will be up to--and you and I here,
unknown, unrecorded,--you and I, the brains, the eyes, the organizers of
the whole affair! Oh, it makes me sick when I remember how I stood like
a stuck pig in old Delgrado's flat and let the son jump in and snatch
from the father's hands the scepter I had purchased so dearly!"

The Greek rose languidly, strolled to the door, and threw it open. A
page boy was in the lobby, and it was easy to see by his innocent face
that his presence there was inspired by no more sinister motive than to
deliver a newspaper.

Beliani took it, closed the door, listened a moment, and unfolded the
damp sheet. He glanced at its foreign news.

"'Le Soir' gives prominence to a rumor that King Alexis will marry a
Montenegrin Princess," he murmured composedly.

"Mirabel, of course?"

"She is unnamed."

"That's it. I know, I know! He will marry Mirabel. By Heaven! if he
does, I'll shoot him myself!"

"The trial of the regicides is fixed for June," went on Beliani, wholly
unmoved by Marulitch's vehemence. "Now, the vital question is, How far
can Stampoff be relied on?"

"How does our reliance on Stampoff concern Mirabel?"

"I am not thinking of Mirabel, but of Julius and Constantine. If
Stampoff tells our young Bayard everything, Delgratz is no place for you
and me, my veteran."

Marulitch, though trembling with passion, could not fail to see that the
Greek was remarkably nonchalant for one who had witnessed the utter
collapse of ten years of work and expenditure.

"Are we going there?" he managed to ask without a curse.

"Soon, quite soon, provided Stampoff keeps a still tongue."

"But why? To grace the coronation by our presence?"

"It may be. Remember, if you please, that we are Alec's best friends. We
gave him his chance. I offered to finance him; did finance Stampoff in
fact. We are unknown personally to the officers of the Seventh. That was
wise, Julius, far-seeing, on my part. Oh, yes, we must go to Delgratz.
Delgratz is the nerve center now."

"You are keeping something from me."

"On my honor, no. But you sneered at my parable of the successful
gambler, whereas I believe in it implicitly. I have seen that type of
fool backing the red, staking his six thousand francs on every coup, and
have watched a run of twelve, thirteen, seventeen, twenty-one; but the
smash came at last."

"What matter? A man who wins twenty times can well afford to lose once."

"I said a gambler, not a financie