"Will you ride with me, Monseigneur?"
A knot of early daffodils was tucked in her girdle, the spring breeze fluttered a bright strand of crinkled bronze against her brighter cheek; all the youth of the year was in the happy face she lifted to him. Stanief paused with his foot on the step to look at her, many thoughts meeting in his drowsily-brilliant eyes.
"Thank you," he answered. "I wonder if you will ever come for me again, Iría, after I have finished here indeed."
An innocent surprise and pleasure dawned in her expression.
"I will come every day, if you like, monseigneur," she offered. "I did not know you cared."
He took the seat beside her, with a courteous salute to Marya.
"You are gracious, as always. I did not mean exactly that, although you can not guess how pleasant it was to find you here to-day. Live your pretty routine and fancies, Duchess of Dreams, and give me the alms of time you can not use."
They spoke in Iría's soft native tongue, which the Countess Marya did not understand and which Stanief had learned long before in some of the Nadeja's nomadic voyages. Always gentle to the gentle Iría, to-day his voice carried an added tenderness which stirred her to vague unrest and wistfulness.
"You do not mean that," she said, troubled. "How should I have any time that is not yours, monseigneur? And my fancies—you can not know how many of them are wishes that I might prove a little, only a little, of all your kindness makes me feel. I wish, how much I wish, that I could do something for you!"
The victoria was rolling through the busy, cheerful streets; vehicles making way for it in respectful haste, people saluting with more than mere formality and following the Regent with grateful eyes. Stanief's city, Stanief's country this, drawn by him out of anarchy into order, out of suffering into peace. The people knew, and he knew. He looked across it all now before answering, battling with fierce loneliness and rebellion.
"Iría, what I have done for you is nothing. You are my wife," there was no mockery in the quietly spoken word, "and claim all I can give. But, since we are alone except for each other and have been placed together, would you care to save my pride some day by stepping at my side out of this court? By giving me the dignity of holding my household above the wreck?"
Startled and dismayed, she turned to him.
"Monseigneur, I do not understand! You, you to speak of wreck! Oh, and you ask me that, you doubt?"
He laid his hand warningly on hers.
"We are under a hundred eyes, Iría. You live aloof from politics and intrigues, but yet you know my regency ends in a few months."
"You mean—the Emperor?"
"The Emperor has never trusted me, never forgiven me for the chance which set me as ruler of his country. There is no danger of the old kind; the days of state executions are past, or I would never have survived the last reign. But when Adrian assumes command it will undoubtedly mean that I lay aside all you have seen of me, and retire a simple gentleman of leisure to my estates. No more will I play 'the regal game,' as Adrian expressed it to-day. Could you brave that, Iría, to be no longer the center of a brilliant court? To live the stately monotony of my life in the old castle among the mountains, or perhaps travel to other countries as just the wife of the Grand Duke Feodor Stanief, who is of no more importance than any noble? For Adrian will want to keep you, if you will stay."
The little hand under his turned to clasp his fingers; star-eyed, richly tinted with excitement, Iría leaned to him.
"With you, let me be with you. I am afraid of nothing with you, without you of everything. Oh, monseigneur, do you not see that what you lose are a man's desires, not a woman's? Power, political influence, to guide and rule—what do such names mean to me? I shall miss nothing; it is only you who will grieve and regret."
"My dear, my dear," said Stanief unsteadily, and turned away his face before a new hope which out-dazzled all the morning's pictured loss.
"It is so, only do not speak again of leaving me here. I love the Emperor, but I am afraid of him. And if he can treat you in this way—"
"Hush; never blame him, however alone you fancy us. If you can help it, do not let him guess that I have told you of this. And for the rest, the fault is more Dalmorov's than his."
"I will not," she promised. And after a moment, "Some one else will follow you always, monseigneur."
He knew the answer before he asked the question, and the light went suddenly from his face, leaving it to all the old grave endurance.
"Who, Iría?"
"Monsieur Allard," she replied.
Stanief again looked across the teeming streets; it was as if a chill, intangible mist stole up from the near-by river and drew its cold grayness between the two who sat side by side.
"John is a loyal gentleman," he said, without anger; "I value you both above all else. For two years I have walked without seeing beyond a certain point, to-day I have come to a turn in the road and on ahead I see my destination. Not the end I hoped, perhaps, but at least I know. And I thank you for the household security which you have given to me, my poor child."
The carriage stopped in front of the quaintly splendid Palace Stanief. Iría lingered before accepting the Regent's aid to descend, her delicate lip curving distressedly.
"Do not call me that, please," she begged. "Because you have made me very happy, monseigneur."
The perfume of her daffodils was about him, faint, virginal, bitter-sweet as her presence in his house. Stanief deliberately painted to himself the fierce delight of catching her in his arms, of pressing the little sunny head to him and crushing her sweet ignorance out of existence with one kiss she could never forget. But his hand did not even close upon the small one resting in it.
"Then I have lived to some purpose," he responded serenely.