The Game and the Candle Part 14

The second event was near the end of the week,--one noon when Stanief came home from a visit to the palace and found Allard alone.

"Do you remember the trust you offered to take for me?" he asked abruptly. And, without waiting an a.s.sent, "You are summoned to it already."

"Monseigneur?"

"The Emperor this morning asked me to add you to his household. It is more than I hoped to gain, that he should himself make the request; yet--"

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 pa.s.sed 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 doree_, and overwhelmed with friends and invitations.

But the Emperor was not at all inclined to let his new companion remain away from him very much, and Allard was quite as willing to stay at what he privately considered the post of duty. So it happened that he went riding with Adrian more frequently than he went motoring with Rosal, and accepted readily a routine which left him few hours unoccupied.

It was not possible to live at the palace without learning many things.

But it required just one day for Allard to learn enough of Adrian to make him smile at ever having thought Stanief imperious. The desire for absolute dominion and power over those near him was the most obvious characteristic of this descendant of a hundred autocrats. Moreover, he tolerated no contradiction, no evasion of a resolve.

"You are not rich in your own right, Monsieur Allard?" he said one day, with his mature directness and self-possession.

They were strolling up and down a terrace overlooking the river, and Allard involuntarily paused in surprise and with no slight embarra.s.sment.

"No longer, sire," he admitted, truth coming as the one course.

"My cousin,--you served him as his secretary?"

"Yes, sire."

Adrian sat down on a broad marble seat under the trees, lifting his head with the movement usually to be translated as a signal of danger.

"You serve me at present, not the Regent. As one of my household, you will accept from me in future."

"Pardon me, sire--"

"I will have it so, monsieur. You must be all mine, all. I shall speak to Feodor. Why do you object? You do, then, consider yourself his, not mine?"

"Sire, you misinterpret; I am a.s.suredly of your service."

"Then you accept?"

Allard met the flashing gaze helplessly; it was the other Adrian, distrustful, jealous, haughty, whom he faced and to whom he yielded.

"It is as you wish, sire, of course. I thank you."

"You do not," he retorted shrewdly, although his brow relaxed. "Why did you resist?"

Again Allard took refuge in the simple truth, a little sadly.

"We Americans, sire, are not accustomed to serve, I am afraid. We would stand alone. If I could accept the Grand Duke Feodor's protection without such reluctance, it was because of old reasons and old love."

"For him?"

"Yes, sire."

"Do you know Dalmorov secretly urges to me your love for Feodor as a cause for dismissing you?"

"I had not known it, although I might have guessed. But you could not believe me, sire, if I told you I did not love him."

"No; you are very easy to read. And I know more: I know that Feodor is glad to have you near me, although he is fond of keeping you with himself. Why?"

Allard regarded his keen young inquisitor candidly.

"Because--I use his own phrase, sire--because I am the only one that he feels he can wholly trust."

Adrian's eyes opened, then he laughed outright and the sinister personality faded altogether from his expression.

"You tell me that yourself, Monsieur Allard? Oh, if Dalmorov could hear you! Never mind; perhaps Feodor is deceiving you, perhaps you are both sincere, but certainly you yourself are all truthful. His turn also comes to-day, my cousin's."

"I do not understand--"

"It is not necessary. I am going to receive him here, this morning.

After he arrives, pray stay at the other end of the terrace and let no one pa.s.s to disturb us."

This daily visit of the Regent had become a matter of course. Sometimes it found Adrian surrounded by many people, sometimes alone, more often with Allard, as now. And never was he so sweetly gracious to Stanief as in Dalmorov's presence; although, as Stanief knew perfectly well, at other times he listened without rebuke to the baron's constant insinuations and warnings. If the young Emperor had confidence in no one, most a.s.suredly no one could risk a judgment of his real thoughts.

Only one sentiment he took no care to conceal: for whatever reason, he liked the regular visit and would suffer nothing to prevent it.

However puzzled by the last suggestion, Allard could only comply with the request and retire as Stanief came down the steps a moment later.

And Stanief, seeing Adrian waiting alone, left his aide at the head of the terrace and alone came to him. So, Vasili at one end of the gra.s.sy ledge, Allard at the other, the cousins were for once un.o.bserved.

Adrian's expression was unusually animated as Stanief bent over his hand.

"Do you know why I wished to see you out here in quietness, cousin?" he demanded.

"I am afraid not, sire," Stanief confessed, smiling.

"Then sit down here," he touched the bench on which he himself was seated, "and I will tell you."

Stanief obeyed, and Adrian surveyed his stately kinsman with earnest, though doubting intentness.

"That night on the _Nadeja_," he at last said, "when you told me that I governed, 'but'--were you in earnest? It amused me to tell Dalmorov--not all you said or when you said it, of course--yet some of that. I told him you had promised to do as I wished, and he insisted that you played with me. Were you in earnest, I wonder?"

"Absolutely in earnest," Stanief answered, too well trained in self-mastery to betray his irritation at being discussed with his rival in the game of the future.

"'But'--" Adrian repeated, and sat silent for an instant. "Were you ever in love with a woman, cousin?"

The question was so unexpected that Stanief started and replied almost at random: