"Grand Dieu! the country is pining for honest government. Even you will grant that."
"Even I, as you say; but I should be wrong. If I have an ax to grind, so has the other fellow. Kosnovia is in the East, and the East loves deceit. Alec has dazzled the people for a few days. Wait till he begins to sweep the bureaus free of well paid sinecurists. Wait till he finds out how the money is spent that the Assembly votes for railways, education, forestry, and the like. Wait till he reduces the staff of the army and the secretaries. I know Delgratz and Kosnovia, and he does not. He will win the people, it is true; but he will alienate the men who can twist the people this way and that to suit their own purposes. Before a month is out he will be wrangling with the Assembly. See if I am not a prophet. Oh, yes, Julius, you and I must go to Delgratz. No hurry; slow but sure. I'll break the journey at Vienna. We must sound Stampoff too. But before I go, I should like to be sure that the girl has gone there."
"The artist girl to Delgratz!"
Julius was bitter and skeptical; but he reposed such confidence in Beliani's judgment that he choked his doubts. "Yes. Can it be managed?"
Le beau Comte leered, and the satyr grin was highly expressive. It seemed to show the man's real nature. In repose his face was insipid; now for an instant he resembled the god Pan.
"You called Alec a Bayard just now. Not a bad title for him. He has that kind of repute among his friends. Perhaps the girl is built on the same lines, and we don't want to send a pretty saint to Delgratz merely to inspire him to fresh efforts."
The Greek inhaled a deep breath of the aromatic smoke. "You'll be an average sort of King, Julius; but you are not a philosopher," said he thoughtfully. "I tell you we are safer than ever if we can bring him and the girl together. He will marry her, you short sighted one—marry her, and thus alienate every Slav in the Balkans. I have turned this thing in my mind constantly since I recovered from the first shock of his achievement, and I am fairly certain of my ground. Mark you, Princess Mirabel of Montenegro will be reported to-morrow as out of the running. If that is so, you will begin to believe me and stop clawing your hair and injuring your fine complexion by scowling."
Next morning's "Matin" announced that King Alexis was greatly annoyed by the mischievous and utterly unfounded canard that bracketed his name with that of a woman he had never seen. Count Julius read, and made a hasty toilet. Beliani and he had laid their plans overnight, and he lost no time in opening the new campaign.
It was a difficult and delicate task he had undertaken. Paris, big in many respects, is small in its society, which, because of its well marked limits, makes a noise in the world quite incommensurate with its importance; whereas London, close neighbor and rival, contains a dozen definite circles that seldom overlap. The woman Julius had seen with Alec in the Louvre was not on Princess Michael's visiting list, of that he had no manner of doubt. Therefore, from his point of view, the only possible solution of their apparent friendship would prove to be something underhanded and clandestine, an affair of secret meetings, and letters signed in initials, and a tacit agreement to move unhindered in different orbits.