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"Here they are, then. Be ready!" The door was ajar, and footsteps sounded on the stairs. Some one knocked. "Come in," said Alec cordially. Beliani was the first to enter. He pushed the door wide open to assure himself that he was not walking into a trap. He saw Bosko on his knees, rummaging in a trunk, and Alec standing in the middle of the room, lighting a cigarette. "Come in," said Alec again.
Pardon me one moment, while I attend to her." Alec unlocked the door. The laconic Bosko returned his all sufficing "Oui, monsieur," to the request that he would bring Mademoiselle Joan's French maid to Princess Delgrado, since it was in Alec's mind that Pauline might be discreet. Prince Michael, Beliani, Marulitch, and Nesimir had already formed themselves into a whispering group.
Next morning's "Matin" announced that King Alexis was greatly annoyed by the mischievous and utterly unfounded canard that bracketed his name with that of a woman he had never seen. Count Julius read, and made a hasty toilet. Beliani and he had laid their plans overnight, and he lost no time in opening the new campaign. It was a difficult and delicate task he had undertaken.
Some one, Beliani probably, had issued a statement that the infatuation of Alexis III. for a pretty Parisian artist had led him to abdicate, and as soon as it was discovered that the Delgrado flat in the Rue Boissière was again occupied by Alec and his mother, they were besieged by reporters anxious to glean details of a royal romance.
But Beliani usually lived in Vienna, indeed, he was sometimes regarded as an active agent in Austria's steady advance on Salonica, whereas dear old Paul Stampoff hated Austria, was a frequent visitor to the Delgrado receptions, and it was largely to his constant urging and tuition that Alec owed his familiarity with the Slav language.
You ought to make a rare combination, Alec with his democratic pose of taking the wide world into his confidence, and you, Beliani, burrowing underground like a mole whose existence is suspected only when one sees the outcome of his labors." "Just what I was suggesting to his Majesty," laughed Beliani, cursing Prince Michael under his breath for interfering at that moment.
Now, what is it?" "Beliani came to me in Paris," said the hunchback, affecting the weighty delivery of one charged with matters of imperial import. "He brought with him letters from Stampoff and Nesimir, which I shall deliver. He also intrusted me with a copy of a unanimous resolution of the Kosnovian Assembly, passed in secret session." Joan's face suddenly paled, Mrs.
"Mirabel, of course?" "She is unnamed." "That's it. I know, I know! He will marry Mirabel. By Heaven! if he does, I'll shoot him myself!" "The trial of the regicides is fixed for June," went on Beliani, wholly unmoved by Marulitch's vehemence. "Now, the vital question is, How far can Stampoff be relied on?" "How does our reliance on Stampoff concern Mirabel?"
He must put the best face on his blunder when discussing it with Beliani, and he promised himself a quite definite understanding with Poluski ere another sou left his pocket. Meanwhile, who was Poluski? That question, at least, could be answered easily. One clue might lead to another. To-morrow, when they met, it might be his turn to astonish the warped little Pole.
Under the conditions it seemed to savor of the ridiculous to ask if he was the hidden agent in the matter of the picture. But Beliani was candor itself; not for a moment did he endeavor to conceal his responsibility.
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