"Then sit down here," he touched the bench on which he himself was seated, "and I will tell you."
Stanief obeyed, and Adrian surveyed his stately kinsman with earnest, though doubting intentness.
"That night on the Nadeja," he at last said, "when you told me that I governed, 'but'—were you in earnest? It amused me to tell Dalmorov—not all you said or when you said it, of course—yet some of that. I told him you had promised to do as I wished, and he insisted that you played with me. Were you in earnest, I wonder?"
"Absolutely in earnest," Stanief answered, too well trained in self-mastery to betray his irritation at being discussed with his rival in the game of the future.
"'But'—" Adrian repeated, and sat silent for an instant. "Were you ever in love with a woman, cousin?"
The question was so unexpected that Stanief started and replied almost at random:
"No, sire."
"Dalmorov says that you were, long ago."
"Dalmorov," the other began, then checked himself, his tone chilling. "The incident to which Baron Dalmorov doubtless refers, sire, hardly answers your question. Ten years ago, when I was less than twenty-two, I was briefly attracted toward a lady of the court. The affair died in its birth, on my discovering that mademoiselle was acting as the paid spy of the Emperor, your father. Since then I have thought of more important matters."
Adrian leaned back, his slim fingers twisted together.