"If I were you, Monseigneur, I would learn to regard her in a totally different light. Joan ought to be at home here, because she is your prospective daughter in law."
Michael Delgrado could govern his nervous system with some measure of success when words were the only weapons that threatened. He did not flinch now; but threw open the door of the nearest room on the upper floor. It chanced to be the apartment in which President Nesimir had received Alec and Stampoff on that memorable morning, barely a month ago, when the young King came to Delgratz to claim his patrimony. Neither man was aware of the coincidence that led Michael to slam the door, place his back against it, and gurgle a question:
"Are you jesting, Felix?"
"Quarter of an hour ago I was on the point of being introduced to a grim personage who would have squeezed the last joke out of me," said Poluski. "His name was Death, Pallida Mors, who steps with even stride from the huts of the poor to the palace of the King, and he gave me such a fright that I shall be in no mood all day for any display of humor. Why, man, don't you realize that I have been under this roof fully five minutes without experiencing the slightest desire to sing?"
"But, Felix, do be in earnest for once. What is this you tell me? How can Alexis III. marry this woman, this adventuress?"
Poluski's big gray eyes narrowed into slits, and the hump on his shoulders became more pronounced as his head drooped forward a little; but his smooth tones did not falter, and his uneasy hearer thought he found a note of friendly commiseration in them.
"A hard word, Michael, hard and unjust. Joan is no adventuress," he said. "We old birds are too ready to condemn a young and pretty woman who falls in love with a King; but in the present instance criticism is disarmed, since Joan was in love with Alec when he had no more worldly wealth than the endowment of your princely name, and when his chance of becoming King of Kosnovia was as remote as—what shall I say?—well, as your own."
Michael came away from the door and stood looking out at the window. It afforded a partial view of the courtyard and the fairly wide street beyond the gate. "I know, of course, that your ideas and mine on these subjects differ very greatly," he said after a pause, and with a perceptible return to his grandiose manner; "but as you say rightly, both of us are old enough to realize that a reigning King can marry none but a Princess of some royal house. Again, the King of Kosnovia must marry a Serb. There you have two fixed principles, so to speak, each of which renders it impossible for a lady who rejoices apparently in no other name than Joan——"
"Joan Vernon," put in Felix, producing a cigarcase, an exact replica of that containing the bombs, and selecting one of the long thin cigars he favored.
"Ah, certainly. The Princess spoke to her in Vienna, and ascertained her name then. Well, Miss Joan Vernon cannot, by the very nature of things, become Queen of Kosnovia. It is not that I disapprove of the notion, Felix; it is simply impossible."