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Game and the Candle

<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> <h3>GUINEVERE OF THE SOUTH</h3> It was quite a month after that sunny noon on the Emperor's terrace, that Maria Luisa Iría de Bourbon was informed of her betrothal to the Grand Duke Feodor Stanief. She also received the announcement on a garden terrace, by a caprice of chance; but it was a terrace of the South, starred and flowered all over with violets, heavily-sweet tuberoses and blue Florentine irises. Moreover, it was sunset, and she stood a slender white figure against the rosy sky. "It is all decided?" she asked in a hushed, pathetic little voice, a voice shattered into crystalline fragments, like the dash of a clear brook against a rock. "It is sure to happen, señora?" "Quite sure," answered her mother, with a firmness not unsuggestive of Adrian. The princess made a move forward, then swayed like one of her wind-blown irises and slipped down to the old moss-green steps. When in her own room they revived her, she turned to hide her face among the pillows. "I am afraid," she whispered under her breath. "I am afraid." That was all. She had been taught obedience in a convent, and the Duquesa her mother was not to be resisted. One does not stop the mills of the gods by laying a flower across their wheels. But if Stanief seized every delay of diplomacy and ceremony in his Northern court, he was unconsciously aided by every feminine subterfuge from the Gentle Princess in her sun-kissed home. The elaborate trousseau required weeks to prepare, the autumn storms made the voyage by sea unpleasant, and the journey by land was too fatiguing and informal. Between one and another, it was six months after the announcement before the escort ship anchored in the cobalt-blue bay which makes a dimple in the curving cheek of southern Spain. And then Iría met some of her new countrymen. Not easy were their names and titles to her lisping Latin tongue, as she greeted the guests graciously and gracefully, her mother by her side. But as one gentleman was presented, she leaned forward with delicate surprise. "Monsieur John Allard," she echoed, her large golden-brown eyes on his face. "Monsieur is not then of my future country?" "Madame, I am an American," he explained, almost with the tenderness one involuntarily shows a child. It seemed to him that he had never seen anything more appealing than her young dignity and pathetic beauty of expression. Iría regarded him earnestly. His right arm hung in a scarf, but he bore the injury with a bright unconcern that suggested it rather a badge of honor than an embarrassment. Although so simply announced, his companions waited for him to pass on with deferential patience and lack of surprise at her interest. Very suddenly the young girl flushed, her golden-brown head drooping on its white stem. "I am most glad to have met monsieur," she murmured confusedly. After that the preparations for the departure went on more rapidly. Contrary to all expectations, the princess was not too weary to sail next day and embarked with her mother and their ladies without too obvious regret. The chief of the escort, the venerable Admiral Count Donoseff, was charmed and flattered by the interest shown in his staff by their future mistress. The first lady of the Empire Iría would be, until Adrian's distant marriage; her friendship might be valuable. "Monsieur Allard has then injured his arm?" she remarked, on the third day of the voyage. "Madame, in an act of devotion most remarkable," the admiral replied. "Imagine that a week before we sailed, an insane student made an attack upon the Emperor. His Imperial Majesty was driving, with Monsieur Allard seated opposite, when the criminal leaped on the step of the carriage and attempted to plunge a knife into the Emperor's heart. Monsieur Allard flung himself forward and caught the blow on his own arm, undoubtedly saving the Emperor's life at the expense of a dangerous wound to himself. Drenched with blood, he held the assassin's wrist until aid arrived." Iría shuddered, yet listened thirstily. "I heard—a little of this," she said breathlessly. "But I thought it was his Royal Highness the Regent who was hurt." The Admiral blushed at his own forgetfulness; a courtier should never forget. "Certainly; he also, madame," he hastened to assure. "He was beside the Emperor and so at a disadvantage, but he sprang to aid Monsieur Allard in holding the man and received a slight wound in disarming him. All Europe rang with the story, and Monsieur Allard was decorated with the Grand Star of the Order of St. Rurik. The justice of the Regent is swift; the criminal was tried and executed the next day." Iría glanced down the deck to where Allard chatted with two young nobles of the court, the sun striking across his bright hair and laughing face. "The Regent," she began shyly, then relapsed into silence with her ready change of color. But a little later she caught Allard's eye and summoned him by a scarcely perceptible movement of her hand. He came with pleasure and saluted her with that direct friendliness of regard which had carried him safely past many a shoal and undercurrent during his continental life. "The Count Donoseff has been telling me the history of your wounded arm, monsieur," she said. "Let me add my poor admiration to all you receive, realizing that you saved the Emperor, soon to be my sovereign also." "You are too gracious, madame," Allard protested lightly. Gaiety came very easily to him since that day when he had saved Adrian's life and Stanief's honor. It seemed to him that John Allard had not only paid; he had re-earned the right to existence, justified his liberty. "If all the world knows of it—" "Oh, pardon; I only meant to say that the Grand Duke was present and did as much as I." Something in the words brought her soft smile. "Is not the Grand Duke usually where you are, monsieur?" she queried. "I am with him whenever he and my service of the Emperor permit, madame." "Only then?" she doubted. Surprised, he shrugged his shoulders laughingly. "Some one has been telling tales of me, Princess. I confess I am with him more than is strictly warranted." "I have heard so much of his coldness, his severity," she ventured, her lashes sweeping her round young cheeks. "He, he cares for nothing, no one, they say." "Oh, no, madame," Allard denied, warmly enlisted in the defense. "That is most unjust. Consider only those from whom such reports come; there is no one living who has more undeserved enemies. I know him capable of love; I have seen it, felt it, lived it. And he works, madame; how he works! The country under his rule gains new life, new hope. Madame, if I might presume, I would implore you to believe nothing of him except what he himself will show you." She crimsoned before his fervor, but her delicate face expressed no anger at the daring. "I will not," she assented, still with that strange timidity. "I was frightened at first, but not now, not any more. The Regent is fair, with gray eyes, is he not, monsieur?" "No, madame; he is very dark," he assured her hastily, his thoughts on Stanief's much-loved face. Iría smiled, bending her head still lower. "He is perhaps—fanciful, monsieur? He might do something quite useless and romantic, just for a caprice?" "Hardly, madame. I think he does nothing without a purpose. He—I believe he has not been very happy, Princess." "And, is he now?" she asked faintly. Allard recalled himself to gallantry with charming grace. "Madame, he should be happier than any one living." "Thank you, monsieur," she breathed, and let him retire presently, her bosom heaving under its white linen and lace. It was a very pale and listless girl who had first met Stanief's envoys, but as the voyage proceeded she grew each day more rose-tinted, more daintily radiant and content. One would have said the salt winds blew across some Elysian garden, some fountain of Ponce de Leon, and brought health with their touch. She had a little way of suddenly blushing and smiling, as if at some delightful secret of her own not to be carelessly spoken. On the last day at sea she chose Allard's arm for her daily promenade up and down the deck. This honor was eagerly desired by the gentlemen, old and young alike, but she had hitherto shown a decided preference for the veteran admiral; or one of her ladies, if the sea were sufficiently calm. Allard no longer wore the scarf, but she had paused before him demurely. "Your arm is better, monsieur?" "Madame, it is quite well." "Then, if you do not fear to injure it—" And with that they were pacing dignifiedly down the shining deck, under a score of envious eyes. "To-morrow we arrive, monsieur." "In a happy hour for our country and the Grand Duke Feodor, madame." "He thinks so?" "Princess, can you doubt it?" evaded Allard, who himself had many doubts, remembering Stanief's grim sarcasms on the subject of being given the care of a twenty-year-old girl when his life was already one of crowded tasks and serious peril. Some trouble in his manner communicated itself to the small hand fluttering on his sleeve. "I do not want to doubt," she said. "I do not. Monsieur, in that old English legend—have you ever thought how wise King Arthur would have been, if instead of sending Lancelot to Lady Guinevere in his place, he had himself gone to meet her in Lancelot's guise?" "Why, I never did think," Allard acknowledged merrily. "But certainly he would have been much wiser, madame." He regarded her in bright question which drew the answer of her flush. "Do not modern King Arthurs ever choose the wiser course?" she faltered. "Perhaps they are too busy and hampered, madame, as the ancient king may have been also. Since I have lived at a court I have altered my ideas on such subjects. I never saw any one who worked so hard as the Regent. He has set himself a splendid task, and splendidly he carries it on." Iría's expression clouded slightly; the glance she stole at her companion was puzzled and full of dawning terror. "Yet he might leave it a little while, monsieur." "Madame, to leave it for one day might topple down the careful building of months. Moreover, he holds the city always under his grasp, fearing danger to the Emperor." Her left hand went to her heart. "Monsieur, we arrive to-morrow; it would not be kind to play with me." Allard met her pleading eyes with candid amazement. "Princess, what have I said? I venture to play with your Royal Highness!" "Then the Grand Duke is waiting over there?" she flung out her hand toward the north, lifting her small white face to him, the golden-brown curls tossing in the breeze. Even then he had no conception of her mistake. "Surely, madame; where else?" he wondered. The Gentle Princess made no exclamation, no reproach. Only her head drooped again, and shivering she drew the veil about her face. "I am tired, monsieur," she gasped. "Will you take me back?" "Madame, most unintentionally I have offended you. Let me beg forgiveness and ask how." "No, no; no one has done wrong. I myself was—absurd. I am not angry, monsieur; only tired." They walked back, Allard completely bewildered and uncomprehending. By her chair Iría paused and gave him her hand with a smile whose sweetness was beyond tears. "Thank you, Monsieur Allard," she said. "Perhaps we shall still be friends over there. You are going home, but I go a stranger to a strange place; I meant no more than that." She was like Theodora, Allard thought, deeply moved. Surely Stanief would be gentle with her gentleness. The next morning they landed. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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