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XVII
AT THE HOTEL DES S. CROIX

Some distance back from its fellows on the Boulevard S. Michel, not far from its intersection with S. Germain, stands the one-time palace of the Ducs des S. Croix.

Time, the leveler, seemed to have no more effect upon the princely pile than to increase its hauteur with each passing year. Its every stone breathed the dominant spirit of its founders, until at last it stood for all that was patrician, exclusive and unapproachable.

Its eight-foot iron fence, wrought in many an intricate design, formed a corroding barrier to the over-curious, while its spiked top challenged the foolish scaler. A clanging gate opened rebelliously to the paved way which led unto the wide balustraded steps. The windows, each with its projecting balcony, seemed thrusting back all cordial advances. Along that side toward the Quai D'Orsay, a cloistered porch joined the terrace from the steps to rear its carven roof beneath the windows of the upper floors. Each rigid pillar was lifted like a lance of prohibition. The walls of either neighbor, unbroken, windowless and blank, were flanking ramparts of its secrecy.

The casual pedestrian, after dusk, was tempted to tiptoe lightly across the palace front, so pervasive was its air of mystery. No more fitting place could be found for plots of deposed monarchies and uncrowned kings. The last S. Croix, impoverished in the mutations of generations, reluctantly, half savagely, had swallowed his pride a few years previously and had consented to rent his ancestral halls. The ideal locality and its immunity from the over-curious had appealed to one who, gladly paying the first price asked, had held the place against the day of need. The lease was in the name of Josef Zorsky, none other than the Hereditary Servitor.

Behind the mask of night, the new-found king, with his gentlemen, was driven to the Hotel des S. Croix, where three ordinary Parisian fiacres discharged the royal party who had come directly from the attic studio. His Majesty was the last to alight. Taking Colonel Sutphen's proffered arm, he proceeded toward the entrance, followed by his suite. The place was dark and grim, no light came through the heavily curtained windows and only by a gleam through the transom above the door could the closest observer have discovered that it was inhabited.

A single wayfarer – the neighborhood boasted but few pedestrians after dark – was approaching. As he drew nearer the group about the King he slackened his pace. Probably actuated by some slight natural curiosity aroused by the unaccustomed sight of many men alighting from cabs before a mansion traditionally, and apparently, empty, he could be excused for gazing inquiringly at each of the party in turn. Accident may have made Josef the last to be noticed, but to Carter's watchful eyes it seemed that some lightning recognition passed between the two. Certainly he saw Josef extend two fingers and as rapidly withdraw them. The passer-by acknowledged the signal, if such it was, by the slightest of smiles and passed on toward the Quai D'Orsay. Carter mentally determined to speak to Sobieska at the first opportunity and regretted that his duties to His Majesty for the present prohibited the consultation.

A species of stage-fright, seizing upon the King, sent a quiver through his limbs, causing his knees to quake, his hands to tremble.

"Who will be here?" he asked in a tone he strove desperately to hold natural and easy. He had already received this information, but speech seemed a refuge from his trepidation. If Sutphen had noticed how his king's voice quavered he was too loyal a subject to comment. With the patience of iteration he answered his sovereign.

"The Duchess of Schallberg, the Countess Muhlen-Sarkey, together with the remaining gentlemen of the household, are all anxiously waiting to welcome Your Majesty."

In response to a signal from Sutphen, the doors were flung wide to admit His Majesty, Stovik Fourth, King of Krovitch. An hundred electric lights, doubled and trebled a score of times by pendant crystals and glistening sconces, greeted the eyes of the man who a few short hours before had been a struggling artist.

Half blinded by the brilliance, he hesitated, his foot already upon a way strange to him. He realized numbly how symbolic of his future that present moment might be. New conditions arose suddenly to confront him, only to find him halting, incompetent. He took a step forward. In his embarrassment his foot caught beneath a rug's edge. Calvert Carter's hand, alone, kept the king from sprawling frog-wise on the polished floor. A sudden pallor at the untimely accident came to the face of Sutphen.

"What is it?" Carter whisperingly inquired of the veteran.

"A bad omen, coming as it does as he enters the house," replied the soldier in the same low tone, tinged with the superstition of his race. "I pray God," he continued, "that he turn out no weak-kneed stumbler."

The incident naturally enough had not served to increase the King's self-confidence. After a glance into the impassive faces of the waiting servants, he gathered sufficient grace to proceed and look about him, with eyes more accustomed to the light. With an assumption of ease foreign to his turbulent heart, he took his way along the splendid hall. He was soon lost in a professional appreciation of the evidence of royal circumstance, the glories the succeeding years had generously spared, and which now were enriched and ripened by Times' deft touch.

From their coigns the priceless portraits of the S. Croix gazed complacently down upon him. Royalty had aforetimes been of daily habit to them. Their scornful brows with sombre eyes, their thin curling lips, appeared to be of some alien race. They seemed to hold themselves aloof as though he was a child of their one-time serfs, having no claim upon their bond of caste. Even to himself he felt an impostor, a peasant in a royal mask. That he was really a king had not yet come home to him. He felt no embryo greatness struggling to possess him. Upon his face abode the look of one who dreams of pleasant, impossible things. Half smiling, he was yet reluctant of the awakening he was sure would come and scatter forever the wondrous glories of his slumbers. Unwilling that these creations of pigment, brush and canvas should, by exposing him, dissipate his fancies, he dropped his gaze to find himself approaching the entrance of a brilliantly lighted salon.

What lay beyond?

A new world, a new life, an existence such as he had never dreamed of might be waiting on the thither side. He paused again involuntarily. Beside the richer scene, with all its priceless relics of another age, its warmth, its lights, its rows of bowing flunkeys and his new-found friends, its dream of a crown and distant throne, arose a passing vision of a life he had laid aside. There the plenty of yesterday melted in the paucity of to-day. There cringing cold had crept forlornly in and hunger had been no unexpected guest. There hope and ambition on their brows had ever borne the bruising thorns of defeat and failure. There wealth was a surprising stranger and poverty a daily friend. Friends! Friends! Yes, friends leal and true, a crust for one had meant a meal for all. Such had been real friends. Their jests had banished every aching care and solaced each careless curse of fate. Would this new life give as much? Could the new life give him more? Would even the "glory that was Greece and the splendor that was Rome" repay him for the sleepless nights, the watchful anxious days of him who fought, who ruled, who trembled upon an uncertain throne?

Having chosen he feared to turn back, lest men should call him a craven and coward. Sensual visions of a greater luxury than this around him came to console him as the picture of the attic life slipped from him.

He stepped beyond the boundaries of regret into the radiant portals of the salon.

A woman stood before him.

Unconsciously his fingers itched for the abandoned brush while his thumb crooked longingly for the discarded palette. Here was a subject fit for his Muse, a Jeanne d'Arc whose soul was beaming from her luminous eyes. Not that maid of visions and fought fields, but as she hung flame-tortured in the open square of Rouen. No peasant soul this, rather a royal maiden burning on the altars of her country. Awkward and speechless he stood before her. Instinct apprised him that this was no other than Trusia, waiting to receive her King.

Her head was held high in regal pride, but her eyes were the wide dark eyes of a fawn, fear-haunted, at the gaze. Her throat and shoulders gleamed white as starlight while her tapering arms would have urged an envious sigh from a Phidias or a David. Her gown of silk was snow white; the light clung to its watered woof waving and trembling in its folds as though upon a frosted glass. Diagonally from right to left across her breast descended a great red ribbon upon whose way the jeweled Lion of Krovitch rose and fell above her throbbing heart. This with her diamond coronet were her only jewels. The high spirited, whole-souled girl was face to face at last with the man she had vowed to marry to give her land a king.

Unswervingly her fearless eyes probed to the soul of Stovik and dragged it forth to weigh it in the balance with her own. Fate had denied her heart the right of choosing, so she had prayed that at least her King should be great and strong of soul. Fate in mockery had placed before her an ordinary man to rule her people and her future life.

As though to gain courage from the contact, her hand sought and rested upon the jeweled Lion of her race. Slowly she forced her lips into a little smile, which one observer knew was sadder than tears.

Carter, standing behind the King, was madly tempted to dash aside the royal lout to take her in his arms where she might find the longed-for solace of her pent-up tears.

Colonel Sutphen with a courtly bow took her hand and turned to the monarch.

"Your Majesty," he said gravely, "this is Trusia, Duchess of Schallberg, than whom the earth holds no sweeter, nobler woman. To God and Trusia you will owe your throne. She has urged us, cheered us, led us, till this day has grown out of our wordy plans. See that she has her full measure of reward from you. Though our swords be for your service, our hearts we hold for her in any hour of her need."

Sutphen's keen eyes had never left the sovereign's face while speaking. If the words were blunt his manner had been courtly and deferential. With a courtesy which was superbly free from her inmost trepidation, Trusia swept up the King's reluctant hand, pressing it to lips as chill as winter's bane.

"Sire," she said in a voice scarcely audible, "sire, I did no more than many a loyal son of Krovitch. I – we all – will give our lives for our country and her rightful king."

"Duchess! Lady Trusia," stammered the flushing, self-conscious king embarrassed by the kiss upon his hand, "I fear I am unworthy of such devotion. Unused to courtly custom I feel that I should rather render homage unto you. They tell me, these friends who say that they are my subjects, that I am your debtor. My obligations may already be beyond discharge. Add no more by obeisance." The poorly turned speech awoke a slight defiance in Trusia's heart. It was oversoon, she thought, for her King to patronize her.

"Your Majesty mistakes," was the quick retort, "my homage is to Krovitch. We are equals – you and I."

"I could ask no greater distinction than equality with you." Stovik's answer was a pattern of humility, which Trusia in her loyalty was quick to see. Her face softened.

"If Your Majesty will deign to come, I have something over there I think will interest you," and she indicated the far end of the room where stood a velvet draped table guarded by two gentlemen in hussar uniform. With her hand upon his arm Stovik sedately approached the place. Here he saw nothing but the bulk of objects covered by a silken cloth. This Trusia removed.

The act disclosed a crown, a sceptre and a jeweled sword. Before them on the cushion also lay the grand badge of the Order of the Lion with a fine chain of gold.

"As the hereditary head of the Order, sire," Trusia remarked as she raised the glittering insignia, "you are entitled to assume the mark at once." Without further words she drew the chain over his head letting the Lion depend upon the breast of his artist's blouse.

Lifting up the crown he turned to her mischievously. "Why not this?" He made a gesture to put it on his head.

"It will be a burden, sire. That's why they are all made so pleasing to look upon; gemmed and jeweled, just as sugar coats a bitter pill. A crown means weariness and strife. Are you so anxious to take up its cares? They will come soon enough." She spoke in a sweetly serious voice that was not without its effect upon him. "Besides," she said, "the Bishop of Schallberg has waited many years to perform that office. Would you rob him of it?"

Although Stovik replaced the glittering loop upon the velvet pall, he smiled to think how little the Church had entered into his former scheme of life. Trusia seemed to divine his thoughts, for, as his ascending eyes met hers, she continued speaking of the aged prelate.

"He is a dear old man, sire, kindly and gentle. The beggars and little children call him their patron saint. Well past the allotted span of years, he has prayed to be spared until the day when he can anoint the head of the King of Krovitch. Then, he says, he will die joyously."

The King murmured his hopes for a longer life for the Bishop, and Trusia turned to present her chaperon, the Countess Muhlen-Sarkey, with the remaining gentlemen of the Court.

After the formalities had been attended to, and he had received the sincere good wishes of his nobles, the King turned to the beautiful girl at his side.

"Do you leave with us to-morrow?" he asked. "Of our future plans I have had necessarily only a sketch. So little time has elapsed since Colonel Sutphen visited Eugene Delmotte that King Stovik can readily be forgiven for some slight ignorance."

"If it meets with Your Majesty's approval, we will start to-morrow for Vienna," Trusia said. "There we will await Colonel Sutphen's summons from your capital, Schallberg. Major Carter, Josef, myself and the Countess Muhlen-Sarkey will accompany Your Majesty. The other gentlemen will attend the Colonel. They precede us to ascertain if all is in readiness."

"Will the gentlemen travel in uniform?" The King's glance about the room had not been free from an apprehension that such a course might awaken inquisitive questions from officials.

"Oh, certainly not, Your Majesty," the girl reassured him. "Your Majesty will procure a passport made out to Eugene Delmotte, artist. You will be traveling to Krovitch for studies for the painting I hear you are making. The uniforms will be a part of your paraphernalia."

"Will there be no risk?"

"Is Your Majesty unwilling to take the least? Your subjects must indeed seem reckless to you." Trusia's tone indicated the depth of her reproof.

"I suppose that did sound rather selfish," he hastened to confess, "but the truth is that I do not yet realize that I am actually a king. That I, a few hours ago a penniless artist, should be plunging into a national movement as its leader, its king, seems nothing short of a dream. But tell me, Duchess, from whom we should fear detection?"

"This is a national movement of ours, sire. Some chance may have aroused Russian suspicion, but believe me, I'd stake my life on your people's loyalty. St. Petersburg may be apprehensive, but they know nothing of the real truth nor the imminence of our uprising. Here is Colonel Sutphen, doubtless wishing to talk more fully of our plans to you," she concluded as the grizzled veteran stood courteously awaiting their leisure to speak with the King.

Feeling free to do so now, she turned to her American aide. "Major Carter," she said, "I think His Majesty can spare me now. Won't you tell me of your adventures to-night?" Taking the arm he offered they strolled together into the hall. Being there out of the royal presence they were at liberty to seat themselves. An alcove held a tempting divan. Here they found a place.

"Your Grace," he said in a tone he strove valiantly to hold within the pitch of social usage, "let me rather tell you how beautiful I fancied you to-night."

As the handsome fellow bent his head toward her, she was possessed of a strange yearning. The plans, the plots, the wearying details of years had almost deprived her of the solace of sex; in the rôle of patriot she had well-nigh forgotten that she was a woman. A hunger for her due, so long deferred, spoke in her voice.

"Yes," she said honestly, "please do. Anything to make me forget for the few minutes I can call my own. Tell me a fairy-story," she commanded with almost childish eagerness. "Or have you Americans foresworn fairies for Edisons?"

"I know one who has not," he answered, falling soothingly into her mood. "He has seen the Queen, Titania."

"Well, tell me about her. Oh, I do hope that she was beautiful," and she dimpled bewitchingly.

"She was – fairy queens are always beautiful, and sometimes kind. Once upon a time – all fairy-stories have happened once upon a time – there was a man."

"Yes," she interrupted, bending expectantly toward him.

"He was poor," he continued quietly.

"Oh," she exclaimed in disappointment.

Carter shook his head understandingly. "He was an artist. He hoped one day to be called a genius. The fairy queen knew this was not to be so she made him a king and gave him – part of her kingdom." He paused to find her looking down, a shade of sadness on her face. Noticing his pause she looked up.

"Well?" she asked.

"There was another man," he continued. "This other man was not poor. He was not an artist, but to-night he saw the fairy queen in all her regal splendor. It made him think that all the flowers in all the worlds condensed into one small but perfect bloom were not so sweet as she. So the other man more than ever wished to rule in her fairyland – with her."

"No, no," she cried, detecting the prohibited note, "you must not speak so." Her hands crumpled the morsel of cobweb and lace she had for handkerchief. Carried away with her proximity, however, he would not now be denied.

"This is but a fairy-story, Duchess. Oh, Fairy Queen, could you not find a kingdom for the other man in fairyland – a kingdom with you as Queen?"

His naked soul was laying pleading hands upon her quivering heart. She turned away, unable to withstand the suppliance of his eyes.

"You do not know what you ask," she whispered hoarsely. Then vehemently spurring her resolve into a gallop, she added, "When the King is crowned in Schallberg, I become his wife."

"Suppose he isn't," he urged doggedly.

"Oh, no," she cried brokenly, "don't make me a traitor to my country's hopes. Don't make me wish for failure."

Unwittingly her words confessed her love for Carter. Grimly forcing her weakness back into her secret heart, she turned a calm front to him once again.

"Enough of fairy-stories, Major Carter," she said. "We live in a workaday world where the 'little people' have no place. All of us have our duties to perform. If some be less pleasant than others it is no excuse for not fulfilling them to the uttermost. We have a hard day before us. With His Majesty's permission, therefore, I will retire for the night." She arose as she said this, so Carter had no other alternative than to follow her into the royal presence.

From a balcony at the far end of the room, crept a faint note of music. The players were carefully concealed behind banked palms and gigantic ferns. To the surprised ears of those unaware of their presence it came first as a single note, then a chord, a stave, a vibrant meaning. It was like a distant bugle call across a midnight plain. It swelled into a challenge.

Then, echoing the hoof beats of horses, it swept into a glorious charge. All the invisible instruments crashed valorously into their fullest sounds. The arteries of the listeners throbbed a response to its inspiration. Trusia, her eyes gleaming like twin stars, laid her hand softly on the royal arm.

"Oh, sire," she cried, "it is our nation's battle song."

Carter sighed. He saw that her loyalty would hold her to an alliance against her heart.

Possessed by the ardor of the song, the nobles, drawing their swords, cried in ecstatic chorus, "For Krovitch! For Krovitch!" In their pandemonium of joy, Carter's distress was unnoted.

He could not longer endure the sight of the prophetic association; it seemed as if they were receiving nuptial felicitations as they stood there side by side, so with a heavy heart he crept up to his own apartment, where, at least, without stint, he could indulge his thoughts. After the brilliance of the salon, the single light in his room seemed puling and weak, so he crossed over and extinguished it. In doing so, he found himself near the window, which, opening to the floor, door wise, looked along the roof of the stone porch. A cooling sweep of moonlight fell on Carter's face and urged him to peace of soul. He never noticed the soft indulgence of Diana, for, as he glanced streetward, he recalled the incident of Josef and the stranger. Drawing an easy-chair into the zone of moonlight he lit a cigar and strove desperately to find a clue.

"Two fingers – that means two something, at first glance. Has it any further significance?" he pondered. "Of course it was prearranged, when and how – and does Sobieska know? If he doesn't, Josef has correspondents unknown to Krovitch – that alone looks dangerous. I'll look up Sobieska. It's now twenty minutes of two," he said as he consulted his watch. A swift inspiration caused him suddenly to raise his head. "I've got it. The house is all still now. Two – two – two o'clock, that's the solution. They're to meet at two o'clock. Where? I can't wait for Sobieska, there's no time."

He bent over and slipped off his military boots and put on a pair of moccasins he always wore about his room. Cautiously he opened the long window and stepped gingerly upon the roof. "Josef won't dare go out the front way; so to leave the grounds he'll have to pass beneath me, and I can follow if he does." Placing one hand on the bow window beside him, he leaned over to peer into the moonlit yard beneath.

After he had waited what seemed a double eternity he was rewarded by seeing a shape disengage itself from the shadows about the servant's quarters in the rear, and come and stand directly beneath his place of observation. Somewhere a clock struck two. There was a grating sound as of the moving of rusty hinges from the direction of the front of the house, and the first comer had a companion with whom he instantly began a whispered conversation, of which, strain his ears as he might, Carter could catch only four words, – "Your report – and lists." The man whom he supposed to be Josef drew a bulky sheaf of papers from his breast pocket and passed them to the mysterious stranger. It was time to interfere, Carter thought. Swinging by his arms until his legs encircled the stone pillar he slid to the porch and, leaping to the ground, confronted the conspirators. Instinctively his first act was to clutch the papers, and as he did so he was struck from behind and fell unconscious to the ground. As his senses passed from him, he was dimly conscious of a surprise that neither man was Josef. A sleepy determination possessed him to hold grimly to the papers. Then all was blank.

He wished they wouldn't annoy him, he remonstrated drowsily. When he was asleep he didn't have that awful pain in his head. As he opened his eyes he smiled vacuously into Trusia's face. That brought him to his senses with a jerk. A candle sputtered fitfully in a gilt stand beside him on the ground. Trusia's arm was about his shoulder. The King and, yes, Sobieska were there. And that other figure, that was Josef. He glanced at his own right hand. It was still tightly clenched, but held no papers.

"How did you know I was here?" he inquired, his voice a trifle husky and weak. He looked at the girl against whose breast he leaned; her reply alone could satisfy him.

"Josef, in going around to see if all things were locked tight, heard you groaning, and, not knowing who it was, gave the alarm."

Carter struggled to his feet and, though a trifle dizzy yet from the blow of his unseen foe, was able to stagger into the house. There Trusia, with a woman's tender solicitude for those for whom she cares, without the intervention of servants poured from a near-by decanter, and forced Carter to drain, a goblet of wine. Under the stimulant his strength returned.

"If Count Sobieska will lend me his arm I think I can retire now. How I came in the yard – I see you are all curious though too polite to inquire – I'll tell you in the morning when I feel more fit. At present I have either a strange head or a beehive on my shoulders, I don't know which."

When he reached his room and the Count entering also had closed the door, Carter threw off much of the assumed languor, and told the Counselor the whole of the tale. The Krovitzer shook his head dubiously. "Josef found you at quarter past three this morning – yet you say Josef was not one of the two men. Did you see the faces of both?"

"Only a glance. Both were bearded. The one who came from the back part of the house was dark, black eyebrows, heavy black beard, pallid face, or so it looked in the moonlight. The visitor was undoubtedly Russian."

"It may have been soot," said Sobieska musingly. "I remember now that, while the rest of his face looked remarkably like a freshly scrubbed one, there was a long dark smear along one of Josef's eyebrows as we brought you into the house; but that is not enough to convict him of the treason, however strong a suspicion it arouses. Well, things are looking a trifle as if Vladimar not only knows where we are, but why we are here. We'll have to strike quickly – as soon, in fact, as we set foot in Krovitch again."