“Of course, of course,” with a toss of the handsome head. “That’s a man’s way – his silly, senseless way – never tell tales about a rival. And as a result, see what a mess you have made. Had you informed the King, he instantly would have proclaimed you as his heir, and then disgraced Lotzen publicly and sent him into exile. And you would now be his successor, without a shadow of opposition.”

Armand subdued a smile. “You don’t understand, Dehra – ” he began.

“Quite right,” she cut in; “quite right; I don’t. Why didn’t you tell me? I would have told the King, you may be sure.”

“Of course you would, little woman; that’s just the reason I didn’t tell you.”

She shrugged her shoulders, and the tattoo began afresh.

“I’ve no patience with such nonsense,” she declared; “Lotzen deserved no gentlemanly consideration; he would have shown none to you; and besides, it was your duty to your King and your House to uphold the Laws of the Dalbergs and to prevent any attempt to violate them.”

“I am very much afraid that lately, between Lotzen and myself, the Laws of the Dalbergs have been sadly slighted.”

His bantering jarred upon her. “To me, Armand,” she answered gravely, “our Laws are holy. For almost a thousand years they have been our unchallenged rule of governance. I can understand why, to you, they have no sacredness and no sentiment; but Lotzen has been born and bred under them, and should honor them with his life – and more especially as they alone made him the Heir Presumptive. But for the decree of the first Dalberg King, four hundred years ago, I would be the Queen-Regent of Valeria.”

“It’s a pity, a crying pity!” he exclaimed.

She looked down at him with shining eyes. “No, dear, it isn’t; once I thought it was; but now I’m quite content to be Queen-consort.”

He took both her hands and held them between his own. “That, dear, is what makes it possible, and worth the struggle; and if Valeria does accept me as its King, it will be solely for love of you, and to get you for its Queen.”

A smile of satisfaction crossed her face. “I hope the people do love me,” she said. “I would like to feel I may have helped you, even a little.”

“A little! but for you, my princess, I’d go back to America and leave the way clear for Lotzen.”

She laughed softly. “No, no, Armand, you would do nothing of the sort. A Dalberg never ran from duty – and least of all the Dalberg whom God has made in the image of the greatest of them all.”

He glanced in the tall mirror across the room. He was wearing the dress uniform of the Red Huzzars (who had been inspected immediately before the Foot Guards; and he, as titular Colonel, had led them in the march by), and there was no denying he made a handsome figure, in the brilliant tunic and black, fur-bound dohlman, his Orders sparkling, his sword across his knees.

She put her head close beside his and smiled at him in the mirror.

“Henry the Great was not at all bad looking,” she said.

He smiled back at her. “But with a beastly bad temper, at times, I’m told.”

“I’m not afraid – I mean his wife wasn’t afraid; tradition is, she managed him very skilfully.”

“Doubtless,” he agreed; “any clever woman can manage a man if she take the trouble to try.”

“And shall I try, Armand?”

“Try!” he chuckled; “you couldn’t help trying; man taming is your natural avocation. By all means, manage me – only, don’t let me know it.”

“I’ll not,” she laughed – “the King never – ” and she straightened sharply. “I forgot, dear, I forgot!” And she got up suddenly, and went over to the window. Nor did he follow her; but waited silently, knowing well it was no time for him even to intrude.

After a while she came slowly back to him, a wistfully sad look in her eyes. And as he met her she gave him both her hands.

“I shall never be anything but a thoughtless child, Armand,” she said, with a wan, little smile. “So be kind to me, dear – and don’t forget.”

He drew her arms about his neck. “Let us always be children to each other,” he answered, “forgetting, when together, everything but the joy of living, the pleasures of to-day, the anticipations of to-morrow.”

She shook her head. “A woman is always a child in love,” she said; “it’s the man who grows into maturity, and sobers with age.”

He knew quite well she was right, and for the moment he had no words to answer; and she understood and helped him.

“But this is no time for either of us to be children,” she went on; “there is work to do and plans to be arranged.” She drew a chair close to the table and, resting both arms upon it, looked up at the Archduke expectantly. “What is first?”

He hesitated.

“Come, dear,” she said; “Frederick was my father and my dearest friend, but there remains for him now only the last sad offices the living do the dead; we will do them; but we will also do what he has decreed. We will seat you in his place, and confound Lotzen and his satellites.”

He took her hand and gravely raised it to his lips.

“You are a rare woman, Dehra,” he said, “a rare woman. No man can reach your level, nor understand the beauty of your faith, the meaning of your love. Yet, at least, will I try to do you honor and to give you truth.”

She drew him down and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

“You do not know the Dalberg women, dear,” she said – “to them the King is next to God – and the line that separates is very narrow.”

“But I’m not yet the King,” he protested.

“You’ve been king, in fact, since the moment – Frederick died. With us, the tenet still obtains in all its ancient strength; the throne is never vacant.”

“So it’s Lotzen or I, and to-morrow the Book will decide.”

“Yes,” she agreed; “to-morrow the Book will decide for the Nation; but we know it will be you.”

“Not exactly,” he smiled; “we think we know; we can’t be sure until we see the decree.”

“I have no doubt,” she averred, “my father’s words can bear but one construction.”

“It would seem so – yet I’ve long learned that, in this life, it’s the certain things that usually are lost.”

She sprang up. “Why not settle it at once – let us send for the Book; of course it is at the Palace – it was there last night.”

He shook his head decisively. “No, dear, no; believe me it is not wise now for either of us to touch the Book. It were best that it be opened only by the Prime Minister in presence of the Royal Council. We must give Lotzen no reason to cry forgery.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Small good would it do him, as against Frederick’s writing and my testimony. However, we can wait – the Council meets in the morning, I assume?”

“Yes; at ten o’clock, at the Palace.”

She looked up quickly. “The key?” she asked; “it was always on his watch chain – have you got it?”

“No,” said he; “I never thought of it.”

She rang the bell and sent for the Chamberlain.

“Bring me King Frederick’s watch, and the Orders he was wearing,” she said. When they came she handed the Orders to Armand.

“They are yours now, dear,” she said. She took the watch and held up the chain, from the end of which hung the small, antique key of the brass bound box, in which the Book of Laws had been kept for centuries that now reached back to tradition. She contemplated, for a moment, the swaying bit of gold and bronze, then loosed it from the ring.

“This also is yours, Sire,” she said, and proffered it to him.

But he declined. “To-morrow,” he said.

“And in the meantime?”

“If Count Epping is still in the Castle, we will let him hold it.”

The Princess nodded in approval. “Doubtless that is wiser,” she said, “though quite unprecedented; none but the King ever holds that key, save when he rides to war.”

“We are dealing with a situation that has no precedents,” he smiled; “we must make some.”

As he went toward the bell, a servant entered with a card.

“Admit him,” he said… “It is Epping,” he explained.

The Prime Minister of Valeria was one of those extraordinary exceptions that occasionally occur in public officials; he had no purpose in life but to serve his King. Without regard to his own private ends or personal ambition, he had administered his office for a generation, and Frederick trusted him as few monarchs ever trusted a powerful subject. To the Nation, he was honesty and justice incarnate, and only the King and the Princess Royal excelled him in popularity and respect. Seventy years had passed over the tall and slender figure, leaving a crown of silver above the pale, lean face, with its tight-shut mouth, high cheek bones and faded blue eyes; but they had brought no stoop to the shoulders, nor feebleness to the step, nor dullness to the brain.

He saluted Armand with formal dignity; then bent over Dehra’s hand, silently and long – and when he rose a tear was trembling on his lashes. He dashed it away impatiently and turned to the Archduke.

“Sire,” he said – and Armand, in sheer surprise, made no objection – “I have brought the proclamation announcing His late Majesty’s death and your accession. It should be published in the morning. Will it please you to sign it now?”

There are moments in life so sharp with emotion that they cut into one’s memory like a sculptor’s tool, and, ever after, stand clear-lined and cameoed against the blurred background of commonplace existence. Such was the moment at the Palace when Frederick had handed him the patents of an Archduke, and such now was this. “Sire!” the word was pounding in his brain. “Sire!” he, who, less than a year ago, was but a Major in the American Army; “Sire!” he – he – King of Valeria!

Then, through the mirage, he saw Dehra’s smiling face, and he awoke suddenly to consciousness and the need for speech, and for immediate decision. Should he sign the proclamation on the chance that the decree was in his favor, and that he was, in truth, the King? He hesitated just an instant – tempted by his own desires and by the eager eyes of the fair woman before him; then he straightened his shoulders and chose the way of prudence.

He waved the Prime Minister to a chair.

“Your pardon, my lord,” he said; “your form of address was so new and unexpected, it for the moment bound my tongue.”

The old man bowed. “I think I understand, Sire,” he said, with a smile that, for an instant, softened amazingly his stern face. “Yet, believe me, one says it to you very naturally” – and his glance strayed deliberately to the wall opposite, where hung a small copy of the Great Henry’s portrait in the uniform of the Red Huzzars. “It is very wonderful,” he commented; – “and I fancy it won you instant favor and, even now, may be, makes us willing to accept you as our King. Sometimes, Your Majesty, sentiment dominates even a nation.”

“Then I trust sentiment will be content with the physical resemblance and not examine the idol too closely.”

The Count smiled again; this time rather coldly.

“The first duty of a king is to look like one,” he said; “and sentiment demands nothing else;” and, with placid insistence, he laid the proclamation on the table beside Armand.

The latter picked it up and read it – and put it down.

“My lord,” he said, “I prefer not to exercise any prerogative of kingship until the Royal Council has examined the Book of Laws and confirmed my title under the decrees.”

The faded blue eyes looked at him contemplatively.

“I assumed there was no question as to the Succession,” he remarked.

“Nor did I mean to intimate there was,” Armand answered.

“Then, with all respect, Sire, I see no reason why you should not sign the proclamation.”

Armand shook his head. “May be I am foolish,” he said; “but I will not assume the government until after the Council to-morrow – it will do no harm to delay the proclamation for a few hours. And, in the interim, you will oblige Her Royal Highness and me by keeping this key, which she removed from King Frederick’s watch chain, but a moment before you came.”

The Count nodded and took the key.

“I recognize it,” he replied. “I know the lock it opens.”

“Good,” said Armand; “the box is at the Palace, and doubtless you also know what it contains. For reasons you may easily appreciate, I desire to avoid any imputation that the Book has been touched since His Majesty’s demise. You will produce this key at the meeting to-morrow, explaining how and where you got it; and then, in the presence of the Council, I shall open the box and if, by the Laws of the Dalbergs, I am Head of the House, I will enter into my heritage and try to keep it.”

The Prime Minister got up; gladness in his heart, though his face was quite impassive. He had come in doubt and misgiving; he was easy now – here was a man who led, a man to be served; he asked no more – he was content.

“I understand,” he said; “the proclamation can wait;” then he drew himself to his full height. “God save Your Majesty!” he ended.