he ante-chamber."

I joined him directly, passing my arm through his. The look on his
face was honey to me. We entered the ante-chamber in fraternal fashion.
Michael beckoned, and three men came forward.

"These gentlemen," said Michael, with a stately courtesy which, to
do him justice, he could assume with perfect grace and ease, "are the
loyalest and most devoted of your Majesty's servants, and are my very
faithful and attached friends."

"On the last ground as much as the first," said I, "I am very pleased to
see them."

They came one by one and kissed my hand--De Gautet, a tall lean fellow,
with hair standing straight up and waxed moustache; Bersonin, the
Belgian, a portly man of middle height with a bald head (though he was
not far past thirty); and last, the Englishman, Detchard, a narrow-faced
fellow, with close-cut fair hair and a bronzed complexion. He was a
finely made man, broad in the shoulder and slender in the hips. A good
fighter, but a crooked customer, I put him down for. I spoke to him in
English, with a slight foreign accent, and I swear the fellow smiled,
though he hid the smile in an instant.

"So Mr. Detchard is in the secret," thought I.

Having got rid of my dear brother and his friends, I returned to make my
adieu to my cousin. She was standing at the door. I bade her farewell,
taking her hand in mine.

"Rudolf," she said, very low, "be careful, won't you?"

"Of what?"

"You know--I can't say. But think what your life is to--"

"Well to--?"

"To Ruritania."

Was I right to play the part, or wrong to play the part? I know not:
evil lay both ways, and I dared not tell her the truth.

"Only to Ruritania?" I asked softly.

A sudden flush spread over her incomparable face.

"To your friends, too," she said.

"Friends?"

"And to your cousin," she whispered, "and loving servant."

I could not speak. I kissed her hand, and went out cursing myself.

Outside I found Master Fritz, quite reckless of the footmen, playing at
cat's-cradle with the Countess Helga.

"Hang it!" said he, "we can't always be plotting. Love claims his
share."

"I'm inclined to think he does," said I; and Fritz, who had been by my
side, dropped respectfully behind.

CHAPTER 9

A New Use for a Tea-table

If I were to detail the ordinary events of my daily life at this time,
they might prove instructive to people who are not familiar with the
inside of palaces; if I revealed some of the secrets