this sounds heroic and therefore unconvincing," he said. "I do not
want to condemn your motives before I know them, Joan; but I hope you
will allow me to criticize false sentiment," he added, seeing the
expression of pain that for an instant mastered her stoicism and threw
its dull shadow across her face.

"Say what pleases you, Felix," she replied gently. "I shall not suffer
more than I have already endured. I think I am benumbed now; but at
least I am sure that I have acted right. There were influences at work
in Delgratz of which even you had no cognizance. Popular as Alec seemed
to be, every prejudice of the Serb was arrayed against him. He appealed
to the imagination of the people as a brave and gallant figure; but he
is and will ever remain a foreigner among them. They are a race apart,
and Alec is not of them, and it would have been a fatal error to give
them as a Queen another foreigner like himself.

"Alone, he will win his way. In the course of years he cannot fail to
identify himself more and more with their interests; he will--some
day--marry a Princess of the blood to which he belongs. That will help
Kosnovia to forget that he was neither born nor bred in the country, and
the presence of a Serbian consort will tend to consolidate his reign. It
would have been quite different if he and I were married within a few
weeks. Those who are opposed to him--and they are far more numerous than
you may guess at this moment--would have been given a most powerful
argument by the refusal of the Greek archimandrite to perform the
ceremony. You see, Alec himself is not a member of the national church,
nor am I, and a drawback that may be overlooked when a Slav Princess
becomes Queen of Kosnovia would have been a fatal thing for me."

Poluski could not but admire Joan's splendid detachment in speaking of
Alec's hypothetical wife. His thin lips creased in a satirical grin. "Is
that it," said he, "the everlasting religious difficulty? No, my belle,
tell that to the marines, or, at any rate, to some guileless person not
versed in Kosnovian history! There never yet was bloodstained conqueror
or evil living Prince in that unhappy city of Delgratz who failed to
obtain the sanction of orthodoxy for his worst deeds, whether in
beheading a rival or divorcing a wife."

Joan hesitated. She was obviously choosing her words; but the burden
laid upon her was too great for the hour to prevent her from adopting a
subterfuge that would s