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 gods 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 ship anchored 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 titles 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 embarrassment. Although so simply announced, his
companions waited for him to pass 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 friendship 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 assassin'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 assure. "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
nobles 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.
"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 assented, 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 assured 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?"
"Madame, most unintentionally I have offended you. Let me beg
forgiveness and ask how."
"No, no; no one has done wrong. I myself was--absurd. I am not angry,
monsieur; only tired."
They walked back, Allard completely bewildered and uncomprehending. By
her chair Iria paused and gave him her hand with a smile whose sweetness
was beyond tears.
"Thank you, Monsieur Allard," she said. "Perhaps we shall still be
friends over there. You are going home, but I go a stranger to a strange
place; I meant no more than that."
She was like Theodora, Allard thought, deeply moved. Surely Stanief
would be gentle with her gentleness.
The next morning they landed.