"To-morrow I can not," Stanief completed. "That is very true, John; to-morrow I can do nothing, nothing at all. Sic transit—you know the rest."
For the first time he had received Allard in the apartments of the Grand Duchess, and Iría was seated by her husband in rapt and silent content. They also had returned recently from the palace; the shining folds of Iría's court dress lay over the floor in billows of rose-and-silver; again she wore the pearls whose tinted beauty echoed the soft luster of her face.
"To-morrow!" Allard exclaimed impetuously. "Monseigneur, monseigneur, it is a quarter to twelve!"
"So late? Well, so I would have the day find us: together. My Empire has shrunk to this room, yet left me a universe. For Dalmorov, be satisfied. Down in my desk are papers that can send him to a prison or a scaffold, as I choose. I have not been idle or forgetful; I thought of you."
"And we waste time! We who count minutes," he sprang to his feet, afire.
Stanief rested his head against the back of the chair, quieting the other's energy with a curious smile.
"My dear John, I have had those papers for two months; two months ago I sent to England the poor wretch who earned his pardon by aiding me to get them."
Stunned, Allard gazed at him.
"Two months?" he repeated. "Two months?"
All the long catalogue of insults, annoyances and petty wrongs rose before him, the open warfare and secret insinuations; slowly he gathered comprehension of the singular expression with which Stanief frequently had regarded his rival on such occasions.