Eleanor M. Ingram

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

“ Stanief leaned forward and laid his hand over the cold hands folded in her lap. He had never before believed that a woman could be frank, never imaged one who "hated secrets." It was as if he stood on the threshold of a room all perfume and whiteness; and not the most accomplished coquette could have devised a means of moving him so profoundly.
"All my life I shall remember that you gave me your confidence, Iría," he answered, with exquisite delicacy and respect. "So far I am happier than you; I love no one. ”

“ Stanief took the chair beside his fiancée and looked at her; this was the first moment when he could do so without feeling himself watched by all curious eyes. He had read perfectly the terror under her mute passivity, the shrinking of her tiny frost-cold hand from his touch, and he pitied her with all his heart. Now, in the lustrous rose-pink gown against which her transparent skin showed without a tinge of color, her bronze-bright head averted, her mouth curved in childish pathos, she inspired him with an anger against Adrian which he had never felt for himself. ”

“ Utterly stupefied, powerless to interfere, Allard watched him; saw him hand a card to the attendant who advanced, then follow on into an elevator and disappear. The huge hall was filled with chatting men and women, many of them moving in the court or diplomatic circles; to the watcher's excited fancy it seemed impossible that they should not recognize the slight, erect figure; it seemed that Adrian's identity cried out from every leisurely movement, every turn of the small imperious head. ”

“ Knowing nothing of each other, there had nevertheless sprung into life between them that curious sympathy and friendliness which can be born of exchanged glances, meeting smiles; that sudden inexplicable liking which can make two passing strangers turn to gaze wistfully after each other and vaguely resent the trick of chance that has set their feet in opposite paths. It is one of the common phenomena of existence, but it was new to Allard, and perhaps new to his companion as well. ”

“ Allard denied, warmly enlisted in the defense. "That is most unjust. Consider only those from whom such reports come; there is no one living who has more undeserved enemies. I know him capable of love; I have seen it, felt it, lived it. And he works, madame; how he works! The country under his rule gains new life, new hope. Madame, if I might presume, I would implore you to believe nothing of him except what he himself will show you."
She crimsoned before his fervor, but her delicate face expressed no anger at the daring.
"I will not," she assented, still with that strange timidity. ”

“ There has been shown to me a way to make enough money to thrust poverty out of sight for the present and find comfort for the future. A way to save Sun-Kist in the short time left us to command. But it is by a crime, a crime which the world calls as ugly as forgery. You know for what Desmond was punished. Yet it is in a certain sense the crime magnificent, in that one wrongs a government instead of an individual, and dashes the gauntlet into the face of the state itself. It is the crime that to the least degree smudges, because, after all, it offers a fair equivalent for value received. ”

“ Allard came forward in response to a glance from Stanief.
"Sire, I have the honor to present Monsieur John Allard, whom I have persuaded to come with me because I also have need of one friend whom I can trust."
He was after all so pathetic in his lonely and sophisticated youth, this child. Saluting him, Allard's clear gray eyes involuntarily expressed all their sympathy and warm kindliness. And, meeting the regard, Adrian gave him his only smile of the evening.
"It is easy to trust you others, Monsieur Allard," he said wistfully. "I wish you were my friend instead of Feodor's." ”

“ The fall drew a gasp of pain. All before faded to insignificance beside the anguish of movement. It was not the ankle only; the injury had gone farther than that. Colorless, catching his breath with difficulty, Allard dragged himself inch by inch toward the goal.
Desmond was almost forgotten when the first shot on the mountain-side rang out. Startled from the mists of suffering, Allard paused an instant. Then as a very fusillade reverberated among the cliffs, he toiled on with redoubled haste. They would come next for him. ”

“ John Allard was of your suite; perhaps he could have told you that I am not all harshness."
She snatched her gaze from his and blushed as he had never seen a woman blush before, the heavy crimson staining her very forehead.
"He did tell me—that, monseigneur."
"Then I would ask you to trust me, Princess. To-morrow you will come to my house; there will be no other change in your life which you do not wish. I am not a reigning sovereign, there is no reason why you should not keep with you the ladies of your own country whom you prefer. ”

“ The first was the first morning when Stanief formally met the Emperor at the palace; and, as he had stooped to the salute, Adrian had deliberately given him an embrace so markedly affectionate that even Allard felt the significant thrill that ran through the room. And then, even while the unusual color still flushed Stanief's dark cheek, Adrian shot a glance at a sharp-faced man opposite, a glance so sneering, so bitterly triumphant, that the straightforward American actually shrank from the revelation of dual thought. ”

“ A playfully earnest warning of the other cousin's recurred to the listener; it appeared that both had "the habit of domination."
"And so I must return at once, or they may discover I have gone. But I am glad I came, cousin; it seems easier now."
"Sire," Stanief said, and somehow his tone made Allard feel suddenly abashed, as one who stands before a thing not for his eyes, "there will come a day when you will stand in the great cathedral to receive the oaths of allegiance of your nobles. There will be all ceremony, all solemnity, but—take mine now. ”

“ The Regent is fair, with gray eyes, is he not, monsieur?"
"No, madame; he is very dark," he assured her hastily, his thoughts on Stanief's much-loved face.
Iría smiled, bending her head still lower.
"He is perhaps—fanciful, monsieur? He might do something quite useless and romantic, just for a caprice?"
"Hardly, madame. I think he does nothing without a purpose. He—I believe he has not been very happy, Princess."
"And, is he now?" she asked faintly.
Allard recalled himself to gallantry with charming grace.
"Madame, he should be happier than any one living." ”

“ Adrian himself had first given his favorite the dry advice to see nothing that did not concern him.
Stanief had resumed his writing; at Allard's entrance he looked up to nod pleasantly toward a chair, and continued his work without speaking. The two were accustomed to each other; smiling, Allard sat down and let his head sink against the high back of the cushioned seat.
The fire glowed and danced, rose and fell, making an artificial brightness that mocked the clouded sky without. Gradually, from waiting Allard drifted into reverie, in whose closing mists his surroundings were lost from sight. ”

“ Watching Stanief, it seemed to Allard as if the rose-hued salon lost a little of its brightness also, as if both man and room remembered hours not happy.
"All my life I have walked in the shadow of one man's hate," Stanief said quietly. "I have known it watching greedily for my least indiscretion, heard its wild-beast breathing as it crouched beside me in the dark, stepped cautiously to avoid the snares it spread for me. ”

“ Of the ethics of what you have told me, Monsieur Allard, I am perhaps not a good judge. I come from one of the world's greatest countries, where from sovereign to peasant necessity is an excuse for all things. I have seen the highest officials of the state stoop to accept systematic bribery; I have seen nobles whose blood was filtered unmixed through centuries, tricking one another and the Emperor who trusted them ”

“ Adrian moved then, and the color rushed over his cheeks as he struck one small open palm on the arm of his chair.
"I understand you," he cried passionately. "Oh, I understand! Can I trust you? It is that, Feodor. No one speaks his thoughts to me; every one lies. The Emperor told me that many times before he died. 'Do not trust your cousin,' he whispered to me on the last day. 'Then I must trust Dalmorov?' I asked. 'No,' he said, 'no; better Feodor than him. Trust no one.' And now you ask it of me."
"Yet you came here to-night, sire," Stanief reminded him. ”

“ Tired out by excitement and strain, bearing the constant aching regret for Stanief's setting star, Allard had been gradually lulled into mesmeric quiescence by the shifting lights and shadows. And by a freak of exhausted nerves, it was old things thrust out of sight for years which took shape out of the dark and dragged their ugliness before him in a strange waking nightmare. ”

“ Dalmorov entered presently, radiant with satisfaction, but Allard could have borne witness that the baron passed no pleasant hour with his irritable and irritating master. Like the fleck of a lash Adrian's tongue touched each weakness and stung each exposed hope of the courtier three times his age, until even the distrait American found himself compelled to amusement. ”

“ The man who aspired to hold your place; who fancied us both victims of his clumsy intrigues; the man who never even perceived the contempt and dislike I scarcely troubled to conceal, look at him. Dragged from his shadows into the sun, facing you, he has no longer one falsehood to offer."
"Sire," interposed Stanief for very compassion, himself unsteadied by the happiness that makes generosity easy.
Adrian turned on him swiftly.
"You? You, Feodor? Oh, it needed but that! Thank the Grand Duke for his intercession, Baron Dalmorov, and go." ”

“ Allard began incredulously.
"The Emperor needs you more than ever before. There are too many people who cling to the peace of the last years, who dread change and would force me upon the throne at any cost. The Empire—not Adrian's court—the vast middle class, the merchants, the quiet, staid aristocracy, the very peasants, want all to continue as it is. If I were still to govern with the Emperor they would rest content, but they see it will not be so. They fear Adrian, they know and detest Dalmorov and the party he represents. ”

“ Stanief bowed, answering nothing.
"The lady—you will have heard of her. I met her last year on the Riviera. In her country they call her the Gentle Princess, because—she is. And she is very lovely."
Still the dark face was unstirred. His object gained, Adrian fretted and chafed before the change he himself had wrought.
"You are like Monsieur Allard; you do not want to yield your will," he said, half petulantly, half haughtily. "He is mine, you gave him to me; yet he did not like it because I said that no longer shall his fortune come from any one but me. Why?"
"He is an American, sire." ”

“ Stanief did not ride home that morning with the cheerful Vasili and bored Rosal, who awaited him. As he came down the wide steps between the usual parting, obsequious crowds, a girl leaned from a victoria that stood in the place of his own carriage,—Iría, opposite her the pale young Countess Marya.
"Will you ride with me, monseigneur?" invited the Gentle Princess, with her deliciously confiding glance and smile. "We were on the promenade, and I thought perhaps you would have finished—"
"Will you ride with me, Monseigneur?" ”

“ His voice hardened into steel, his velvet eyes flashed through their curtaining lashes. Allard rose impulsively and held out his hand.
"'Soit que soit,' we said last night," he cried. "Let me aid; stand or fall."
"A desperate cause," warned Stanief, keeping the hand in his firm clasp. "For day and night my enemies will pour their poison into Adrian's ears; Adrian, whose father must already have taught him distrust and dread of me. It may very well be that when I resign the absolute power to the young Emperor, he himself will first use it to crush me." ”

“ Allard replied quietly. "Enough for Desmond's use. Naturally, he never dreamed of making such a proposition to me. He simply told me how the affair could be carried out, as he told me a dozen other amazing possibilities and reminiscences. I encouraged him to talk, at first merely to dull the clamor of thought at my inner ear. In the end, I kept him near here."
"It's so real, John?"
"It's so real and so possible. I have satisfied myself of that. Either of us could carry the plan through, with Desmond; but we must realize that the one who undertakes it steps out of this life. ”

“ You may return to the yacht. Vasili, send the launch for me in an hour. Ah, and leave on that bench by the door my rain coat; I fancy it will be storming before we return. You understand?"
"Perfectly, your Royal Highness," responded Vasili, a trim, blond young aide-de-camp with a most ingenuous smile. He spoke in French, as did all the party.
"I alone have the honor of accompanying your Royal Highness?" Dancla asked, not without a shade of uneasiness.
The velvet black eyes of his chief passed over him deliberately.
"You alone; come." ”

“ They looked at each other, Allard startled and half dismayed, Stanief's velvet eyes less tranquil than usual.
"Yet I shall miss you, John," he concluded, his voice a caress.
The regret and the tone lay unforgotten in the closed room of Allard's heart. Years after, he could turn and find them there.
So from the gorgeous household of the Regent one man passed to the still more gorgeous palace. Vasili and Count Rosal regarded him with respectful envy; he was elected to membership of the two clubs of the capital's jeunesse dorée, and overwhelmed with friends and invitations. ”