The Game and the Candle Part 20

Stanief shrugged his shoulders and lapsed into the language of the country.

"I asked you if you had other weapons, but it does not matter."

He deliberately transferred both captive wrists to the grasp of his right hand and with his left opened a drawer of the desk. The man made no effort to free himself. Generations of serfdom had rea.s.serted themselves; he might have killed from behind, but before the patrician's glance and voice resistance did not even occur to him. He submitted pa.s.sively when Stanief produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them in place.

"Stand up, and farther off," came the contemptuous command. "I am not accustomed to doing my own police work. You need not try to escape; the guard is within call. I might have had you arrested half an hour ago when I first saw you."

"Royal Highness, how--why--"

Stanief answered the stupefied gaze, coldly amused.

"Because it interested me to watch your attempt. I keep a mirror on my desk, not being without experience. Who sent you to kill me?"

"Royal Highness, my brother was hung last week."

"As you this week. Well?"

The man winced.

"Royal Highness, we wanted freedom. They tell us that while your Royal Highness lives it can not be; the country is too firmly held and too content. So we strive to act in time."

He spoke as one reciting a lesson, monotonously, with effort. His type was familiar, lacking even the poor excuse of originality.

"Your brother was executed for an attempt to kill me?"

"Serenity, he worked in the palace kitchen and put poison in a cup of chocolate."

"I remember. He was tried; I had nothing to do with his case." He paused, considering; and the other stared at him in mute fascination.

"Before I ring to have you removed, have you anything to say?"

"Gracious Highness, pardon!"

Stanief regarded him with scornful amazement.

"Pardon? You are mad, _mon ami_. Do you fancy me a child or a woman to set you free after this performance? Why should I pardon you? You do not interest me in the least. Go face your trial; my share in the incident is ended," and Stanief turned away.

"Royal Highness, mercy--I am afraid! Not that--I will--"

"What?"

"Buy," he offered desperately. "Royalty, not to sell my comrades--who are we in your sight--there is some one else, some one of the court who wishes your death."

Stanief stopped with his finger on the bell and bent his keen eyes on the livid face. It was not a pleasant spectacle, this sordid, trembling figure in the firelight, but an uglier specter loomed behind it.

"Go on, if you choose," he conceded. "You have my permission."

"Royal Highness, not my comrades. But he is not of us; he urges us here to fail and die. You are the master; Royal Highness, his name for grace."

"I promise you nothing. Certainly not your liberty."

"No, no, but life!" he made a movement to throw himself at the Regent's feet, but drew back before the decided negative. "Royal Highness, to live, only to live. He is a great lord, he goes to court; he hates and fears you. Royal Highness, he is the Baron Sergius Dalmorov."

"Ah," observed Stanief, and said nothing more for several minutes. His all given, the man waited feverishly, not daring to speak except by his imploring gaze. But Stanief finally pushed the b.u.t.ton without vouching a reply.

"Dimitri," he said curtly to the officer who appeared in answer to the summons, "take this man and have him imprisoned until I send for him again. Understand me; there is no charge against him at present; simply he is a prisoner at my pleasure."

The officer saluted in silence, however amazed at the presence in Stanief's study of one who certainly had not pa.s.sed the door, and in silence marshaled his dazed captive backward to the threshold. There he halted and again saluted.

"Monsieur Allard awaits the honor of being received by your Royal Highness."

"Very well; admit Monsieur Allard."

"Highness," faltered the prisoner once more.

Dimitri favored him with a scandalized stare, jerked him unceremoniously out the door, and administered a shake that almost sent him into Allard's arms.

"More respect, animal," he ordered explosively. "Pig of a peasant! Oh, a thousand pardons, Monsieur Allard; pray enter."

Allard laughed and pa.s.sed on, giving the prisoner a compa.s.sionate glance that altered to one of surprise and distrust at sight of his face. But he asked no questions, having learned many things in the course of his life in the Empire. 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.

After a while Stanief laid down the pen, pushed aside the completed task, and surveyed his companion un.o.bserved. Twice the Regent moved as if to speak, then changed his intention and remained mute. The expression that forced its way through his locked composure was not gentle; it was as if he struggled fiercely with some emotion and felt it wrench and writhe beneath the surface of self-control. But in spite of his will, his dark brows tangled, the black eyes glinted hard behind their deceptive lashes. And when he finally spoke, his voice carried a tone never before used to Allard.

"John, what is wrong?" he demanded.

The other looked up in surprise.

"Nothing, monseigneur," he answered, rather wearily.

Stanief's fingers closed sharply on one of the ivory toys which strewed the desk.

"That is not true," he contradicted. "Kindly say so if you do not wish to explain; I am not a child to be put off with a light word. Something has been wrong with you ever since your return from Spain."

Too a.s.sured of their friendship for resentment or to attribute the speech to anything except interest in his affairs, Allard smiled even while changing color with pain.

"I have you always, monseigneur," he said. "If I have lost other loves, at least I can rest content with you."

The paper-knife snapped in Stanief's grasp.

"Thank you," he responded, with an accent worthy of his cousin. "I believe I asked you to explain."

The unconscious Allard pushed the bright hair from his forehead, his eyes on the ruddy unrest of the flames.

"Of course I meant to tell you some time, monseigneur," he mused aloud.