Nicholas! he alone could save Solonika; he alone could get us through the gates to the yacht. He had never failed me before, would he fail me now? I faced him, determined to make one supreme effort to save the life of the woman I loved.
"Dîner est preparé," announced the landlord.
I was glad of the interruption. In the struggle which was to follow there was little in my favour. Better take advantage of everything chance afforded. A man well fed is a man half convinced.
"I will explain while we are eating, Nick," I said, taking my place at the table and waving him into the opposite chair. The third seat remained vacant. "Landlord, we will wait upon ourselves. You and your servants may retire."
"Très bien," he murmured as he drove his hirelings from the room like a woman shooing chickens, and closed the door.
Nick ate with the appetite of a hungry, healthy boy.
"Hadn't we better call the King?" said he, indicating the vacant chair. "He must be very nearly starved, also."
I knew that the "king" could not eat, and assured Nick that something would be sent to his room. At last I hit upon a way to begin my explanation. For the sake of policy I chose to start it by putting Nick on the defensive.
"Nick," I said, "why did you not tell Gregory and his half-blind Prime Minister that they were mistaken; that you were the principal actor in that little scene in the Palace Garden, and not the Prince?"
He flushed to the eyes with shame, just as he did when caught by a policeman, in the old days, appropriating a Woodland avenue sign for purposes of room decoration.