The Game and the Candle Part 34

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAST WEEK

As the first week of the regency had been, so the last week was a dazzling confusion, a series of gorgeous pageants, a riot of semi-Eastern splendor.

But if this last held all the rejoicing and glory of the commencement of a new reign, it held also the deep regret and dread of the pa.s.sing of a tested security. The Empire loved Stanief with grateful fervor, it feared Adrian. Even in the court were those who foresaw a return to old disaster in the rule of the unguided and wilful young sovereign.

Yet before Stanief's own will all these elements were helpless. The court party proper triumphed, because the others lacked a leader.

Dalmorov and his followers, the officials held to strict account under Stanief's stern government, the officers and ministers deprived of bribes and pillage, the jealous and chafing n.o.bles, all these turned in snarling glee to watch the fall.

Through all the chaos Stanief moved with a dignity never so great, carrying his head proudly above the conflict. Still the power lay in his grasp, and firmly he held the seething country to a semblance of calm.

Many a shaft he received, many a veiled insolence and obvious taunt, growing bolder as the last beads slipped from his chain and the ungenerous enemies feared him less; but since the day of the attack he had borne himself like one who possesses a secret world of his own.

By his side Iria played her part, no less dreamily radiant. She at least met no bitterness except her own knowledge of the coming change; she had offended no one, and no one ventured to annoy the Gentle Princess whom Adrian's love might yet hold above the wreck. But it was noted as significant that the Emperor avoided seeing either her or her husband, so far as possible.

The night before the coronation, Allard escaped from the palace and went to Stanief. Adrian had released him earlier than usual, and he was furious before some new arrogance of the victorious party.

"It is Dalmorov again, and always," he declared savagely. "Monseigneur, I never thought myself vindictive, but surely it is time for his reckoning. You once said you would crush him while you could; to-morrow--"

"To-morrow I can not," Stanief completed. "That is very true, John; to-morrow I can do nothing, nothing at all. _Sic transit_--you know the rest."

For the first time he had received Allard in the apartments of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, and Iria was seated by her husband in rapt and silent content.

They also had returned recently from the palace; the shining folds of Iria's court dress lay over the floor in billows of rose-and-silver; again she wore the pearls whose tinted beauty echoed the soft l.u.s.ter of her face.

"To-morrow!" Allard exclaimed impetuously. "Monseigneur, monseigneur, it is a quarter to twelve!"

"So late? Well, so I would have the day find us: together. My Empire has shrunk to this room, yet left me a universe. For Dalmorov, be satisfied.

Down in my desk are papers that can send him to a prison or a scaffold, as I choose. I have not been idle or forgetful; I thought of you."

"And we waste time! We who count minutes," he sprang to his feet, afire.

Stanief rested his head against the back of the chair, quieting the other's energy with a curious smile.

"My dear John, I have had those papers for two months; two months ago I sent to England the poor wretch who earned his pardon by aiding me to get them."

Stunned, Allard gazed at him.

"Two months?" he repeated. "Two months?"

All the long catalogue of insults, annoyances and petty wrongs rose before him, the open warfare and secret insinuations; slowly he gathered comprehension of the singular expression with which Stanief frequently had regarded his rival on such occasions.

"Perhaps I liked to play with him," the level voice resumed. "Perhaps I did not care to deprive the Emperor of his companion while I had still so much work to be done. But I think I waited because of a quixotic dislike to using my superior strength of position against an antagonist; to being both accuser and judge. I am not a child, I have no intention of letting him escape and work mischief undisturbed; simply I leave him to Adrian's justice."

"Then you--"

"I shall give the evidence to the Emperor after the coronation and before I leave the city. If he chooses to pardon Dalmorov, very good; my part is done. However, I would not value the baron's chances much. My cousin is--my cousin."

"Yes," Allard admitted reluctantly, he too knew the steel-hard Adrian.

"Only, it seems a pity to give him to-morrow."

Stanief laughed.

"And I fancied you Americans good-natured! Let Dalmorov go with all the glittering wreckage of my regency. I have found the better part."

Iria's little hand nestled into the one held out for it, and there fell a silence. Allard looked at them, then sighing turned his head. The memory of Theodora caught at his heart, Theodora, who had loved Robert and now grieved out her marred life, alone amidst the unvalued wealth so hardly bought.

From the great cathedral pealed the first rich bell of the chime. Iria lifted her finger in warning.

"Midnight," she said softly.

Stanief rose, and drawing her with him, crossed to push aside the curtains before the open window.

"Come," he bade Allard. "The last night is gone. Look at the city, John; the board of our royal chess, at which I admit checkmate."

Out over the velvet blackness studded with myriad points of light the three gazed quietly. Already faint rumors of carnival awoke here and there. The capital stirred in its sleep with dreams of the morning, the morning whose sunrise would be greeted from every fortress and ship of the empire by seventeen guns.

"Never did the purple-and-gold sands slip less regretted from the hour-gla.s.s," said Stanief, no faltering in the low tones which an hour before had carried dominion over a nation. "Only one sorrow I have to-night, Iria, when with you and John I lay down the life we know."

She leaned closer against his breast, as if to throw her frail body across the gates of destiny.

"And that one, Feodor?"

"Adrian," he answered. "So near to my heart lay pride in proving my loyalty, in convincing him of it and living down the lying distrust sown by his father and the court, so strong was my determination to lift my honor above disbelief and wear my ward's confidence as a decoration in all men's eyes. And I dreamed of helping him bear the heavy charge laid upon his slim shoulders. Fancies, boyish fancies wiser outgrown; I have learned better now."

"The world knows," she whispered.

"Yes; or will know. But I loved Adrian."

The quiet words fell with the last distant chime of bells. Listening, it seemed to Allard that no reproach leveled at the young Emperor could be so utterly hard to meet in the day of account as that wistful phrase.

Yet the spell of Stanief's tolerance lay on him also; the picture before him was not that of the familiar, ruthless autocrat under whom he lived, but of Adrian as he had stood in the little salon on the night of the drive, pushing back his tumbled dark hair with a gesture of infinite fatigue.

CHAPTER XIX

ADRIAN'S DAY

Brilliant in blue-and-gold the dawn opened over the capital. Scarcely a breath of wind rippled the warm clear air of the spring morning, a morning designed for a country bridal among the scented fields or the waking of wild furry creatures in the woods, and which man was seizing for such different use.

From the first deafening salute of cannon that ushered in the Emperor's seventeenth birthday, the city was in a tumult indescribable. Cavalry officers galloped through the swarming, flag-draped streets, gorgeous carriages blocked the avenues, marching regiments filled the air with military music. Congratulatory messages, visits from foreign amba.s.sadors, enforced audiences and preparations for the one great event, kept both palaces in kaleidoscopic movement and color.

The old sense of unreality held Allard from the moment when Vladimir awakened him three hours earlier than usual to don a costume hitherto considered reserved for evening. His usual duties were temporarily missing, the Emperor being formally attended to-day by those who had the hereditary right to that honor. Not that he was forgotten, at which he was surprised and touched, but it was very strange to be summoned to Adrian's bedside through an a.s.sembly of grave n.o.bles and to speak a few brief words of felicitation under a fire of observation none too friendly. So often he had leaned against the foot of that pillared, curtained bed and amused with light chat of court or club the serene occupant who took his chocolate while listening interestedly.

"Thank you, Allard," the Emperor returned only in reply to his slightly confused speech, and the American was aware of the diverted, malicious comprehension of his embarra.s.sment under the ordeal.