"Excellent, Monseigneur!" he said. "You always had a turn for epigram. I am glad to find that you have not forgotten the brave days of old when you and I used to spout treason together, you because you hungered after a dynasty, and I because I preferred dynamite. Odd thing, both words mean power, strength, sovereignty; the difference lies only in the method of application. But that was in our hot youth, Michael——"
"Imbecile!" hissed the Prince, his red face blanching, as once before when a man spoke of the perils that hedge a throne in the Balkans. "This is Vienna. I shall be recognized!"
Felix snapped his fingers. "They don't care that for you, Monseigneur—never did! You could have come and gone as you pleased any time during these thirty years. If any one is feared here, it is I. But, my veteran, why this display of wrath? You know me well enough. Didn't you see me last night?"
"No—that is, I did not recollect. Your face was hidden."
"Ah, you had something better to look at. Well, who goes to Delgratz? Get aboard, all!"
During this brief but illuminating conversation the Princess and Joan could do nothing else but gaze from one man to the other in mute surprise, and Joan was grieved beyond measure that Felix should treat Alec's father with such scant courtesy. Even while they were making for the steps of the sleeping cars, she managed to whisper tremulously to the Princess:
"Please don't be angry with Monsieur Poluski. His brusk manner often gets him into trouble. Forgive me for saying it, but your son knows him well, and is very fond of him, and I am sure Felix would do anything that lay in his power to help—to help King Alexis III."
"My son! Do you also know him?"
"Yes."
"Have you met him in Paris?"