Chapter 6: “the King Is Dead—Long Live the King”

The ennuied Count Rosal lunched with them, —a sallow, fatigued young patrician who wore a pince-nez. He obviously was much pleased by the American, and inquired anxiously whether he ever motored. Receiving an affirmative reply, he invited him, with an actual approach to enthusiasm, to try a new French car as soon as they landed.

Allard accepted willingly, even gaily; a little of his color had revived with the ocean wind, some fine elixir had mounted through his veins as the yacht drew from the arms of the harbor and danced out over the long Atlantic swell.

After luncheon Stanief dismissed the third member of their party with that nonchalant grace of his.

“Did you write any letters this morning?” he asked, when the salon had settled into its usual repose.

“One; to my brother.”

“Good; every one writes letters—an excellent thing to do. I gave your name to an avid-eyed band of reporters, as one of those sailing with me. You will be a person of some importance in the tangled affairs to which I am taking you; it is just as well to prepare.”

“I have no desire to be curious,” Allard began tentatively.

“But you naturally would like to know what is happening. Indeed, it is necessary that you know.” He paused an instant. “Do you recall what I said to you last night of my country, of its intrigue and wrong and lack of faith?”

“Yes.”

The shadows deepened across the fine dark face. Watching Stanief, it seemed to Allard as if the rose-hued salon lost a little of its brightness also, as if both man and room remembered hours not happy.

“All my life I have walked in the shadow of one man’s hate,” Stanief said quietly. “I have known it watching greedily for my least indiscretion, heard its wild-beast breathing as it crouched beside me in the dark, stepped cautiously to avoid the snares it spread for me. Unable to touch me openly unless I myself stooped from inherited safety, my enemy has employed every secret artifice to lure me into reach, every petty goad to sting me to a moment’s forgetfulness. I never have taken a friend, conscious that one would be forced to betrayal if not already planning it. I learned long ago that the bright-eyed, fragile ladies of the court were not for me to trust. Living in the center of a dazzling pageant, the focus of a dazzling hate, I have had just one hope to carry with me. Not a pleasant hope, but it is about to be fulfilled. My enemy is dying.”