"What is going on?" Varney asked. "Something seems to have happened?"
"Count Gleikstein is here," Ronald whispered. "The Russian chargé d'affaires, in the absence at St. Petersburg of the Ambassador. You can imagine what he has come for. There was a great battle of wits going on in the salon. The Queen of Asturia is talking to Gleikstein, and I have secured the presence of Prince Mazaroff. Lechmere looks anxious for the fray, and I should say from the expression on his face that he has a knife up his sleeve. If we could play some strong card——"
"We are going to," Varney snapped, as he hugged his bundle under his arm. "Only keep the ball rolling for another quarter of an hour, and I shall be ready for you. Listen!"
Very rapidly Varney whispered a few instructions into the ear of Hope. The latter grinned delightedly, then his face grew grave again. The thing was serious enough, and yet there was a fine element of comedy in it. It was diplomacy gone mad. On the hall stand was a stack of visiting cards. On one of them, chosen at haphazard, Hope wrote a message. He trusted that the queen would understand; in fact, he felt sure that she would.
The little group in the salon, under the famous Romney and the equally famous Velasquez, was a striking one—the Queen of Asturia, tall and stately, and smiling as if perfectly at her ease; by her side Count Gleikstein, the Russian chargé d'affaires, slim waisted, dark of face and stern of eye, yet with a waxed moustache and an air that gave a suggestion of effeminacy to him. Lechmere was lounging by in a listless kind of way, and yet from time to time there was an eager tightening of his mouth that proved him ready for the fray. Prince Mazaroff completed the group.
Ronald Hope came up with a respectful bow, and tendered the card to the queen. She glanced at it leisurely; her face betrayed nothing as she read the message and handed the card back to Ronald again. One grateful look flashed from her eyes.
"I regret that I cannot," she said. "I have so many calls of that kind on my time. If the lady is a friend of yours, Captain Hope, I may stretch a point in her favour. She may call on my secretary at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning."
Ronald bowed deeply as if charged with a message, and hastened into the hall. The card he tore into small fragments and cast into a waste paper basket under one of the hall tables. Then he went back to the striking group under the picture again.
"I am afraid that it concerns all of us," the count was saying in a dangerously insinuating voice. "Of course, one can hardly be responsible for what the papers say, but in the present dangerous state of public opinion in Asturia—the queen will pardon me?"
"I pardon anybody who does their duty to their country at any cost," the queen said. "If we could produce those papers that your royal master is so suspicious about——"