“Without a guarantee, yes?” was the ready rejoinder. “It suggests the second and minor advantage of the situation; that which affects my poor self.”
“Ah?” Ferdinand was indifferently curious. Perhaps he felt he could, if expedient, secure that guarantee without the Count’s active co-operation.
“The very disrepute of my antecedents,” Irromar went on, with the confidence arising from a strong position, “is, although it naturally appears to the contrary, the very guarantee for my liberty. Your Majesty is justly incredulous; but let me explain away the apparent absurdity. In a word, I am sick of my present outlawry, legal and moral. My one great desire is to rehabilitate myself, to take up once more the position to which I was born, and which, in my hot-headed madness, I chose to throw away. There is but one hand from which I can hope to receive back what I have squandered, the good name, the noble position; but one countenance to which I can look for pardon and favour. If once that hand is held out, that countenance turned favourably towards me, am I likely to reject that royal generosity and return to my dog’s life? Now, sire, have I made my meaning plain?”
“You have—quite plain,” Ferdinand answered. Then he paused, his manner seeming to command silence on the other’s part as well. Once or twice he glanced sharply at the Count’s face, that strong, keenly determined face. He was scheming rapidly, vaguely, uncomfortably. The crisis for which he had been preparing himself was, now that it had suddenly arisen, rather more than he could confidently meet. And his discomposure was due less to the urgency of the situation than to the manner of its announcement, and, above all, to the man who set it so boldly before him. For during the whole interview he had been oppressed and irritated by the sense of his inferiority to the Count, an inferiority none the less galling in that it was of evil; such better qualities as they may have possessed did not enter into the question. This man’s personality and character were dominant; their owner looked down from a higher plane of evil upon the weak tool of political intriguers, seated uneasily on his stolen throne.
But, apart from purely personal considerations, the manifest superiority forced this question upon Ferdinand. Would it be wise for him to put himself in the power of this resolute, cunning spirit? The Count’s argument was plausible enough, but what deep scheme might not lurk behind it? Had Irromar shown himself a weaker man, Ferdinand would probably have employed him to put his awkward cousin out of the way, and then taken the obvious means of securing his ever-lasting silence. But, somehow, as he looked at his visitor and mentally gauged him, he could not see in him an easy victim. Still, for the moment, power was on the King’s side, only he must, indeed, be careful how he let it slip away. At any rate, the matter was too difficult for an off-hand decision; he would take counsel with a more astute mind than his own; as it was, he and this master-spirit were unevenly matched. And in the meantime he would gratify and avenge his wounded vanity by showing his power.
So, with a deepening frown, he at length broke the tense pause.
“You are a bold man, Count, to come here and make this proposition to us. For what may have prompted you to this temerity, the wild life you have led may, perhaps, be responsible.”
Both men gave a smile, and the Count’s produced the effect which the King’s vainly intended.
“Nobody,” Ferdinand continued, “but yourself would have conceived so bold a step. No one in any but our position would have seemed to invite it.”
“Your Majesty will hardly blame me for seizing a chance so momentous to both,” Irromar returned, bluffly.