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Updated: June 2, 2025
Alexis III. had reigned only ten days, yet the most enterprising of the Paris newspapers was already making a feature of a column headed: "Our dear Alec, day by day." It ought to be an interesting record to these two men, yet it evidently was not one-tenth so humorous as "The Matin" believed, since there was a deep frown on both faces. At last Marulitch flung the paper aside with an angry snarl.
Swarthy old Stampoff, Prince Michael Delgrado, the pink and white Julius Marulitch, even the olive skinned, oval faced Beliani, might have mingled with the throng on the platform and found each his racial kith and kin; not so Alec.
"Ask Prince and Princess Delgrado to come here," he said. "Send to General Stampoff and tell him that the King urgently desires his presence. I believe that Monsieur Beliani and Count Julius Marulitch are in the smoking-room with Monsieur Nesimir. Ask those three gentlemen also to join me." The attendant saluted and withdrew. Alec examined the door to make sure that the key was in the lock.
"Frankly, you puzzle me," he said after a pause; "but come again to-morrow. And no tricks, no spying or that sort of thing! I am the wrong man for it. If you doubt me, ask some one who has heard of Felix Poluski. You see, Count Julius Marulitch, I am far more open than you. I knew you all the time, and as to your motives, I can guess a good deal that I don't actually know.
In order to vent his spite, he had actually decided to tell me the secret of my birth in the very hour that Julius Marulitch announced the disappearance of the Obrenovitch dynasty." "And the goddess sent you east instead of west," she said softly. "Yes, my trial has been short and sharp; but she must have found me worthy, since she has given me you."
"Then we had better leave the train at Chalons and return to Paris." "Certainly, if the butchers of the Schwarzburg are to form my cohort." "God's bones! never have I been so mistaken in a man! Your father, now, one feared he might have lost his nerve, but you, Alec! The devil take it! I thought better of you. I suppose then, it will have to be Marulitch." "Julius! Is he a candidate or a rival?"
That is why I was resolved to force you, if possible, to wed a Serbian Princess. Your marriage to a woman of our own race would have borne down opposition. And now what will happen? The future is black. Michael is unworthy to be a King; Marulitch, at the best, is a poor-spirited wretch; and after them there is no Delgrado." "Well, I am sorry, too, in a way," said Alec.
He is like a gambler at Monte Carlo who stakes maximums just because the table is running favorably." "Fish!" snorted Marulitch. "What else would a gambler do?" "What indeed?" agreed Beliani, though a far less alert intelligence than Marulitch's might have known that he was annoyed.
"You, Beliani, you are not one to be carried away by emotion," he said. "Count Marulitch spoke of a proclamation. Who issued it? Was there any authority behind it?" "God's bones! what better authority is there than your Majesty's?" roared Stampoff. But the Prince extended a protesting palm. "An excellent sentiment, my friend; but let us hear Beliani," he said.
His impassioned eyes sought to peer into her very soul, and his nostrils quivered with the frenzied eagerness of one who awaited an answer to the implied question. In some indefinable way he had already begun to suspect the truth; for when the poor woman made no reply, though more than once her terror laden eyes met his in mute appeal, he whirled round on Marulitch.
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