Chapter 14: The Ordeal

For Allard that last summer of the regency brought the hardest of all things for a loving heart to bear: to stand in the shelter and watch a friend in the storm, to be forced to witness where unable to aid. No personal humiliation could have affected him so painfully as to see Stanief under the Emperor’s stinging sarcasms and cold, young insolence, to note the furtive words and glances of the men who still courted present power while predicting its future fall.

Never after that morning of the contest of wills between the cousins, did Adrian’s unforgiving sullenness lessen or relent. Day after day the Regent paid his formal visit and endured the ordeal with chill dignity. Day after day Adrian received him in the presence of Dalmorov or half a dozen young nobles of the capital; usually on the point of going out, and so making the brief interview a mere farce. Only one courtesy the Emperor conceded to the self-respect of both; never did he make the least hint of menace or future reckoning except when the cousins were alone or with Allard. By inference alone could the rest of the court foretell the coming end.

And Dalmorov was radiant. His spare figure actually dilated and gained weight in these days of victory, his eye-glasses poised a trifle more superciliously before his pale eyes. Stanief looked above and past him with a certain lofty indifference, but between Dalmorov and the chafing, aching Allard a clash was inevitable. As they seldom met except when Adrian’s desire for both compelled, it was not surprising that in his presence that clash occurred.

It was after Stanief had passed an especially difficult and trying hour with the Emperor, an hour which left Allard’s nerves in quivering exasperation. When at last the Regent took leave, Adrian rose at the same time and crossed to a window with his nonchalant languor of movement.

“Bring me those glasses we were trying this morning, Allard,” he directed. “I want to see that ship entering the river.”