"No need, thank you. To be precise, since you demand it," went on Poluski when the man had gone, "I asked who they were the moment we left Paris. I saw them on the platform, and the absence of any display showed that they were traveling incognito. I doubt very much if Alec knows of their journey. Can you guess why I think that?"
Joan shook her head wearily. "I am living in a land of dreams," she sighed. "I do not understand the why or wherefore of anything?"
"Listen, then, and you will see that your dreamland is a prosaic place, after all. There is a man in Paris who receives letters daily from Kosnovia, and they tell of events that are not printed for the multitude. Last night, when I was certain we should go to Delgratz, I sought him and heard the latest news. Your Alec means to economize. He has promulgated the absurd theory that the people's taxes should be spent for the people's benefit, and he says that no King is worth more than five thousand pounds a year, while many of his contemporaries would be dear at the price. He has also set up this ridiculous maximum as a standard, and intends to reduce the official salary list to about half its present dimensions.
"This fantasy has reached his father's ears, and the old gentleman is hurrying to Delgratz to check the madness ere it is too late. It is a simple bit of arithmetic: if a King, who works like a horse, is to receive only five thousand a year, what is the annual value of his father, who does nothing but lounge about the boulevards? No wonder old Michael is off hotfoot to the White City!"
Despite her perplexities, Joan had to laugh, and Felix bent nearer to clinch his argument.
"You and I must stand by Alec, my dear. I too am breathing a new atmosphere. I fought against Kings because they were tyrants; but I am ready to fight for one who is a deliverer. What do you fear, you? The world? Has the world ever done anything for you that its opinion should be considered? It will fawn or snarl as it thinks best fitted to its own ends; but help or pity? Never! Its votaries in Delgratz will strive to rend Alec when they realize that their interests are threatened. We must be there, you and I, you to aid him in winning the fickle mob, and I to watch those secret burrowings more dangerous to thrones than open revolt. It is a sacred mission, my Joan! They who named you were wiser than they knew. You were christened a King's helpmate, while I, Felix Poluski, am fated to be the most amazing product of modern civilization,—an anarchist devoted to a monarchy.
"It came on me yesterday morning in the Louvre. I saw my principles crucified for the good of humanity. Through the eyes of the Virgin I looked into a heaven of achievement, and I care not what the means so long as good results. One honest King is worth a million revolutionaries, and God, who made Alec a King, also made him honest."
Excited, exuberant, bubbling over with that very emotionalism at which he had scoffed a few minutes earlier, Felix leaned back in his chair and sang a quatrain in his singularly sweet and penetrating tenor.
Instantly every head was turned and necks were craned. A waiter, serving coffee, was so electrified that he poured no small quantity into the lap of an indignant German. Joan, too wrathful for mere words, dared not rush away instantly to her compartment, though she would have given a good deal at that moment to be safe in its kindly obscurity. And the worst thing was that she saw the coffeepot incident, and was forced to laugh till the tears came.
Cries of "Bravo!" "Again!" mingled with the iron-clamped syllables of Teutonic protest, and she distinctly heard a well bred English voice say: