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"A quarrel with Stampoff!" exclaimed the elder Delgrado, preening his chest and sticking out his chin in the exaggerated manner that warned those who knew him best of the imminent expression of a weighty opinion. "That will never do. Stampoff is the backbone of your administration.
Do you mean to say you have lived in Paris a year and have never seen our names in the newspapers? My people gad about everywhere. The Prince and Princess Michael Delgrado, you know." "I do not know," said Joan deliberately. Her alert brain was slowly assimilating this truly astonishing discovery.
"I agree most fully and unreservedly," murmured the Greek, conveying, with a deep bow, his respectful regret that such an assurance should be necessary. The greatly perturbed President had already quitted the room; so Alec turned to Stampoff. His manner was quite friendly. Well he knew that this fiery soul was not to be judged by the Delgrado standard.
They were steel and magnet at once. Delgrado had none of the boulevardier's abounding self-conceit, or Joan would never have given him a second look, while Joan's frank comradeship was vastly more alluring than the skilled coquetry that left him cold. Physically, too, they were well mated, each obviously made for the other by a discriminating Providence.
At first a trivial thing, in time it became a millstone round my neck. As Alec grew up, it became more and more difficult to announce that he was not Prince Alexis Delgrado, but a simple commoner, Alexander Talbot by name. "There, then, you have the measure of my transgression.
An art student of the type of Miss Vernon, and a young gentleman so popular in Parisian society as Alexis Delgrado, could not meet day after day in the Louvre to conduct a class composed solely of two members without exciting a certain amount of comment." "But that doesn't explain why you should have decided upon the extraordinary step of sending her to Delgratz."
If they decide against my choice of a wife, it follows that there will be a vacancy in the Delgrado succession." Princess Delgrado uttered a sigh that was almost a groan. She sank into the chair that her son had offered her when she entered the room, but rose to her feet again in manifest anxiety when her husband thrust himself in front of Alec.
He had the unhappy history of his country at his fingers' ends, and never before had Delgrado or Obrenovitch striven for kingship in this kid-glove fashion. "Breakfast shall be served instantly," he said, trying vainly to imitate the cool demeanor of his guests. "But you will appreciate the difficulties of my position. I must consult with the ministers."
It shows that you, at least, do not rate me poorly, and it is not in my heart to be vexed with you, though I owe this night's amazement to your striving." "Be just, Alec!" whispered the Serb hoarsely. "Condemn me if you will; but be just! While Michael Delgrado lived, your reign would never have been secure. I knew that all along.
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.
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