"What do I think of Theos?" Sara repeated. "I think it must be the
lost paradise of the lotus-eaters. It does not seem possible for
anything ever to happen here."
Ughtred laughed.
"We share the primitive passions with the rest of mankind," he assured
her. "We know what it is to be excited, even to be rowdy. The wear and
tear of life perhaps touches us more lightly than in your Western
cities. You see we are a rural people."
"Miss Van Decht," Reist remarked dryly, "misses perhaps the clang of
the electric cars and the factory sirens."
"It is the proverbial peace of the city amongst the mountains,"
Ughtred said. "Yet if you listen you can hear the murmur of voices in
the _cafes_, and there is a band playing in the square."
"It is all--delightful," Sara declared. "Only I wonder that you find
it possible to take life seriously here."
They were sitting out on the great stone balcony behind the
palace--Ughtred, Reist, and Marie, Mr. Van Decht and Sara. A servant
in spotless white livery had silently arranged coffee and liqueur in
strange-looking bottles upon a table already laden with fruit. Below
them were the terraced lawns leading to the river, dotted with dark
fir-trees and flowering shrubs--beyond the red roofs and white fronts
of many villas, in the distance the blue mountains. The King and Sara
Van Decht were sitting side by side. Marie, unusually taciturn, leaned
back in her chair, listening and watching with half-closed eyes.
Ughtred lit a fresh cigarette, and smoked for a moment thoughtfully.
"I can assure you," he said, "that life is, in its way, as complex a
thing here as in the greater cities. The people are very poor, and how
to raise money enough to develop the country and pay our way without
undue taxation is a very serious problem indeed. Then you must not
forget that we live always in the shadow of a great danger."
Sara looked at him inquiringly. He pointed southwards to the
mountains.
"Beyond there," he said, "is Turkey, and Turkey is our eternal enemy.
Even now there are strained relations between us. Night and day our
watchmen guard the passes. There have been rumours lately of an
impending raid upon our frontier villages."
Sara listened with rapt attention.
"How fascinating. It really sounds quite mediaeval."
"We are mediaeval in more ways than one," he continued. "Our standing
army consists of barely one thousand men, but in case of war the whole
of our male population would take up arms. Every man must fight
himself for his home and his native land. If you can spare the time
here we will go to some of the more distant villages, and you will
see the Saturday drill. I am rather proud of my military system."
She looked across at her father.
"He is so restless," she said. "I can never tell how long he will
stand any one place. Just at present he talks as though he were
disposed to settle down here for the rest of his life."
Marie leaned forward. Her face gleamed pale in the twilight, her tone
was almost openly contemptuous.
"Away from the electric cars, and sirens, and all the delights of your
Western cities?"
Sara nodded gravely.
"Yes! Away even from the Paris edition of the _New York Herald_. But
then, my father, you know, is terribly mercenary. I believe he thinks
that there is scope for the capitalist here."
"Your father is quite right then," Ughtred answered, smiling. "Try and
persuade him to give the place a trial. It is supposed, you know, to
be the healthiest spot in Europe."
"Why, I'm in no hurry to leave, and that's a fact," Mr. Van Decht
admitted. "I've an appointment with the manager of your cars here
to-morrow, and if we do business I guess I'll have to stop."
Sara laughed softly.
"That's just like father!" she exclaimed. "Wherever he goes and finds
horse-cars he wants to either buy the company out or put in his own
system of electric cars. I'm afraid you think we're very commercial,
don't you, Countess?"
"Oh, no," Marie answered, coldly. "One rather expects that, you know,
from your nation. It is very interesting. I must confess, though, that
I do not wish to see electric cars in the streets of Theos."
"And why not, young lady?" Mr. Van Decht inquired.
"Because I love my old city too well to wish to see her modernized and
made hideous," Marie answered. "It is scarcely a feeling with which
one could expect strangers to sympathize; but there are many others
besides myself who would feel the same way."
Mr. Van Decht nodded.
"Is that so? Well, nowadays the countries who place the picturesque
before the useful are very few and far between. I guess it's as well
for the community at large that it is so. You would scarcely call that
broken-down old omnibus, dragged along by a lame mule, a credit to
Theos or a particularly picturesque survival."
Marie shrugged her shoulders, and dismissed the subject with a little
gesture of contempt. Mr. Van Decht waited for a minute, and then, as
she remained silent, continued--
"A country which neglects the laws of progress is not a country which
can ever hope for prosperity. Don't you agree with me, sir?" he asked
the King.
Ughtred nodded.
"I am afraid that I do," he admitted. "Theos, with its vineyards and
hand-ploughs, its simple hill-folk and its quaint village towns, is,
from an artistic point of view, delightful. Yet I am bound to admit
that for the sake of its children and the unborn generations, I would
rather see factory chimneys in its valleys and mine shafts in the
hills. The people are poor, and so long as we have to import
everything we use and wear, we must get poorer and poorer. The country
is productive enough. We have minerals and a wonderful soil. What we
need is capital and enterprise."
Marie shuddered.
"And you are a Tyrnaus!" she murmured, with a sidelong glance of
reproach.
"It is my fortune," he said, "good or bad, to know more of the world
outside than those who came before me. Please God, I am going to leave
Theos a richer and happier country when my days here are spent. If we
are spared from war I shall do it."
"In future," Marie said, "I shall dread war less. I begin to see that
there are other evil things."
She rose and bowed slightly to the King.
"Your Majesty will excuse me," she said. "I find the air a little
cold."
She passed down the terrace steps, her maid a few yards behind. A
certain reserve fell upon the others.
"I am afraid," Sara said to Nicholas of Reist, "that your sister does
not approve of me."
He hesitated.
"Marie," he said, "is passionately faithful to all the traditions of
our family and our race. This is a conservative country, and no one
more so than she. I myself am in close sympathy with her. Yet my
reason tells me that we are both wrong. Our peasantry are finding
already the struggle for existence a severe one--a single failure in
the crops would mean a famine. It has occurred to me, Mr. Van Decht,
that the advice of a man of affairs such as yourself may be very
useful to us."
Ughtred rose up.
"You shall talk progress together," he said, "while I show Miss Van
Decht my pictures."
* * * * *
Marie held the note in her fingers, looking at it doubtfully. It was
addressed to her, thrust secretly into her maid's hand by a stranger
in the crush outside the palace gates. At least that was the girl's
story. She tore it open.
"You are a patriot, the sister of Nicholas of Reist, and the
King's friend. By you he may be warned. The American woman
who with her father has come to Theos, was betrothed to him
in London. She has come to claim her position. The people of
Theos will never accept as their queen a woman of humble
birth, the child of tradespeople. Let the King be warned."
She tore the note into a thousand pieces, and walked restlessly up and
down the great room. Her eyes were lit with fire, and a scarlet spot
burned in her cheeks.
"Oh, if he should dare," she murmured. "If he should dare!"
She stopped abruptly before the picture of Rudolph. The flickering
light of fifty wax candles from the huge silver candelabra on the
oaken table lit up the dull canvas. It was Ughtred himself who looked
down at her.
"Queen of Theos!" she murmured. "Why not? We have drunk together from
the King's cup."
"Countess!"
She turned quickly round. Brand had come silently into the room.