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"A word with you, Beliani," said Alec, going to the table and unlocking the drawer from which he had taken the money given to Sobieski. "You are now in charge of the State's finances, I presume. I have here a sum, roughly speaking, of one thousand pounds.
He recalled the exiled potentates of the music hall review, and the bitter wit of the dramatist was now justified. It was ludicrous, too, of Stampoff to address him as "your Majesty." "Even Kings must give bribes occasionally," explained the impetuous General. "Or promise them," said Count Julius. "Or take them," said Beliani.
Prince Michael and Julius, reassured by Alec's manner, and thanking the propitious stars that had rendered unnecessary the dangerous step they were contemplating, entered the room with as businesslike an air as they could assume at a crisis so fraught with import to their own future. "We ought to be alone," said Beliani in English, with a wary glance at Bosko.
I need hardly tell you, Beliani, that Kosnovia is a poverty stricken State. We have suffered from three generations of self seeking and rapacious rulers. That is all ended. I mean to render my people happy and contented.
A page boy was in the lobby, and it was easy to see by his innocent face that his presence there was inspired by no more sinister motive than to deliver a newspaper. Beliani took it, closed the door, listened a moment, and unfolded the damp sheet. He glanced at its foreign news. "'Le Soir' gives prominence to a rumor that King Alexis will marry a Montenegrin Princess," he murmured composedly.
"But it would be a grave error to drop the passport system," said Beliani earnestly. "It is most important that your Majesty's police should be acquainted with the identity of all strangers; otherwise you would never know what secret agents of your enemies you might be harboring here." "I trouble my head very little about the secret agents of enemies that do not exist," said Alec lightly.
"I think your Majesty will find that Austria will impose her own terms," persisted the President. "Why do you harp on Austria in this connection?" asked the King. "Monsieur Beliani spoke of Viennese bankers. They are not Austria. This loan is not so much a matter of State as of sound finance."
I supported the Delgrado cause when it was at the lowest ebb of failure, and I naturally look forward now to recoup myself." "All this is new to me," said Alec, "new and somewhat puzzling. In what way are you bound up with the fortunes of my house, Monsieur Beliani?" The Greek shrugged his shoulders expressively.
There he had quitted the trail, and there must he pick it up again. But the hunt demanded the utmost wariness. If he startled the quarry, he might fail at the outset, and, supposing his talking was successful, both he and Beliani must still beware of a King's vengeance if their project miscarried. Neither man had the slightest belief in Alec's innate nobility of character.
"Now you, Beliani!" said Alec, striving to penetrate the mask that covered the one impassive face in the room. "It was you who contrived that my promised wife should come here from Paris. I can see your purpose now. At to-day's meeting of the Cabinet, while I was urging your advancement to power and dignity in the State, your hand was revealed in the opposition manifested to my marriage.
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