"In a happy hour for our country and the Grand Duke Feodor, madame."
"He thinks so?"
"Princess, can you doubt it?" evaded Allard, who himself had many doubts, remembering Stanief's grim sarcasms on the subject of being given the care of a twenty-year-old girl when his life was already one of crowded tasks and serious peril.
Some trouble in his manner communicated itself to the small hand fluttering on his sleeve.
"I do not want to doubt," she said. "I do not. Monsieur, in that old English legend—have you ever thought how wise King Arthur would have been, if instead of sending Lancelot to Lady Guinevere in his place, he had himself gone to meet her in Lancelot's guise?"
"Why, I never did think," Allard acknowledged merrily. "But certainly he would have been much wiser, madame."
He regarded her in bright question which drew the answer of her flush.
"Do not modern King Arthurs ever choose the wiser course?" she faltered.
"Perhaps they are too busy and hampered, madame, as the ancient king may have been also. Since I have lived at a court I have altered my ideas on such subjects. I never saw any one who worked so hard as the Regent. He has set himself a splendid task, and splendidly he carries it on."
Iría's expression clouded slightly; the glance she stole at her companion was puzzled and full of dawning terror.