“That is not all,” said Professor Panagiotis. “You, Maurice Teffany, are at this moment the rightful Emperor of the East.”
CHAPTER II.
OF THE STOCK OF THE EMPERORS.
“Oh, Maurice!” gasped Zoe, almost voiceless in her excitement.
“Well,” said Maurice, perhaps with greater carelessness than he felt, “it sounds very nice, but plenty of people are the rightful something or other, and it makes no difference to practical politics. Besides, there’s almost certain to be some flaw.”
“Flaw!” cried the Professor, “no flaw is possible. Here is the table of your descent, as kept by your family, agreeing exactly with that which I have compiled from old local histories and the registers and monuments at Penteffan. Every member of the family in direct descent is buried there, except one.”
“And there the chain breaks, I suppose?” said Maurice.
“By no means, sir. The missing Nicholas is buried in Westminster Abbey. Doubtless he died when on a visit to London.”
“Westminster Abbey!” breathed Zoe softly. “Think of having a relation buried there, and not knowing it!”
“This will interest you,” said the Professor, passing her a paper. It was the copy of a seventeenth-century entry in a marriage register, and she read the name of the bride aloud.
“‘Eugenia Theophanes, de stirpe imperatorum.’ Oh, and that——”