CHAPTER XXIV.

THE KING HAS HIS OWN.

“Can you spare me a minute or two, Princess?” asked Caerleon, coming into the cool and shaded drawing-room, where his hostess sat writing a circular letter to her band of Bible-women at Pavelsburg.

“I will spare you any number of minutes--half an hour if you like,” returned the Princess, with a smile. “Sit down here,” and she pointed to a low chair beside her.

“Cyril and I have been talking over our plans,” Caerleon went on, but she interrupted him impulsively.

“I hope you did not decide to adopt any of them, then, for I have one to suggest. The doctor recommends a sea-voyage for your brother, and I have been looking forward to your coming with us for a cruise in the Anna Karénina.”

“You are much too kind,” said Caerleon. “After the shameful way in which we have been imposing upon your good nature all these weeks, we really can’t quarter ourselves upon you any longer. Now that Cyril is well enough to travel, we ought to be looking out for some place of our own.”

“But what will you do?” asked the Princess. “You would not return to England now--in February? It would be fatal. And if you were travelling about on the Continent, your brother could not be properly looked after. Oh, I know that you and your good Wright would take every care of him, but it would not be the care which a woman gives--which we have been giving him.”

“I should think not,” said Caerleon. “We could never aspire to approach you in that. But--you will excuse my saying it--I don’t think my presence on board your yacht would meet with Miss O’Malachy’s approval.”

“What!” cried the Princess, with astonishing duplicity, “am I to understand that Miss O’Malachy has been making herself disagreeable to my guests, in my house?”

“Good gracious! I shall get the poor girl into trouble,” was Caerleon’s instant reflection. Aloud he added hastily, “Not at all, I assure you. It was merely a fancy of mine that she might not care for me as a fellow-passenger.”

“Then I trust that it will remain a fancy. I should be very seriously displeased if Miss O’Malachy forgot herself in such an extraordinary way. But perhaps you do not wish to leave Malta at present?”

“It’s the very thing I do wish,” cried Caerleon. The leaders of Valetta society had shown a tendency to lionise him of late, and an enterprising newspaper man had come out from England expressly to interview him. “I am absolutely yearning to get away.”

“Then come with us,” said the Princess. “Come as a favour to me. I am really afraid of the captain of my yacht, and all my friends here tell me that I ought to get rid of him. He seems to have been boasting to his acquaintances in the harbour that he can make me do as he likes. There is no harm in that, so long as he does not make me do anything wrong, but it was unnecessary to publish abroad the fact. I will not discharge him, for I have no fault to find with him professionally, and it is only reasonable to suppose that he must know more about the sea than I. But still, I do not care that he should regulate all my movements, and I have been looking to you to protect me against him.”

“Oh, if I can be of any use----”

“Then it is settled. You are coming with us. And now, I want your help at once. Captain Binks informed me this morning that if I had any intention of continuing my voyage at all, this was the time for visiting the Ægean. Just to prove to him that I am a free agent, can you suggest any cruising-ground that is not the Ægean?”

“Let me see. You are in search of the places visited by St Paul, are you not? Well, you know, there is the other Malta--the other Melita, I mean--up somewhere in the Adriatic, off the Austrian coast.” Caerleon spoke from a somewhat hazy recollection of long-past discussions which had enlivened various Greek Testament classes in his college days. “I believe the theory that it is the real Melita is quite exploded, but you are not bound to concur with the critics without seeing the place for yourself. It would be fairly new ground, and you could touch at the Ionian Islands on the way.”

“Excellent!” cried the Princess, clapping her hands. “I think we shall astonish Captain Binks.”

So much astonished, indeed, was the worthy man when he realised that his employer had taken matters into her own hands, and chosen a course for herself without consulting him, that he forgot to make his usual objections until it was too late to urge them with any hope of success, and when he did so, the Princess merely referred him to Caerleon.

“Lord Caerleon suggested this trip,” she said, “and if there are any difficulties, he will know how to meet them. He is a gentleman of great experience, my good captain.”

To the surprise of every one Captain Binks surrendered at discretion. It was only fitting that he should take the lead when the other person concerned was a woman and a foreigner; but when there was an English gentleman on board the captain knew his place. The Princess’s mild suggestions he had regarded as eccentricities, to be nipped in the bud for fear of disaster, while he would have welcomed the wildest proposals Caerleon had cared to make as oracular utterances to be obeyed literally for the honour of the British flag.

Under these happy auspices the voyage began, and the greatest harmony prevailed among the passengers on board the Anna Karénina, with one unfortunate exception. Captain Binks might defer humbly to Caerleon, the Princess might honour him with her fullest confidence, but Nadia would not so much as speak a civil word to him. In the circumscribed surroundings of the yacht she could not succeed in ignoring him altogether, but she could and did cavil at everything that he said, and lost no opportunity of making cutting remarks at his expense. The most trying part of it was that, as in the case of a certain historic curse, no one seemed at all affected by what she said, and least of all the person most concerned. When she was cherishing a lively indignation against Caerleon on high moral grounds, and was determined to prove to him how thoroughly she despised and detested his conduct, it was melancholy and even irritating to find that her disapproval had no more effect upon him than rain upon the plumage of the proverbial duck, and that when she had exhausted herself in a tempest of indignation he was willing to return to the charge unruffled as soon as she liked. To tell the truth, her behaviour puzzled him not a little; but he had no mind to lose an hour of Nadia’s society now that it was possible to enjoy it, and submitted with perfect good humour to hearing all his actions criticised and his most innocent remarks railed at.

Matters reached their worst point on the day that the Anna Karénina visited Ithaca. It verged a little upon the commonplace, no doubt, but still it was only natural that Caerleon should fall into the snare of making the inevitable comparison between the characters of Penelope and Ulysses as he stood on deck beside Nadia and watched the island fade from sight, but it was distinctly unfortunate that having said so much, he did not stop there.

“But nowadays,” he went on, “we have changed it all. Penelope goes out into the world, and has her fling, or her _Wanderjahr_, whatever that may be, and Ulysses stays in Ithaca, and keeps the home together until it pleases her to come back.”

“Did you intend that comparison to apply to me?” demanded Nadia, standing on the defensive at once.

“No, really. It didn’t strike me that there was any resemblance. Do you see one?”

“If you didn’t mean it, why did you say it?”

“I assure you that there was not the slightest personal allusion intended. It was a most innocent remark, made merely for the sake of conversation.”

“Pray don’t trouble yourself to make conversation for my benefit. I should have thought you would see by this time that your efforts were not appreciated.”

She walked away, and about an hour passed before Caerleon came upon her again, sitting in a basket-chair near the companion. His evil genius prompted him immediately to cross the deck to her side, and say--“Shall we resume our argument, Miss O’Malachy? I don’t think we finished it.”

“I do not wish to talk about nothing,” she returned; “and when I have anything to say to you, I will say it.”

“This sounds alarming. Do you mean that I am forbidden to speak to you unless I am first addressed?”

“I mean,” she said passionately, but in a low voice, “that I wish I might never have to speak to you again.”

Caerleon looked at her in utter bewilderment, not believing that she could be serious. “In the old days you would have apologised to me as soon as you had said that,” he said, trying to treat the speech as a joke. But she rose and looked him in the face.

“I wish I had never seen you,” she said. “This last month has been the most miserable time of my life.”

“What have I done?” asked Caerleon of himself helplessly, as she turned and went below. “Have I teased her too much? But no--she could never have meant all the things she has said, and she couldn’t expect me to think she did. I don’t know what to do.”

She did not appear in the saloon again that evening, and he sat through dinner gloomy and conscience-stricken. The Princess had letters to write when the meal was over, and Caerleon and Cyril went on deck for their usual constitutional. Cyril broke the silence first, as they tramped steadily and soundlessly backwards and forwards.

“I say, old man,” he began, with some hesitation, “excuse my asking, but how long are you going to let that girl treat you in this way?”

“In what way?” inquired Caerleon, too much relieved at finding some one with whom he might discuss his perplexities to feel angry at his brother’s interference.

“Why, the way she goes on from morning to night, slanging you all day long, and snapping your head off if you open your mouth! She’s making you the laughing-stock of the ship. When you come on deck together the men begin to grin.” This was a slight exercise of the imagination on Cyril’s part, although it was true that he had seen Captain Binks close his left eye on one occasion in a way that expressed unutterable things, intending the action for the benefit of Wright, who ignored it loftily.

“Well,” said Caerleon, “it pleases her--at least, I suppose it does, or I don’t see why she should do it--and it doesn’t hurt me much. But what makes her so angry with me I can’t tell.”

“I can. It’s her belief that you’re laughing at her.”

“But that’s absurd.”

“No, it isn’t. She thinks you don’t take her seriously, and the modern woman must be taken seriously, or die.”

“But Nadia is not a modern woman,” said Caerleon, placidly.

“Oh, I know she is a cross between a Puritan and an early Christian; but even those excellent people would have turned rusty if they had thought they were being humbugged. And she is in deadly earnest, and you do nothing but rag her.”

“Not intentionally, on my word and honour. But what am I to do? I can never manage to hit on the right thing to say. How did you learn to understand women, Cyril?”

“I didn’t learn, it is a gift--improved by cultivation, of course. You will never have it, old man,” Cyril dropped into Nadia’s chair as he spoke, and Caerleon leaned against the bulwark opposite him; “but if I may venture on one small bit of advice, do make an effort to understand the woman you want to marry.”

“I’ve done that until my brain is softening. If she wasn’t so utterly truthful and transparent, so that one knows she means everything she says----”

“Oh, you ridiculous idiot!” cried Cyril. “Then why do you stay to be slanged?”

“Because I hope all the time that she doesn’t mean it.”

“There you are! I tell you, Caerleon, that unfortunate girl is pretty nearly desperate. Do you think she talks to you in this way out of pure cussedness, or for fun? She has raged at you for a fortnight, and you laugh at her the whole time.”

“But if she has anything against me, why in the world doesn’t she tell me so plainly, and let us have it out once for all?”

“Your reasoning would be most cogent if you were only speaking of a man, but lovely woman has her own ways of doing things. And when you come to think of it, you would be rather startled if the lady in the present case marched up to you some morning and informed you that you had offended her grievously, giving details, of course, and added that all intimate relations between you would be suspended until you had purged your contempt. That is the actual state of things, of course, but Miss O’Malachy is not going to tell you so. She has let you see it pretty plainly, and I’m not surprised that she is in despair over your denseness. The most maddening thing you can do to a woman is to ignore her moods, and when she is in love with you----! I tell you it wouldn’t astonish me in the least if she left the ship at the next port we come to, and tried to lose herself. Another woman would throw herself overboard, but she is not that sort. The Princess’s teaching does not produce suicides.”

Caerleon’s face was very pale. “For heaven’s sake, Cyril, stop talking in that way, and tell me what you think I ought to do. It’s no use trying to appeal to her feelings, for I’ve done it, and she simply scathed me.”

“Listen,” said Cyril, sitting up in order to give greater effect to his words. “You must lay aside that contented, don’t-care manner of yours. It maddens her. I know you do care, and with some women your manner would answer admirably, but she can’t see through it. Look here; I know you will naturally feel shy of taking my advice after that business at Bellaviste, but this is a straight tip----”

Caerleon started. “I was not thinking of that,” he said.

“Well, you don’t imagine that it is very agreeable to me to remind you of it, do you? I felt that I had to let you know of it when I was so bad, but I’ve been glad enough since that you seemed ready to forget it. Now, old man, if you have forgiven me, take my advice in this. I give you my word that I’m trying to do my level best for you and her. Turn rusty yourself. Let her see that she has gone too far. If she tries to begin rating you, give it her back----”

“I can’t. You seem to forget that she’s a woman, and that I care for her.”

“Yes, you can; if it’s for her own sake. Don’t you see, it will show her that you are in earnest? Once she knows that she has made you really angry, she will be ready to do anything she can to appease you. Matters must come to a crisis then. Try to make yourself feel that she isn’t treating you fairly. She has no business to inflict on an innocent inexperienced fellow like you the punishment which would be all very well for a hardened old offender, such as your humble servant. Yes, that’s your line. Get up a feeling of indignation. Lay it on hot and strong. Provoke an explosion, or you’ll never get the chance of an explanation.”

“Well, I will try. Anything’s better than the way we have been going on lately. But suppose it doesn’t succeed?”

“It must, unless you are too late already; but you will have to be on the look-out for the slightest change in her manner. Don’t lose your chance, or you’ll blame yourself for it all your life. Now I’m going below to turn in.”

He disappeared, but Caerleon remained long on deck, meditating on what he had said. As it happened, the Princess also was moved just at this time to take some notice of the state of affairs, and the next morning she said suddenly to Nadia--

“Have you quarrelled with Carlino, my child? You do not seem to be on good terms with him.”

“He cares nothing for what I say or do,” responded Nadia, sullenly.

“Is there any encouragement for him to care, dear child? What has he done that you should treat him as you do?”

“He has disappointed me, Marraine. I thought he was brave, that he could be trusted, and he has abandoned his work, and betrayed his trust. He sneers at the mere idea of honour.”

“My child, you astonish me!” cried the Princess. “Are you certain of this? To make such accusations without proof is cruel.”

“I know it by what he has said to me himself, Marraine. I had not spoken to him for a week, but I laid aside my anger and implored him to be firm, to do his duty,--and he laughed at me.”

“I am certain you are making a mistake, Nadia,” said her godmother, with most unusual decision. “You have judged hastily and harshly, and you are wronging an excellent man. You should cultivate more faith in your fellow-creatures, and especially in your lover. Are you the only person in the world that can possibly be in the right? Allow Carlino to possess a conscience as well as yourself, I entreat you. You have been very hard upon him, and I feel that I must give you a warning. Am I to understand that for a whole month you have been cherishing these angry feelings against him, without even doing him the courtesy of asking whether you understood him rightly on the occasion to which you refer? You would not have treated your worst enemy in this way at one time. You may have misunderstood him; you may have refused to listen to what he had to say. Give him the chance of explaining the reasons for his action, and don’t press him too far. No man will put up with such treatment for ever.”

“I want to make him care,” said Nadia, with fierce determination, and she went on deck, stifling in her heart the Princess’s warnings and the answering echo of her own conscience, which told her that the real reason for her quarrel with Caerleon was that he had disappointed her ambitious dreams for him. Emerging from the companion, she found the subject of her thoughts examining the distant coast-line with the aid of a glass borrowed from Captain Binks. Ordinarily he would have turned at once to greet her, and offered her the telescope, but now he took no notice of her approach.

“Is that island very interesting?” she inquired, sarcastically.

He did not answer, and she repeated the question with a little added sarcasm.

“I beg your pardon,” he replied, coldly. “Were you speaking to me? I understood that I was not to be favoured with your conversation in future.”

This was unexpected. Nadia looked at him in surprise, unaware that he was congratulating himself on the way in which she had addressed him. If there had been the slightest sign of softening in her manner, he could not have followed Cyril’s advice.

“And you are satisfied that it should be so?” she asked, in blank dismay.

“If it satisfies you. What pleases you must always please me,” he said, politely, and then folded up the telescope and walked away, leaving her suddenly conscious that the deck was very wide and bare, and that she was very lonely and desperately miserable. At breakfast he ignored her in the most pointed way, answering briefly and repressively when she addressed him, but confining his own conversation exclusively to the Princess and Cyril. It was one of the hardest things he had ever done in his life, to keep up this pretence of coldness when he found Nadia’s beautiful eyes scanning his face timidly from time to time; but the remembrance of Cyril’s words the night before armed him with a determination not to yield until he had gained his point. Accordingly, he held aloof from the ladies all the morning, chatting with Captain Binks upon the bridge, and Cyril, who was reading aloud to the Princess as she worked, observed with satisfaction that Nadia’s needle made no progress, and that the reluctant tears dropped slowly on the stuff which she was supposed to be forming into a garment.

“She is thoroughly frightened at last,” he said to himself. “After all, it’s just as well that Caerleon should have given her her head so freely hitherto. It makes the sudden pull-up all the more effective. Now, if I can manage it, he shall get things settled this afternoon, for he will never be able to go on with this.”

Pity for the desolate Nadia was making itself felt even by the business-like Cyril; but pity itself could not induce him to relax one whit of his precautions for securing a happy ending to Caerleon’s wooing. When they landed that afternoon on a small island, inhabited only by a few fishermen and goatherds, he sent his brother to walk with the Princess, and to carry the stock of Gospels and picture-tracts which she always distributed at the huts they visited, while he himself, on the plea of weakness, followed slowly with Nadia. When the Princess and Caerleon emerged from the little church on the hill-top, whither the village priest had taken them to look at the ancient _icons_ and service-books, they found him waiting for them outside alone.

“Miss O’Malachy was tired, and I left her to rest on the way up,” he said. “Caerleon, don’t you think it would be a delicate attention if you went and offered her your arm? Give me the Princess’s books, and we will try and establish communications with the old pope here.”

Very willingly Caerleon left his brother talking to the priest in a wonderful medley of dialects, and began to descend the path by which they had come up the hill. A bare-footed little girl herding goats was the only person he saw until he came upon Nadia, sitting upon a stone, with her face buried in her hands.

“Can I--can I do anything for you, Miss O’Malachy?” he asked, hesitatingly.

“Yes--you can go away,” she returned, fiercely, without looking up, but the tears were forcing themselves through her fingers, and she began to sob in a hopeless way that went to Caerleon’s heart. He stood looking at her, without an idea what to do, until she rose suddenly.

“If you will not go away, I must,” she said in her most dogged tone, dashing away her tears, but for once Caerleon saw his opportunity and grasped it.

“No, you will not,” he said, barring her path. “We must have an explanation, Nadia. I want to know what you mean by treating me in this way?”

“In what way?” It was evident that this carrying of the war into her own territories took Nadia by surprise.

“Why, the way you have behaved to me ever since we came on board,--rating me all day long, and treating me as if I was the dust under your feet.”

“It has not done you much harm. I wish it had,” and her grey eyes flashed stormily.

“How do you know whether it has or not? Do you think I am going to beg for mercy from a girl who doesn’t mind what she says to me, and rather likes to make me a public spectacle, because she knows that I care for her too much to say anything in return? No; the fact is, Nadia,” he stopped her indignant denial, “that you have been taking a mean advantage of me. You treat me like a dog because you know that I love you, and would rather have you scolding me all day than be King of Thracia.”

“At least avoid that subject,” said Nadia, with a sudden shiver. “But no, as you say, it may be better to come to an explanation. How can you expect me to have anything to do with you when I know that you gave up your work like a coward that you might be able to marry me?”

“I promise you I didn’t,” cried Caerleon.

“You almost told me so. At any rate, you did not deny it.”

“I didn’t know that you expected me to state everything in plain English, but I will. You know how I hated Bellaviste; but still, if King Otto Georg had not been elected and crowned in my place, or if it had been possible for the Powers to object to him more strongly than they did to me, I would have gone back, and stayed there until I was kicked out again. But as I said to you a month ago, I was not going to risk causing another revolution and a European war, even for your sake. That is my position exactly, and I have told you all about it already. It’s very hard, to be sure, that one’s motives are altogether pure; but I honestly believe that I did not allow the thought of marrying you to weigh with me in making my decision. You must trust me a little, Nadia.”

“But you said--you said that I was making your choice an easy one, when I said I wouldn’t marry you if you went back. If you thought I would marry you in case you gave up the kingdom for my sake, you were mistaken. What have you to say now?”

“Simply this, that my resolution was taken before you spoke to me that day at all. If I had felt it right to go back, I hope I should have gone, and done my duty to the best of my power, but I felt that it was neither right nor desirable. It is unfortunate for me, from your point of view, that duty and pleasure both pointed the same way in this case, but I can’t help it. I can only give you my word. If you will accept that, it’s all right, but if not---- Well, it’s for you to decide.”

“To decide what?” asked Nadia, sharply.

“The question I have asked you once or twice already. I could not expect you to marry me if you didn’t believe my word.”

“I do believe your word,” said Nadia. “No, don’t touch me,” drawing herself away from him as he took a step forward, “that is not the question to be decided. You know what I am--you have seen during this last month how truly hateful I can be when I take a thing into my head; you see that I was not even ready to trust you, after all that you have done. And I can’t promise to be any better--a little time ago I thought that I should never be unreasonable and foolish again, and now I have been worse than ever. Why don’t you say that you have been mistaken in me, and let us part? I know I have deserved it--I will never utter a word against you if you decide that this time I have tried even your patience too far. What do you say?”

“This,” replied Caerleon, promptly, taking her hands in his and kissing her. “Why do you want me to punish myself?”

“Don’t--please don’t,” cried Nadia, bursting into tears again. “You don’t know all the wicked things I have thought. I believed that you had been consulting Lord Cyril about the kingdom, and that he had advised you to do just as you liked, and not care whether it was right or wrong. I know he doesn’t like me, and I thought he would be glad to get you to do anything that I wanted you not to do. I meant to refuse you again, even if it broke my heart.”

“And I haven’t a doubt you’d have done it,” said Caerleon, “but you are a little hard on Cyril. It is due to him that we have had this explanation at all, for he told me he was sure that there was something that came between us, and advised me to speak to you. And you do believe me now, dear, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do,” said Nadia, smiling through her tears, “and I hope you will always be my friend; but I am not going to marry you. I am such a wretch. I shall make your life miserable.”

“Are you going to start with that determination?” asked Caerleon, “because it would be rude of me to say that you couldn’t make me miserable if you tried. But if you are only judging from past experience--well, I have been making you cry just now, but I hope I shan’t be such a brute as to do it again. We must both turn over a new leaf.”

“At any rate,” said Nadia, with tremendous resolution, “I know what I shall do. I will make it a matter of conscience always to obey any order or suggestion of yours without the slightest hesitation. It only makes trouble when I try to settle things for myself.”

“What!” cried Caerleon, stepping back a pace and looking at her in consternation, “do you intend to use me as a means of self-discipline? I can’t stand that. And who talks about _orders_? You certainly have a most unflattering opinion of me, Nadia. Am I such a tyrant as all that? Haven’t I made you understand yet that what made me take to you at the very first was that you looked at things so differently from myself? I want you to differ from me. I want you to criticise my plans, to show me where I am wrong, to tell me how everything strikes you. Then we can thresh the matter out together, and decide it by our joint wisdom. But tell me, do you really look upon me as such a fearful despot?”

“It’s not that,” said Nadia, slowly. “It is only that I feel I ought to obey you--that I should like it--because you are so good, and I have treated you so badly, and----”

But her further reasons for obedience cannot be known, for Caerleon interrupted her suddenly and forcibly, and it was some little time before she freed herself and spoke again.

“But would you really like me to marry you, Carlino?” She brought out the name with an effort, and yet from her lips it sounded like a caress. “I have thought lately that you must certainly have left off caring for me.”

“Did you really think that? What have I been doing? You didn’t believe that I could possibly give you up? Won’t you ever trust me, Nadia? I do entreat you, the next time you have anything against me, let us have it out at once. Don’t accuse me in your mind for weeks without my knowing it, and take everything I say and do as a sign of guilt. It’s not fair. Only come and tell me what it is that you don’t like, and give me a chance of explaining things. You will have a lot of trouble with me, my darling, for I’m such a stupid fellow that I can’t see a thing unless it’s plainly pointed out to me, but I will do my best to look at things from your point of view. I do want to make you happy.”

“A little time ago,” said Nadia, meditatively, “I should have said ‘I want to try to help you to be good,’ but I know better now. I want you to help me.”

“Oh, that’s absurd,” cried Caerleon. “You will have to educate me up to your level, you know. Don’t be too hard on me, dearest. I’m only an ordinary man, and I haven’t been practising martyrdom from my youth up, as you have. Let me off easily in the way of hurting my feelings, and that sort of thing, just at first. By the bye, why did you send me that cruel message through Cyril the time you came to Bellaviste?”

“Because I was sure that I could not hold out if you came and spoke to me yourself. I would have given worlds to stretch out my hands and call to you to come to me when I saw you standing by the gate, Carlino.”

“If you had only yielded to that impulse!” said Caerleon. “Or if you hadn’t refused me that night I asked you first to marry me! I am sure that it would have been happier for both of us, dear.”

“Not for you,” said Nadia, decidedly. “I have learnt one or two lessons since then. But you would in all probability have been King of Thracia still, so that you have to thank me for losing you your kingdom, after all. But there is one thing I want to say now, Carlino, just that you may see that I know all about it, and then we will never mention the subject again. It is about that other girl to whom you were engaged, and who married the Prince of Dardania. I quite understand how it was. It was all my fault, for I made you so angry with me that you took me at my word. You must not think that I am vexed with you about it, for I know that you were not to blame. I should only have been rightly punished if you had married her. Now please don’t let us say anything more about it.”

“But I must just say one thing,” said Caerleon. “Let me defend myself, for I wasn’t quite the mean scoundrel you think me,--getting engaged to one girl simply in order to punish another. Princess Ottilie asked me to pretend to be engaged to her just for a fortnight or so, that suspicion might be averted from her real lover, and I was fool enough to do as she asked. She led me a pretty dance. I think even you would have pitied me, Nadia, if you had seen me then. It served me right for being such a fool, but I don’t think I was a cad. I never even kissed her.”

“If you had, you should never have kissed me,” said Nadia, hotly; and Caerleon wondered anew at the intricacies of the feminine mind. “But I am glad you have told me this,” she went on, after an interval, “because it makes me more ashamed of myself. When you find me very troublesome and very unbelieving, please whisper in my ear, ‘Remember Princess Ottilie.’”

“I had rather forget her, myself,” said Caerleon; “but I’ll do it if you are sure you’ll like it. Oh, bother it all! there are the Princess and Cyril going down to the boat. We’ll let them get on a little, and catch them up afterwards.”

“But the gig was to go to the mainland for the letters,” said Nadia, innocently. “Are you not in a hurry to see yours?”

“I had much sooner talk to you. Who knows when I shall find you in this angelic frame of mind again?”

“I knew you could not depend upon me,” and the tears began to rise once more in Nadia’s eyes. “You can never feel certain that I shall behave properly.”

“Oh, what a doubly distilled ass I am!” cried Caerleon. “I wonder whether there ever was a worse fellow for putting his foot in it than I am. My darling, it was a joke. Please do try to expect jokes sometimes, and don’t take all I say in earnest. I won’t joke more than I can help.”

“You must teach me,” said Nadia. “If you will explain your jokes at first, I shall soon learn to understand them; and I will try not to be so silly.”

To which the infatuated Caerleon replied by declaring that on no account would he have her in the slightest degree different from what she was, and they went down the hill together in great peace and contentment, to find the Princess and Cyril waiting for them at the waterside. Once on board the yacht, Cyril was accommodating enough to occupy himself with his letters, while Caerleon sought an interview with the Princess, and received her warm approval of the engagement. There was no lonely prowl on deck this evening for the two brothers. Muffled in shawls, the Princess and Nadia joined them, and under the lee of the deckhouse they discussed plans for the future.

“I have heard from Mrs Sadleir,” said Caerleon, “in answer to a letter I wrote asking her what she thought about my returning home. She advises me not to come back just yet, since the Thracian question is very much in people’s minds at present; but after a few months she thinks I may count upon escaping notice. ‘Of course,’ she says, ‘you will not expect to find yourself a _persona gratissima_ in exalted circles, nor to receive the offer of the Pavelsburg Embassy when it falls vacant, but I think there is little doubt that you will probably be allowed to grow mangel-wurzels (whatever they may be) on your ancestral acres in peace, and even to vote in the House of Lords now and then if you do not make yourself too conspicuous.’ The next sentence is slightly personal, but I hope you won’t mind, Nadia. ‘I am all anxiety to know how the romance of the beautiful Scythian girl has ended. If you succeed in winning her and bringing her back with you, give me a week’s notice, and I will guarantee that she shall be the greatest social success of these twenty years.’ Mrs Sadleir means you to come, be seen, and conquer, Nadia.”

“That will not be until some time hence,” said the Princess, seeing Nadia look alarmed. “But since you are not to return home for three or four months, Lord Caerleon, I hope we may count upon your society for the rest of our tour. We have still all the coasts of the Ægean and Cyprus to see, and I thought of spending Easter at Jerusalem.”

“There is nothing on earth I should like better,” said Caerleon, with enthusiasm.

“And you, Lord Cyril?” asked the Princess. “I hope you will come too?”

“You are very kind,” said Cyril, speaking with an evident excitement unusual with him, “and I should be most delighted to accept your invitation; but as soon as I am strong again I must set to work. You won’t be surprised to hear that this Thracian business has about done for me in the diplomatic service. Of course, if we arranged things nowadays in a common-sense, Elizabethan kind of way, I should be made British agent at Bellaviste immediately, on the score of my intimate acquaintance with the country and the people; but we don’t, and I’m afraid there are not many chiefs that would care to have me under them now. I never have felt exactly drawn towards settling down and cultivating mangel-wurzels, and after the experiences of the last three months such a prospect looks less enticing than ever. This letter here is from King Otto Georg. He wants me to go back to Thracia as his private secretary--the post I held under you, Caerleon. He finds himself horribly lonely, he says--by the bye, Drakovics is said to be looking out for a wife for him, so that oughtn’t to last long--and I can see that he wants me to act as a sort of under-study for him as well. Drakovics is too important, both in view of the possibility of his being assassinated, and of his influence in the country. The King thinks that I might be useful in two ways, first, in getting some idea of the manner in which things are done, so that Drakovics’s removal might not necessarily mean the collapse of the whole system of government; and secondly, in keeping Drakovics himself from going too far. Of course Otto Georg, poor old fellow! can’t very well do that sort of thing for himself, but I think that I, as a friend of both parties, might be able to manage it.”

“I don’t envy you,” said Caerleon, drily.

“The position is delicate, but all the more interesting on that account,” said Cyril. “Drakovics has rather a liking for me, somehow or other, and if I can keep in with him, I might put the drag on when he is inclined to act in a regal way that few kings would stand. Otto Georg is a good fellow, and will see that I don’t have too much to do in the way of routine work. In fact, I can see that he wants me as a companion even more than as a secretary.”

“You are very young,” said the Princess, and Caerleon laughed unfeelingly, for only that evening he had told Cyril that he looked so young and so innocent, with his pale face and thin hands, that all the ladies at the different ports would take him for a schoolboy. “You ought to have some one to take care of you.”

“Ah, if Miss O’Malachy had only a sister to take pity on me!” sighed Cyril. “But as it is, I must wait and grow older before I can venture on a wife. When I come back from Bellaviste after thirty years or so of service with Otto Georg, and stay with you in England, Caerleon, I shall fix upon some sweet child just out of the schoolroom, with a comfortable fortune of her own. I shall not look young or innocent then. I shall be worn and grey, and slightly, very slightly, bald, and I shall hint darkly to the dear girl at unknown depths in my past history, with the description of which I will not pollute her ears. That will fetch her more than anything. The attentions of a man with a reputation for wickedness will set that girl on a pinnacle at once in her own estimation.”

“I shall warn her against you,” broke in Nadia, with righteous indignation.

“Do you think she would believe you?” asked Cyril, pityingly. “She would naturally take the first opportunity of asking me whether the charges against me were true. I need only look sad, and remark mournfully that it was easy enough for a man to go to the dogs, but hard indeed for him to recover himself when even his own relations were against him; and if that girl and her fortune were not promised to me before the interview was over, I don’t know anything of human nature.”

“This is merely one of Cyril’s jokes, dear,” whispered Caerleon behind Nadia’s fan, as she sat looking puzzled and angry; and Cyril, who had overheard him, laughed and went on.

“I have another Bellaviste letter here, from our late master of the household, who tells me that there is no hope of recovering any of our personal property. The rebels looted the palace, and burned what they couldn’t take away. The Assembly has voted us a handsome sum by way of compensation, but, alas! one cannot ‘buy with gold the old associations.’ I am especially sorry for you, Caerleon. Your rubies are gone.”

“Oh, those rubies!” cried Caerleon.

“What rubies?” asked Nadia.

“A set of rubies which a certain lady of whom you may have heard (she is now the Princess of Dardania) presented to Caerleon with the request that he would hand them on to you,” answered Cyril, promptly.

“I am glad they are lost. I would never have worn them,” said Nadia, with decision. “Come,” she said to Caerleon, “let us walk up and down the deck a little, Carlino. It is cold here.”

Caerleon rose immediately, and when they were gone Cyril turned and looked benignly at the Princess. “Do you feel guilty?” he inquired. “I ask because I am morally certain that while I took occasion to speak to Caerleon last night for his good, you addressed a slight remonstrance to Miss Nadia. This is the result. Do you not feel appalled at the risk?”

“All marriages are risks,” returned the Princess; “but I hope there will be less danger than usual about this one. In the first place, they cannot be married for six months at least, for it is not a year until August since your father’s death, and they will learn to know each other very thoroughly during this tour of ours.”

“There’s a good deal in that,” assented Cyril. “If people can keep the peace on board ship, they are pretty safe anywhere.”

“Then,” went on the Princess, “your brother is singularly calm and reasonable----”

“And therefore well fitted to cope with an unreasonable woman, you would say?” suggested Cyril.

“No,” said the Princess, taking up the cudgels on behalf of her god-daughter, “Nadia is not unreasonable. She is very downright, and she sees only one thing at a time. I think you have a word for this characteristic of hers, but I forget it.”

“One-idea’d?” said Cyril.

“Yes; that is it. And she will never do what she thinks is wrong.”

“And she is always ready to be a martyr, and to make martyrs of other people. Would it be rude to ask you, Princess, to suggest to her that she has cultivated heroism long enough, and that the softer virtues of daily life might have a turn with advantage?”

“Our life in Scythia may not have been the best school for her,” said the Princess, thoughtfully. “We Evangelicals have always been set apart--laughed at even when we were not persecuted, and such an experience fortifies one strongly against thinking too much of the opinion of others. It also develops, as you imply, one set of qualities rather at the expense of another set. And then she has that Irish faculty of concentration--blind devotion to an idea I have heard it called; but it need not necessarily be blind.”

“Irish?” Cyril raised his eyebrows. “I should have said that I never met any one more unlike the typical Irish girl than Miss O’Malachy. Her brother, too, was extremely un-Hibernian.”

“Ah, that is because you are thinking of the ordinary Irish type--Colonel O’Malachy’s, for instance. Gay, what you call a ‘good fellow,’ always ready for a frolic, possessing a keen sense of the ridiculous. But there is also another kind of Irishmen altogether. They have no sense of humour, or they would not preach under the protection of the police to howling mobs, or sacrifice their lives and their honour to some wrong-headed or hopeless cause. Nadia and her brother belong to this type, so do many conspirators, and not a few martyrs.”

“This is rather a poor look-out for Caerleon,” said Cyril.

“I don’t think so. Nadia has learnt a lesson from the past month; she is humbled, and she will have less confidence in her own judgment from henceforth. She has seen to-day something of your brother’s true character, and the better she knows him, the more she will trust him. Then, they will not have the trial and temptation of idleness, for both of them are born workers. I look to see them do great things for God and His poor on your brother’s estates in the provinces. They will strengthen each other’s hands in the good work, and the opposition which they will encounter from the world will bind them more closely together at home.”

“I suppose they will go in for closing all the public-houses on the estate, and that sort of thing,” groaned Cyril. “By the bye, there was part of Stefanovics’s letter that I didn’t read. I didn’t want to cast a damp over their first evening. King Otto Georg has repealed Caerleon’s liquor law.”

“Oh, no!” cried the Princess.

“He has, indeed. It seems that when the people found out that Caerleon wasn’t killed, they wanted to have him back again, and there were riots in several places. The King and Drakovics were concerting measures for the maintenance of peace, when Drakovics was seized with a bright idea. ‘Repeal the liquor law,’ he said. ‘That will please the people, and release a sum of money, which you can apply to the relief of taxation.’ They were in a pretty tight place, so the King jumped at the idea, and the law was repealed just a week ago. Stefanovics says that the Carlinists were all going about in austere dignity, like so many Girondins, each man wearing his temperance medal with Caerleon’s head on it at his button-hole, and lamenting the virtues of the late reign, but the mass of the people accepted the bribe like a shot. There were no more Carlinist riots, and now any one can get drunk that likes.”

“It is a sad step backwards,” murmured the Princess.

“It is strange, isn’t it,” said Cyril, “that Miss O’Malachy should have failed to keep Caerleon on the throne, after all her trying, and that the one piece of his work which he hoped would last should be undone six weeks after he leaves Thracia? They have both failed utterly.”

“Some people’s failures are better than other people’s successes,” said the Princess, with unwonted sharpness. “I must say that I prefer your brother’s failure to the success which would have been yours had you been able to secure his remaining on the throne.”

“Well, I can congratulate myself that I did what I could to keep him there,” said Cyril, a little uncomfortably.

“Can you indeed congratulate yourself?” asked the Princess. “I do not know what your methods were, but I remember that you did not appear to look back upon them with complacency when you thought yourself dying.”

“Well, you know, I felt that I had played it rather low down on Caerleon, and that isn’t a thing one cares to think of.”

“You schemed to separate your brother and his bride,” said the Princess. “Whether you actually went beyond the truth in anything that you said I do not know; but it seems to me that you would not have called your conduct honourable in a private matter.”

“That’s just it. Public business is conducted on different principles.”

“Is it? But why? Public considerations required, as you thought, that Carlino should not marry Nadia. Accordingly, you sought to separate them, and you succeeded for a time. Happily, you were not permanently successful, and your efforts were overruled for good. But of what use were your attempts? God did not intend your brother to be King of Thracia, and you could not keep him on the throne.”

“But would you have one simply let things slide?”

“I would have you leave things to God. When you find that you can go no further in your chosen path without breaking His laws, is it not a sign that you are to stop there?”

“I don’t wonder that you Evangelicals get yourselves banished as you do,” said Cyril, smiling. “The ordinary Scythian view of diplomacy would certainly not agree with yours.”

“You imply that ours is the English view? Then may I hope that you will act on English and not on Scythian principles when you return to Thracia?”

“Would you have me bind myself by a pledge, Princess?”

“Not unless you wish it. I only ask you to look back on the time you spent at Bellaviste, and the means you used to force your brother to remain there, and to ask yourself, Was it worth while?”

“Considering that the result was failure, I think it was not,” said Cyril, meditatively. “But I do not say that it would not have been worth while if I had succeeded.”

“And what would your success have been worth?” asked the Princess. “If I were you, Lord Cyril, I would thank God night and morning that the end of your enterprise was failure.”

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.

Sydney C. Grier was the pseudonym of Hilda Caroline Gregg.

This book is part of the author’s “Balkan Series.” The full series, in order, being:

An Uncrowned King A Crowned Queen The Kings of the East The Prince of the Captivity

Alterations to the text:

Punctuation corrections--mostly quotation mark pairing.

Note: minor spelling and hyphenization inconsistencies (_e.g._ warships/war-ships, Grand-Duke/Grand Duke, etc.) have been left as is.

[Title Page]

Add brief note indicating this novel’s position in the series. See above.

[Chapter XII]

“Congrats. and all that sort of thing, old man” change period to a comma.

[Chapter XVIII]

Change “which passed _though_ the station this morning” to _through_.

[End of Text]