The Game and the Candle Part 17

"The Count Donoseff has been telling me the history of your wounded arm, monsieur," she said. "Let me add my poor admiration to all you receive, realizing that you saved the Emperor, soon to be my sovereign also."

"You are too gracious, madame," Allard protested lightly. Gaiety came very easily to him since that day when he had saved Adrian's life and Stanief's honor. It seemed to him that John Allard had not only paid; he had re-earned the right to existence, justified his liberty.

"If all the world knows of it--"

"Oh, pardon; I only meant to say that the Grand Duke was present and did as much as I."

Something in the words brought her soft smile.

"Is not the Grand Duke usually where you are, monsieur?" she queried.

"I am with him whenever he and my service of the Emperor permit, madame."

"Only then?" she doubted.

Surprised, he shrugged his shoulders laughingly.

"Some one has been telling tales of me, Princess. I confess I am with him more than is strictly warranted."

"I have heard so much of his coldness, his severity," she ventured, her lashes sweeping her round young cheeks. "He, he cares for nothing, no one, they say."

"Oh, no, madame," 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 a.s.sented, still with that strange timidity. "I was frightened at first, but not now, not any more. The Regent is fair, with gray eyes, is he not, monsieur?"

"No, madame; he is very dark," he a.s.sured her hastily, his thoughts on Stanief's much-loved face.

Iria 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."

"Thank you, monsieur," she breathed, and let him retire presently, her bosom heaving under its white linen and lace.

It was a very pale and listless girl who had first met Stanief's envoys, but as the voyage proceeded she grew each day more rose-tinted, more daintily radiant and content. One would have said the salt winds blew across some Elysian garden, some fountain of Ponce de Leon, and brought health with their touch. She had a little way of suddenly blushing and smiling, as if at some delightful secret of her own not to be carelessly spoken.

On the last day at sea she chose Allard's arm for her daily promenade up and down the deck. This honor was eagerly desired by the gentlemen, old and young alike, but she had hitherto shown a decided preference for the veteran admiral; or one of her ladies, if the sea were sufficiently calm. Allard no longer wore the scarf, but she had paused before him demurely.

"Your arm is better, monsieur?"

"Madame, it is quite well."

"Then, if you do not fear to injure it--"

And with that they were pacing dignifiedly down the shining deck, under a score of envious eyes.

"To-morrow we arrive, monsieur."

"In a happy hour for our country and the Grand Duke Feodor, madame."

"He thinks so?"

"Princess, can you doubt it?" evaded Allard, who himself had many doubts, remembering Stanief's grim sarcasms on the subject of being given the care of a twenty-year-old girl when his life was already one of crowded tasks and serious peril.

Some trouble in his manner communicated itself to the small hand fluttering on his sleeve.

"I do not want to doubt," she said. "I do not. Monsieur, in that old English legend--have you ever thought how wise King Arthur would have been, if instead of sending Lancelot to Lady Guinevere in his place, he had himself gone to meet her in Lancelot's guise?"

"Why, I never did think," Allard acknowledged merrily. "But certainly he would have been much wiser, madame."

He regarded her in bright question which drew the answer of her flush.

"Do not modern King Arthurs ever choose the wiser course?" she faltered.

"Perhaps they are too busy and hampered, madame, as the ancient king may have been also. Since I have lived at a court I have altered my ideas on such subjects. I never saw any one who worked so hard as the Regent. He has set himself a splendid task, and splendidly he carries it on."

Iria's expression clouded slightly; the glance she stole at her companion was puzzled and full of dawning terror.

"Yet he might leave it a little while, monsieur."

"Madame, to leave it for one day might topple down the careful building of months. Moreover, he holds the city always under his grasp, fearing danger to the Emperor."

Her left hand went to her heart.

"Monsieur, we arrive to-morrow; it would not be kind to play with me."

Allard met her pleading eyes with candid amazement.

"Princess, what have I said? _I_ venture to play with your Royal Highness!"

"Then the Grand Duke is waiting over there?" she flung out her hand toward the north, lifting her small white face to him, the golden-brown curls tossing in the breeze.

Even then he had no conception of her mistake.

"Surely, madame; where else?" he wondered.

The Gentle Princess made no exclamation, no reproach. Only her head drooped again, and shivering she drew the veil about her face.

"I am tired, monsieur," she gasped. "Will you take me back?"