The two men looked at each other.
"I am probably Regent now," Stanief added.
Allard's eyes did not leave the other's; no doubt clouded the unwavering confidence of his regard.
"'A Stanief guards his own'," he quoted. "If I were the little prince, I should have no fear, monseigneur."
Stanief lifted his head, the sunlight flashed back to the room before his expression.
"Thank you," he answered proudly. "And from emperor to peasant I could find no one else to grant me so much."
"But—I do not understand."
"Then you have not read our history."
Allard turned to the gates of memory, and gazing down dim vistas at many a vague crime and ambitious treachery, remained silent.
"My cousin Adrian," Stanief resumed, after a moment in which he also looked across the past, "by this time perhaps my Emperor Adrian is fourteen years old. Not until he is seventeen can he be crowned and take the government in his own grasp; that is, the country is absolutely ruled by me for the next three years. By me; but those years will be a splendid warfare, a struggle muffled in cloth-of-gold, a ceaseless vigil beside which my old life was peace. The country is divided into two great parties: those who wish me to take the crown, and from whom I must protect Adrian; those who wish to rid themselves of me and govern as they choose through the child-emperor. Remember that neither faction believes I shall ever permit my cousin to take the Empire from me. Loyalty, honor, justice,—those are pretty, extinct phrases of chivalry to their minds."