Stanief was writing, writing steadily, placidly, his pen rustling faintly as it slipped across the paper. The ruddy glow of the open fire was tangled and reflected among the many-faceted knickknacks that littered the desk, caught and tossed back from a dozen shining surfaces, and mockingly echoed by deep-tinted walls and draperies. Most ruddily, most vividly, the light seemed to gather around the writer, as if its quivering pink radiance were a warning or a shield.

It was like another presence in the room, that fire, to the man behind the curtain. He watched it also as he crept stealthily forward, clutching more tightly the object in his hand. A man of the people, shabby, gaunt, unkempt, he stole out into the Regent's study, stepping cautiously on the gleaming floor or on the treacherously soft rugs which slipped beneath his unaccustomed feet. From the velvet hangings he gained the shelter of a tall Vernis-Martin cabinet and crouched in the shadow, shaking from head to foot with nervous tremors.

Stanief worked on undisturbed; once he paused to choose another pen, and the intruder cowered to the floor in abject fear. But the writing was resumed without alarm. After a few moments the man again moved forward, this time on his hands and knees, until he reached the end of a high-sided leather couch. There he halted again. Coming here with a purpose so bold, the habit of a lifetime yet prompted him to hold his soiled garments away from the gilded and perfumed upholstery with a vague sense of apology.

There never was a clock that ticked so loudly, so insistently as the timepiece above the hearth, a clock that set its beats so exactly to the beat of a man's hurrying pulse. Once the man on the floor touched his chest curiously, as if to be quite certain whether it was his heart, or indeed the swaying pendulum which sounded through the quiet place. Reassured, he moved on.

The glowing firelight wavered giddily across Stanief's bent head, seeking in vain for a hint of brown in the fine black hair, which had a slight ripple and a tendency to lie in tiny curls where it touched the neck. The man noted this dully. If one struck there? Or lower, between the broad shoulders—

Stanief leaned back and selected a cigarette from the tray on the writing-table. His drowsy lashes fell meditatively as he reached for a match, a half-smile curved his lips. The man by the chair darted forward and struck once, from behind.

The knife crashed ringing to the floor as Stanief's quicker movement met his assailant's. The man cried out sharply as the strong white hands closed on his wrists and the superior strength forced him to his knees beside the desk.

"Clumsily attempted," commented the level voice. "Have you any more weapons, mon ami?"

"Excellency, Royal Highness, pardon—I have no French."

Stanief shrugged his shoulders and lapsed into the language of the country.

"I asked you if you had other weapons, but it does not matter."

He deliberately transferred both captive wrists to the grasp of his right hand and with his left opened a drawer of the desk. The man made no effort to free himself. Generations of serfdom had reasserted themselves; he might have killed from behind, but before the patrician's glance and voice resistance did not even occur to him. He submitted passively when Stanief produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them in place.

"Stand up, and farther off," came the contemptuous command. "I am not accustomed to doing my own police work. You need not try to escape; the guard is within call. I might have had you arrested half an hour ago when I first saw you."

"Royal Highness, how—why—"

Stanief answered the stupefied gaze, coldly amused.

"Because it interested me to watch your attempt. I keep a mirror on my desk, not being without experience. Who sent you to kill me?"

"Royal Highness, my brother was hung last week."

"As you this week. Well?"

The man winced.

"Royal Highness, we wanted freedom. They tell us that while your Royal Highness lives it can not be; the country is too firmly held and too content. So we strive to act in time."

He spoke as one reciting a lesson, monotonously, with effort. His type was familiar, lacking even the poor excuse of originality.

"Your brother was executed for an attempt to kill me?"

"Serenity, he worked in the palace kitchen and put poison in a cup of chocolate."

"I remember. He was tried; I had nothing to do with his case." He paused, considering; and the other stared at him in mute fascination. "Before I ring to have you removed, have you anything to say?"

"Gracious Highness, pardon!"

Stanief regarded him with scornful amazement.

"Pardon? You are mad, mon ami. Do you fancy me a child or a woman to set you free after this performance? Why should I pardon you? You do not interest me in the least. Go face your trial; my share in the incident is ended," and Stanief turned away.

"Royal Highness, mercy—I am afraid! Not that—I will—"

"What?"

"Buy," he offered desperately. "Royalty, not to sell my comrades—who are we in your sight—there is some one else, some one of the court who wishes your death."

Stanief stopped with his finger on the bell and bent his keen eyes on the livid face. It was not a pleasant spectacle, this sordid, trembling figure in the firelight, but an uglier specter loomed behind it.

"Go on, if you choose," he conceded. "You have my permission."

"Royal Highness, not my comrades. But he is not of us; he urges us here to fail and die. You are the master; Royal Highness, his name for grace."

"I promise you nothing. Certainly not your liberty."

"No, no, but life!" he made a movement to throw himself at the Regent's feet, but drew back before the decided negative. "Royal Highness, to live, only to live. He is a great lord, he goes to court; he hates and fears you. Royal Highness, he is the Baron Sergius Dalmorov."

"Ah," observed Stanief, and said nothing more for several minutes. His all given, the man waited feverishly, not daring to speak except by his imploring gaze. But Stanief finally pushed the button without vouching a reply.

"Dimitri," he said curtly to the officer who appeared in answer to the summons, "take this man and have him imprisoned until I send for him again. Understand me; there is no charge against him at present; simply he is a prisoner at my pleasure."

The officer saluted in silence, however amazed at the presence in Stanief's study of one who certainly had not passed the door, and in silence marshaled his dazed captive backward to the threshold. There he halted and again saluted.

"Monsieur Allard awaits the honor of being received by your Royal Highness."

"Very well; admit Monsieur Allard."

"Highness," faltered the prisoner once more.

Dimitri favored him with a scandalized stare, jerked him unceremoniously out the door, and administered a shake that almost sent him into Allard's arms.

"More respect, animal," he ordered explosively. "Pig of a peasant! Oh, a thousand pardons, Monsieur Allard; pray enter."

Allard laughed and passed on, giving the prisoner a compassionate glance that altered to one of surprise and distrust at sight of his face. But he asked no questions, having learned many things in the course of his life in the Empire. Adrian himself had first given his favorite the dry advice to see nothing that did not concern him.

Stanief had resumed his writing; at Allard's entrance he looked up to nod pleasantly toward a chair, and continued his work without speaking. The two were accustomed to each other; smiling, Allard sat down and let his head sink against the high back of the cushioned seat.

The fire glowed and danced, rose and fell, making an artificial brightness that mocked the clouded sky without. Gradually, from waiting Allard drifted into reverie, in whose closing mists his surroundings were lost from sight.

After a while Stanief laid down the pen, pushed aside the completed task, and surveyed his companion unobserved. Twice the Regent moved as if to speak, then changed his intention and remained mute. The expression that forced its way through his locked composure was not gentle; it was as if he struggled fiercely with some emotion and felt it wrench and writhe beneath the surface of self-control. But in spite of his will, his dark brows tangled, the black eyes glinted hard behind their deceptive lashes. And when he finally spoke, his voice carried a tone never before used to Allard.

"John, what is wrong?" he demanded.

The other looked up in surprise.

"Nothing, monseigneur," he answered, rather wearily.

Stanief's fingers closed sharply on one of the ivory toys which strewed the desk.

"That is not true," he contradicted. "Kindly say so if you do not wish to explain; I am not a child to be put off with a light word. Something has been wrong with you ever since your return from Spain."

Too assured of their friendship for resentment or to attribute the speech to anything except interest in his affairs, Allard smiled even while changing color with pain.

"I have you always, monseigneur," he said. "If I have lost other loves, at least I can rest content with you."

The paper-knife snapped in Stanief's grasp.

"Thank you," he responded, with an accent worthy of his cousin. "I believe I asked you to explain."

The unconscious Allard pushed the bright hair from his forehead, his eyes on the ruddy unrest of the flames.

"Of course I meant to tell you some time, monseigneur," he mused aloud. "But it seemed a bit cowardly to burden you with my troubles; you could not help them, and you have so many of your own. It was no time to speak of such a thing during your wedding, and as the weeks went by it grew harder and harder to speak of it at all. I tried not to betray myself, but I am rather a bad actor. If it were only I who suffered. The journey to Spain, for madame—"

He paused. Stanief gazed at him with an expression as somberly dangerous as ever one of his dangerous house wore.

"The journey to Spain, monsieur?" he repeated.

Aroused at last to a strangeness in his manner, Allard turned to him in wonder.

"During the journey to Spain, monseigneur, this came for me," he replied simply, and drew forth a letter which he laid before the other.

Stanief picked it up, himself confronted by the unexpected. Allard resumed his seat and averted his head as the rustling paper unfolded.

It was a sweetly calm letter, a letter written by one in the evening of life and itself breathing an evening repose and gray twilight hush. Across the fevered passion of the man who read, the first words drifted like the cool, scented air of the Californian garden from which they came. A letter that neither reproached nor questioned, its message was given with all tenderness of phrase and household name.

Robert had not been well for a long time, Aunt Rose wrote most delicately. After John had left for South America so suddenly, his younger brother had fretted and chafed against his own quiet life. Even his engagement to Theodora had failed to cheer him, or cure his strange restlessness and abstraction. About six months after John's departure, he had been found unconscious on the veranda, lying among the crumpled newspapers. An illness followed, and after recovering from that he never seemed to grow quite strong. In the third year of John's absence, when preparations were being made for the long-delayed wedding, he again fell ill. The morning they received John's letter from the Nadeja, he rallied wonderfully. Asking to have the letter himself, he read it again and again, then sent them all away while he rested. An hour later they had found him, resting indeed, his cheek upon the letter and the old bright content on his boyish face. Theodora had borne it very well. They were tranquilly calm in their life together, now, and sent their earnest love to John in the distant life he had chosen.

Stanief laid down the letter very gently. He never forgot how the light from this purer and simpler world fell across the labyrinth of dark thoughts at which he scarcely dared look back.

"Nearly two years," Allard said, his head still turned away. "So long since Robert died. I did not write at once from here; I thought they knew of me, and I wanted a little real life to tell. I was sick of pretense. I suppose the women did not know how to reach me here; Bertie would have had no difficulty. But it was a grief past remedying, and there seemed no use troubling you."

Stanief rose and came around the writing-table to lay both hands on the other's shoulders.

"I beg your pardon, John," he said earnestly and gravely. "I spoke to you just now as I never will again, come what may. I have my own griefs, less patiently endured than yours; and I misunderstood."

"I did not notice," Allard answered, with perfect truth. "You are always like no one else, monseigneur. I am glad that you know, very glad. You see, it is not only that I myself have lost Robert, but that I have taken him from Theodora. I wanted so much happiness for her, and now—it was all wrong. Let us talk of something else, please."

Stanief turned away to the table.

"My last cigarette was never lighted," he remarked, the change of tone complete. "Did you not see that particularly disagreeable fellow-countryman of mine who went out in Dimitri's charge? He tried to kill me just before you arrived."

Effectively distracted, Allard sat up.

"He—"

"Oh, that is nothing novel. In fact, it becomes monotonous. Only this fellow varied the routine by declaring Dalmorov the instigator of all this."

"Dalmorov!" Allard echoed incredulously. "To stoop so far! Yet I remember; I saw him talking with your prisoner the other night. I was coming from the club with Rosal and Linovitch, when the acetylene search-lights of the car fell across the two, as they stood in an angle of the cathedral wall."

"So? He is imprudent. Also he should recollect that while such people will keep faith with one another, they will cheerfully betray one of the class they hate."

"You will accuse him, arrest him?"

"My dear John, on the word of a wretched peasant? I shall do nothing so impulsive. But, I will perfect the chain, and then—" He offered a match serenely. "Why should he not pay? Moreover, he is dangerous to the Emperor. When I resign this remodeled empire to my cousin, he shall rule it, not Dalmorov. Have patience yet a while. Before my power passes from me, I will remove this gentleman, whether Adrian approves of it or not; and then contentedly lay down my borrowed scepter."

"The Emperor—"

"The Emperor may do as he will, afterward. He is fond of his Dalmorov."

"I am not so sure of that, monseigneur; he plays with him."

Stanief smiled.

"My young cousin is a kitten for whom we are all toy mice, John. Which reminds me that the hour for my visit to him approaches."

"And recalls me to my errand. The Emperor requests that her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess will come to him this morning, if it will not derange her plans."

"You have told madame?"

"No, monseigneur. I thought perhaps you—" he looked at Stanief interrogatively.

"Would accompany her?" Stanief completed the question. "Perhaps."

He touched the bell, and the long regard in which he enveloped Allard held many blended emotions besides its affection.

"Has madame gone to drive, Dimitri?" he inquired of that attendant.

"Her Royal Highness at this moment descends the stairs, Royal Highness."

"Say to her that I would be glad to see her here, now, if she is at leisure."

Dimitri vanished hastily. An instant later he opened the door, and IrÍa came noiselessly across the threshold with the exotic, Andalusian grace that made her least movement a delight.

Both gentlemen rose at her entrance. Coloring faintly, she inclined her head to Allard, and crossed to Stanief, lifting her eyes to his with a certain delicate confidence and trust.

"You sent for me, monsiegneur?" she questioned, in her rippling southern voice.

"I asked you to come," he corrected. "Monsieur Allard has a message for you."

She turned docilely to Allard, without leaving Stanief's side.

"For me, monsieur?"

Stanief looked from one to the other. Very lovely was the young girl in her trailing blue velvets and furs; her golden-brown hair clustering in full, soft waves under the large hat, her golden-brown eyes warm with expectation. IrÍa had acquired a dainty poise, not less gentle but more assured, during these months of emancipation and freedom under the Regent's protection. Allard gazed at her with frank admiration and friendliness as he explained:

"Madame, the Emperor requests the happiness of your presence this morning, if the visit will cause no disturbance of your plans."

Her dimpling smile responded to a demand sufficiently familiar. Adrian's love for her had long ago outlived surprise and become an accepted fact.

"Thank you, monsieur," she answered, and again looked up at Stanief. "You are going, monseigneur? We may go together?"

"I intended to ask it of you, if you will wait an instant for me to arrange these papers."

Allard saluted them quietly, and withdrew. Like all the rest of the city, he fancied them most happy in each other. The Regent's aversion to the marriage had been forgotten in his bearing since the first day of his fiancÉe's arrival.

IrÍa sank down in an arm-chair and loosened the furs under her round white chin, laying the huge muff in her lap. Quite innocently and without shyness she followed Stanief's movements as he tossed into a drawer the writing upon which he had been engaged and dropped on top the thin, keen knife left from the recent conflict.

"Monseigneur," she said at last.

Stanief winced ever so slightly; there were times when the formal title fell like a drop of acid on his nerves.

"Madame la Duchesse?" he retorted.

IrÍa laughed out in her surprise, all unconscious of his meaning.

"Monseigneur, are you going to send Marya away from me?"

"I! What have I to do with your ladies? Keep or dismiss them as you choose, IrÍa."

"Marya cried this morning, telling me that last night the Baron Dalmorov warned her of your intention. He said that the Emperor would object to the sister of Count Ormanof remaining at court, so you would dismiss her. But I told Marya that you knew how much I cared for her, and would explain that to the Emperor."

"Some day Dalmorov will learn discretion," Stanief commented, almost too indolently. "It is nearly time. The Emperor did speak to me of the Countess Marya, and I pointed out to him that her brother's misconduct did not affect the matter in the least; since we are not living in China and visiting faults upon entire families. Also I explained that you rule your own household."

"But you govern us all, monseigneur," said the Gentle Princess, most naturally. "I was sure it would be right somehow; I told Marya that no one who belonged to you need be afraid."

He paused abruptly in front of her.

"Then you are not sorry that you trusted me with yourself, IrÍa? You are not sorry any longer that chance placed you in my keeping?"

She leaned forward across the muff, her eyes suddenly wet in their sincerity.

"Oh, no," she denied with energy. "No, monseigneur. Ah, we do not call such things chance, we women of the South, but a higher name! I have never been sorry since that first day on the winter balcony when you spoke to me so wonderfully. You—you are so good, so kind, monseigneur."

Stanief looked into those clear eyes for a long moment, his own glance veiled. Then he gently took one of the little gloved hands and lifted it to his lips.

"I seem to have been born just for that," he said, the sadness of his voice masked by its even control, "to guard what is mine. I am glad if I do it passably well, IrÍa. I wish I could hope that my other ward would tell me as much, some day. Come, let us go to the Emperor."

She rose, softly flushed and smiling, yet vaguely troubled by his manner.

"The Emperor?" she ventured. "He is a shadow, monseigneur! You are not satisfied with him?"

"What do you know of shadows, who are all sunshine? If I imagine a cloud on the imperial horizon, it is still no larger than that bit of lace in your hand. Also, the question is rather if he is satisfied with me, than if I am satisfied with him. Adrian is—Adrian."

Together they moved to the door.