"Then I ask you only to suspend judgment until you do, sire. A regent there must be, I, or another if I die--"

"I would rather have you than any one else in the world."

"There is no one--I speak knowing our court--no one else whose pride and honor so compel him to loyalty. And I stand in grievous need of your protection, my imperial cousin."

Adrian's head lifted haughtily.

"Of my protection! You, now?"

"I, now. Through you, if you lend your name to their use, my enemies can make the task I have set myself difficult beyond description."

The kindling fire had caught, at last; with the first boyish impulsiveness of the interview Adrian's response flashed to meet the appeal.

"You need not fear that! You need not fear me."

"Thank you, sire," Stanief answered, simply and gravely.

There was a pause. Allard wondered, as he discreetly observed the two, just what would have been the result if Stanief had brought less convincing seriousness to answer his cousin's sensitive pride and incredulity.

"I have come alone," Adrian mused, with a half-sigh, "with Gregor. He does what I wish because he knows Dalmorov hates him and he is afraid to stand alone. So when I bade him bring me here secretly to-night, after I had presumably retired, he obeyed. I like to be obeyed." The expression of several moments before returned transiently.

A playfully earnest warning of the other cousin's recurred to the listener; it appeared that both had "the habit of domination."

"And so I must return at once, or they may discover I have gone. But I am glad I came, cousin; it seems easier now."

"Sire," Stanief said, and somehow his tone made Allard feel suddenly abashed, as one who stands before a thing not for his eyes, "there will come a day when you will stand in the great cathedral to receive the oaths of allegiance of your n.o.bles. There will be all ceremony, all solemnity, but--take mine now. The one I shall give you then can mean no more. You have been taught to have no faith in such promises; when you receive mine for the second time, I hope it will have gained some value in your sight."

"I wish it had now; I almost think it has," he answered, with a bitterness and energy singularly strange from his boyish lips. "I want to have faith in you, cousin."

He rose, and Stanief with him.

"I care for nothing," he added, reverting to the previous invitation. "I have already stayed too long. Monsieur," his eyes went to Allard for the first time, "monsieur is the American gentleman who sailed with you from New York?"

Allard came forward in response to a glance from Stanief.

"Sire, I have the honor to present Monsieur John Allard, whom I have persuaded to come with me because I also have need of one friend whom I can trust."

He was after all so pathetic in his lonely and sophisticated youth, this child. Saluting him, Allard's clear gray eyes involuntarily expressed all their sympathy and warm kindliness. And, meeting the regard, Adrian gave him his only smile of the evening.

"It is easy to trust you others, Monsieur Allard," he said wistfully. "I wish you were my friend instead of Feodor's."

"Is it not the same thing, sire?" Allard questioned.

"Is it?"

"I sincerely believe so, sire."

"Bring Monsieur Allard with you to-morrow, cousin," Adrian directed, lifting his gaze to Stanief. "And good night."

"You will allow me to accompany your return, sire?"

"Certainly not,--to attract all the capital!"

"Pardon, I meant as secretly as Gregor attends you; who--again pardon me--is scarcely attendance enough."

Adrian shook his head decisively.

"Your people on the yacht--"

"They are not already aware that your Imperial Majesty is here?"

"You can order them to be silent," he retorted, with angry irritation.

"Exactly, sire," said Stanief, and waited.

Adrian was nothing if not swift of thought; he drew the inference intended and conceded the point.

"Very well," he yielded. "As you will, cousin. Good night, Monsieur Allard."

He held out his hand, and quite unconsciously Allard took the little fingers in his warm clasp. Stanief, holding aside the curtain, smiled to himself; but Adrian accepted the Americanism equably and his last glance was all friendly.

It was three o'clock in the morning when Stanief reentered the _Nadeja's_ salon. Allard was still there, and rose expectantly to receive him.

"I waited," he explained.

"You need not have," Stanief replied, with all his usual cool serenity.

"Go and rest; to-morrow the battle opens. Only--"

"Only, monseigneur?"

He came over to the table to find the tiny gold-tipped cigarettes.

"Only it was not with you I played chess to-night, John, but with Dalmorov and the late Emperor, my uncle. And I claim check."

CHAPTER VIII

TO MEET THE EMPEROR

There are some periods which offer to the backward glance of memory rather a blur of blended color than a distinct picture, a rich and shining tapestry in which no one thread can be distinguished. So always to Allard seemed that first week in the country he learned to call home.

The stately ceremonies of Stanief's reception and a.s.sumption of the regency; the dazzle and pageantry of the court even when thus subdued by mourning; his own sudden importance as the favorite of the actual sovereign, all merged into a glittering confusion through which he moved automatically.

But there were two incidents which detached themselves from the bright background and always remained with him. The first was the first morning when Stanief formally met the Emperor at the palace; and, as he had stooped to the salute, Adrian had deliberately given him an embrace so markedly affectionate that even Allard felt the significant thrill that ran through the room. And then, even while the unusual color still flushed Stanief's dark cheek, Adrian shot a glance at a sharp-faced man opposite, a glance so sneering, so bitterly triumphant, that the straightforward American actually shrank from the revelation of dual thought. Evidently the embrace was given less to please Stanief than to annoy this other. Seeing the man's rigidly held face beneath the ordeal, he knew without question that this was the Baron Dalmorov whose desire in life was to prevent this very friendship between the cousins.

Never again did Allard make the mistake of measuring Adrian by his few years.