Part 28 (1/2)
His voice shook on the sentiment he would have spoken lightly; stooping with the fierceness of pain suppressed, he touched his lips to her bright hair.
”You,” panted Iria, as the door closed. ”You, monseigneur!”
He had gone; only the silver-fringed curtain still swayed to tell of his pa.s.sage, the frail, feminine atmosphere of the place still quivered from the presence of a dominant energy.
Down in the open carriage--a ma.s.sively luxurious vehicle with the imperial arms enameled upon the door--Allard waited for Stanief a long time. The Emperor, just returning from a drive and apparently in haste to have his note reach Iria, had sent the nearest messenger in his own carriage.
”Do you know what one might imagine, seeing this carriage here and you waiting in it?” playfully demanded Vasili, as he lounged against the wheel.
”What?”
”That the Emperor was paying a visit to his cousin.”
”I wish he were,” Allard sighed unguardedly.
”I never meddle with politics; _pas si bete_. But I wish I were the Emperor's favorite just now, as you are. There will be changes soon, _hein_?”
”I suppose so. No one can tell.”
”No, of course not. Do you know, I would like to be off in the _Nadeja_ next week.”
”The Regent is coming,” Allard warned, gladly seizing an escape from the conversation.
Vasili swung around and clicked his heels together, saluting stiffly.
Allard stepped down from the carriage.
”You need not come, Vasili,” Stanief remarked, as he took his seat.
”Monsieur Allard will accompany me. Come, John; we are late.”
The horses sprang forward.
The drive through the streets, gay with preparations for the coronation and crowded with busy people, was attended by the manifestations grown familiar. More eager way was made for Stanief than for the Emperor himself; the glances which followed him were grateful and keenly anxious. Once a girl in a pa.s.sing farmer's cart rose to toss into the carriage a sheaf of wildflowers.
”Little Father of the People!” she called in the soft, guttural vernacular.
It was a t.i.tle given only to sovereigns; Stanief flushed and frowned together.
”That will not do,” he commented drily, leaning back in the shadow of the victoria top.
”You have permitted them to think, and they give you their verdict,”
Allard answered.
The carriage turned from the great square to an avenue leading toward the palace. Densely packed with people, there was a brief pause before the way could be cleared. Noting a change in the atmosphere, a chill and more nervous haste, Allard lifted his eyes to his companion.
”This carriage, and with you in the shadow, monseigneur,” he observed,--”they think it is the Emperor who pa.s.ses.”
The reply was not made by Stanief. Straight and surely aimed, a missile hurtled from an upper window in one of the buildings and fell on the cus.h.i.+ons beside him.
”For peace and freedom!” shrieked a man, leaning from the window in half-insane excitement and waving his arms above his head. ”No Adrian--for the Emperor Feodor!”