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How he said it or what he said, he did not himself know when the words had been spoken. He rushed through the speech he had prepared like a frightened child at recitation and waited for the outburst of her anger. He waited in vain. Marie Astaride had plotted, had consented to every infamy which had been suggested as necessary to bring the man she loved to the Crown. Now she was silent.
For an instant Benton stood with his hands braced on the coping regarding her curiously. Evidently he stood on the verge of some revelation, but the rôle in which her palpable mistake cast him was one he must play all in the dark. "You can trust me," she said with an impassioned note but without elevating her voice. "I am the Countess " "Astaride," finished Benton.
The sentinels failed to respond at roll-call. As the King and the Colonel listened to the report of the escape, Karyl's face paled a little and the features of Von Ritz hardened. Orders were given for an instant dispatch in cipher, demanding from a secret agent in Algiers all information obtainable as to the movements of the Countess Astaride.
If the vacillation of Louis Delgado could be complemented by the strong ambition of a woman, perhaps he might be almost as serviceable as though the strength were inherent. And Paris knew that Louis worshiped at the shrine of the Countess Astaride. The Countess was therefore worth inspecting.
It appeared that being a King was not what he had conceived it, as he sat under the chestnut trees of the Paris boulevards and listened to the band. When Jusseret had left him to his thoughts he paused three times with a tremulous finger on the call-bell, unable to command the courage required to send a message to the Countess Astaride.
Promptly at six o'clock he returned to the Rue do Consilhiero. He knew that his greatest danger lay in the possibility of communication by the conspirators with the Duke or the Countess, but he had been assured that Marie Astaride was in Cairo and it could safely be assumed that Delgado would return to Galavia only at the psychological moment.
When Louis presented Jusseret to the Countess Astaride there flashed between the woman of audacious imagination and the master of intrigue a message of kinship. The Frenchman bent low over her hand. "That hand, Madame," he had whispered, "was made to wield a scepter."
Blanco felt sure that Louis would be willing to drop back into the routine of his life in Paris, freshly stocked with pessimistic memories of how a crown had slipped through his fingers. It would take driving to prevent him lagging into the inertia of sentimental brooding. On the other hand, he knew that the Countess Astaride, having gone so far, would never again relinquish her ambitions.
He said that the King's death has not even been made public there, but the Countess Astaride has been stopping here. Martin himself was in her party and he helped her to decipher the news from the Duke's code-telegram." He paused. "However," he added, "that may not interest you. The story probably bored you at first, but having told you the original tale, I had to add the sequel.
Then with a sorrowful shake of his head he commiserated: "I am sorry that you are to be denied the excitement of the rouge et noir and the trente et quarente of the gold table, Señor, but if the Countess Astaride and Louis should meet there, the lady would know you. I fancy that she will not again mistake you for someone else. As for myself, neither of them yet knows me."
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