A Son of the Immortals, Louis Tracy [mobi ebook reader txt] 📗

and gardens rising from the northern shore of a large lake.

"Do you like it?" asked Alec.

"It is a perfectly charming place," she said enthusiastically.

"I am glad you think so," said he. "It is called the New Konak, in contradistinction to the old one, the Schwarzburg. It will be our summer residence. I propose to occupy it as soon as it is properly furnished."

He spoke lightly; but a quiet glance conveyed far more than the words. This, then, was their destined nest, their very own house, and for their first ramble he had brought her there. Its seclusion gave a sense of secure peace that was absent from the President's gloomy palace. The lovely park and its belt of forest shut out the noise and glare of the streets. Joan sat on her horse and surveyed the scene with glistening eyes. Her future home lay there, and the belief thrilled her strangely. If she could have peered into the future, how much more deeply would she have been stirred; for if ever she was fated to be happy in the companionship of the gallant youth by her side, assuredly that happiness was not so near or so easily attained as it seemed to be in that sylvan hour.

Beaumanoir broke in on her reverie in his usual happy-go-lucky style. "Not a bad looking crib, is it, Miss Joan?" said he. "I have promised Alec to remain in Delgratz until you are all settled down in it, nice and comfy. Then I wend my lonely way back to Paris. By Jove! I shall be something of a hero there—shine with reflected glory—eh, what?"

"I can't spare you for many a day yet, Berty," said Alec. "You can hardly realize how good he has been, Joan," he continued. "I had a fearfully hard time during the first week. More than once I wanted to cut and run; but he kept me to it, chaffing me out of the dumps when everything seemed to be going wrong."

Beaumanoir winked brazenly at her. "He talks that way now," he grinned. "It's the kingly habit, I understand. Alec has got it down to a fine point. Make every fellow believe that he is It, and there you are, you know."

There was some substratum of sense in Beaumanoir's chaffing. Alec was taking his kingship very seriously, and Joan was hard pressed to bridge the gulf that lay between Paris and Delgratz.

At first she found it almost impossible to realize that Alec had been in harness little more than a month. His talk was replete with local knowledge; he seemed to understand the people and their ways so thoroughly. He was versed even in the peculiarities of their methods of tillage, was able to explain distinctions of costume and racial appearance, and might have spent his life in studying all their customs and folklore.

Fortunately, Joan herself was gifted with quick perception and a retentive memory. After a few days' residence in the White City she began to assimilate the rills of information that trickled in upon her from so many sources, and the feeling of bewildered surprise with which she regarded her lover's attainments during the first hours of real intimacy was soon replaced by an active sympathy and fuller understanding. She was helped in this by the King's mother, since there could be no doubt that Princess Delgrado took her absolutely to her heart.

Prince Michael, who was completely eclipsed not only by his son's extraordinary versatility in all public affairs but by lack of that opulent setting for his peculiar qualities which Paris alone could supply, seemed to accept the inevitable. He tolerated Joan, openly praised her beauty, and became resigned in a more or less patronizing way to the minor distractions of local life.

Felix and Joan gave up their mornings to art. The Pole discovered some quaint old frescoes in the cathedral which attracted him by their remarkable freedom of design and simplicity of color. He valiantly essayed their reproduction; but Joan suspected in her deepest heart that Poluski's sudden conversion to Byzantine ideals was due far more to the fact that the lofty dome of the building produced musical effects of the most gratifying nature than to any real appreciation of the quaint contours and glaring tints of a series of wall pictures that set forth some long forgotten Bulgar artist's conception of the life and history of John the Baptist.

There was naturally a good deal of inquiry and speculation as to the identity of the unknown connoisseur who had commissioned Joan to copy the Saint Peter. Felix resolutely declined to satisfy any one's questioning on that topic. He had given his word, he said, not to betray the confidence reposed in him; but he allayed Alec's professed jealousy by declaring that to the best of his knowledge the man who had sent Joan on this mysterious quest had never even seen her. Still, it was impossible to avoid a certain amount of interested speculation among members of the small circle which was aware of the reason that lay behind Joan's visit to Delgratz. Both Alec and Joan believed that Count Julius Marulitch was in some way responsible, and their chief difficulty was to analyze the motive of such unlooked-for generosity on his part.

The slight mystery underlying the incident was not cleared up until Beliani reached the capital two or three days after Julius himself. The latter cleared the air by expressing his unbounded amazement at finding his cousin engaged to a young American woman of whose existence he had not even heard before he was introduced to her. 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. When Alec welcomed him on the evening of his arrival, he drew the King aside and said, with all the friendliness of one apparently devoted to the Kosnovian cause:

"I am glad to see that my little scheme has worked well. Of course you guessed who it was that despatched Miss Vernon from Paris?"

"No," said Alec, scanning the Greek's smiling yet subtle face with those frank eyes of his that had so quickly learned the secret of looking beneath the veneer of men's words to discover their motives. "No, I never associated you with her appearance here. What inspired you to it? I may say at once that I regard it as the most friendly act you could possibly have performed so far as I am concerned; but I know you well enough to be a little dubious."

Beliani smiled and spread wide his hands with the deprecatory gesture of the Levantine. Long years of residence in the capitals of Europe had not wholly effaced the servile mannerisms of the Eastern money-lender.

"That is because you know I am a Greek, your Majesty," he said. "It is the misfortune of my countrymen that we are seldom given credit for disinterested motives. Well, I will be honest, quite frank in this, for the excellent reason that if I was to endeavor to hoodwink you I think I should fail. I make it my business to know everything—I repeat, everything—about Kosnovian affairs, and when the rumor reached Paris that you were to marry a Montenegrin Princess——"

Alec laughed so cheerily that Prince Michael, who happened to be in the room, turned and looked at the two, wondering what Beliani could have said that so amused his son.

"My dear fellow," he broke in, "I have never set eyes on the lady. My time has been far too occupied in learning my business to permit of visits to neighboring States. Moreover, as it happened, I had chosen my wife some days before I hit upon a career."

"Exactly, your Majesty. I knew that also."

"But how could you know?"

"I mean that I learned it afterward. 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."

"No, it shows only how readily I availed myself of existing circumstances. You see, sitting there in Paris and reading of your phenomenal progress, I pictured to myself the isolation, the lack of sympathetic companionship, that you must be suffering here despite all the brave fireworks of your achievements. We Greeks are poets and philosophers as well as financiers, and I gratified those higher instincts of my race by rendering possible a visit to Delgratz of the lady whom you had chosen as a bride, while at the same time I hope to do myself a good turn in winning your favor; for I have money at stake on your success. Please do not forget that, your Majesty. 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 are so many ways in which interest in a fallen monarchy can be kept alive," he said. "Monseigneur your father is well acquainted with the turns and twists of events ever since he was driven forth from Kosnovia as a young man. For many years I remained here, working steadily and hopefully in his behalf, and you yourself are aware that when you were a boy of fourteen, Stampoff and I escaped death only by the skin of our teeth because of an abortive attempt to place your father on the throne."

"Of course," said Alec thoughtfully, "you must be repaid with interest the sums you have expended in our behalf; but I warn you that a new era of economy has been established here. My father and I have already agreed to differ on that point. He seemed to think that the chief business of a King was to exploit his subjects, whereas my theory is that the King should set an example of quiet living and industry. Don't forget that I have seen some of my brother potentates stranded in Paris, mostly because they were so ready to gratify their own appetites at the expense of their people. 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. It shall be the one care of my life to make them so, and if it is the will of Providence that a Delgrado should reign in the next generation, my legacy to him will be, not millions of pounds invested in foreign securities, but a nation strong, self contained, and prosperous."

Beliani listened with a rapt attention. "I agree most fully with every word that has fallen from your lips," he said; "but your Majesty cannot achieve these splendid aims single handed. You must be surrounded by able men; you need officials of ripe experience in every department. Now, the first consideration of a small State like this, hemmed in as it is by powerful Kingdoms which the least change in the political barometer may convert into active enemies, is a strong and progressive system of finance. I am vain enough to think that you may find my services useful in that direction. There is no man in Delgratz who has had my training, and so assured am I of the success that will attend your Majesty's reign that I