“I think you have done the right thing, Bergwyn; and there is no doubt your action will strengthen the moderates among us. It will make against the policy of violence; and may render it impossible. I hope so with all my heart,” he said, earnestly.
“What will happen?”
“A forced abdication. As I have told you it has been put to the King more than once, and he has refused obstinately. But now, backed by the united army, it will be different.”
“If he should still refuse?”
“He’ll have to go. The Queen has made it imperative. For a clever woman she has made amazing blunders. Of course you understand the Russian partisans won’t love you any more than the Queen will continue to be friendly to you now.”
“If she gets to know what has passed.”
He nodded significantly toward the room where Elma had gone. “She’ll see to that, probably—unless she has some other move. If you can stop her, I should.”
“I have no influence with her and seek none.”
“That’s not the story she persists in telling, my dear fellow,” he said with a slow smile.
“It’s the story I tell—and it’s the true one, Nikolitch. What story do you mean this of hers?”