by Louis Tracy
CHAPTER XIII
WHEREIN A REASON IS GIVEN FOR JOAN'S FLIGHT
A knock sounded on the door. "Their Excellencies the Prince and PrincessDelgrado," announced Bosko, whose jaws underwent strange contortions atbeing compelled to utter so many syllables consecutively.
Alec thrust the sword into its scabbard. He did not put the weapon inits accustomed place; but hid it behind a fold of one of the heavycurtains that shrouded the windows.
"On the arrival of the others whom I have summoned you can usher them inwithout warning," he said to Bosko. "As soon as General Stampoff comeslet no other person enter, and remain near the door until I call you."
"_Oui, monsieur_," said Bosko. King or no King, he was faithful to hisscanty stock of French.
Prince Michael had dined well, having induced his host to depart fromthe King's injunctions as to the wine supplied at meals. His puffed faceshone redly. It looked so gross and fat, perched on such a slenderframe, that he resembled one of those diminutive yet monstrouscaricatures of humanity seen on the pantomime stage.
"What is the trouble now, Alec?" he asked, glancing quickly round thespacious ill lighted apartment. "Your man came to me most mysteriously.His manner suggested treasons, spoils, and stratagems. I met your motheron the stairs. She too, it seems, is in demand."
Alec looked at the strange little creature whom he called father, andfrom the Prince's gargoyle head his gaze dwelt on his mother. She haduttered no word. Her eyes met his furtively for a second and thendropped. She was disturbed, obviously alarmed, and, with a curiouslydetached feeling of surprise, he guessed that she knew of Joan'sdeparture. Well, he would bide his time until all possible conspiratorswere present. Then, by fair means or foul, he would wring the truth fromthem.
"I want to consult my mother and you as to a certain matter," he said,answering Prince Michael with apparent nonchalance. "I shall not detainyou very long. Beliani, Julius, and Monsieur Nesimir are in thebuilding, and then we only await Stampoff--with whom, by the way, Ialmost succeeded in quarreling to-day."
"A quarrel with Stampoff!" exclaimed the elder Delgrado, preening hischest and sticking out his chin in the exaggerated manner that warnedthose who knew him best of the imminent expression of a weighty opinion."That will never do. Stampoff is the backbone of your administration.Were it not for our dear Paul, nothing would have been heard of aDelgrado in Kosnovia during the last quarter of a century. My dear boy,he has kept us alive politically. On no account can you afford toquarrel with Stampoff!"
Michael's big head wagged wisely; for champagne invariably made himtalkative. Nesimir entered; with him came Count Julius and the Greek.
"Nice thing his Majesty has just told me!" cried Prince Michael, withowl-like gravity. "He says that Stampoff and he have disagreed. What hasgone wrong? Have you heard of this most unfortunate estrangement,Monsieur Nesimir?"
The President, of course, assumed that some allusion had been madealready to the scene in the Council chamber.
"A serious position has undoubtedly arisen," he said blandly. "HisMajesty did not see his way clear to adopt certain recommendations putforward by his Ministers to-day,--by myself, I may say, acting on behalfof my colleagues," and he coughed deferentially,--"and General Stampofftook an active part in the debate. He set forth his views with--er--whatI considered to be--er--unnecessary vehemence. But there," and aflourish of his hand indicated the nebulous nature of the dispute,"nothing was said that cannot be mended. His Majesty himself had thetact to adjourn the discussion till to-morrow, and I have little doubtthat we shall all be prepared to consider the matter then likereasonable men."
"But what was it about?" broke in the Prince testily. "Was it withreference to Monsieur Beliani? I understood that his appointment to theMinistry of Finance was agreed to unanimously."
Beliani coughed, with the modesty of a man who might not discuss his ownmerits. The President hesitated before he answered this direct question.He cast a doubtful glance on the King, who had turned to the windowagain and seemed to give little heed to the conversation. But Alecwheeled round. He had heard every word, and, oddly enough in his ownestimation, was already drawing conclusions that were not whollyunfavorable to Prince Michael.
"I have sent for Stampoff," he said, exercising amazing self control inconcealing his fierce desire to have done with subterfuge, "and mymessage was couched in such terms that he will hardly refuse to honor uswith his presence. Meanwhile, let me rescue you, Monsieur Nesimir, fromthe embarrassment of explaining away the difficulty you yourself broughtabout at to-day's meeting of the Cabinet. Monsieur Beliani had no rival;no one doubted his ability as a financier.
"The dispute arose in connection with my forthcoming marriage. It wassuggested that I should contract an alliance with a Princess of somereigning house in the Balkans. The obvious corollary of that view wasthat Miss Joan Vernon could not be regarded as a suitable bride for theKing of Kosnovia. I declined to accept the recommendation put forward byMonsieur Nesimir,--to whom, by the way, I attribute the utmost goodfaith,--and Stampoff, whose patriotic ardor halts at nothing,practically threatened me with the loss of my Kingdom as the penalty ofdisobedience. I said that I was quite willing to leave the whole matterto the arbitrament of the people. If they decide against my choice of awife, it follows that there will be a vacancy in the Delgradosuccession."
Princess Delgrado uttered a sigh that was almost a groan. She sank intothe chair that her son had offered her when she entered the room, butrose to her feet again in manifest anxiety when her husband thrusthimself in front of Alec.
"Are we to credit," he broke in furiously, "that you have actuallyplaced your marriage with this girl before every tie of family andpatrimony?"
"That is hardly a fair statement of the facts," said Alec coldly, thoughit cost him a violent effort to sustain this unnatural calm when he wasaflame with desire to ascertain Joan's motive; "but it will serve. Atany rate, we can defer discussion of that point for the present. We aregathered here to deal with quite another phase of the dispute, and, withyour permission, I shall leave any further explanation until GeneralStampoff has arrived."
Although his utterance was measured and seemingly devoid of any excessof feeling, three, at least, of those in the room were not deceived byhis attitude. Princess Delgrado seemed to be profoundly disquieted,while Beliani and Marulitch strove, not altogether with success, tocarry themselves with the indifference that cloaks uneasiness. Alecturned again to the window and looked out.
A carriage drove into the courtyard and, though its occupant wasinvisible, he guessed rightly that Stampoff had not failed him. Some lowconversation went on behind his back, and, although he was nowmarshaling his forces for the impending struggle, he became aware thatthe President was giving in greater detail an account of the afternoon'sproceedings. But he listened only for the opening of the door. From thatinstant war should be declared, ruthless war on each and every personpresent who had reft him of his promised bride.
Stampoff entered. His keen old eyes instantly took in the significanceof the gathering; but he saluted the King in silence, bowed to PrincessDelgrado, and stood stockstill, not a yard from the door, in theattitude of one who awaits an order, or, it might be, a denunciation.
Alec approached, and the others, including Stampoff himself, thoughtthat he meant to make some private communication to the newcomer beforebeginning a debate in which all might share. But he walked pastStampoff, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.
Stampoff saluted the King in silence Page 268]
"Now," he said, "I am free to explain why we seven are gathered hereto-night. Joan Vernon, who was to have become my wife within a few days,left Delgratz two hours ago by the mail train for Paris. She wasaccompanied by Felix Poluski, and the only reason for this clandestinejourney is contained in a few lines of farewell addressed to me by thelady herself. In that letter she speaks of a barrier that rendersimpossible a marriage between her and me. I want to know what thatbarrier is and who erecte
d it, and I shall discover both those thingshere and now, if I have to tear the knowledge from the heart of each manpresent!"
"A strange threat, Alec," panted Prince Michael, whose prominent eyeswere bulging in semi-intoxication, though indeed he seemed suddenly tohave realized the tremendous import of the King's statement,--"a strangethreat to be uttered before your mother!"
"My mother loved Joan," came the impassioned cry. "She took her to herheart from the first hour, and she will bear with me now in my agony.Yet it may be that even my mother has deceived me. I cannot tell. Someof you here know, perhaps all; but I vow to Heaven I shall not flinchfrom my resolve to extract the truth, no matter with whom theresponsibility rests!"
Princess Delgrado, trembling and ghastly pale, tottered to the chairagain and gripped its back to prevent herself from falling. Under lessstrained conditions, it must have seemed bizarre in a company of menfor whom polite attentions to the opposite sex were a fixed convention,that she should seek such support when her husband was standing by herside; but in that startled gathering small heed was given to aught elsethan the King's thrilling statement.
Though aware of his mother's distress, Alec did not move from theposition he had taken up, facing all of them, and with that hidden swordwithin easy reach. Ever a dutiful and devoted son, he continued now toglower at the half-fainting woman as though she alone held the key ofthe mystery that resulted in Joan's disappearance. His impassioned eyessought to peer into her very soul, and his nostrils quivered with thefrenzied eagerness of one who awaited an answer to the implied question.In some indefinable way he had already begun to suspect the truth; forwhen the poor woman made no reply, though more than once her terrorladen eyes met his in mute appeal, he whirled round on Marulitch.
"Perhaps this is an occasion when it is a woman's privilege to remainsilent," he said bitterly. "So I begin with you, Julius. Save myself,you are the youngest here, and it would be fitting that you and I shoulddetermine this business. I warn you there will be no half measures! Mylife, at least, goes into the scale, and I care not who else adjusts thebalance."
The pink and white tints had long fled from the Parisian dandy'scomplexion. In the dim light he looked livid, and his forehead borebright beads of perspiration. But even Alec's fiery eyes discerned thathe was not only afraid, but bewildered, and his voice cracked withexcitement when he spoke.
"I declare by everything I hold sacred that I had no hand in thisaffair!" he said shrilly. "It is natural perhaps that you should suspectme, since I seem to have most to gain by any ill that befalls you; but,even in your anger, Alec, you should be just. No matter how fierce youremotions, you ought to realize that Miss Vernon's departure fromDelgratz retards rather than helps any possible scheming on my part tosucceed you on the throne."
"Now you, Beliani!" said Alec, striving to penetrate the mask thatcovered the one impassive face in the room. "It was you who contrivedthat my promised wife should come here from Paris. I can see yourpurpose now. At to-day's meeting of the Cabinet, while I was urging youradvancement to power and dignity in the State, your hand was revealed inthe opposition manifested to my marriage. Your cunning brain conceivedthe notion that I would not abandon the woman I loved for the sake offifty Kingdoms. You read my mind aright; but, if it was you who broughtabout her flight, for what devilish reason did you depart from thesubtle plot that might well have achieved your ends by means which you,at least, would consider fair?"
The Greek spread wide his hands in that characteristic gesture of his.As it happened, for once in his life he could afford to be sincere. "Ican only assure your Majesty in the plainest possible terms," he said,"that until I heard the news from your own lips, I had no knowledgewhatsoever of Miss Vernon's journey. Were I asked outside that lockeddoor to state to the best of my belief where she might be found, Ishould have said that the slight illness of which she complained thismorning had probably confined her to her room."
For an instant Alec scowled at the President; but Sergius Nesimir'svacuous features so obviously revealed his condition of speechlesssurprise and distress that there remained only Stampoff, PrinceMichael--and his mother.
Adhering rigidly to his scheme of narrowing the field of inquiry byputting the same straight question to each individual in turn, Alec nextappealed to the man who had helped him to gain a throne.
"Paul," he said, "you who were my friend and have become my enemy, you,at least, will speak the truth. Tell me, then, who has done this thing!"
Stampoff strode forward. He feared no one, this determined advocate ofhis country's cause, and he alone knew the real menace of the impendingtornado. "Your mother ought not to be here, Alec," he muttered. "Alittle more of this and she will faint. Look at her! Have you no pity inyour heart? This is no place for a woman. Unlock the door and let her betaken away!"
Alec moistened his dry lips with his tongue. He felt that he was finallytouching sure ground in the morass through which he was floundering."She and all of you must remain!" was his grim reply. "Answer myquestion! Was it you who drove Joan from Delgratz?"
"I counseled it," said Stampoff, folding his arms defiantly, andapparently careless whether or not the King sprang at his throat thenext instant.
"Ah! At last! Thank God for one man who is honest, though he seems tohave acted like a fiend! To whom did you counsel it? To Joan herself?"
"No."
"Tell me, then, to whom?"
"I refuse."
"Stampoff, I shall draw a confession from you even though you die undermy hands."
"I have faced death many times for the King of Kosnovia," said the harshSerbian voice, "and I shall not shrink from it now, whether at the handsof the King or his foes. Send your mother away; then, perhaps, I maytell you what you want to know. The thing is done, and I, for one, shallnot shirk the consequences."
"My mother again! Must she be spared though you have sacrificed herson?"
With a quick movement that sent tremors through Julius and the Greek,since he was compelled to pass close to both, he strode to the quakingPrincess and caught her almost roughly by the shoulder.
"I feared this from the outset," he cried. "Did Stampoff make you theagent of his hellish work? Joan would trust you. Speak to me, mother!Was it you who wrought this evil?"
Her head was bent low, and she gasped something that sounded like anexcuse. Alec recoiled from her in sudden horror. His hands were pressedfeverishly to his forehead, and a hoarse cry of anguish came from hispanting breast.
"I think I shall go mad!" he almost sobbed. "My own mother enter intothis league against me! My mother----Oh, it cannot be! Stampoff, you, Iknow, would not scruple to sacrifice my dearest hopes to further yourdesigns. Could you find none but my mother to aid you?"
He reeled as under a blow from an unseen hand, and at that unfortunatemoment Prince Michael Delgrado thought fit to assert his authority.
"This ridiculous scene has gone far enough," he cried. "I was not awarethat your pretty artist had quitted Delgratz; but it is quite evidentthat her departure is the best thing that could possibly happen for thegood of the Kingdom. If Stampoff advised it, and your mother saw fit topoint out to the girl the danger she was bringing to you and themonarchy, such action on their part has my complete approval."
Alec gazed blankly at the pompous little man. It needed but PrinceMichael's outburst to stamp the whole episode with the seal of ineffablemeanness and double dealing. He recalled the cowardice displayed by thePrince when Stampoff urged him to seize the vacant throne, and his gorgerose at the thought that Joan had been driven from his arms in orderthat this pygmy might secure the annual pittance that would supply hislusts in Paris. At that moment Alec was Berserk with impotent rage. Hismother's complicity in the banishing of Joan denied him a victim on whomto wreak his wrath.
But there still remained a vengeance, dire and far reaching, which wouldteach a bitter lesson to those who had entered into so unworthy aconspiracy.
Leaping to the curtain which concealed the sword, he snatched
it up andsmashed it across his knee. "See, then, how I treat the symbol of mymonarchy," he cried with a terrible laugh. "I shall soon demonstrate toyou what a pricked balloon is this Kingship of which you prate. Ibelieve that you, my own father, are ready to supplant me, I know thatJulius, my cousin, is straining every nerve to procure my downfall; butyou shall learn how a man who despises the pinchbeck honors of a thronecan defeat your petty malice and miserable scheming. Monsieur Nesimir, Iproclaim Kosnovia a Republic from this hour! Here and now I abdicate!Summon a meeting of the Assembly to-morrow, and I shall give its membersthe best of reasons why the State will prosper more under the people'srule than under that of either of the men who are so anxious to succeedme."
"Abdicate! Republic! What monstrous folly!" cried Prince Michael, hisplethoric face convulsed with anger at this unexpected counterstroke.
"I am saying that which, with God's help, I shall perform!" cried Alec,despair falling from him like a discarded garment as he realized whathis project would mean to Joan and himself.
"You may abdicate, of course, if you choose," came the scornful retort;"but you have no power to break the Delgrado line."
"My power will be put to the test to-morrow," said Alec. "I am notafraid to measure my strength against the pitiful cowards who struck atme through a woman's love."
"Pay no heed to him, Monsieur Nesimir!" piped Prince Michael, whosevoice rose to a thin falsetto. "He is beside himself. If he chooses tovacate the throne, it reverts to me."
"A Republic in Kosnovia!" snarled Stampoff. "That, indeed, will mark thebeginning of the end for the Slav race. A single year would wipe us outof existence. What say you, Beliani, and you, Marulitch? Why are youdumb? Was it for this that we have striven through so many years? Shallour country be wrecked now because a hot headed youth puts his vows to awoman before every consideration of national welfare?"
"The notion is preposterous!" growled Julius, gaining courage fromStampoff's bold denunciation; but Beliani tried to temporize.
"We are far too excited to deal with this vexed affair to-night," hesaid. "The King is naturally aggrieved by a trying experience, and ishardly in a fit state of mind to consider the grave issues raised byhis words. Let us forget what we have just heard. To-morrow we shall allbe calmer and saner."
"Monsieur Nesimir," said Alec sternly, fixing the hapless President withhis masterful eye, "while I remain King you must obey my orders. See toit that notices are despatched to-night to the members of the NationalAssembly summoning a special meeting for an early hour to-morrow."
"Monsieur Nesimir will do nothing of the kind!" shrieked the infuriatedPrince Michael. "I forbid it!"
"And I command it," cried Alec. "If he refuses, I shall take other stepsto insure my wishes being fulfilled."
"Then I will tell you why your Joan has gone!" bellowed the Prince. "No,Marie, I will not be restrained!" he shouted to his wife, who had rushedto him in a very frenzy of alarm. She clutched at his shoulder; but heshook himself free brutally.
"It is full time you knew what I have done for you," he hissedvenomously at Alec. "Stampoff and your mother and I, alone of those inthis room, are aware of the fraud that has been perpetrated on thepeople of this country. You are not King of Kosnovia. You are not myson. Your father was a Colorado gold miner to whom your mother wasmarried before I met her, and who died before you were born. For thesake of his widow's money I gave her my name, and was fool enough tofall in with her whim of pride that you should be brought up as a PrinceDelgrado. I suppose Stampoff urged your mother to reveal the facts tothat chit of a girl who has addled your brain, and she, fortunately, hadsense enough to see that you can not continue to occupy the throne fiveseconds after it becomes known that you are a mere alien, that your nameis Alexander Talbot, and that I, Michael Delgrado, who married aforeigner in order that I might live, and permitted an American child tobe reared as a lawful Prince of my house, am the lawful King."
The little man strutted up and down the room in a fume of indignation,and evidently felt fully justified in his own esteem. Ever selfish andvain, he fancied that he had been the victim of a cruel fate, and heread the sheer bewilderment in Alec's face as a tribute to the masterstroke he had just delivered.
But his self conceit wilted under the contemptuous scorn of his wife'sgaze, which he chanced to meet when his posturing ceased.
Alec looked to his mother for some confirmation or denial of theastounding statement blurted forth by her husband. But she had no eyesfor her son then. The wrongs and sufferings of a lifetime were wellingup from her heart to her lips. The agonized suspense of the last fewminutes had given way to the frenzy of a woman outraged in her deepestsentiments.
She relinquished the chair to which she had been clinging, and faced thediminutive Prince with a quiet dignity that overawed him.
"So that is how you keep your oath, Michael!" she said. "When I forgaveyour infidelities, when I pandered to your extravagance, when I allowedyou to fritter away the wealth bequeathed to me by a man whose finenature was so far removed from yours that I have often wondered why Godcreated two such opposite types of humanity, time and again you vowedthat the idle folly of my youth would never be revealed by you. Twiceyou swore it on your knees when I was stung beyond endurance by yourbaseness. No, Michael," and her voice rose almost to a scream when herhusband tried to silence her with a curse, "you shall hear the truthnow, if I have to ask my son as a last favor to his unhappy mother tostill that foul tongue of yours by force!"
For an instant, she made a wild appeal to Alec. "Your father was anhonorable man," she cried. "For his sake, if not for mine, since I haveforfeited all claim to your love, compel this man to be silent!"
The belief was slowly establishing itself in her son's mind that theincredible thing he was hearing was actually true. Nevertheless, he wastemporarily bereft of the poise and balance of judgment that might haveenabled him to adjust the warring elements in his bewildered brain. Itwas a new and horrible experience to be asked by his mother to usephysical violence against the man he had been taught to regard as hisfather.
He had never respected Michael Delgrado,--he could acknowledge that nowwithout the twinge of conscience that had always accompanied theunpleasing thought in the past,--yet, despite the gulf already yawningwide between them, his soul revolted against the notion of laying a handon him in anger.
But he did stoop over the spluttering little Prince and said sternly,"You must not interrupt my mother again! You must not, I tell you!"
Such was the chilling emphasis of his words that Delgrado's loudobjurgations died away in his throat, and the distraught Princess, withone last look of unutterable contempt at her royal spouse, faced theother occupants of the room.
"I did harm to none by my innocent deception," she pleaded. "I was veryyoung when I married Alec's father, who was nearly twenty years olderthan I. We were not rich, and we were compelled to live in a rude miningcamp, where my husband owned some claims that seemed to be of littlevalue. But from the day of our wedding our fortunes began to improve,and, in the year before my son was born, money poured in on us. Thatsmall collection of wooden shanties has now become a great city. Theland my husband owned is worth ten thousand times its original value;but, unfortunately, when wealth came, I grew dissatisfied with mysurroundings. I wanted to travel, to mix in society, to become one ofthe fashionable throng that flocks to Paris and London and the Rivierain their seasons. My husband refused to desert the State in which hisinterests were bound up.
"We quarreled--it was all my fault--and then one day he was killed in amine accident, and I, scarce knowing what I was doing, fled to New Yorkfor distraction from my grief and self condemnation. My son was bornthere, and in that same year I met Prince Michael Delgrado in a friend'shouse. To me in those days a Prince was a wonderful creature. He quicklysaw that I was a prize worth capturing, and not many months elapsedbefore we were married. I had all the foolish vanity of a young woman,unused to the world, who was entitled to call herself a Princess, and its
eemed to my flighty mind that the fact of my son bearing a differentname to my own would always advertise my plebeian origin; for I wasquite a woman of the people, the daughter of a storekeeper in Pueblo. Icast aside my old and tried acquaintances, placed my affairs intrustworthy hands, and, when we set up an establishment in Paris, myinfant son came to be known as a Prince of the Delgrado family.
"Once such a blunder is made it is not easily rectified; but during manya sad hour have I regretted it, for Michael Delgrado did not scruple touse it as a threat whenever I resented his ill conduct. At first atrivial thing, in time it became a millstone round my neck. As Alec grewup, it became more and more difficult to announce that he was not PrinceAlexis Delgrado, but a simple commoner, Alexander Talbot by name.
"There, then, you have the measure of my transgression. It was theknowledge of the truth that drove that dear girl, Joan Vernon, fromDelgratz this evening, because General Stampoff would not scruple toreveal the imposture if he failed to secure the King's adherence to hisprojects."
"God's bones!" broke in Stampoff. "I made him King, though I was awarefrom the day of your wedding that he was not Michael's son. King he is,and King he will remain if he agrees to my terms."
"Go on with your story, mother," said Alec softly. "I think I ambeginning to understand now."
"What more need I say?" wailed the Princess in a sudden access of grief."I have squandered your love, Alec, I have ruined my own life, I havedevoted all these wretched years to a man who is the worst sort ofblackmailer,--a husband who trades on his wife's weakness."
She turned on Prince Michael with a last cry. "I am done with you nowforever!" she sobbed. "I have borne with you for my son's sake; but nowyou and I must dwell apart, for my very soul loathes you!"
She sank into a chair in a passion of tears, and Alec bent over her. Hespoke no word to her; but his hand rested gently around her neck whilehis eyes traveled from Michael's gray-green face to Julius Marulitch'swhite one.
"I think we have all heard sufficient of the Delgrado history to renderunnecessary any further comment on my decision to relinquish an honorthat, it would appear, I had no right to accept," he said. "I havegained my end, though by a strange path. Will you please leave me withmy mother?"
The one man present who felt completely out of his depth in this sea ofdiscord took it upon himself to cry pathetically:
"The door is locked, your--your Majesty!"
"Ah, forgive me, Monsieur Nesimir," said Alec, with a friendly smile. "Ihad forgotten that. And, now that I come to think of it, I still havesomething to say; but we need not detain my mother to hear anuninteresting conversation. Pardon me one moment, while I attend toher."