The frail little hopes she had found consolation in vanished at Dumitru's words. Desmond Ellerey loved Maritza. Dumitru had said it, and had he not had ample opportunity of judging? Now Maritza was to come a fugitive to her house; her very life perhaps lay in her hands. How easy it would be to speak the few words which would tell her enemies where she was hidden, and who would know, who would guess, that it was the Countess Mavrodin who had betrayed her? Such specious arguments did the evil that was in her whisper in her ear, and she could not shut the whisperings out. All day long her restlessness increased. Her solitude became unbearable. She longed for the world of men and women, hungered to hear laughter and the sound of voices—anything to distract her from her thoughts. That evening she went to Court, beautiful, reckless, heartless to all seeming, ready to be flattered and to flatter—a dangerous mood for such a woman to be in.
So, all unconsciously, she was driven forward by destiny. She was in a mood to be tempted, and the greatest temptation of all was lying in wait for her.
She had shown such marked preference for Captain Ellerey when he came to Court that a host of her admirers had perforce to stand sullenly aside. To-night they gathered round her, each one in his turn receiving some little favor which buried in oblivion all past disappointments; such virtue lies even in the least of a beautiful woman's favors. Frina Mavrodin had always had the subtle power of making her companion of the moment believe that he was the one person in all the world she would wish to have beside her, and this power she exercised to the full to-night.
Lord Cloverton, covertly watching her, was constrained to admire her, and even his old blood tingled with a remembrance of youth as he did so. But he did not approach her. It was not his part to play the tempter to-night. He had arranged otherwise. Presently he saw the King enter the room alone, and look round in search of some one. His eye fell upon Frina Mavrodin, and he went toward her. Perhaps, too, in his veins the blood tingled a little.
"An hour of ease which so seldom falls to me renews my strength to-night,
Countess, and youth and beauty draw me like a lodestone," said the King.
"Your Majesty is pleased to flatter me," she answered with a sweeping curtsey.
"That would indeed be impossible. I am honored, doubly so, if you will take my hand in the dance."
It was a set dance, stately in its measure, and those who watched remarked how the grace of the woman seemed to lend grace to the King's movements, who danced but seldom, and that, in truth, somewhat awkwardly.
The King thanked her as he led her to a seat when the dance was over. It was in the alcove where she had so often sat with Ellerey, and the coincidence impressed her.
"There should be brighter times at hand for Wallaria, Countess," said the King. "The Princess Maritza will enter Sturatzberg—a prisoner—to-morrow."