WHEREIN A REASON IS GIVEN FOR JOAN'S FLIGHT
A knock sounded on the door. "Their Excellencies the Prince and Princess
Delgrado," announced Bosko, whose jaws underwent strange contortions at
being compelled to utter so many syllables consecutively.
Alec thrust the sword into its scabbard. He did not put the weapon in
its accustomed place; but hid it behind a fold of one of the heavy
curtains that shrouded the windows.
"On the arrival of the others whom I have summoned you can usher them in
without warning," he said to Bosko. "As soon as General Stampoff comes
let no other person enter, and remain near the door until I call you."
"_Oui, monsieur_," said Bosko. King or no King, he was faithful to his
scanty stock of French.
Prince Michael had dined well, having induced his host to depart from
the King's injunctions as to the wine supplied at meals. His puffed face
shone redly. It looked so gross and fat, perched on such a slender
frame, that he resembled one of those diminutive yet monstrous
caricatures of humanity seen on the pantomime stage.
"What is the trouble now, Alec?" he asked, glancing quickly round the
spacious ill lighted apartment. "Your man came to me most mysteriously.
His manner suggested treasons, spoils, and stratagems. I met your mother
on the stairs. She too, it seems, is in demand."
Alec looked at the strange little creature whom he called father, and
from the Prince's gargoyle head his gaze dwelt on his mother. She had
uttered no word. Her eyes met his furtively for a second and then
dropped. She was disturbed, obviously alarmed, and, with a curiously
detached feeling of surprise, he guessed that she knew of Joan's
departure. Well, he would bide his time until all possible conspirators
were present. Then, by fair means or foul, he would wring the truth from
them.
"I want to consult my mother and you as to a certain matter," he said,
answering Prince Michael with apparent nonchalance. "I shall not detain
you very long. Beliani, Julius, and Monsieur Nesimir are in the
building, and then we only await Stampoff--with whom, by the way, I
almost succeeded in quarreling to-day."
"A quarrel with Stampoff!" exclaimed the elder Delgrado, preening his
chest and sticking out his chin in the exaggerated manner that warned
those who knew him best of the imminent expression of a weighty opinion.
"That will never do. Stampoff is the backbone of your administration.
Were it not for our dear Paul, nothing would have been heard of a
Delgrado in Kosnovia during the last quarter of a century. My dear boy,
he has kept us alive politically. On no account can you afford to
quarrel with Stampoff!"
Michael's big head wagged wisely; for champagne invariably made him
talkative. Nesimir entered; with him came Count Julius and the Greek.
"Nice thing his Majesty has just told me!" cried Prince Michael, with
owl-like gravity. "He says that Stampoff and he have disagreed. What has
gone wrong? Have you heard of this most unfortunate estrangement,
Monsieur Nesimir?"
The President, of course, assumed that some allusion had been made
already to the scene in the Council chamber.
"A serious position has undoubtedly arisen," he said blandly. "His
Majesty did not see his way clear to adopt certain recommendations put
forward by his Ministers to-day,--by myself, I may say, acting on behalf
of my colleagues," and he coughed deferentially,--"and General Stampoff
took an active part in the debate. He set forth his views with--er--what
I considered to be--er--unnecessary vehemence. But there," and a
flourish of his hand indicated the nebulous nature of the dispute,
"nothing was said that cannot be mended. His Majesty himself had the
tact to adjourn the discussion till to-morrow, and I have little doubt
that we shall all be prepared to consider the matter then like
reasonable men."
"But what was it about?" broke in the Prince testily. "Was it with
reference to Monsieur Beliani? I understood that his appointment to the
Ministry of Finance was agreed to unanimously."
Beliani coughed, with the modesty of a man who might not discuss his own
merits. The President hesitated before he answered this direct question.
He cast a doubtful glance on the King, who had turned to the window
again and seemed to give little heed to the conversation. But Alec
wheeled round. He had heard every word, and, oddly enough in his own
estimation, was already drawing conclusions that were not wholly
unfavorable to Prince Michael.
"I have sent for Stampoff," he said, exercising amazing self control in
concealing his fierce desire to have done with subterfuge, "and my
message was couched in such terms that he will hardly refuse to honor us
with his presence. Meanwhile, let me rescue you, Monsieur Nesimir, from
the embarrassment of explaining away the difficulty you yourself brought
about at to-day's meeting of the Cabinet. Monsieur Beliani had no rival;
no one doubted his ability as a financier.
"The dispute arose in connection with my forthcoming marriage. It was
suggested that I should contract an alliance with a Princess of some
reigning house in the Balkans. The obvious corollary of that view was
that Miss Joan Vernon could not be regarded as a suitable bride for the
King of Kosnovia. I declined to accept the recommendation put forward by
Monsieur Nesimir,--to whom, by the way, I attribute the utmost good
faith,--and Stampoff, whose patriotic ardor halts at nothing,
practically threatened me with the loss of my Kingdom as the penalty of
disobedience. I said that I was quite willing to leave the whole matter
to the arbitrament of the people. If they decide against my choice of a
wife, it follows that there will be a vacancy in the Delgrado
succession."
Princess Delgrado uttered a sigh that was almost a groan. She sank into
the chair that her son had offered her when she entered the room, but
rose to her feet again in manifest anxiety when her husband thrust
himself in front of Alec.
"Are we to credit," he broke in furiously, "that you have actually
placed your marriage with this girl before every tie of family and
patrimony?"
"That is hardly a fair statement of the facts," said Alec coldly, though
it cost him a violent effort to sustain this unnatural calm when he was
aflame with desire to ascertain Joan's motive; "but it will serve. At
any rate, we can defer discussion of that point for the present. We are
gathered here to deal with quite another phase of the dispute, and, with
your permission, I shall leave any further explanation until General
Stampoff has arrived."
Although his utterance was measured and seemingly devoid of any excess
of feeling, three, at least, of those in the room were not deceived by
his attitude. Princess Delgrado seemed to be profoundly disquieted,
while Beliani and Marulitch strove, not altogether with success, to
carry themselves with the indifference that cloaks uneasiness. Alec
turned again to the window and looked out.
A carriage drove into the courtyard and, though its occupant was
invisible, he guessed rightly that Stampoff had not failed him. Some low
conversation went on behind his back, and, although he was now
marshaling his forces for the impending struggle, he became aware that
the President was giving in greater detail an account of the afternoon's
proceedings. But he listened only for the opening of the door. From that
instant war should be declared, ruthless war on each and every person
present who had reft him of his promised bride.
Stampoff entered. His keen old eyes instantly took in the significance
of the gathering; but he saluted the King in silence, bowed to Princess
Delgrado, and stood stockstill, not a yard from the door, in the
attitude of one who awaits an order, or, it might be, a denunciation.
Alec approached, and the others, including Stampoff himself, thought
that he meant to make some private communication to the newcomer before
beginning a debate in which all might share. But he walked past
Stampoff, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.
[Illustration: Stampoff saluted the King in silence
Page 268]
"Now," he said, "I am free to explain why we seven are gathered here
to-night. Joan Vernon, who was to have become my wife within a few days,
left Delgratz two hours ago by the mail train for Paris. She was
accompanied by Felix Poluski, and the only reason for this clandestine
journey is contained in a few lines of farewell addressed to me by the
lady herself. In that letter she speaks of a barrier that renders
impossible a marriage between her and me. I want to know what that
barrier is and who erected it, and I shall discover both those things
here and now, if I have to tear the knowledge from the heart of each man
present!"
"A strange threat, Alec," panted Prince Michael, whose prominent eyes
were bulging in semi-intoxication, though indeed he seemed suddenly to
have realized the tremendous import of the King's statement,--"a strange
threat to be uttered before your mother!"
"My mother loved Joan," came the impassioned cry. "She took her to her
heart from the first hour, and she will bear with me now in my agony.
Yet it may be that even my mother has deceived me. I cannot tell. Some
of you here know, perhaps all; but I vow to Heaven I shall not flinch
from my resolve to extract the truth, no matter with whom the
responsibility rests!"
Princess Delgrado, trembling and ghastly pale, tottered to the chair
again and gripped its back to prevent herself from falling. Under less
strained conditions, it must have seemed bizarre in a company of men
for whom polite attentions to the opposite sex were a fixed convention,
that she should seek such support when her husband was standing by her
side; but in that startled gathering small heed was given to aught else
than the King's thrilling statement.
Though aware of his mother's distress, Alec did not move from the
position he had taken up, facing all of them, and with that hidden sword
within easy reach. Ever a dutiful and devoted son, he continued now to
glower at the half-fainting woman as though she alone held the key of
the mystery that resulted in Joan's disappearance. His impassioned eyes
sought to peer into her very soul, and his nostrils quivered with the
frenzied eagerness of one who awaited an answer to the implied question.
In some indefinable way he had already begun to suspect the truth; for
when the poor woman made no reply, though more than once her terror
laden eyes met his in mute appeal, he whirled round on Marulitch.
"Perhaps this is an occasion when it is a woman's privilege to remain
silent," he said bitterly. "So I begin with you, Julius. Save myself,
you are the youngest here, and it would be fitting that you and I should
determine this business. I warn you there will be no half measures! My
life, at least, goes into the scale, and I care not who else adjusts the
balance."
The pink and white tints had long fled from the Parisian dandy's
complexion. In the dim light he looked livid, and his forehead bore
bright beads of perspiration. But even Alec's fiery eyes discerned that
he was not only afraid, but bewildered, and his voice cracked with
excitement when he spoke.
"I declare by everything I hold sacred that I had no hand in this
affair!" he said shrilly. "It is natural perhaps that you should suspect
me, since I seem to have most to gain by any ill that befalls you; but,
even in your anger, Alec, you should be just. No matter how fierce your
emotions, you ought to realize that Miss Vernon's departure from
Delgratz retards rather than helps any possible scheming on my part to
succeed you on the throne."
"Now you, Beliani!" said Alec, striving to penetrate the mask that
covered the one impassive face in the room. "It was you who contrived
that my promised wife should come here from Paris. I can see your
purpose now. At to-day's meeting of the Cabinet, while I was urging your
advancement to power and dignity in the State, your hand was revealed in
the opposition manifested to my marriage. Your cunning brain conceived
the notion that I would not abandon the woman I loved for the sake of
fifty Kingdoms. You read my mind aright; but, if it was you who brought
about her flight, for what devilish reason did you depart from the
subtle plot that might well have achieved your ends by means which you,
at least, would consider fair?"
The Greek spread wide his hands in that characteristic gesture of his.
As it happened, for once in his life he could afford to be sincere. "I
can only assure your Majesty in the plainest possible terms," he said,
"that until I heard the news from your own lips, I had no knowledge
whatsoever of Miss Vernon's journey. Were I asked outside that locked
door to state to the best of my belief where she might be found, I
should have said that the slight illness of which she complained this
morning had probably confined her to her room."
For an instant Alec scowled at the President; but Sergius Nesimir's
vacuous features so obviously revealed his condition of speechless
surprise and distress that there remained only Stampoff, Prince
Michael--and his mother.
Adhering rigidly to his scheme of narrowing the field of inquiry by
putting the same straight question to each individual in turn, Alec next
appealed to the man who had helped him to gain a throne.
"Paul," he said, "you who were my friend and have become my enemy, you,
at least, will speak the truth. Tell me, then, who has done this thing!"
Stampoff strode forward. He feared no one, this determined advocate of
his country's cause, and he alone knew the real menace of the impending
tornado. "Your mother ought not to be here, Alec," he muttered. "A
little more of this and she will faint. Look at her! Have you no pity in
your heart? This is no place for a woman. Unlock the door and let her be
taken away!"
Alec moistened his dry lips with his tongue. He felt that he was finally
touching sure ground in the morass through which he was floundering.
"She and all of you must remain!" was his grim reply. "Answer my
question! Was it you who drove Joan from Delgratz?"
"I counseled it," said Stampoff, folding his arms defiantly, and
apparently careless whether or not the King sprang at his throat the
next instant.
"Ah! At last! Thank God for one man who is honest, though he seems to
have acted like a fiend! To whom did you counsel it? To Joan herself?"
"No."
"Tell me, then, to whom?"
"I refuse."
"Stampoff, I shall draw a confession from you even though you die under
my hands."
"I have faced death many times for the King of Kosnovia," said the harsh
Serbian voice, "and I shall not shrink from it now, whether at the hands
of the King or his foes. Send your mother away; then, perhaps, I may
tell you what you want to know. The thing is done, and I, for one, shall
not shirk the consequences."
"My mother again! Must she be spared though you have sacrificed her
son?"
With a quick movement that sent tremors through Julius and the Greek,
since he was compelled to pass close to both, he strode to the quaking
Princess and caught her almost roughly by the shoulder.
"I feared this from the outset," he cried. "Did Stampoff make you the
agent of his hellish work? Joan would trust you. Speak to me, mother!
Was it you who wrought this evil?"
Her head was bent low, and she gasped something that sounded like an
excuse. Alec recoiled from her in sudden horror. His hands were pressed
feverishly to his forehead, and a hoarse cry of anguish came from his
panting breast.
"I think I shall go mad!" he almost sobbed. "My own mother enter into
this league against me! My mother----Oh, it cannot be! Stampoff, you, I
know, would not scruple to sacrifice my dearest hopes to further your
designs. Could you find none but my mother to aid you?"
He reeled as under a blow from an unseen hand, and at that unfortunate
moment Prince Michael Delgrado thought fit to assert his authority.
"This ridiculous scene has gone far enough," he cried. "I was not aware
that your pretty artist had quitted Delgratz; but it is quite evident
that her departure is the best thing that could possibly happen for the
good of the Kingdom. If Stampoff advised it, and your mother saw fit to
point out to the girl the danger she was bringing to you and the
monarchy, such action on their part has my complete approval."
Alec gazed blankly at the pompous little man. It needed but Prince
Michael's outburst to stamp the whole episode with the seal of ineffable
meanness and double dealing. He recalled the cowardice displayed by the
Prince when Stampoff urged him to seize the vacant throne, and his gorge
rose at the thought that Joan had been driven from his arms in order
that this pygmy might secure the annual pittance that would supply his
lusts in Paris. At that moment Alec was Berserk with impotent rage. His
mother's complicity in the banishing of Joan denied him a victim on whom
to wreak his wrath.
But there still remained a vengeance, dire and far reaching, which would
teach a bitter lesson to those who had entered into so unworthy a
conspiracy.
Leaping to the curtain which concealed the sword, he snatched it up and
smashed it across his knee. "See, then, how I treat the symbol of my
monarchy," he cried with a terrible laugh. "I shall soon demonstrate to
you what a pricked balloon is this Kingship of which you prate. I
believe that you, my own father, are ready to supplant me, I know that
Julius, my cousin, is straining every nerve to procure my downfall; but
you shall learn how a man who despises the pinchbeck honors of a throne
can defeat your petty malice and miserable scheming. Monsieur Nesimir, I
proclaim Kosnovia a Republic from this hour! Here and now I abdicate!
Summon a meeting of the Assembly to-morrow, and I shall give its members
the best of reasons why the State will prosper more under the people's
rule than under that of either of the men who are so anxious to succeed
me."
"Abdicate! Republic! What monstrous folly!" cried Prince Michael, his
plethoric face convulsed with anger at this unexpected counterstroke.
"I am saying that which, with God's help, I shall perform!" cried Alec,
despair falling from him like a discarded garment as he realized what
his project would mean to Joan and himself.
"You may abdicate, of course, if you choose," came the scornful retort;
"but you have no power to break the Delgrado line."
"My power will be put to the test to-morrow," said Alec. "I am not
afraid to measure my strength against the pitiful cowards who struck at
me through a woman's love."
"Pay no heed to him, Monsieur Nesimir!" piped Prince Michael, whose
voice rose to a thin falsetto. "He is beside himself. If he chooses to
vacate the throne, it reverts to me."
"A Republic in Kosnovia!" snarled Stampoff. "That, indeed, will mark the
beginning of the end for the Slav race. A single year would wipe us out
of existence. What say you, Beliani, and you, Marulitch? Why are you
dumb? Was it for this that we have striven through so many years? Shall
our country be wrecked now because a hot headed youth puts his vows to a
woman before every consideration of national welfare?"
"The notion is preposterous!" growled Julius, gaining courage from
Stampoff's bold denunciation; but Beliani tried to temporize.
"We are far too excited to deal with this vexed affair to-night," he
said. "The King is naturally aggrieved by a trying experience, and is
hardly in a fit state of mind to consider the grave issues raised by
his words. Let us forget what we have just heard. To-morrow we shall all
be calmer and saner."
"Monsieur Nesimir," said Alec sternly, fixing the hapless President with
his masterful eye, "while I remain King you must obey my orders. See to
it that notices are despatched to-night to the members of the National
Assembly summoning a special meeting for an early hour to-morrow."
"Monsieur Nesimir will do nothing of the kind!" shrieked the infuriated
Prince Michael. "I forbid it!"
"And I command it," cried Alec. "If he refuses, I shall take other steps
to insure my wishes being fulfilled."
"Then I will tell you why your Joan has gone!" bellowed the Prince. "No,
Marie, I will not be restrained!" he shouted to his wife, who had rushed
to him in a very frenzy of alarm. She clutched at his shoulder; but he
shook himself free brutally.
"It is full time you knew what I have done for you," he hissed
venomously at Alec. "Stampoff and your mother and I, alone of those in
this room, are aware of the fraud that has been perpetrated on the
people of this country. You are not King of Kosnovia. You are not my
son. Your father was a Colorado gold miner to whom your mother was
married before I met her, and who died before you were born. For the
sake of his widow's money I gave her my name, and was fool enough to
fall in with her whim of pride that you should be brought up as a Prince
Delgrado. I suppose Stampoff urged your mother to reveal the facts to
that chit of a girl who has addled your brain, and she, fortunately, had
sense enough to see that you can not continue to occupy the throne five
seconds after it becomes known that you are a mere alien, that your name
is Alexander Talbot, and that I, Michael Delgrado, who married a
foreigner in order that I might live, and permitted an American child to
be reared as a lawful Prince of my house, am the lawful King."
The little man strutted up and down the room in a fume of indignation,
and evidently felt fully justified in his own esteem. Ever selfish and
vain, he fancied that he had been the victim of a cruel fate, and he
read the sheer bewilderment in Alec's face as a tribute to the master
stroke he had just delivered.
But his self conceit wilted under the contemptuous scorn of his wife's
gaze, which he chanced to meet when his posturing ceased.
Alec looked to his mother for some confirmation or denial of the
astounding statement blurted forth by her husband. But she had no eyes
for her son then. The wrongs and sufferings of a lifetime were welling
up from her heart to her lips. The agonized suspense of the last few
minutes had given way to the frenzy of a woman outraged in her deepest
sentiments.
She relinquished the chair to which she had been clinging, and faced the
diminutive Prince with a quiet dignity that overawed him.
"So that is how you keep your oath, Michael!" she said. "When I forgave
your infidelities, when I pandered to your extravagance, when I allowed
you to fritter away the wealth bequeathed to me by a man whose fine
nature was so far removed from yours that I have often wondered why God
created two such opposite types of humanity, time and again you vowed
that the idle folly of my youth would never be revealed by you. Twice
you swore it on your knees when I was stung beyond endurance by your
baseness. No, Michael," and her voice rose almost to a scream when her
husband tried to silence her with a curse, "you shall hear the truth
now, if I have to ask my son as a last favor to his unhappy mother to
still that foul tongue of yours by force!"
For an instant, she made a wild appeal to Alec. "Your father was an
honorable man," she cried. "For his sake, if not for mine, since I have
forfeited all claim to your love, compel this man to be silent!"
The belief was slowly establishing itself in her son's mind that the
incredible thing he was hearing was actually true. Nevertheless, he was
temporarily bereft of the poise and balance of judgment that might have
enabled him to adjust the warring elements in his bewildered brain. It
was a new and horrible experience to be asked by his mother to use
physical violence against the man he had been taught to regard as his
father.
He had never respected Michael Delgrado,--he could acknowledge that now
without the twinge of conscience that had always accompanied the
unpleasing thought in the past,--yet, despite the gulf already yawning
wide between them, his soul revolted against the notion of laying a hand
on him in anger.
But he did stoop over the spluttering little Prince and said sternly,
"You must not interrupt my mother again! You must not, I tell you!"
Such was the chilling emphasis of his words that Delgrado's loud
objurgations died away in his throat, and the distraught Princess, with
one last look of unutterable contempt at her royal spouse, faced the
other occupants of the room.
"I did harm to none by my innocent deception," she pleaded. "I was very
young when I married Alec's father, who was nearly twenty years older
than I. We were not rich, and we were compelled to live in a rude mining
camp, where my husband owned some claims that seemed to be of little
value. But from the day of our wedding our fortunes began to improve,
and, in the year before my son was born, money poured in on us. That
small collection of wooden shanties has now become a great city. The
land my husband owned is worth ten thousand times its original value;
but, unfortunately, when wealth came, I grew dissatisfied with my
surroundings. I wanted to travel, to mix in society, to become one of
the fashionable throng that flocks to Paris and London and the Riviera
in their seasons. My husband refused to desert the State in which his
interests were bound up.
"We quarreled--it was all my fault--and then one day he was killed in a
mine accident, and I, scarce knowing what I was doing, fled to New York
for distraction from my grief and self condemnation. My son was born
there, and in that same year I met Prince Michael Delgrado in a friend's
house. To me in those days a Prince was a wonderful creature. He quickly
saw that I was a prize worth capturing, and not many months elapsed
before we were married. I had all the foolish vanity of a young woman,
unused to the world, who was entitled to call herself a Princess, and it
seemed to my flighty mind that the fact of my son bearing a different
name to my own would always advertise my plebeian origin; for I was
quite a woman of the people, the daughter of a storekeeper in Pueblo. I
cast aside my old and tried acquaintances, placed my affairs in
trustworthy hands, and, when we set up an establishment in Paris, my
infant son came to be known as a Prince of the Delgrado family.
"Once such a blunder is made it is not easily rectified; but during many
a sad hour have I regretted it, for Michael Delgrado did not scruple to
use it as a threat whenever I resented his ill conduct. At first a
trivial thing, in time it became a millstone round my neck. As Alec grew
up, it became more and more difficult to announce that he was not Prince
Alexis Delgrado, but a simple commoner, Alexander Talbot by name.
"There, then, you have the measure of my transgression. It was the
knowledge of the truth that drove that dear girl, Joan Vernon, from
Delgratz this evening, because General Stampoff would not scruple to
reveal the imposture if he failed to secure the King's adherence to his
projects."
"God's bones!" broke in Stampoff. "I made him King, though I was aware
from the day of your wedding that he was not Michael's son. King he is,
and King he will remain if he agrees to my terms."
"Go on with your story, mother," said Alec softly. "I think I am
beginning to understand now."
"What more need I say?" wailed the Princess in a sudden access of grief.
"I have squandered your love, Alec, I have ruined my own life, I have
devoted all these wretched years to a man who is the worst sort of
blackmailer,--a husband who trades on his wife's weakness."
She turned on Prince Michael with a last cry. "I am done with you now
forever!" she sobbed. "I have borne with you for my son's sake; but now
you and I must dwell apart, for my very soul loathes you!"
She sank into a chair in a passion of tears, and Alec bent over her. He
spoke no word to her; but his hand rested gently around her neck while
his eyes traveled from Michael's gray-green face to Julius Marulitch's
white one.
"I think we have all heard sufficient of the Delgrado history to render
unnecessary any further comment on my decision to relinquish an honor
that, it would appear, I had no right to accept," he said. "I have
gained my end, though by a strange path. Will you please leave me with
my mother?"
The one man present who felt completely out of his depth in this sea of
discord took it upon himself to cry pathetically:
"The door is locked, your--your Majesty!"
"Ah, forgive me, Monsieur Nesimir," said Alec, with a friendly smile. "I
had forgotten that. And, now that I come to think of it, I still have
something to say; but we need not detain my mother to hear an
uninteresting conversation. Pardon me one moment, while I attend to
her."