A Son of the Immortals

by Louis Tracy

Beaumanoir broke in on her reverie in his usual happy-go-lucky style. "Not a bad looking crib, is it, Miss Joan?" said he. "I have promised Alec to remain in Delgratz until you are all settled down in it, nice and comfy. Then I wend my lonely way back to Paris. By Jove! I shall be something of a hero there—shine with reflected glory—eh, what?"

"I can't spare you for many a day yet, Berty," said Alec. "You can hardly realize how good he has been, Joan," he continued. "I had a fearfully hard time during the first week. More than once I wanted to cut and run; but he kept me to it, chaffing me out of the dumps when everything seemed to be going wrong."

Beaumanoir winked brazenly at her. "He talks that way now," he grinned. "It's the kingly habit, I understand. Alec has got it down to a fine point. Make every fellow believe that he is It, and there you are, you know."

There was some substratum of sense in Beaumanoir's chaffing. Alec was taking his kingship very seriously, and Joan was hard pressed to bridge the gulf that lay between Paris and Delgratz.

At first she found it almost impossible to realize that Alec had been in harness little more than a month. His talk was replete with local knowledge; he seemed to understand the people and their ways so thoroughly. He was versed even in the peculiarities of their methods of tillage, was able to explain distinctions of costume and racial appearance, and might have spent his life in studying all their customs and folklore.

Fortunately, Joan herself was gifted with quick perception and a retentive memory. After a few days' residence in the White City she began to assimilate the rills of information that trickled in upon her from so many sources, and the feeling of bewildered surprise with which she regarded her lover's attainments during the first hours of real intimacy was soon replaced by an active sympathy and fuller understanding. She was helped in this by the King's mother, since there could be no doubt that Princess Delgrado took her absolutely to her heart.

Prince Michael, who was completely eclipsed not only by his son's extraordinary versatility in all public affairs but by lack of that opulent setting for his peculiar qualities which Paris alone could supply, seemed to accept the inevitable. He tolerated Joan, openly praised her beauty, and became resigned in a more or less patronizing way to the minor distractions of local life.

Felix and Joan gave up their mornings to art. The Pole discovered some quaint old frescoes in the cathedral which attracted him by their remarkable freedom of design and simplicity of color. He valiantly essayed their reproduction; but Joan suspected in her deepest heart that Poluski's sudden conversion to Byzantine ideals was due far more to the fact that the lofty dome of the building produced musical effects of the most gratifying nature than to any real appreciation of the quaint contours and glaring tints of a series of wall pictures that set forth some long forgotten Bulgar artist's conception of the life and history of John the Baptist.

There was naturally a good deal of inquiry and speculation as to the identity of the unknown connoisseur who had commissioned Joan to copy the Saint Peter. Felix resolutely declined to satisfy any one's questioning on that topic. He had given his word, he said, not to betray the confidence reposed in him; but he allayed Alec's professed jealousy by declaring that to the best of his knowledge the man who had sent Joan on this mysterious quest had never even seen her. Still, it was impossible to avoid a certain amount of interested speculation among members of the small circle which was aware of the reason that lay behind Joan's visit to Delgratz. Both Alec and Joan believed that Count Julius Marulitch was in some way responsible, and their chief difficulty was to analyze the motive of such unlooked-for generosity on his part.

The slight mystery underlying the incident was not cleared up until Beliani reached the capital two or three days after Julius himself. The latter cleared the air by expressing his unbounded amazement at finding his cousin engaged to a young American woman of whose existence he had not even heard before he was introduced to her. Under the conditions it seemed to savor of the ridiculous to ask if he was the hidden agent in the matter of the picture. But Beliani was candor itself; not for a moment did he endeavor to conceal his responsibility. When Alec welcomed him on the evening of his arrival, he drew the King aside and said, with all the friendliness of one apparently devoted to the Kosnovian cause: