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."