Wednesday.

The train was about to cross the River Tave (Delgratz stands on the
junction of that stream and the Danube) when Stampoff appeared. The
Albanian servant accompanied him.

"Leave everything to Bosko," said the General. "We must display no
haste, and he will smooth the way through the customs."

"I suppose you don't want me to ask any questions?" laughed Alec.

"Better not. Do you still adhere to your program of last night?"

"Absolutely."

Stampoff took off his hat, pointed through the window, and said quietly,
"There, then, God willing, is your Majesty's future capital. I wish to
congratulate your Majesty on your first sight of it."

Beyond a level stretch of meadowland rose the spires and domes and
minarets of a white city. The sun, not long risen, gilded its graceful
contours and threw the rest of a wondrous picture into shadow so sharp
that the whole exquisite vista might have been an intaglio cut in the
sapphire of the sky. The Danube, a broad streak of silver, blended with
the blue Tave to frame a glimpse of fairyland. For one thrilling moment
Alec forgot its bloodstained history and looked only on the fair domain
spread before his eyes. Then the black girders and crude latticework of
a bridge shut out the entrancing spectacle, and he was conscious that
Stampoff had caught his hand and was pressing it to his lips.

The gallant old Serb meant well, for he was a patriot to the core; but
his impulsive action grated. Perhaps it was better so. Alec, bred in a
society that treated such demonstrations with scant respect, was
suddenly recalled to earth, and the business that lay before him seemed
to be more in keeping with the modern directness of the railway bridge
than with daydreams founded on a picturesque vision of Delgratz.

The city, too, lost its glamour when seen from those backdoor suburbs
that every railway in every land appears to regard as the only natural
avenue of approach to busy communities. The line turned sharply along
the right bank of the Tave and ran past tobacco factories, breweries,
powder mills, scattered hovels, and unkempt streets. Here was no sun,
but plenty of bare whitewash. Even Alec, accustomed to the singularly
ugly etchings of Paris viewed from its chief railways, was completely
disillusioned by these drab adumbrations of commerce and squalor. The
Tave was no longer blue, but dull brown with the mud of recent rain. Not
even the inhabitants were attractive. They were not garbed as Serbs, but
wore ungainly costumes that might have passed unnoticed in the Bowery.
He was irresistibly reminded of the stage, with its sharp contrasts
between the two sides of the footlights, and in the luggage net near his
head reposed that melodramatic sword, still wrapped in brown paper.

The train slowed, and Stampoff went into the corridor. He came back
instantly. "The station is guarded by troops," he muttered. "Some of the
officers may recognize me. Perhaps we ought to separate."

"No, no," said Alec. "Let us stick to the other passengers. I am the
real stranger here, and they can look at me as much as they like."

It was, indeed, easy to concede that Alexis III. was a man apart from
his people. Swarthy old Stampoff, Prince Michael Delgrado, the pink and
white Julius Marulitch, even the olive skinned, oval faced Beliani,
might have mingled with the throng on the platform and found each his
racial kith and kin; not so Alec. His stature, his carriage, his fair
complexion tanned brown with an open air life, picked him out among
these Balkan folk almost as distinctly as a Polar bear would show among
the denizens of an Indian jungle. Moreover, every man of importance
wore some sort of uniform, whereas Alec was quietly dressed in tweeds.

Thus, he drew many eyes, and evoked many a whispered comment; but never
a man or woman in that crowded terminus harbored the remotest notion
that he was a Delgrado. There were guesses in plenty, wherein he ranged
from an English newspaper correspondent to a Greek Prince, the latter
wild theory originating in the discovery of his name on the passport.
Stampoff was ignored, and all went well till Bosko, laden with
portmanteaus, led the way to the exit.

Alec, swayed by a desire to please his father, carried under his arm the
sword of Ferdinand VII. The customs officials at the barrier allowed the
party to pass; but a shrewd visaged officer standing just outside eyed
Alec's package.

"What have you there?" he asked, probably more anxious to exchange a
word with this distinguished looking stranger than really inquisitive.

"A sword," said Alec.

"And why are you carrying a sword?" said the other, who seemed hardly to
expect this prompt reply in the vernacular.

"It is a curiosity, a veritable antique."

"Ha! I must see it."

"Come with me to Monsieur Nesimir's house and I will show it to you."

The suspicious one became apologetic, since Monsieur Nesimir was
President of the National Assembly.

"I pray your pardon," he said. "Any friend of the President passes
unchallenged. But these are troublous times in Kosnovia, so you
understand----"

"Exactly. Brains are far more useful than swords in Delgratz to-day, and
this, at the best, is but a gilded toy."

Stampoff was already inside a closed carriage, and Bosko was holding the
door open for Alec, who gave the driver clear instructions before he
entered. The vehicle rattled off, and Stampoff swore bluntly.

"Gods! I thought there would be a row," he growled. "That fellow is
Captain Drakovitch, I remember him well; he is all nose."

"I shall appoint him sanitary inspector," said Alec, sniffing.

Stampoff laughed. Now that they were fairly committed to Alec's scheme,
he was in excellent spirits. "By the patriarch! you certainly believe in
yourself, and I am beginning to believe in you!" he vowed.

But his faith was rudely shaken when Alec insisted on sending his own
card to Nesimir. "That is a mad thing," he protested. "He will refuse to
receive you and hand you over to the guard."

"On the contrary, he will hasten to meet us. Curiosity is the most
potent of human attributes. Even Presidents yield to it. At this moment,
in all likelihood, he is struggling into a frock coat."

Alec was right. A portly person, wearing, indeed, a frock coat, a sash,
and peg top trousers, appeared in the doorway of the presidential
mansion. He also wore an expression of deep amazement. He glanced from
the tall smiling youth to the diminutive General, on whom his eyes dwelt
searchingly.

"Yes," said Stampoff abruptly, speaking in French, "I am Paul Stampoff,
shorn of his fleece. This is the King," and he nodded to Alec.

"The King!"

"Alexis III., grandson of Ferdinand VII., and son of Michael V."

Nesimir hastily ordered a servant to close the outer door. As it
happened, the President's military guard was stationed at a gate on the
other side of the main courtyard, and no one could be aware of the
visitor's identity, except the man who had taken Alec's card, while he,
probably, was unable to read Roman script.

"Your Excellency will doubtless permit our baggage to be placed in the
hall?" said Alec, using the most musical of all the Slavonic tongues
with fluency.

The President, in that state of trepidation best described by the homely
phrase, "You could have knocked him down with a feather," seemed to
collapse utterly when he heard the stranger talking like a native.

"Certainly, your--certainly. I don't understand, of course; but I shall
give directions..." he stuttered. "You have come by train,
from--er--from the west? You have not breakfasted? A cup of chocolate?
Ah, yes, a cup of chocolate. Then we can discuss matters. The Assembly
meets at ten, and I am very busy; but I can give you half an hour,
Monsieur----" he looked at the card in his hand,--"Monsieur----"

Then he gave it up. He simply dared not pronounce the name; so, with
hospitable flourish, he ushered the two up a broad staircase and into a
room.

While climbing the stairs he recovered sufficiently to tell the
doorkeeper that the gentlemen's portmanteaus were to be brought within
and no one admitted without specific permission. Once in the room he
closed the door, stood with his back to it, and gasped at Stampoff with
one word:

"Now!"

"As soon as you like. I am famished. I ate but little en route, because
I detest German cooking," said Stampoff, on whom Alec's methods were
taking effect.

"But----"

"Ah, you wonder why his Majesty should appear without ceremony? Well, he
quitted Paris on Tuesday night, an hour after Prince Michael had
abdicated in his favor."

"Abdicated!" wheezed the President.

"Our friend takes too much for granted," broke in Alec, smiling and
unembarrassed. "My father could not vacate a throne he did not occupy.
He merely resigned his claims in my favor. Kosnovia should be governed
by a constitutional King, and the power to choose him now rests solely
with the honorable house of which you are chief. If that is your view, I
share it to the uttermost. It is reported in the press that the men who
murdered King Theodore and Queen Helena have declared their allegiance
to the Delgrado line. My reply is that I refuse their nomination. If I
am elected King by the representatives of the people, I shall have much
pleasure in hanging every officer who took part in the infamy of the
Black Castle. But--it is an early hour for politics. You mentioned
breakfast, Monsieur le President?"

Fat and asthmatic Sergius Nesimir was not the man to deal with a candid
adventurer of this type. It occurred to him that he ought to summon help
and clap the soi-disant King and his henchman into prison. But on what
charge? Could any royal pretender put forth more reasonable plea? And
Kosnovia is near enough to the East to render sacred the claims of
hospitality.

"One moment, I beg," he stammered. "Why has your--why have you come to
me? What am I to do? The Assembly----"

"The Assembly seems to favor a Republic," said Alec. "Be it so. There
are certain arguments against such a course which I would be glad of an
opportunity to place before members. If you introduce me, they will give
me a fair hearing. Let a vote be taken at once. If it is opposed to a
monarchy, I am ready to be conducted to either the railway station or
the scaffold, whichever the Assembly in its wisdom may deem best fitted
to national needs. If it is in my favor, I am King. What more is there
to be said?"

"What, indeed?" growled Stampoff. "Why so much talk? Let us eat!"

Poor Nesimir! He had the unhappy history of his country at his fingers'
ends, and never before had Delgrado or Obrenovitch striven for kingship
in this kid-glove fashion.

"Breakfast shall be served instantly," he said, trying vainly to imitate
the cool demeanor of his guests. "But--you will appreciate the
difficulties of my position. I must consult with the ministers."

"I hope I may call your Excellency a friend," said Alec, "and I shall be
ever ready to accept your Excellency's counsel; but on this exceptional
occasion I venture to advise you. Let none know I am here. In the
present disturbed condition of affairs there must be almost as many
hidden forces existing in Delgratz as there are men in the Cabinet. Why
permit them to fret and fume when you alone have power to control them?
I promise faithfully to abide by the decision of the Assembly. Should it
favor me, your position is consolidated; should it prove adverse to my
cause, you still remain the chief man in the State, since the world will
realize that it was to you, and you only, I submitted in the first
instance."

"By all the saints, that is well put!" cried Stampoff. "Now, Sergius,
my lamb, a really good omelet, something grilled, and a bottle of sound
Karlowitz--none of your Danube water for me!"

The President surrendered at discretion. Alec's appeal to his self
importance was irresistible. He was excited, elated, frightened; but
happily he was strong enough to perceive that a chance of obtaining
distinction was within his grasp, and he clutched at it, though with
palsied hands.

So it came to pass that when the hundred and fifty members of the
National Assembly gathered in the great hall of the convention, none
there knew why a tall, pleasant faced young man should be sitting in the
President's private room, and apparently not caring a jot who came or
went during the half-hour's lobbying and retailing of political gossip
that preceded the formal opening of the sitting.

But there was an awkward moment when Nesimir, pale and shaken, entered
the chamber through the folding doors at the back of the presidential
dais.

"Silence for his Excellency the President!" shouted a loud voiced usher,
and all men looked up in wonder when they discovered that the youthful
stranger was standing by the President's side. The session was to be a
secret one. Press and public were excluded. Who, then--

"Gentleman," said Sergius Nesimir, and he spoke with the slowness of ill
repressed agitation, "I have a momentous announcement to make. This
honorable house has almost committed itself to the republican form of
Government----"

 [Illustration: "Gentlemen, here stands Alexis Delgrado"
     Page 75]

"Definitely!" cried a voice.

"No, no!" this from a Senator.

The President lifted a hand. In other circumstances, the interruptions
would have provoked rival storms of agreement and dissent from the many
groups into which the Assembly was split up; but now there was an
electric feeling in the air that their trusted chief would not broach
this grave question so suddenly without good cause. And--who was his
companion? Why did he occupy the dais?

"I ask for silence," said Nesimir. "The fortunes of Kosnovia tremble in
the balance. You will be given ample time for discussion; but hear me
first. I have said that the republican idea has been mooted in all
seriousness. We, in common with the rest of humanity, have been
horror stricken by recent events in our beloved land. Our reigning
dynasty has been blotted out of existence. There is no heir of the
Obrenovitch line. Were we, the representatives of the people, to declare
in favor of a King, we should naturally turn to the other royal house of
our own blood. We should send for a Delgrado. Gentlemen, here stands
Alexis Delgrado----"

He could go no further. A yell of sheer amazement came from all parts of
the crowded chamber. Ministers, Senators, Representatives, joined in
that bewildered roar. Those who were sitting rose; those in the back
benches stood on the seats in order to gaze over the heads in front.
Men shouted and glared and turned to shout again at one another; but
through all the turmoil Alec faced them, smiling and imperturbable, and,
at what he judged to be the right moment--for that volcanic outburst
must be given time to exhaust itself--he placed his one hand on the
President's shoulder and with the other signaled his desire to be heard.

Again he placed implicit confidence in the all powerful element of
curiosity. He knew full well that these emotional Serbs could not hear
his name unmoved, while the extraordinary racial difference between
himself and every other man in the Assembly must have made a strong
appeal to their dramatic instincts. And again was he justified; for the
mere expression of his wish to address them was obeyed by an instant
hushing of the storm.

"My fellow countrymen," he began, "you whom I expect to count among my
friends ere this day is out----"

Another wave of sound ran through the hall. Men still wondered; but
their hearts were beating high, and a new note had come into their
voices. He was speaking their own language, speaking it as one to the
manner born, speaking it as no Austrian could ever speak it, since
harsh, dominant German can never reproduce the full Slavonic resonance.
Alec, but yesterday Joan's typical idler, had fathomed some uncharted
deep in the mysterious art of swaying his fellow men. He realized at
once that this rumble of astonishment was the very best thing that
could have happened. He waited just long enough for the sympathetic
murmur to merge into nods and whisperings, then he continued:

"It is true that I am here as a Delgrado. I come as a candidate, not a
claimant. It rests with you whether I shall remain among you as Alexis
III., King of Kosnovia, or go back to my father and tell him that our
people are anxious to try a new form of Government. Of course," and here
Alec beamed on them most affably, "there are other alternatives. You may
elect to put me in jail, or throw me into the Danube, or swing me from a
gibbet as a warning to all would-be monarchs and other malefactors. But
there is one thing you cannot do. You can never persuade me to wade to a
throne through the blood of innocent people! And that is why I am here,
and not in the company of the wretched conspirators now skulking behind
the walls of the Schwarzburg."

Then a hurricane of cheers made the windows rattle, and a deputy from
the Shumadia, "the heart of Kosnovia," a bigchested, deep voiced
forester, sent forth a trumpet shout that reached every ear:

"Hola! That's a King! Look at him!"

From that instant Alec was as surely King of Kosnovia as the German
Emperor is King of Prussia. Of course, he had to talk till he was
hoarse, and wring strong hands till he was weary, and Stampoff had to
make more than one gruff speech, and eloquent Senators and Deputies had
to proclaim the inviolate nature of the new constitution, and Alec had
to sign it amid a scene of riotous enthusiasm. But these things were the
aftermath of a harvest reaped by half a dozen sentences. The Shumadia
man's simple phrases became a formula. Men laughed and said:

"Hola! That's a King! Look at him!"

In time it reached the streets. The people took it up as a popular
catchword. It whirled through all Kosnovia. Those who had never seen
Alec, nor heard of him before they were told he was King, adopted it as
a token of their belief that the nation had at last obtained a ruler who
surpassed all other Kings.

But that was to come later. While Alec was listening to the plaudits
that proclaimed his triumph, Stampoff growled at him from behind the
half-closed door:

"Gods! You've done it! And without a blow! Never was Kingdom won so
easily. God bless your Majesty! May you live long and reign worthily!"

Good wishes these; but in them was the germ of an abiding canker. What
would Joan say? He had taken a sleeping car ticket from Paris and had
stepped into his patrimony with as little anxiety or delay as would
herald a royal succession in the oldest and most firmly established
monarchy in Europe. What of the goddess with the great gray eyes, clear
and piercing, who knew all the thoughts of men's hearts and the secrets
of their souls? What of her warning that she would drive her chosen ones
by strange paths through doubt and need and danger and battle? Which of
these had he encountered, beyond the vanished phantoms of idle hours
passed in the cozy comfort of the Orient Express? "Never was kingdom won
so easily!"

Well meant; but it rankled. That ominous line of Vergil's came to his
mind. _Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_ (I fear the Greeks even bringing
gifts). Truly the Greeks were come speedily, carrying in full measure
the gifts of loyalty and dominion. Yet he feared them. A whiff of peril,
pitfalls to be leaped, some days or weeks of dire uncertainty, men to be
won, and factions placated, any or all of these might have appeased the
jealous gods. But this instant success would shock Olympus. It cried for
contrast by its very flight to the pinnacle.

None suspected this mood in the chosen King. He charmed these volatile
and romantic Serbs by his naturalness. He seemed to take it so
thoroughly for granted that he was the one man living who could rule
them according to their aspirations, that they adopted the notion
without reserve. The morning passed in a blaze of enthusiasm. Alec,
outwardly calm and hale fellow with all who came in contact with him,
was really in a state of waking trance. His brain throbbed with ideas,
words that he had never conned flowed from his lips. Thus, when asked to
sign the constitution, he wrote "Alexis, Rex," with a firm hand, and
then looked round on the circle of intent faces.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I hereby pledge myself to our land. When I am
dead, if my successor shows signs of faltering, make my skin into a
drumhead for the cause of Kosnovia!"

At the moment he really did not know that this was borrowed thunder, and
assuredly the Kosnovians did not care. Already his utterances were being
retailed with gusto. Before night, every adult inhabitant of Delgratz
was likening their marvelous King, fallen from the skies, to a drum that
should summon the Serbs to found the Empire of their dreams.

He was asked if he would not order the Seventh Regiment to evacuate the
Black Castle so that he might take up his quarters there.

"There is no hurry," he said. "The place needs cleaning."

A review of the troops stationed in other parts of the capital was
arranged for the afternoon in the beautiful park that crowns the
promontory formed by the two rivers, and it was suggested that he should
drive thither in the President's carriage.

"I would prefer to ride," said he. "Then the people and I can see one
another."

A number of horses were brought from the late King's stables and Alec
selected a white Arab stallion that seemed to have mettle and be up to
weight. Soldiers and civilians exchanged underlooks at the choice.
Selim was the last horse ridden by the ill fated Theodore, and, after
the manner of Arabs, he had stumbled on the level roadway and the royal
equestrian was thrown.

During the procession, while passing through the densely packed
Wassina-st., Selim stumbled again and was promptly pulled back almost on
his haunches. At that very instant a revolver was fired from the crowd
and a bullet flattened itself on the opposite wall. The would-be
assassin was seized instantly, a hundred hands were ready to tear him to
shreds, when the King's white horse suddenly pranced into the midst of
the press. Grasping the man by the neck, Alec drew him free by main
force.

"Kill him!" yelled the mob.

"No," cried Alec, "we will put him in the recruits' squad and teach him
how to shoot!"

Throughout a long day he displayed a whole hearted abandonment to the
joy of finding himself accepted by the people as their ruler that did
more than a year's session of the Assembly to endear him to them; but
the seal of national approval was conferred by his action next day, when
news came that Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir was a prisoner at Semlin!

Naturally, the telegraph wires had thrilled Europe during every hour
after ten o'clock on Thursday morning, but the thrills felt in Germany,
Russia, and Turkey were supplemented by agonized squirming on the part
of official Austria. That an upstart, a masquerader, a mountebank of a
King, should actually have traversed Austria from west to east, without
ever a soul cased in uniform knowing anything about him, was ill to
endure, and the minions of Kosnovia's truculent neighbor swore mighty
oaths that no bottle holder from Paris or elsewhere should be allowed to
follow. So Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir was watched from Passau to Maria
Theresiopel, and telegrams flew over the face of the land, and Alec's
British ally was hauled from the train at Semlin soon after dawn Friday.

Captain Drakovitch, anxious to atone for his prying of the previous day,
brought circumstantial details to his Majesty Alexis III., who was
breakfasting with Nesimir, Stampoff, and Ministers of State. There could
be no doubting Beaumanoir's identity, since his baggage was on the
train, and Drakovitch had made sure of his facts before hurrying to the
President's house.

"Has Austria any right to arrest a British subject merely because he
wishes to enter Kosnovia?" asked Alec, looking round at the assembled
gray-heads.

"None whatever," said Nesimir.

"It is an outrage," puffed the War Minister.

"She would not dare act in that way on any other frontier!" cried he of
the Interior.

"What, then, is to be done?" demanded the King.

"Make the most emphatic protest to Vienna," came the chorus.

"Through the usual diplomatic channels?"

"Yes--of course."

"But that means leaving my friend in prison for an indefinite period."

Eloquent shrugs expressed complete agreement.

"Has it been the habit of Kosnovia to accept tamely such treatment at
the hands of Austria?" inquired Alec, looking at the President.

"I fear so, your Majesty. We are small and feeble; she is mighty in size
and armament."

"So was Goliath, yet David slew him with a pebble," said Alec, rising.
"Come, Captain Drakovitch, you and I will call on the Austrian
Ambassador. Stampoff, will you kindly arrange that a regiment of cavalry
and six guns shall parade outside the station in half an hour's time?
You might also ask the railway people to provide the necessary
transport, though I hardly expect it will be needed. Still, we ought to
make a show, just for practice."

Several faces at the table blanched.

"What does your Majesty mean by these preparations?" asked Nesimir.

"Preparations--for what? Surely we can inspect our own troops and test
our own railway accommodation," laughed Alec. "As for the Austrian
Ambassador, I intend to make an emphatic protest through the usual
diplomatic channel. Isn't that what you all agreed to?"

He went out, followed by Drakovitch. In five minutes they were
clattering through the streets accompanied by a small escort, which
Alec would have dispensed with if it was not absolutely needed to clear
a passage when once Delgratz knew that the King was abroad.

Neither the Austrian nor Russian representative had recognized the new
regime as yet. Each was waiting to see how the other would act; so Baron
von Rothstein viewed with mixed feelings the arrival of his royal
visitor. But he met him with all ceremony, and began to say that
instructions might reach him from Vienna at any moment to pay an
official call.

"Quite correct, Herr Baron," said Alec cheerfully. "I am a novice at
this game; but I fully understand that you act for your Government and
not for yourself. That fact renders easy the favor I have to ask."

"Anything that lies in my power, your Majesty----"

"Oh, this is a simple matter. A friend of mine, Lord Adalbert
Beaumanoir, who was coming here from Paris to visit me, was arrested at
Semlin this morning. There is, or can be, no charge against him. Some of
your zealous agents have blundered, that is all. Now, I want you to go
to Semlin in a special train I will provide and bring his Lordship here
before----" Alec looked at his watch--"It is now nine--shall we say?--by
eleven o'clock sharp."

Von Rothstein was startled, and he showed it. "But this is the first I
have heard of it," he said.

"Exactly. That is why I came in person to tell you."

"I fear I cannot interfere, your Majesty."

"Is that so? Why, then, Herr Baron, are you Minister for Austria at
Delgratz?"

"I mean that this matter is not within my province."

"Surely it must be. I cannot allow my friends to be collared by Austrian
police for no reason whatsoever. This passport question concerns
Kosnovia, not Austria. The action of the Semlin authorities is one of
brigandage. It can be adjusted amicably by you, Herr von Rothstein. Do
you refuse?"

"I fear I cannot do what you desire, your Majesty."

"Ah! That is a pity! In that event, I must go to Semlin myself and
liberate Lord Adalbert."

"I don't quite understand----"

"Is my German so poor, then?" laughed Alec.

"I mean, of course----"

"You think I am bluffing. Do you know the word? It is American for a
pretense that is not backed by action. I intend nothing of the kind.
Either you or I must start for Semlin forthwith. If I go, I take with me
a bodyguard sufficiently strong to insure my friend's freedom. I am not
declaring war against Austria. If any jack in office in Kosnovia acts
like these Semlin policemen, and a Kosnovian official refuses to put
matters straight, by all means let Austria teach the offenders a sharp
lesson. She will have my complete approval, as I hope I have yours on
the present occasion."

"But, your Majesty, such action on your part does really amount to a
declaration of war!"

"Ridiculous! Austria seizes an inoffensive British gentleman merely
because he travels from Paris to Delgratz, I appeal to you, the Austrian
minister, to go and release him, and you refuse; yet you tell me I am
making war on your country if I rescue him. The notion is preposterous!
At any rate, it can be argued later. I have sufficient cavalry and guns
assembled near the station, and I hope to be in Semlin in twenty
minutes. Good morning, Baron."

"Your Majesty, I implore you to forego this rash enterprise."

"It is you or I for it!"

"Let me telegraph."

"Useless. That spells delay. You or I must go to Semlin--now! Which is
it to be?"

The Austrian diplomat, pallid and bewildered, yet had the wit to believe
that this quiet voiced young man meant every word he said. He reasoned
quickly that the freeing of a pestiferous Englishman at Semlin could
have no possible effect on Austria's subsequent action. She might please
herself whether or not the threatened invasion of her territory should
be deemed a cause of war, while to yield for the hour robbed this
extraordinary adventurer of the prestige that would accrue from his bold
act.

"I will go, your Majesty," said he, after a fateful pause.

"Good! Permit me to congratulate you on a wise decision," said Alec. "I
shall wait your return in patience until eleven."

"And then?"

"Oh, then--I follow you, of course."

Baron von Rothstein thought silence was best. He drove to the station,
and did not fail to note the military preparations. His special quitted
Delgratz at nine-twenty A.M. At ten-forty A.M. it came back and Alec met
him and Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir on the platform.

"Sorry you were held up, old chap," was the King's greeting. "Some of
these frontier police are fearful asses; but Herr von Rothstein rushed
off the instant he heard of your predicament, and here you are, only
five hours late after all."

"Wouldn't have missed it for a pony, dear boy," grinned Beaumanoir.
"There was a deuce of a shindy when three fat johnnies tried to pull me
out of my compartment. I told 'em I didn't give a tinker's continental
for their bally frontier, and then the band played. I slung one joker
through the window. Good job it was open, or he might have been
guillotined, eh, what?"

"No one was injured, I hope."

"Another fellow said I bent his ribs; but they sprang all right under
the vet's thumb. Tell me, why does our baronial friend look so vinegary?
He chattered like a magpie in the police bureau, or whatever it is
called, at Semlin."

"Lord Adalbert wishes me to explain that a disagreeable incident had
ended happily," said Alec to von Rothstein.

"I am not sure that it has ended, your Majesty," was the grim reply.

"Well, then, shall we say that it has taken a satisfactory turn? You
see, my dear Baron, I am quite a young King, and I shall commit many
blunders before I learn the usages of diplomacy. But I mean well, and
that goes a long way,--much farther than Semlin, even beyond Vienna."




CHAPTER V

FELIX SURMOUNTS A DIFFICULTY


Count Julius Marulitch and his friend Constantine Beliani, the one
savagely impatient, the other moody and preoccupied, sprawled listlessly
in Marulitch's flat in the Avenue Victor Hugo, and, though it was
evening, each was reading "The Matin." That is to say, each was
pretending to read; but their thoughts did not follow the printed words.
Alexis III. had reigned only ten days, yet the most enterprising of the
Paris newspapers was already making a feature of a column headed: "Our
dear Alec, day by day." It ought to be an interesting record to these
two men, yet it evidently was not one-tenth so humorous as "The Matin"
believed, since there was a deep frown on both faces.

At last Marulitch flung the paper aside with an angry snarl.

"Ah, bah!" he growled. "May the devil fly away with our dear Alec and
his doings day by day! A nice pair of fools we made of ourselves when we
pitchforked him into power!"

"Patience, my friend, patience!" said the Greek. "Everything comes to
him who waits, and Alec will fall far when his luck changes. It may be
to-morrow, or next week; but he must experience a reverse. He is like a
gambler at Monte Carlo who stakes maximums just because the table is
running favorably."

"Fish!" snorted Marulitch. "What else would a gambler do?"

"What indeed?" agreed Beliani, though a far less alert intelligence than
Marulitch's might have known that he was annoyed. The pink and white
Julius, whom his friends had nicknamed "le beau Comte," did not fail to
catch the contemptuous note of that purred answer; he sprang up from his
chair, ransacked a cupboard, and threw on the table a box of those
priceless cigarettes, the produce of a single southwesterly hillside at
Salonica, that are manufactured solely for the Sultan of Turkey.

"There, smoke, my Constantine," he laughed harshly. "Why should we
quarrel? We were idiots. Let us, then, admit it."

"Were we?"

"Can you deny it? We arranged the first move beautifully. With Theodore
out of the way----"

The Greek turned his head swiftly and looked at the door. Marulitch
lowered his voice.

"No need to refer to Theodore, you will say? How can one avoid it? His
death was the cornerstone of the edifice. If only that senile uncle of
mine had become King the path would be clear for the final coup before
the year was out. And now where are we? What purpose do we serve by self
delusion? Each day's newspaper bears witness to our folly. Alec carries
the Assembly by storm; Alec captures a would-be assassin; Alec flouts
Austria; Alec disbands the Seventh Regiment and hands its officers to
the police; Alec attends the funeral of Theodore and Helena, and takes
over their servants and debts; Alec tells the Sultan that he exists in
Europe only on sufferance; Alec draws a map of Kosnovia and decorates it
with railways; Alec bathes in the Danube at six, breakfasts at seven,
attends a christening at eight, a wedding at nine, a review at ten, a
memorial service in the cathedral at eleven, lunches at twelve, receives
provincial deputations at one, inaugurates the Delgratz Polo Club at two
and the Danubian Rowing Club at three,--Alec round the clock, and all
Europe agape to know what next he will be up to--and you and I here,
unknown, unrecorded,--you and I, the brains, the eyes, the organizers of
the whole affair! Oh, it makes me sick when I remember how I stood like
a stuck pig in old Delgrado's flat and let the son jump in and snatch
from the father's hands the scepter I had purchased so dearly!"

The Greek rose languidly, strolled to the door, and threw it open. A
page boy was in the lobby, and it was easy to see by his innocent face
that his presence there was inspired by no more sinister motive than to
deliver a newspaper.

Beliani took it, closed the door, listened a moment, and unfolded the
damp sheet. He glanced at its foreign news.

"'Le Soir' gives prominence to a rumor that King Alexis will marry a
Montenegrin Princess," he murmured composedly.

"Mirabel, of course?"

"She is unnamed."

"That's it. I know, I know! He will marry Mirabel. By Heaven! if he
does, I'll shoot him myself!"

"The trial of the regicides is fixed for June," went on Beliani, wholly
unmoved by Marulitch's vehemence. "Now, the vital question is, How far
can Stampoff be relied on?"

"How does our reliance on Stampoff concern Mirabel?"

"I am not thinking of Mirabel, but of Julius and Constantine. If
Stampoff tells our young Bayard everything, Delgratz is no place for you
and me, my veteran."

Marulitch, though trembling with passion, could not fail to see that the
Greek was remarkably nonchalant for one who had witnessed the utter
collapse of ten years of work and expenditure.

"Are we going there?" he managed to ask without a curse.

"Soon, quite soon, provided Stampoff keeps a still tongue."

"But why? To grace the coronation by our presence?"

"It may be. Remember, if you please, that we are Alec's best friends. We
gave him his chance. I offered to finance him; did finance Stampoff in
fact. We are unknown personally to the officers of the Seventh. That was
wise, Julius, far-seeing, on my part. Oh, yes, we must go to Delgratz.
Delgratz is the nerve center now."

"You are keeping something from me."

"On my honor, no. But you sneered at my parable of the successful
gambler, whereas I believe in it implicitly. I have seen that type of
fool backing the red, staking his six thousand francs on every coup, and
have watched a run of twelve, thirteen, seventeen, twenty-one; but the
smash came at last."

"What matter? A man who wins twenty times can well afford to lose once."

"I said a gambler, not a financier," smiled Beliani. "But let it pass. I
thought you told me there was a girl here in Paris----"

"So there is, a beauty too; but Alec has meanwhile become a King."

"A somewhat peculiar King. He has borrowed his regal notions from
America rather than Kosnovia, Julius. He would laugh at any claim of
divine right. One of these days you will find him chaffing the
Hohenzollerns, and that is dangerous jesting in the Balkans. If he loves
a girl in Paris, he will not marry your Mirabel. I fancy I have taken
his measure. If I am right, he is far too honest to occupy the throne of
Kosnovia."

"_Grand Dieu!_ the country is pining for honest government. Even you
will grant that."

"Even I, as you say; but I should be wrong. If I have an ax to grind, so
has the other fellow. Kosnovia is in the East, and the East loves
deceit. Alec has dazzled the people for a few days. Wait till he begins
to sweep the bureaus free of well paid sinecurists. Wait till he finds
out how the money is spent that the Assembly votes for railways,
education, forestry, and the like. Wait till he reduces the staff of the
army and the secretaries. I know Delgratz and Kosnovia, and he does not.
He will win the people, it is true; but he will alienate the men who can
twist the people this way and that to suit their own purposes. Before a
month is out he will be wrangling with the Assembly. See if I am not a
prophet. Oh, yes, Julius, you and I must go to Delgratz. No hurry; slow
but sure. I'll break the journey at Vienna. We must sound Stampoff too.
But before I go, I should like to be sure that the girl has gone there."

"The artist girl to Delgratz!"

Julius was bitter and skeptical; but he reposed such confidence in
Beliani's judgment that he choked his doubts. "Yes. Can it be managed?"

Le beau Comte leered, and the satyr grin was highly expressive. It
seemed to show the man's real nature. In repose his face was insipid;
now for an instant he resembled the god Pan.

"You called Alec a Bayard just now. Not a bad title for him. He has that
kind of repute among his friends. Perhaps the girl is built on the same
lines, and we don't want to send a pretty saint to Delgratz merely to
inspire him to fresh efforts."

The Greek inhaled a deep breath of the aromatic smoke. "You'll be an
average sort of King, Julius; but you are not a philosopher," said he
thoughtfully. "I tell you we are safer than ever if we can bring him and
the girl together. He will marry her, you short sighted one--marry her,
and thus alienate every Slav in the Balkans. I have turned this thing in
my mind constantly since I recovered from the first shock of his
achievement, and I am fairly certain of my ground. Mark you, Princess
Mirabel of Montenegro will be reported to-morrow as out of the running.
If that is so, you will begin to believe me and stop clawing your hair
and injuring your fine complexion by scowling."

Next morning's "Matin" announced that King Alexis was greatly annoyed by
the mischievous and utterly unfounded canard that bracketed his name
with that of a woman he had never seen. Count Julius read, and made a
hasty toilet. Beliani and he had laid their plans overnight, and he lost
no time in opening the new campaign.

It was a difficult and delicate task he had undertaken. Paris, big in
many respects, is small in its society, which, because of its well
marked limits, makes a noise in the world quite incommensurate with its
importance; whereas London, close neighbor and rival, contains a dozen
definite circles that seldom overlap. The woman Julius had seen with
Alec in the Louvre was not on Princess Michael's visiting list, of that
he had no manner of doubt. Therefore, from his point of view, the only
possible solution of their apparent friendship would prove to be
something underhanded and clandestine, an affair of secret meetings, and
letters signed in initials, and a tacit agreement to move unhindered in
different orbits.

Being of the nature of dogs and aboriginal trackers, Marulitch made
straight for the Louvre. There he had quitted the trail, and there must
he pick it up again. But the hunt demanded the utmost wariness. If he
startled the quarry, he might fail at the outset, and, supposing his
talking was successful, both he and Beliani must still beware of a
King's vengeance if their project miscarried.

Neither man had the slightest belief in Alec's innate nobility of
character. Beliani likened him to Bayard, it is true, and Marulitch had
scoffingly adopted the simile; but that was because each thought Bayard
not admirable, but a fool. The somber history of the Kosnovian monarchy,
a record of crass stupidity made lurid at times by a lightning gleam of
passion, justified the belief that Alexis would follow the path that led
Theodore, and Ferdinand, and Ivan, and Milosch to their ruin. Each of
these rulers began to reign under favorable auspices, yet each succumbed
to the siren's spell, and there was no reason at all, according to such
reckoning, why the handsome and impulsive Alexis should escape. That a
pretty Parisienne who was also an artist should fail to offer herself as
a willing bait did not enter at all into the calculation.

"Be suave, spend money, and keep in the background," said the Greek.

Julius entered the Grande Galerie prepared to apply these instructions
through the medium of his own subtle wit. At the outset, luck favored
him. Somehow, it is always easier to do evil than good, and the
longevity of evil is notorious, whereas the short lived existence of
good would horrify an insurance agent.

Joan was not present; but Felix Poluski was preparing a canvas for his
twenty-seventh copy of the famous Murillo. Two of his "Immaculate
Conceptions" were in private collections; one had been sold to a South
American millionaire as the Spanish artist's own duplicate of the
picture, though Poluski was unaware of the fraud; and twenty-three
adorned the high altars of various continental churches, where they
edified multitudes happily ignorant of the irreverent conditions under
which the cheery souled anarchist hunchback droned his snatches of song
and extracted from a few tubes of paint some glimpse of heaven, and rays
of sunlight, and hints of divine love and divine maternity.

The crooked little Pole's genius and character were alike unknown to
Count Julius. He saw only a quaintly artistic personage who might
possibly be acquainted with such a remarkable looking habitue of the
gallery as Joan. Instead, therefore, of appealing to one of the
officials, he approached Poluski, and the two exchanged greetings with
the politeness that Paris quickly teaches to those who dwell within her
gates.

"You work in this gallery most days, monsieur?" said Julius.

"But yes, monsieur," said Felix.

"About a fortnight ago, monsieur," explained Marulitch, "I happened to
be here at this hour, and I noticed a young lady copying one of the
pictures on the opposite wall. Can you tell me who she was?"

"Can you tell me which picture she was copying?" said Poluski.

"I am not sure; this one, I think," and Julius pointed to "The Fortune
Teller."

"Ah! Describe her, monsieur."

"She was tall, elegant, charming in manner and appearance."

Poluski appeared to reflect. "The vision sounds entrancing, monsieur,"
he said; "but that sort of girl doesn't usually earn her crusts by
daubing canvas in the Louvre at so much a square foot."

"Yet I saw her, without a doubt. She was not alone that morning. In
fact, a friend of mine was with her."

Poluski turned to his easel. He was in no mind to discuss Joan with this
inquiring dandy.

"That simplifies your search, monsieur," said he carelessly. "All that
is necessary is to go to your friend."

"I cannot. He is not in Paris."

"Where is he?"

"Far enough away to render it impossible that he should solve my dilemma
to-day. And the thing is urgent. I have a commission to offer, a good
one. If you help, you will be doing the young lady a turn--and yourself,
too, perhaps."

"Kindly explain, monsieur."

"I mean that I will gladly pay for any information."

"How much? Five, ten francs, a louis?"

The Pole's sarcasm was not to be mistaken. Julius was warned and drew
back hurriedly.

"I really beg your pardon," he said; "but I am so anxious to carry out
my undertaking that I have expressed myself awkwardly, and I see now
that you are misinterpreting my motives. Let me speak quite candidly. I
have no desire to meet the lady in person. An art connoisseur, who
admires her work, wishes to send her to a cathedral in a distant city to
copy a painting. He will pay well. He offers traveling expenses, hotel
bill, and five thousand francs. The picture is not a large one, and the
work easy, a Byzantine study of Saint Peter, I believe. If you tell me,
monsieur, that you can arrange the matter, I shall be pleased to leave
it entirely in your hands."

"Since when did Alec become a connoisseur?" demanded Poluski, grinning.

Marulitch was startled; but he smiled with a ready self possession that
did him credit. "It was in Monsieur Delgrado's company I saw the fair
unknown," he admitted; "but this affair does not rest with him. It is
genuine, absolutely."

"Nevertheless, this Byzantine Saint Peter hangs in Delgratz, I suppose?"

"I--I think so."

"Five thousand francs, you said, and expenses. Not bad. I'm a pretty
good hand myself. Will I do?"

The Pole was enjoying the stupid little plot; for it could wear no other
guise to him, and Count Julius was mortified by the knowledge that he
had blundered egregiously at the first step in the negotiation. What
would Beliani say? This wizened elf of a man had seen clear through
their precious scheme in an instant, and, worst of all, it had not
advanced an inch. Julius made a virtue of necessity, and placed all his
cards on the table.

"I want you to credit my statements," he said emphatically. "This
proposal is quite straightforward. My principal is prepared to pay half
the money down before the lady leaves Paris, and the balance when the
picture is delivered. Further, he will bear the expenses of any one who
accompanies her,--a relative, or a friend, such as yourself, for
instance. I don't figure in the matter at all. I am a mere go-between,
and if you think otherwise you are utterly mistaken."

Felix began to whistle softly between his teeth, and the action annoyed
Julius so greatly that he decided to try a new line.

"I seem to have amused you by my sincerity, monsieur!" he snapped. "Pray
forget that I have troubled you----"

"But why, my paragon? _Que diable!_ one does not spurn five thousand
francs like that! I hum or whistle when I am thinking, and just now I am
wondering how this business can be arranged. Who is your client?"

"Who is yours?" retorted Julius.

"She exists, at any rate."

"So does the other."

"Well, then, let us meet to-morrow----"

"But time is all important."

"There can't be such a mortal hurry, seeing that Saint Peter has hung so
long undisturbed in Delgratz," said Felix dryly. "Moreover, it will
clear the air if I tell you that the lady is not in Paris, so I cannot
possibly give you her answer before to-morrow morning."

"How can I be sure that she is the person actually intended for this
commission?"

"There won't be the least doubt about it when King Alexis III. sets eyes
on her."

Julius was certainly not himself that day. His pink face grew crimson
with amazement. "If you tell her that you will defeat my friend's object
in sending her to Delgratz!" he blurted out.

"Eh, what are you saying? What, then, becomes of that poor Saint Peter?"

"Exactly. She is going there to copy it, not to philander with Alec."

Poluski screwed his eyes up until he was peering at Julius's excited
features as if endeavoring to catch some transient color effect.
"Frankly, you puzzle me," he said after a pause; "but come again
to-morrow. And no tricks, no spying or that sort of thing! I am the
wrong man for it. If you doubt me, ask some one who has heard of Felix
Poluski. You see, Count Julius Marulitch, I am far more open than you. I
knew you all the time, and as to your motives, I can guess a good deal
that I don't actually know. Still, there is nothing positively dishonest
about a Byzantine Saint Peter. It is not art, but five thousand francs
sounds like business. Half the cash down, you said; anything by way of
preliminary expenses?"

"Meaning?"

"Say, one per cent., fifty francs. Otherwise, I must paint all day and
trust to the post--the least eloquent of ambassadors."

"Oh, as to that," and Julius produced a hundred-franc note from his
pocketbook.

The Pole accepted it gravely. "I go instantly, monsieur," he said. He
began to fold his easel and put away his brushes and colors. Once he
glanced up at the rapt Madonna.

"_Au 'voir, ma belle_," he murmured. "This affair of Saint Peter must
be arranged. It presses. They change Kings speedily in Delgratz
nowadays, and their taste in saints may follow suit. But, courage! I
shall return, and who knows what will come of this excursion into the
forgotten realm of Byzantium?"

Count Marulitch, of course, had not counted on one who was a complete
stranger not only recognizing him but stripping the pretense so
thoroughly of the artistic commission offered to Alec's fair companion
of that memorable morning. He must put the best face on his blunder when
discussing it with Beliani, and he promised himself a quite definite
understanding with Poluski ere another sou left his pocket.

Meanwhile, who was Poluski? That question, at least, could be answered
easily. One clue might lead to another. To-morrow, when they met, it
might be his turn to astonish the warped little Pole.

Felix, feeling that he had spoiled the Egyptians excellently well,
hobbled off to his favorite cafe. Early as the hour was, various cronies
were there already, sipping their morning refreshments; but he passed
them with a nod and made for the fat proprietress throned behind a high
desk. When she caught sight of him, a certain air of firmness seemed to
struggle with sympathy for possession of her bulging features, and she
hastily thumbed a small account book taken from beneath a pile of
waiter's dockets.

"How much, madame?" asked Felix, who had missed none of this.

"Twenty-seven seventy-five," she said severely.

"Can one make it thirty, _mignonne_?"

"Thirty! Tell me, then, how market bills are to be met when one is owed
these thirties?"

"Dear angel, Providence has decided that you shall deal with such
problems."

"Well, well, no more, not a centime beyond the thirty!"

"Monstrous, yet all heart!" murmured Felix. He struck an attitude, and
sang with exquisite feeling the opening bars of the Jewel Song from
"Faust." As applied to the earthly tabernacle of madame's generous soul,
the effect of that impassioned address was ludicrous. But Felix recked
little of that. He threw the hundred-franc note on the counter.

"There, _ma petite_, be rewarded for your trust," he cried. "Now give me
the railway timetable; for I have far to go ere I return, when you and I
shall crack a bottle of Clos Vosgeot with our dinner."

Madame, who had not betrayed the least embarrassment when she and her
cafe were apostrophized in Gounod's impassioned strains, was utterly
bewildered by Poluski's wealth. Not once in many years had he owned so
much at one time, since he always drew small sums on account of his
pictures and kept himself going hand-to-mouth fashion. But here was
Felix intent on the timetable and sweeping seventy-two francs
twenty-five centimes of change into his pocket without troubling to
count a coin.

"You have found a mad Englishman, I suppose?" tittered madame.

"Better, far better, _ma cherie_; I have met a man who would be a King!"
He hurried out, climbed into a passing omnibus, and descended at the
Gare de Lyon.

Joan was just leaving the pretty hotel at Barbizon, meaning to put in
some hours of work after a distracted morning, when Felix emerged from
the interior of a ramshackle cab that had carried him from Melun to the
edge of the forest. Now, a cab drive of several miles, plus a journey
from Paris, was a sufficiently rare event in Poluski's life to make Joan
stare. His unexpected appearance chimed so oddly with her own disturbed
thoughts that she paled.

"Felix," she cried, "have you brought ill news?"

"Of whom, _chere mademoiselle_?" he demanded.

"Of--of any one?"

"Alec still reigns, if that is what you mean."

"But he has sent you?"

"What, do I look like an envoy?" He laughed. "Well, well, _ma belle_,
there is some truth in that. I come in behalf of one before whom even
Kings must bow; I represent Saint Peter! But even an apostolic
dynamitard must eat. I am starving, having sacrificed my luncheon to my
love of you. Commend me, then, to some deft handed waiter, and let
hunger and curiosity be sated at the same time."

Joan knew that Poluski would choose his own way of explaining his
presence. The hour for luncheon was long past; but she hurried to the
empty dining room and was able to secure some soup and a cold chicken.
Felix eyed the bird distrustfully.

"Although I am here in behalf of Saint Peter, there is no sense in
asking me to chew the wretched fowl that proclaimed his downfall," he
muttered.

"Oh, Felix dear, please do tell me what has happened!" said Joan,
clasping her hands in real distress. "I received a letter from Alec this
morning. It was sent to me from my lodgings, and, what between that and
the extraordinary things in the newspapers, I think I am bewitched. Now
I am sure that you too have heard from him. Is it a telegram?"

"Yes," he said, "a message sent without wires; it came by one of those
underground currents that convulse an unconscious world, sometimes
agonizing mountains, at others perplexing a simple maid like yourself.
You see, Joan, all things conspire to draw you to Delgratz."

"I am not going!" she vowed, thereby giving Poluski the exact
information he needed; for his nimble brain was beginning to see the
connection between Alec's letter and Count Julius Marulitch's intense
desire to avail himself of Joan's skill as a copyist.

"You are, my dear," he said, dropping his bantering tone and looking her
straight in the eyes.

"How can such an absurdity be dreamed of?" she demanded breathlessly.

"Because it is a dream that will come true. Listen, now, and don't be
afraid, for these gray old trees of Barbizon have heard madder
whisperings than that you should become a Queen. It is in the natural
order of things that I, who gave my best years to devising the ruin of
Kings, should be chosen in my dotage to help in fixing a King firmly on
his throne. It is some sport of the gods, I suppose, a superhuman jest,
perhaps the touch of farce that makes tragedy more vivid, since even
that colossal Shakespeare of yours thought fit to lighten Hamlet by
introducing a comic gravedigger. Be that as it may, Joan, you are Alec's
Queen, and, as he cannot come for you it follows that you must go to
him. Shall I tell you why? You are necessary to him. It is decreed, and
you cannot shirk your lot. He knows it, and he has written to bid you
come. His enemies know it; but there is a kind of knowledge that leads
its votaries blindfold to the pit, and Alec's enemies are blindly
plotting now to send you to Delgratz and thus compass his ruin."

"Felix! What are you saying?"

"The truth, the simple truth. Not a whiff of metaphor or extravagance
about that statement, Joan. This morning a man came to me in the Louvre.
He was seeking you. He wants to pay you five thousand francs for a copy
of some blazoned daub that hangs in the cathedral at Delgratz. He will
pay double, four times, the money if only you will consent to go there.
Why? Because he believes that Alec is infatuated about you, and that
the mere hint of marriage with one who is not a Slav princess will
shatter the throne of Kosnovia about the ears of its present occupant.
My anxious visitor is mistaken, of course. He is trying to do good that
evil may come of it; but while there is justice in Heaven any such
perversion of an eternal principle is foredoomed to failure.

"But just think of that man coming to me, Felix Poluski, who has an ear
for every sob that rises from the unhappy people who dwell in the
borderland between Teuton and Tartar! Isn't that the cream of comedy?
When I make everything clear to you, when I show you how and by whom the
killing of Theodore and his wife was engineered, you will begin to
understand the fantastic trick that Fate played when she sent her
emissary to the hunchback artist in the Louvre. But it is a long story,
and it will beguile the journey across Austria, while there are many
things you must attend to ere you leave Paris in the Orient Express
to-morrow night."

"Felix, it is impossible!"

"Ah! Then you don't love our Alec."

"I--I have not heard a word from his lips--well, hardly a syllable----"

"Not in the letter?"

"That is different. Felix, I can trust you. Perhaps, under other
conditions, I might marry Alec; but now I cannot."

"Why?"

"Because he is a King."

"The best of reasons, if he was bred in a palace. But he has lived long
enough to become a man first. Frankly, Joan, I like Alec, and I think he
ought to be given a chance. At any rate, I don't see why you are afraid
of him."

"I am not. Indeed, I am not!" Joan's voice was tremulous. She was on the
verge of tears; for the little Pole's persistence was breaking down the
barrier that she had striven to erect against her lover's pleading. Alec
had not said much in his letter; but what he did say was wholly to the
point.

"Come to me, Joan," he wrote. "Don't wait. Don't stop and worry about
what the world will say, since it will surely be something bitter and
untrue. The people here are all right, and I think they are beginning to
like me; but I can see quite plainly that they will not be content until
I am married, and hints are being thrown out already that there are
several eligible young ladies in neighboring States. But if these
Kosnovians take me they must take you too, and it will be far easier for
me when they have seen you.

"Now, no hesitation, no doubts, no weighing of pros and cons. Just set
your teeth and toss your head up, and tell Pauline to sling your
belongings into your boxes, and before you start send me one word in a
telegram. I am horribly busy, of course (for details see daily papers),
and this must be the most extraordinary love letter ever written; but
what does that matter when you and I understand each other? It was you
who sent me here. Don't forget that, dear teller of fortunes, and I want
you to be standing by my side when the storm breaks that must surely be
brewing for me after an incredible success."

There was more in the same vein. Alexis the King seemed to differ in no
essential from the Alec Delgrado who used to wait for her every day in
the neighborhood of the Pont Neuf. Dare she risk it? The question had
tortured her ever since the early morning. It was not that the prospect
of being a Queen was dazzling or even dismaying in itself; she really
dreaded the result of such a marriage on the fortunes of the man she
loved.

But against that self sacrificing attitude she was forced to admit the
plea of Alec's own bewildering lack of conventionality. If half the
stories in the newspapers were true, he was the most original minded
monarch that ever reigned. She was quite sure that his answer to any
evasive reply on her part would be a public announcement of the fact
that his promised bride was a young lady in Paris, Joan Vernon by name.
And that would be worse almost than going quietly to Delgratz and being
married there.

What was she to do? She found Felix Poluski's gray eyes looking at her
steadfastly. In this dilemma he was her only trusted counselor, and he
had already advised her to yield.

"If I even knew his relatives," she faltered. "His parents live in
Paris. We have never met. How can I say to his mother, 'Your son wants
me to marry him. What do you think of me?' She, a Princess, would scoff
at the idea."

"Alec is well aware of that; hence he has written direct to you, and
said nothing to any other person. Let me assure you that if Prince
Michael Delgrado had gone to Delgratz he would have died a sudden and
violent death. Prince Michael knew it, and declined the distinction.
Believe me, too, Alec has the very best of reasons for consulting no one
in his choice of a wife. Now, Joan, be brave! When all is said and done,
it should be far more pleasant to marry a King than fling a bomb at him,
and I have met several young ladies almost as pretty as you who were
ready enough to adopt the latter alternative. At any rate you will take
no harm by crossing the Danube. It is not the Rubicon, you know, and you
have Saint Peter to lean on in case of difficulty."

So Felix did not return to Paris alone, and when he met Count Julius
Marulitch next morning in the Louvre he was able to announce that Miss
Joan Vernon had accepted the commission to copy the Delgratz Saint Peter
and was ready to start for Kosnovia by the night mail.




CHAPTER VI

JOAN GOES INTO SOCIETY


Joan did not telegraph to Alec. She destroyed each of half a dozen
attempts, and ended by taking refuge in silence. It was impossible to
say what she had to say in the bald language of a telegram. Merely to
announce her departure from Paris would put her in the false position of
having accepted Alec's proposal apparently without reserve, which was
exactly what she meant not to do, and any other explanation of the
journey would bewilder him.

Her friend Leontine, housemaid at the Chope de la Sorbonne, did not fail
to tell her of Alec's call the day she left Paris for Barbizon. There
was no mistaking Leontine's description, which was impressionist to a
degree. It was evident, then, that he not only possessed her address, as
shown by the letter, but knew of her absence. So she reasoned that if he
did not hear from her within forty-eight hours he would assume that she
was still away from home. By that time she would be in Delgratz, and,
although she felt some uneasiness at the prospect, she was brave enough
not to shirk meeting him.

They were not children that they should be afraid of speaking their
thoughts, nor lovesick romanticists, apt to be swayed wholly by
sentiment, and she could trust Alec to see the folly of rushing into a
union that might imperil his career. In the depths of her heart she
confessed herself proud and happy at the prospect of becoming his wife;
but she would never consent to a marriage that was not commended by
prudence. Better, far better, they should part forever than that the
lapse of a few months should prove how irretrievably she had ruined him.

This might be sound commonsense, but it was not love, yet all this, and
more, Joan said to Felix Poluski, and the little man had nodded his head
with grins of approval. Meanwhile, he sang and was busy.

Count Julius, posted now in the Pole's mottled history, had demanded
absolute anonymity before he carried the negotiations for the picture
any further. Felix gave the pledge readily, since Joan could not be in
Delgratz a day ere she suspected the truth. At any rate, Marulitch was
satisfied; he introduced Felix to a well-known dealer in the Rue St.
Honore, and thenceforth disappeared from the transaction. Joan herself
entered into the necessary business arrangements, about which there was
nothing hidden or contraband. The terms proposed were liberal,
considering her poor status in the art world; but they were quite
straightforward. She was given return tickets to Delgratz for herself
and her maid; Felix was similarly provided for; five hundred dollars was
paid in advance, and a written guaranty was handed to her that a
similar sum, together with hotel expenses, would be forthcoming in
exchange for a copy of the Byzantine Saint Peter.

Of course, reviewing matters calmly in the train, she hardly expected
that the second portion of the contract would be fulfilled. She knew
quite well that the conspirators hoped to turn her presence in the
Kosnovian capital to their own account, and when their scheme was balked
they would devise some means of wriggling out of the bargain. But she
laughed at the notion that she, an unknown student, should have suddenly
become a pawn in the game of empire. There was an element of daring,
almost of peril, in the adventure that fascinated her. It savored of
those outlandish incidents recorded in novels of a sensational type,
wherein fur coated, sallow faced, cigarette smoking scoundrels plotted
the destruction of dynasties, and used fair maidens as decoys for
susceptible Kings. Certainly, Felix Poluski, judged by his past, was no
bad prototype of a character in that class of fiction; regarded in his
present guise, as he sat opposite her in the dining car of the Orient
Express, he looked the most harmless desperado that ever preyed on a
quivering world.

His face seemed to be smaller and more wrinkled than usual. From Joan's
superior height his hump was accentuated till it showed above the top of
his head, and the girl was conscious, though she resolutely closed her
eyes to the fact, that the admiring glances with which she was favored
by some of her fellow passengers were somewhat modified by the humorous
incongruity of Poluski's appearance.

At first, they tacitly avoided any reference to Alec or Delgratz. Their
talk dealt with art and artists, and Joan had a good deal to say about
the delights of painting in the open air.

Felix blinked at her sagely. "Behold, then, the beginning of the end!"
he cackled.

"The end of what?" she asked, with some kindling of suspicion, since her
queer little friend's tricks of conversation were not new to her.

"Of your career as an artist. Barbizon is fatal to true emotion. It
induces a fine sense of the beauty of sunsets, of diffused light in
sylvan solitudes, of blues that are greens and browns that are reds. In
a word, the study of nature inclines one toward truth, whereas art is
essentially a gracious lie. That is why the Greeks were the greatest
artists: because they were most pleasing liars. They understood the
crassness of humanity. Long before Browning wrote _Fra Lippo Lippi_ they
realized that

               "We're made so that we love
          First when we see them painted, things we have passed
          Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to see;
          And so they are better painted--better to us,
          Which is the same thing."

Joan laughed, and the cheery sound of her mirth seemed to startle the
staid folk in the car.

At a neighboring table a middle aged couple were dining, the woman
dignified and matronly, the man small, slight, with a curiously bloated
aspect which, on analysis, seemed to arise from puffy cheeks and thick,
sensual lips. He said something that caused his companion to turn and
look at Joan; for the woman is yet unborn who will hear another woman
described as pretty and not want to decide for herself how far the
statement is justified.

So the eyes of the two met, and Joan saw a worn, kindly face, endowed
with a quiet charm of expression and delicacy of contour that offered a
marked contrast to the man's unprepossessing features. Both women were
too well bred to stare, and Joan instantly brought her wits to bear on
Poluski's quip; but that fleeting glimpse had thrilled her with subtle
recognition of something grasped yet elusive, of a knowledge that
trembled on the lip of discovery, like a half remembered word murmuring
in the brain but unable to make itself heard.

"Do you ever say what you really mean, Felix?" she asked.

"Far too often, my belle. That is why I am only a copyist.

          "I am a painter who cannot paint;
          In my life, a devil rather than saint.

"Believe me, we artists err ridiculously when we depart from the Greek
standard. Your Whistler never achieved fame until he stopped reproducing
bits of nature and devoted his superb talent to caricature."

"Caricature! Whistler!" she repeated.

"Name of a good little gray man! what else? Not portraits, surely? Wise
that he was, he left those to the snapshot photographer; for even the
camera can be given the artistic kink by the toucher-up. Have you
forgotten, then, the rage of a stolid Englishman when he saw his wife as
Whistler painted her? Oh, yes, art lies outrageously and lives long,
like other fables."

"But Whistler might have been bluntly accurate, a thing that is not
always pleasing. For instance," and here her voice sank a little, "it
might not be altogether gratifying to my pride if some one was to
analyze mercilessly the precise reasons of my present journey."

"_Tiens!_ Let us do it. It will serve to pass the time."

She laughed and blushed. "Wait a little. We have many hours before us."

"You will never have a more appreciative audience, if only you could
make your voice heard above this din."

"What are you driving at? Please tell me."

"You have seen the two people sitting over there?" and he twisted
eyebrows and mouth awry, with a whimsical leer of caution.

"Yes; what of them?"

"Do you know them?"

"No."

"Not even the lady?"

"She reminds me of some one--why do you ask?"

"I am surprised at you, Joan. Those charming eyes of yours should be
keener. True, there is nothing feminine about Alec, and he has not
suffered, like his mother. Still, there is a resemblance."

"Felix, are you in earnest?"

"Absolutely. I, at least, have not the Greek temperament. Our friends
across the gangway are none other than Prince and Princess Michael
Delgrado. You will discover no prophecy of Alec in his father; but he is
his mother's own son, despite her weak chin and air of resignation."

Joan was dismayed, utterly astonished; the color ebbed from her cheeks.
"Are they going to Delgratz?" she almost whispered.

"I suppose so. It is one of the oddest things about our lives how they
run in grooves. Just now all the tiny furrows of our separate existences
are converging on the Danube. We are like ships foredoomed to collision,
that hurry remorselessly from the ends of the earth to the preordained
crash."

"Oh, Felix, if you knew of this why did you bring me here?"

"Who am I to resist when the gods beckon? I love you, Joan, and I hate
Kings; but it is decreed that you shall be a Queen, so I fold my arms
and bow my head like the meekest of mortals."

"I shall quit the train at the next stopping place."

"But why? If Alec and you are to wed, it is only fit and proper that
his parents should grace the ceremony."

"You harp on marriage when there may be no marriage. If Alec was not a
King, it might be different; but the world will scoff when it hears that
his chosen bride came to him from lodgings in the Place de la Sorbonne.
What will Princess Delgrado think, now that she has seen me here,
rushing off to Delgratz the instant I was summoned? Felix, I must return
to Paris. Happily, I have some two thousand francs due within a week,
and I can then refund the cost of our tickets, and perhaps the railway
people will allow something for the incompleted journey."

"Calm yourself, _ma petite!_ You count like the proprietress of my
favorite cafe! And to what purpose? It would be a pity to act in that
foolish way. There is no compulsion on you to marry Alec, and the
Byzantine Saint Peter still hangs in the cathedral. Let any one so much
as hint that you are throwing yourself at Alec's head, and I shall have
the hinter dynamited. No, no, my Joan, we may yield to higher powers;
but we do not abandon our pilgrimage because it is shared by an old
scamp of a father whose sole anxiety is to fleece his son. Come, now,
finish your dinner in peace, and let me explain to you why it is that
Alexis III. and not Michael V. reigns in Delgratz. You don't glean many
facts about monarchs from newspapers. If I brought you to a certain
wineshop in the Rue Taitbout any evening after dinner you would hear
more truth about royalty in half an hour than you will read in half a
year."

Joan, conscious of a telltale pallor, was leaning forward with an elbow
on the table and shielding her face with widespread fingers propped
against cheek and forehead. In the noise and flurry of the train it was
easy to tune the voice to such a note that it must be inaudible to those
at the adjacent tables; but Poluski seemed to be careless whether or not
he was overheard, and the girl fancied that Princess Delgrado had caught
the words "Alexis," "Michael," "Delgratz." Certainly the Princess turned
again and looked at her, while she did not fail to glance swiftly at the
misshapen figure visible only in profile.

"Not so loud, Felix," murmured Joan. "Come to my compartment when you
have smoked a cigarette. By that time I shall have recovered my wits,
and I may be able to decide what to do for the best."

"Wrong again!" he laughed. "Obey your heart, not your brain,
_mignonne_." (He bent nearer, and his extraordinarily bright gray eyes
peered up into hers.) "That is how Alec won his throne. He is all heart.
Those who paved the way for him were all brain. They plotted, and
contrived, and spun their web with the murderous zeal of a spider; but,
poof! in buzzes bluebottle Alec, and where are the schemers? Ah, my
angel, if you knew everything you would be cheery as I and marry your
King with a light conscience."

The two persons who were the unwitting cause of Joan's sudden misgivings
rose and quitted the dining car. No one seemed to be aware of their
identity. Even the brown-liveried attendants did not give them any more
attention than was bestowed on the other passengers, and the girl
realized that the parents of a King, even such a newly fledged King as
Alec, did not usually travel with this pronounced lack of state.

"Are you quite sure they are the Prince and Princess?" she asked,
scanning Poluski's wrinkled face to learn if he had not been playing
some sorry jest.

"Quite sure," said he.

"But----"

"You wonder why they condescend to mix with the common horde? Learn
then, my Joan, that a French booking clerk is a skeptic who can be
convinced only by the sight of money. Consider the number of brokendown
royalties in Paris, and picture, if you can, the scowl of disbelief that
would cloud the official features of the Gare de l'Est if Prince Michael
asked for a special train to Delgratz; booked it on the nod, so to
speak. It could not be done, Joan, not if one substituted 'Archangel'
for 'Prince.' As it is, the senior Delgrado has probably touched a
friend for the money to buy the tickets."

"Yet their names would be recognized."

Felix called an attendant. "The lady and gentleman who sat at the
opposite table were the Count and Countess Polina?"

"I cannot say, monsieur. Shall I inquire?"

"No need, thank you. To be precise, since you demand it," went on
Poluski when the man had gone, "I asked who they were the moment we left
Paris. I saw them on the platform, and the absence of any display showed
that they were traveling incognito. I doubt very much if Alec knows of
their journey. Can you guess why I think that?"

Joan shook her head wearily. "I am living in a land of dreams," she
sighed. "I do not understand the why or wherefore of anything?"

"Listen, then, and you will see that your dreamland is a prosaic place,
after all. There is a man in Paris who receives letters daily from
Kosnovia, and they tell of events that are not printed for the
multitude. Last night, when I was certain we should go to Delgratz, I
sought him and heard the latest news. Your Alec means to economize. He
has promulgated the absurd theory that the people's taxes should be
spent for the people's benefit, and he says that no King is worth more
than five thousand pounds a year, while many of his contemporaries would
be dear at the price. He has also set up this ridiculous maximum as a
standard, and intends to reduce the official salary list to about half
its present dimensions.

"This fantasy has reached his father's ears, and the old gentleman is
hurrying to Delgratz to check the madness ere it is too late. It is a
simple bit of arithmetic: if a King, who works like a horse, is to
receive only five thousand a year, what is the annual value of his
father, who does nothing but lounge about the boulevards? No wonder old
Michael is off hotfoot to the White City!"

Despite her perplexities, Joan had to laugh, and Felix bent nearer to
clinch his argument.

"You and I must stand by Alec, my dear. I too am breathing a new
atmosphere. I fought against Kings because they were tyrants; but I am
ready to fight for one who is a deliverer. What do you fear, you? The
world? Has the world ever done anything for you that its opinion should
be considered? It will fawn or snarl as it thinks best fitted to its own
ends; but help or pity? Never! Its votaries in Delgratz will strive to
rend Alec when they realize that their interests are threatened. We must
be there, you and I, you to aid him in winning the fickle mob, and I to
watch those secret burrowings more dangerous to thrones than open
revolt. It is a sacred mission, my Joan! They who named you were wiser
than they knew. You were christened a King's helpmate, while I, Felix
Poluski, am fated to be the most amazing product of modern
civilization,--an anarchist devoted to a monarchy.

"It came on me yesterday morning in the Louvre. I saw my principles
crucified for the good of humanity. Through the eyes of the Virgin I
looked into a heaven of achievement, and I care not what the means so
long as good results. One honest King is worth a million
revolutionaries, and God, who made Alec a King, also made him honest."

Excited, exuberant, bubbling over with that very emotionalism at which
he had scoffed a few minutes earlier, Felix leaned back in his chair and
sang a quatrain in his singularly sweet and penetrating tenor.

Instantly every head was turned and necks were craned. A waiter, serving
coffee, was so electrified that he poured no small quantity into the lap
of an indignant German. Joan, too wrathful for mere words, dared not
rush away instantly to her compartment, though she would have given a
good deal at that moment to be safe in its kindly obscurity. And the
worst thing was that she saw the coffeepot incident, and was forced to
laugh till the tears came.

Cries of "Bravo!" "Again!" mingled with the iron-clamped syllables of
Teutonic protest, and she distinctly heard a well bred English voice
say:

"Foreign music hall artists! I told you so, though the girl looks an
American. But, by gad! can't that humpbacked johnny sing!"

"Felix, how could you?" she managed to gasp at last.

"I'm sorry. I forgot we were not in Paris. But there are some here who
appreciate good music. If you don't mind, I'll give them Beranger's
'Adieu to Mary Stuart.' You remember, it goes this way--"

Joan fled, making play with her handkerchief. The fast speeding train
threw her from side to side of the corridor during a hurried transit;
but the exquisite lines followed her clearly.

Felix sang like a robin till the mood exhausted itself. Then, deaf to
enthusiastic plaudits and cries for "More!" he lit a long thin cigar and
smoked furiously. Passing Joan's berth later, he knocked.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"I, the Humming Bee."

"Leave me to-night, Felix. I must think."

"Better sleep. Thinking creates wrinkles. Look on me as a horrible
example."

He went away, bassooning some lively melody, but grinning the while, and
if his thoughts took shape they would run:

"The struggle has ended ere it began, sweet maid. You are in love; but
have not yet waked up to that astonishing fact. Now, why did the good
God give me a big heart and a small head and a twisted spine? Why not
have made me either a man or an imp?"

Joan could not face strangers in the dining car after Poluski's strange
outburst. She remained in her own cramped quarters all next day, ate
some meals there as best she could, and kept Felix at arm's length so
far as confidence or counsel was concerned. On the platform at Vienna,
where the train was made up afresh, she encountered Princess Delgrado.
To her consternation, the older woman stopped and spoke.

"I am sorry I missed the delightful little concert your friend provided
in the dining car last night," she said in French, and her voice had
that touch of condescension with which a society leader knows how to
dilute her friendliness when addressing a singer or musician. "My
husband and I retired early, to our great loss, I hear. Are you
traveling beyond Vienna? If so, and you give us another musical this
evening----"

"There is some mistake," faltered Joan, unconsciously answering in
English. "People who do not know Monsieur Poluski often take him for an
operatic artiste. He is a painter. He sings only to amuse himself, and
seldom waits to consider whether the time and place are well chosen."

"But, gracious me!" cried the Princess, amazed to find that Joan spoke
English as to the manner born. "Some one said you were Polish. I doubted
my eyes when I looked at you; but your companion--well, he might be
anything."

"Both he and I earn our bread by painting pictures," said Joan. "Indeed,
we are now bound for Delgratz to carry out a commission."

"Delgratz! How extraordinary! I too am going there. It is so disturbed
at present that it is the last place in the world I should have
suspected of artistic longings. May I ask who has sent for you?"

Luckily, in the bustle and semiobscurity of the station, Princess
Delgrado did not pay much heed to the furious blushing of the pretty
girl who had aroused her interest. It was impossible to regard one whom
she now believed to be an American like herself as being in any way
concerned with the intrigues that centered in the capital of Kosnovia,
and she attributed Joan's confusion to the pardonable error that arose
from the talk Prince Michael brought from the smoking car.

But what was Joan to answer? She could not blurt out to Alec's mother
the contents of that exceedingly plainspoken epistle now reposing in her
pocket. For one mad instant she wondered what would happen if she said:

"I am being sent to Delgratz by people who wish to drive Alec out of the
kingdom, and I am really considering whether or not I ought to marry
him."

Then she lifted her head valiantly, with just that wood-nymph flinging
back of rebellious hair that Alec was thinking of while riding to his
Castle of Care after a long day in the saddle.

"There is nothing unusual in my being chosen to copy a picture," she
said. "Art connoisseurs care little for politics. To them a new Giotto
is vastly more important than a new King, and I am told that both are to
be found in Delgratz nowadays."

Prince Michael strolled up. He was pleased that his wife had made the
acquaintance of the charming unknown, whom he had looked for in vain
during the day.

"Ah," he said, with polite hat flourish, "I feared we had lost the
pleasant company of which I heard----"

"You were misinformed," broke in his wife hastily in English. "This
young lady is visiting Delgratz for art purposes. The gentleman who sang
last night is the celebrated painter, Monsieur--Monsieur----"

"Felix Poluski," said Joan.

Prince Michael started as though a scorpion had found a crack in his
patent boots.

"Poluski--Felix Poluski!" he cried. "I know that name; but he was fond
of using strange colors on his palette if I remember rightly."

Felix, owing to his small stature, was compelled to dodge among the
crowd on the platform like a child. He appeared now unexpectedly, and
Michael's exclamation was not lost on him.

"Excellent, Monseigneur!" he said. "You always had a turn for epigram. I
am glad to find that you have not forgotten the brave days of old when
you and I used to spout treason together, you because you hungered after
a dynasty, and I because I preferred dynamite. Odd thing, both words
mean power, strength, sovereignty; the difference lies only in the
method of application. But that was in our hot youth, Michael----"

"Imbecile!" hissed the Prince, his red face blanching, as once before
when a man spoke of the perils that hedge a throne in the Balkans. "This
is Vienna. I shall be recognized!"

Felix snapped his fingers. "They don't care that for you,
Monseigneur--never did! You could have come and gone as you pleased any
time during these thirty years. If any one is feared here, it is I. But,
my veteran, why this display of wrath? You know me well enough. Didn't
you see me last night?"

"No--that is, I did not recollect. Your face was hidden."

"Ah, you had something better to look at. Well, who goes to Delgratz?
Get aboard, all!"

During this brief but illuminating conversation the Princess and Joan
could do nothing else but gaze from one man to the other in mute
surprise, and Joan was grieved beyond measure that Felix should treat
Alec's father with such scant courtesy. Even while they were making for
the steps of the sleeping cars, she managed to whisper tremulously to
the Princess:

"Please don't be angry with Monsieur Poluski. His brusk manner often
gets him into trouble. Forgive me for saying it, but your son knows him
well, and is very fond of him, and I am sure Felix would do anything
that lay in his power to help--to help King Alexis III."

"My son! Do you also know him?"

"Yes."

"Have you met him in Paris?"

"Yes."

"But I have never seen you at the Rue Boissiere."

"No. We met at Rudin's, and sometimes in the Louvre."

"And does he know that you are coming to Delgratz?"

"No. I assure you----"

The Princess hesitated. It was not in her kind heart to think evil of
this singularly frank looking and attractive girl. "Will you tell me
your name?" she said, turning with one foot on the step; for they were
about to enter separate carriages.

"Joan Vernon."

"I suppose it is idle to ask, but you are not married?"

"No, nor likely to be for a very long time."

"Aboard!" cried a guard, marveling that women could find so much to say
at the very last moment.

"Well," said the Princess, "I hope to see you at dinner. If not, in
Delgratz."

Joan took good care that no one except her maid and an attendant saw her
again that evening. She felt bruised and buffeted as though she had been
carried among rocks by some irresistible current. Even her mind refused
to act. The why and the wherefore of events were dim and not to be
grasped. Over and over again she regretted the impulse that led her to
take this journey. Felix, as friend and artistic tutor, was invaluable;
but in the guise of mentor for a young woman who had her own way to make
in the world, and nothing more to depend on than her artistic faculties
and a small income from a trust fund, he was a distinct failure. What
would Alec think of it all? And what would Alec's mother say when her
son told her that Joan Vernon was the woman he meant to marry?

So Joan grew miserable, and developed a headache, and wept a little over
perplexities that were very real though she could not define them. And
Felix dined alone, and smoked in dumb reverie, and when Prince Michael,
warmed with wine and cheered by the knowledge that a wearisome journey
was drawing to a close, unbent so far as to ask him to sing, the little
man shook his head.

"You'll hear me singing in Delgratz, Monseigneur," he said. "I shall
have something to think about then, and I sing to think, just as you
live to eat. At present, there isn't a note in the box. Now, if madame
can spare you, just sit down there, and you and I will talk of old
times. For instance, poor Amelie Constant--she died the other day----"

"Ah, bah!" growled Michael. "That is not interesting. Old times of that
sort generally mean times one would rather forget. _Au 'voir_, M'sieur
Poluski. We shall meet across the Danube. If your principles permit,
come and see me at court."

"My principles carry me into strange company, Monseigneur," said Felix
gravely.




CHAPTER VII

JOAN BECOMES THE VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES


On arriving at Delgratz, Joan still avoided her distinguished traveling
companions. Indeed, no one paid any heed to her, since Prince Michael's
vanity could not resist the temptation of making himself known, and when
the word went round that the King's father was in the station, there was
such a press around him and the Princess that ordinary passengers were
of little account.

Monseigneur was flattered by the excitement caused by his unexpected
appearance, and he momentarily regretted the lack of display that
resulted from his decision to travel incognito. It would have been so
much more effective if he had been greeted by the King and a glittering
staff the moment he descended from the train. It was undignified, too,
to pass through the streets of the capital in a disheveled hired
vehicle, when a royal carriage, surrounded by a cavalry escort, might
have brought him to the palace in style. It was somewhat late in the
day, however, to rectify the mistake now. He could not hang round the
station while a messenger went to his son, and if he meant to effect a
surprise he had succeeded admirably.

Leaving a valet and maid to bring the luggage, which an obsequious
customs officer cleared at once, he ushered his wife into a ramshackle
victoria and told the man to drive to the Schwarzburg.

Every Serb is a born gossip; but a policeman had whispered the names of
the eminent pair, and awe kept the driver's tongue from wagging, else
Prince Michael would have received a greater shock than the welcoming
bump of a singularly bad pavement. Luckily the Black Castle lay no great
distance from the railway, since Delgratz was but a small place when the
palace was built, and the town had long ago closed around it on every
hand.

During the short drive Michael tried to be cheery, though he had slept
little during two nights. "These old streets have really changed very
little," he said. "When I was a boy I remember thinking how magnificent
they were. What an eye opener it must have been for Alec when he
realized that he had given up Paris--for this!" and he waved a
deprecating hand toward the unkempt houses, yellow washed and dingy; for
the White City, though white when seen from a distance, turns out to be
an unhealthy looking saffron at close quarters. The Princess cared
nothing for the squalor of the town. She was thinking of her son.

"I wish we had told Alec we were coming, Michael," she said. "Now that
we are here, the reasons you urged for secrecy seem to be less
convincing than ever."

"Alec would have telegraphed his prompt advice to remain where we were."

"Perhaps----"

"Perhaps you will allow me to decide what is best to be done, Marie. Our
affairs had reached a crisis. So long as there was a chance of my
becoming King I was able to finance myself. Now that Alec is firmly
established, and filling empty heads with all this nonsense as to
retrenchment and economical administration, every creditor I had in the
world is pestering me. You cannot realize the annoyance to which I have
been subjected during the last fortnight. Life was becoming intolerable,
just because Alec was talking galimatias to a number of irresponsible
journalists."

"Why not write and tell him our troubles? He would have helped us, I am
sure. And that which you call rubbish seems to have caught the ear of
all Europe. Even 'The Journal des Debats' published a most eulogistic
article about him last week."

"Poof!" snorted Monseigneur. "Those Paris rags pander to republicanism.
Every word, every act, of an impetuous youngster like Alec is twisted
into an argument against the older monarchies. Give an eye to the mean
looking building on the right. That is the Chamber of Deputies. Alec
made the speech there that won him a throne. Who would have believed
it? Just a few words, and he became King!"

Something in Prince Michael's tone caused his wife to look at him
sharply. "You are not growing envious, Michael?" she asked.

"No; but I was a fool."

"Because I shall keep you to our compact," she said, with a firmness of
manner that surprised the pompous little man by her side. He had been
answered in that way so seldom during their married life that the
novelty was displeasing.

"Ah, bah! what are you saying?" he cried. He stifled the next words on
his lips; for the horse passed under an arch, and not even the studied
repose of a princely boulevardier could conceal his new amazement.

An industrial army was busy in and around the famous residence of the
Kings of Kosnovia. They were tearing it to pieces. The roof was off, one
wing was wholly dismantled, and the beautiful gardens were strewn with
debris.

"In the name of Providence, what is going on?" demanded Monseigneur of
the driver.

"It is the King's order, your Highness," said the man, glorying in the
fact that the muzzle was off--by request. "The castle is to be
demolished, and a new National Assembly built on the site."

"Our ancient house pulled down and made a sty for those hogs! The King
must be mad!"

"We esteem him highly in Delgratz," said the man stoutly. "He thinks
more of the people than of palaces, and they say that he means to
convert some of the gold lace into white bread."

The bewildered and infuriated Michael now remembered that the few
officers encountered in the railway station or the streets seemed to be
far less gaudily attired than in former years. In a passing thought he
attributed the alteration to the wearing of undress uniform during the
early hours; but the cab driver's words seemed to hint at some fresh
wave of reform. His bulging eyes continued to glare at the ruined
palace; but native caution warned him against being too outspoken in the
presence of one of the lower order.

"When was this work begun?" he asked.

"Three days ago, your Highness. The King decided that the banqueting
hall should be destroyed as quickly as possible. He says it taints the
air. As for the Assembly, it must wait. Money is not so plentiful."

"What is it, Michael?" cried the Princess, aware that something
unforeseen had happened; but unable to grasp its significance, owing to
her ignorance of the language.

Monseigneur, who had stood up in the carriage, subsided again. He raised
both hands in a gesture of bewilderment. "Alexis III. has signalized the
first month of his reign by destroying the historic home of our
race--that is all, madame!" he muttered bitterly.

"But why are we remaining here? Where does Alec live? He must inhabit a
house of some sort. Tell the man to drive there at once!"

The Prince affected not to hear. "What could Stampoff be thinking of to
permit this outrage?" he murmured. "Why was not I consulted? Idiot that
I am, and coward too! I see now the mistake I made. Can it be rectified?
Is it too late?"

A second carriage, laden with luggage, drove in through the gateway. The
valet and a French maid gazed in discreet wonder at their master and
mistress seated disconsolately in front of a tumbledown building.

"Michael, I insist that you give the driver directions!" cried his wife
vehemently. "We cannot remain here. The least shred of commonsense
should warn you that we are making ourselves ridiculous."

"Ah, yes, one must act," agreed the Prince. He glanced up at the
enthusiastic supporter of the new regime.

"We have traveled here from Paris, and his Majesty's recent letters have
missed us," he said, with a perceptible return of the grand air that had
served him in good stead for many years. "Take us to his Majesty's
present residence. The error is mine. I should have told you that in the
first instance."

"The King is living in the President's house, Excellency. It is not far;
but you will not find his Majesty there this morning. At four o'clock
he rode to Grotzka with the mad Englishman----"

"Ha! and who may that be?"

"An English milord, who laughs always, even when his Majesty and he are
trying to break their necks at a game they play on horseback, hitting a
white ball with long sticks. I have seen them. They make the young
officers play it, and there are three in hospital already. This is hot
weather for such an infernal amusement!"

Prince Michael nodded. Like every other person watching affairs on the
Danube, he had read of Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir's adventure with the
Austrian authorities,--indeed, Europe had almost expected a declaration
of war over the incident,--but he did not know that Beaumanoir was still
an inhabitant of Delgratz.

"To Monsieur Nesimir's!" he said sullenly, and left it to the Princess
to give instructions to the servants to follow, though the poor woman
did not yet know whither she was being taken. She was very angry with
her husband, and she blamed herself for not having telegraphed to her
son before leaving Paris. But she had yielded to Michael Delgrado during
so many years that it was difficult to abandon the habit now; yet she
promised herself a full explanation with Alec when they met, and that
must be soon, since here she was in Delgratz, where, judging by the
newspapers, the King was in evidence every hour of the day.

The President's house was distant only a stone's throw, and, though
obviously mystified, stout Nesimir met his unexpected guests cordially.
He was disconsolate because of the King's probable absence till late in
the afternoon.

"What a pity his Majesty chose to-day for a visit to the artillery
camp!" he cried. "But I shall send a courier; he can return by noon. How
is it nothing was said as to your Highnesses' visit. I dined with the
King last night----"

"We wished to surprise his Majesty," explained Prince Michael. "You know
how outspoken he is, and how easily these things get into the newspaper;
so we started from Paris without a word to a soul. Send no courier after
him, I beg. A rest of a few hours will be most acceptable to the
Princess and myself. Madame is fatigued after a long journey, while I
would ask nothing better than an armchair, a cup of coffee, a cigarette,
and a chat; that is, if you can spare the time, Monsieur le President."

Nesimir would be charmed to comply with Monseigneur's desires in every
respect. Really, the elder Delgrado seemed to be even more approachable
than his son; for the President was unable to fathom many of the social
views propounded by Alexis III. This unheralded advent of the King's
parents, too, betokened some secret move. He was sure of that, and,
being a man to whom political intrigue was the breath of life, he saw
that a gossip with Prince Michael might convey information of much
possible value in the near future. So the Princess Delgrado was ushered
to a room by Madame Nesimir with all possible ceremony, and the two men
established themselves on a cool veranda.

By this time, Joan and Felix were seated at breakfast in the hotel. Joan
had wisely left the bargaining with the landlord to her companion, and
he, knowing something of Serbian ways, which reck little of politeness
when curiosity can be sated, chose a sitting room on the first floor
with three bedrooms adjoining. The sitting room was a huge place, big
enough to serve as a studio if necessary. Three large windows commanded
a view of the main street, and the solid oak door opened into the
corridor behind, which also gave access to the bedrooms.

Poluski's only motive in selecting this particular suite was to secure
the maximum of privacy. Joan's appearance was far too striking that she
should be subjected to the scrutiny of every lounger in the restaurant
beneath. In this primitive community she would probably receive several
offers of marriage the first time she sat at table in the public dining
room.

It was he, too, who advised her never to go out unless she was deeply
veiled. Joan laughed at the reason--but followed his counsel. During
their first stroll in the open air she said she felt like a Mohammedan
woman; yet she soon realized that a double motor veil not only shielded
her from impertinent eyes but kept her face free from dust and insects.

Naturally, they made straight for the cathedral and examined the quaint
picture that had provided an excuse for their visit to the Near East.
They were much impressed. They gazed at its brilliant coloring and stiff
pose for fully a minute. Then Joan broke a silence that was becoming
irksome.

"If it is really a Giotto," she whispered, "it was painted before he
broke away from the Byzantine tradition."

"Yes," murmured Poluski, "here we have both Giotto and Saint Peter at
their worst."

"Felix, how can I copy that?"

"Impossible, my belle. You must improvise, using it as a theme. When all
is said and done, you know far more than Giotto about Saint Peter. Holy
blue! if you bring that back to Paris as a veritable likeness of the
Chief Apostle you will be placed on the Index Expurgatorius. Moreover,
it would not be fair to him, after all these years."

"It needed only this to prove how farcical is the whole scheme. I am
beginning to dread the idea of meeting Alec. He will laugh at me."

"That will do him good. I am told he is becoming most serious."

"Told--by whom? Surely you have not sent any message?"

"Not a word. I leave that to you--or Princess Delgrado."

"How snappy you are! It was not my fault that the Princess spoke to me.
She would never have known I was on the train if you hadn't sung."

"Ah, by the way, we ought to hear some decent Gregorian music in this
old place. See, where they have put the choir, nearly under the dome.
Yes, we must attend a service. The bass should roll like thunder up
yonder----"

"Felix, who told you about Alec?"

"A waiter in the hotel, a waiter rejoicing in the noble name of John
Sobieski, a Pole, therefore, like myself. I said to him 'What of the
King?' He answered, 'Everything that is good, if one listens to the
people; but the officers who come here to drink and play cards do not
like him.' I explained that I wished to know the King's whereabouts, and
he said that if I was anxious to see the gracious youth I should have a
splendid opportunity at four o'clock this afternoon, as his Majesty will
pass the hotel at that hour on his way to the University, where he has
promised to attend a prize giving."

"At four o'clock! What shall we do meanwhile?" asked Joan innocently.

Felix winked brazenly at the picture. "Delgratz is a picturesque city,"
he said. "Let us inspect it."

"You do not think Alec will learn of our presence and visit us before
going to the University?"

"Very improbable. He is out in the country, watching artillery at field
exercise. Of course, he knows nothing about artillery; but Kings have to
pretend a good deal. Now, if I were a young lady who had been traveling
for a day and two nights, especially if I had slept badly during the
second night, I should stroll about the principal streets till I was
tired, eat a light luncheon, sleep for an hour afterward, dress myself
in some muslin confection, and be ready to dine with the King at
seven-thirty or thereabouts."

"I shall do nothing of the kind!" cried Joan, blushing behind her motor
veil.

"Very well. Behold in me your slave of the lamp. What shall we do?"

"I don't object to looking at the shops and the people for a little
while," she admitted, and this time Felix did not wink at the picture,
but contented himself with an expressive raising of his bushy eyebrows.

The program he mapped out was adhered to faithfully. Joan was really
tired, and the midday heat of Delgratz was not only novel but highly
disagreeable. She retired to her room at one o'clock, and Felix heard
her telling her maid to call her at three.

The elderly Frenchwoman whom Joan employed as a compendium of all the
domestic virtues was scandalized by the pestering she had already
undergone at the hands of the hotel employees. They wanted to know
everything about her mistress as soon as they were told that she was not
Poluski's wife, and the staid Pauline was at her wit's end to parry the
questions showered on her in bad French. Felix advised her not to
understand when spoken to, and relieved her manifest distress by the
statement that the hotel would see the last of them in a day or two.

Then, anxious himself to be rid of Pauline, he strolled out into Fuerst
Michaelstrasse, entered the hotel's public restaurant by another door,
and sat there, musing and alone.

Thus far, Joan and he had passed through the simple vicissitudes that
might beset any other strangers in the capital of Kosnovia. Though the
little man expected developments when Alec heard of Joan's presence, he
certainly did not look for squalls forthwith; yet he had not been
smoking and humming and sipping a cup of excellent coffee more than a
minute before he became aware that the sunlit street was curiously
alive.

The hottest hours of a hot day might well have driven the citizens of
Delgratz indoors; but some powerful inducement was drawing loiterers to
Fuerst Michaelstrasse. It was evident that the attraction, whatsoever it
might be, was not supplied by the thoroughfare itself. Men lounged along
the pavements or gathered in groups, and Poluski noted that few women
were present. Soon a regiment of soldiers marched up, formed into two
ranks, and lined the street on both sides.

Felix betook himself to the door, where his compatriot was dusting
marble topped tables with an apron that, under other conditions, would
have soiled them.

"Does the King arrive earlier than four o'clock?" he asked.

John Sobieski looked around furtively before he answered. "No," said he
in a low tone, "the crowd is gathering to see the regicides. Their trial
ended to-day, and they are being taken to the Old Fort to await
sentence."

"Found guilty?"

"I should think so, indeed, monsieur! They gloried in their crime. They
claim that they cleared the way for Alexis III. by removing Ferdinand.
Some people say the King cannot really be severe on them, though it was
he who brought them to justice."

"Have they many sympathizers?"

The waiter, a pallid creature, flicked a table loudly to cover his
reply. "Some of our customers talk big; but it is a strange thing that
the authorities allow the men of the disbanded Seventh Regiment to
remain in Delgratz. There are hundreds of them in the street at this
moment."

"It reminds one of Warsaw."

A sudden moisture glistened in John Sobieski's eyes. "Ah, Warsaw!" he
muttered. "Shall I ever see my beautiful city again? But it is different
here, monsieur. Even though they quarrel among themselves, they have at
least got rid of their conquerors."

A quickening of interest on the part of the mob, a general craning of
necks, and a sharp command to the soldiers showed that the criminals
were en route from the law courts. A squad of cavalry trotted into
sight, followed by eight closed carriages. An armed policeman sat near
every driver, and another stood on the step outside each door. Mounted
soldiers in single file surrounded the dismal procession, and a second
strong detachment guarded the rear.

It was a doleful spectacle, and Felix was puzzled by the absence of
anything in the nature of a popular demonstration. He had been led to
believe that Delgratz abhorred these murders committed in the name of
progress, and he naturally expected an emotional people to betray their
feelings. He listened in vain for a yell of execration. A queer murmur
ran through the crowd, that was all, a murmur that was ominous, almost
sinister. He scanned the faces of the crowd, trying to pierce their
stolid aspect. Some of the bystanders obviously belonged to the mutinous
regiment; but he looked in vain for any sign of anger or regret.

Skilled conspirator that he was, Poluski seemed rather to discern a deep
laid purpose behind their unnatural phlegm, yet his suspicions died away
when the street began to empty as soon as the prisoners' vehicles and
the escort had clattered past. The foot regiment marched off, and within
ten minutes Felix was back in his nook, smoking and coffee drinking, and
thanking the chance that left Joan unconscious of this grim episode,
since her bedroom windows looked out on the garden in rear of the hotel.

He sat there quietly, sternly repressing his musical instincts when he
caught himself humming some favorite melody; nor would he have budged
until Alec appeared had not his keen eyes noted another curious
movement in the street. About half-past three several men strolled past
the cafe, men whom he distinctly remembered having seen in the earlier
crowd. In twos and threes they came, and he fancied that the complete
disregard each set paid the others was rather overdone.

At any rate, he ordered a fresh supply of coffee and sought
enlightenment from Sobieski. "Just peep at some of those fellows in the
street and tell me if they are not soldiers of the Seventh Regiment," he
said.

The waiter obeyed. He determined the point quickly. "I recognize a few,
monsieur," he muttered, "and I believe there are scores of them. I wish
they would patronize some other street. Our patrons will not care to mix
with such rascals."

Poluski rose wearily; for his energetic soul was housed in a frail body,
and the long journey from Paris had exhausted him.

"I have read in the newspapers that King Alexis dispenses with a
bodyguard?" he said, lighting a fresh cigar.

"He hates ceremony, that young man," was the ready answer. "At first the
people mobbed him. Now he rides through Delgratz like a courier,
sometimes alone, at others with a friend or two, and perhaps an
orderly."

Felix laughed. "He is a fine fellow," said he. "Do the King a good turn,
John, and you will be able to buy a cafe in Warsaw one of these days."

"Me, monsieur! How can a poor waiter hope to serve a King?"

"_Que diable!_ You never know your luck. Life is a lottery, and some day
you may draw the great prize."

Felix sauntered into the street and took a keen interest in its
architecture. In front of the hotel and down a slight gradient to the
right it was a wide and straight thoroughfare; but to the left and
uphill it narrowed rapidly and took a sharp left turn. In the angle
stood a popular restaurant, and the rooms on the first and second
stories were full of customers. No one, apparently, was looking out; but
small parties of men sat near each open window, and they were not
playing cards or dominoes, though the greater part of the male
inhabitants of Delgratz seem to do little else when not eating or
sleeping. Moreover, an empty bullock cart was halted in front of the
ground floor entrance.

"There's thunder in the air," said Poluski to himself; but he continued
to admire the irregular outlines of Fuerst Michaelstrasse. Thus, he could
not fail to notice that the upper rooms of three cafes exactly similar
to that at the corner w

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