The Game and the Candle Part 16

Stanief paused to meet the wilful gaze.

"Perhaps I think of a day the years are bringing, sire," he replied gravely, and bent his head still lower to the jeweled fingers which grasped so much.

Adrian flushed scarlet.

"No," he denied fiercely. "Feodor, you can not believe I will fail you if you do not me? You can not think that then, after that--"

Stanief did not help him at all. Taking refuge in wordlessness, Adrian left the sentence unfinished and let his cousin go, with an a.s.sumption of dignity that hardly concealed the sting of the rebuke he had received. But he did not offer to relinquish the purpose so distasteful to Stanief.

For half an hour the terrace remained hushed and silent under the noon suns.h.i.+ne, the tree-shadows wavering back and forth across the small, motionless figure.

"Monsieur Allard!" at last the summons rang.

Allard returned serenely, of course ignorant of the recent stormy discussion.

"In a few months," Adrian stated, without looking at him, "the Princess Iria de Bourbon will come here to be married to the Regent. I wish you to be one of the escort that will meet her and bring her to the capital."

"But, sire--"

"You are surprised?"

"I did not know the Grand Duke contemplated marriage, sire," Allard explained, stunned.

"He did not; it is I who contemplated it. You will go?"

"Surely there will be many more fitted for such an honor. Of course it will be as you arrange, sire; but I would rather stay here."

Adrian moved, sighing; his lip took a softer curve and for the first time he almost looked his few years. "If you like her, monsieur, Feodor will like her. I want you to see her, to tell him good of her. She is different from any one else--when we were both in Italy we saw each other every day, and I know. She is so gentle; I want her here."

Allard gazed at him in utter wonder.

"Feodor believes I force the marriage to annoy him and please Dalmorov.

It is not so; it is because I want Iria here. You understand that?"

"I am trying, sire."

Adrian stood up decisively.

"Let us go in. When the time comes, you shall go with her escort."

CHAPTER IX

GUINEVERE OF THE SOUTH

It was quite a month after that sunny noon on the Emperor's terrace, that Maria Luisa Iria de Bourbon was informed of her betrothal to the Grand Duke Feodor Stanief. She also received the announcement on a garden terrace, by a caprice of chance; but it was a terrace of the South, starred and flowered all over with violets, heavily-sweet tuberoses and blue Florentine irises. Moreover, it was sunset, and she stood a slender white figure against the rosy sky.

"It is all decided?" she asked in a hushed, pathetic little voice, a voice shattered into crystalline fragments, like the dash of a clear brook against a rock. "It is sure to happen, senora?"

"Quite sure," answered her mother, with a firmness not unsuggestive of Adrian.

The princess made a move forward, then swayed like one of her wind-blown irises and slipped down to the old moss-green steps. When in her own room they revived her, she turned to hide her face among the pillows.

"I am afraid," she whispered under her breath. "I am afraid."

That was all. She had been taught obedience in a convent, and the Duquesa her mother was not to be resisted. One does not stop the mills of the G.o.ds by laying a flower across their wheels.

But if Stanief seized every delay of diplomacy and ceremony in his Northern court, he was unconsciously aided by every feminine subterfuge from the Gentle Princess in her sun-kissed home. The elaborate trousseau required weeks to prepare, the autumn storms made the voyage by sea unpleasant, and the journey by land was too fatiguing and informal.

Between one and another, it was six months after the announcement before the escort s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed in the cobalt-blue bay which makes a dimple in the curving cheek of southern Spain. And then Iria met some of her new countrymen.

Not easy were their names and t.i.tles to her lisping Latin tongue, as she greeted the guests graciously and gracefully, her mother by her side.

But as one gentleman was presented, she leaned forward with delicate surprise.

"Monsieur John Allard," she echoed, her large golden-brown eyes on his face. "Monsieur is not then of my future country?"

"Madame, I am an American," he explained, almost with the tenderness one involuntarily shows a child. It seemed to him that he had never seen anything more appealing than her young dignity and pathetic beauty of expression.

Iria regarded him earnestly. His right arm hung in a scarf, but he bore the injury with a bright unconcern that suggested it rather a badge of honor than an embarra.s.sment. Although so simply announced, his companions waited for him to pa.s.s on with deferential patience and lack of surprise at her interest. Very suddenly the young girl flushed, her golden-brown head drooping on its white stem.

"I am most glad to have met monsieur," she murmured confusedly.

After that the preparations for the departure went on more rapidly.

Contrary to all expectations, the princess was not too weary to sail next day and embarked with her mother and their ladies without too obvious regret.

The chief of the escort, the venerable Admiral Count Donoseff, was charmed and flattered by the interest shown in his staff by their future mistress. The first lady of the Empire Iria would be, until Adrian's distant marriage; her friends.h.i.+p might be valuable.

"Monsieur Allard has then injured his arm?" she remarked, on the third day of the voyage.

"Madame, in an act of devotion most remarkable," the admiral replied.

"Imagine that a week before we sailed, an insane student made an attack upon the Emperor. His Imperial Majesty was driving, with Monsieur Allard seated opposite, when the criminal leaped on the step of the carriage and attempted to plunge a knife into the Emperor's heart. Monsieur Allard flung himself forward and caught the blow on his own arm, undoubtedly saving the Emperor's life at the expense of a dangerous wound to himself. Drenched with blood, he held the a.s.sa.s.sin's wrist until aid arrived."

Iria shuddered, yet listened thirstily.

"I heard--a little of this," she said breathlessly. "But I thought it was his Royal Highness the Regent who was hurt."

The Admiral blushed at his own forgetfulness; a courtier should never forget.

"Certainly; he also, madame," he hastened to a.s.sure. "He was beside the Emperor and so at a disadvantage, but he sprang to aid Monsieur Allard in holding the man and received a slight wound in disarming him. All Europe rang with the story, and Monsieur Allard was decorated with the Grand Star of the Order of St. Rurik. The justice of the Regent is swift; the criminal was tried and executed the next day."

Iria glanced down the deck to where Allard chatted with two young n.o.bles of the court, the sun striking across his bright hair and laughing face.

"The Regent," she began shyly, then relapsed into silence with her ready change of color.

But a little later she caught Allard's eye and summoned him by a scarcely perceptible movement of her hand. He came with pleasure and saluted her with that direct friendliness of regard which had carried him safely past many a shoal and undercurrent during his continental life.