CHAPTER II
THE ROYAL BALL
The ball at the palace was a very brilliant affair. The rooms were hung with a thousand lights; the flowers, many of them strange to Fenton's western knowledge, and the decorations were on a munificent scale. Beautiful women and handsome men in vari-coloured uniforms moved here and there, intent upon enjoying themselves. Fenton was impressed and not a little surprised. The whole atmosphere was one of wealth and luxury, such wealth and such luxury as one does not expect to find in the kingdoms of the Balkans.
Fenton was paying a mental tribute to it all when Varden touched him on the arm and took him away to present him to King Alexander and his consort. Fenton had heard that the King was a charming man, and His Majesty's personality made the few words of welcome which he uttered well worth remembrance. Alexander was possibly the handsomest monarch in Europe. Dark, tall and soldierly he looked every inch a king. It came to Fenton as he stood there chatting, that here was a man who would have his own way.
The formalities of royal presentation over, Fenton was backing away when he caught a glimpse of an officer, apparently of high rank, approaching the King, with a young girl on his arm. Fenton looked at the girl—and forgot everything else. She was tall and graceful, with an air that could only be defined as regal. The oval face was surmounted with a crowning glory of hair, dark and lustrous. Her skin was like the petals of a wild rose. Her deep violet eyes, large and unwavering of gaze, were fringed with long lashes that imparted the only suggestion of coquetry to a face of surpassing witchery and charm. Fenton continued to stare in a literal haze of admiration.
He was aroused from his dream by the reappearance of Varden. The latter took him by the arm and propelled him forward until they stood in the presence of the divinity who had so completely set Fenton's wits wool-gathering. Fenton, awe-struck at this good fortune, felt like a humble mortal suddenly transported into the august company of the gods on Mount Olympus.
"Your highness," he heard Varden say to the girl, "may I present Mr Fenton, my friend from Canada? Fenton, this is her highness, the Princess Olga."
The Canadian bowed low over the princess's hand, surely the most dainty hand in all the world. He was presented in due form to her escort, the Grand Duke Miridoff, a heavy-set man with hawk-like features, long moustache and side-whiskers, which stood out aggressively with an unmistakable Teutonic suggestion. The grand duke typified the domineering efficiency of the military caste.
Fenton, murmuring a commonplace greeting, felt a strange antagonism for Miridoff. The latter's manner, while strictly courteous and even urbane, did not conceal the fact that Miridoff himself look no pleasure in the introduction.
In a few minutes Varden, with a happy tact, discovered an errand that took both himself and Miridoff away. Fenton allowed his glance to follow their retreating figures for a moment, and then, conscious of the scrutiny of his companion, turned back to the princess. She was studying him with frank interest and did not seem at all disposed to hide it.
"I must have a long talk with you, Mr Fenton," she said, speaking in excellent English. The conversation previously had been conducted in French, in which Fenton was well schooled. "You are so—so different from us. I have met but two Americans before, and they were of Austrian descent. You see, we are off the beaten track of tourists here in Ironia. Coming from your strange, big country across the ocean you seem almost like a visitor from Mars."