"No," replied the other.
"Then you've no one with you? No ties, no one whose wishes or whims you must consider?"
"Free as the air of the Western prairies," returned Fenton. "Why?"
"Well, if you can stay over and if you have the same taste for excitement that you had in the old days, I can gratify it for you, that's all."
"Tell me what it is all about. And, by the way, what are your people in Ironia going to do? Going to join us in this war? I heard a lot of talk about it as I came through Russia. Ironia seems to have been pretty well featured in the newspapers lately."
Varden looked around, then drew his chair closer to Fenton's.
"That's just the excitement I spoke of, Don," he said. "Ironia is going to figure in the war; that part of it is certain. But on which side? There are two factions in the country, and at the present time we are fighting like wild cats to determine the policy of the country. Both sides are determined to win; and let me tell you, Don, they take their politics hard in this land. It's a fight to the bitter end in which lives are not counted of any great importance.
"I guess you know pretty well how matters stand in Ironia," he went on. "The people as a whole are heart and soul with the Allies. Austria holds Serania and Mulkovina, two provinces that used to be part of Ironia. What Alsace and Lorraine are to France, these two provinces are to Ironia. It is certain that if the Allies win Russia will seize both Serania and Mulkovina, and then Ironia's chance of bringing her sons and daughters in the lost provinces back into the fold will have been lost for ever. Russia offers us the two provinces as the price of throwing in our lot with the Allies. Ironians see that it is their only chance and they clamour for war on Austria."
"But," said Varden, speaking cautiously, "there is one obstacle. King Alexander of Ironia is dead against the Allies. His sympathies are all with the Teutonic alliance. And he is possibly, next to the Kaiser, the most absolute monarch in Europe to-day. The envoys of Germany and Austria are camping on his doorstep, urging him to join them. He would throw the weight of Ironian intervention into the scales against the Allies to-morrow if he were not afraid of the feeling of his subjects. Fearing to act according to the dictates of his own mind, he nevertheless refuses to obey the clearly expressed mandate of the people and strike a blow for the restoration of the lost provinces."
"Does the King stand alone?" asked Fenton.