“Wouldn’t you like to have it to show?” thought Cyril. Aloud he added, “I think you must know, O’Malachy, that M. Drakovics is bent upon the King’s marrying some lady belonging to a royal house. Under these circumstances, it is as well not to give him any opportunity of interfering until my brother has settled things with Miss O’Malachy. Such a paper as you propose might lead to complications with him.”
“I dislike all this secrecy greatly,” grumbled the O’Malachy. “Why would not his Majusty have given some public hint of his intentions? ’Twould have been an excellent opporchunity when he gazetted umself honorary colonel of the Carlino Regiment.”
“My dear O’Malachy, would you have him imply that your daughter was ready to jump at his offer?” asked Cyril, and he looked rather nonplussed.
“I’ll not keep you longer now,” he said, moving towards the door. “You understand, Lord Cyrul, that in case of—of an alliance between your family and mine, me wife and I would esteem ut alike our juty and our pleasure to place what little experience and influence we may possess at the disposal of his Majusty and the Thracian Government?”
“What a double-dyed old traitor he is!” thought Cyril, as he returned from seeing his visitor to the door. “I believe I should prefer his enmity to his friendship.”
And having disposed of the matter satisfactorily, he applied himself to more important business, not thinking again of the evening until it was time to dress for the ball.
CHAPTER IX.
A WOMAN OF HER WORD.
The ball given by the municipality of Bellaviste at the Hôtel de Ville in honour of their new King was the grandest entertainment ever seen in the city. Every one who had the slightest claim to receive an invitation was present, with the exception of the agents representing the various Powers, and the staffs of their respective consulates, who held themselves severely aloof from a festivity of which the raison d’être was the social inauguration of a sovereignty not recognised by the arbiters of European opinion. The display of Thracian costumes and Parisian toilettes was dazzling, but the observed of all observers were Madame O’Malachy and her daughter, who were by no means among the smartest people present. Mr Hicks, the American newspaper correspondent, who had attended so many society functions that he knew as much about female dress as the cleverest lady paragraphist that ever reported an aristocratic wedding, was inclined to be dissatisfied with Nadia’s appearance. There was a kind of affectation of humility, he thought, a too evident desire to emphasise the distance between Caerleon and herself, in her severely plain dress of black net, cut barely low enough to pass muster on such an occasion, and in the absence of any relief, such as might have been afforded by flowers or ornaments, that marked it. It was true that her beautiful head and shoulders appeared to derive additional grace from the simplicity of their surroundings, but there was something unsuitable about the general effect. Did the beggar-maid don her oldest rags when Cophetua came to woo her? Mr Hicks thought not. And again, why did Miss O’Malachy look so like a victim led to the sacrifice as she followed her mother into the room, and so anxious and unhappy when her eye rested on the King? Mere excitement would not account for her troubled expression, and she was sure enough of her prize not to be fearful as to the outcome of the ordeal of the evening. Could it be possible that she did not reciprocate the King’s affection? Was it—could it be—Mr Hicks ground his teeth as he intercepted a disapproving glance levelled at Nadia by Cyril, and felt for one agonised moment that he had missed the most thrilling point of his romance—was there a rivalry between the brothers?
“I call it real mean of the old lady never to have given me a hint,” he groaned, thinking of the extra columns of copy such an intimation would have supplied, but presently he grew calm again. “There’s nothing of the sort, or those two fellows couldn’t carry on as they are doing. A woman can be as sweet as possible to another when she hates her like poison; but two men can’t be easy together when they have quarrelled over a girl.”
Reassured to find that he had not let slip an opportunity of gaining information, he set himself once more to watch the glittering scene and observed that Caerleon invited Nadia to dance with him as soon as he had done his duty to the wives of the city fathers. He saw Madame O’Malachy’s thrill of anxious expectation as the King approached her, and divined instantly that the offer of such an honour was in itself equivalent to a proposal of marriage. But Nadia declined it, although her watchful mother softened the refusal by adding that she did not dance.