art, for my very soul loathes you!"

She sank into a chair in a passion of tears, and Alec bent over her. He
spoke no word to her; but his hand rested gently around her neck while
his eyes traveled from Michael's gray-green face to Julius Marulitch's
white one.

"I think we have all heard sufficient of the Delgrado history to render
unnecessary any further comment on my decision to relinquish an honor
that, it would appear, I had no right to accept," he said. "I have
gained my end, though by a strange path. Will you please leave me with
my mother?"

The one man present who felt completely out of his depth in this sea of
discord took it upon himself to cry pathetically:

"The door is locked, your--your Majesty!"

"Ah, forgive me, Monsieur Nesimir," said Alec, with a friendly smile. "I
had forgotten that. And, now that I come to think of it, I still have
something to say; but we need not detain my mother to hear an
uninteresting conversation. Pardon me one moment, while I attend to
her."

CHAPTER XIV

THE BROKEN TREATY

Alec unlocked the door. The laconic Bosko returned his all sufficing
"_Oui, monsieur_," to the request that he would bring Mademoiselle
Joan's French maid to Princess Delgrado, since it was in Alec's mind
that Pauline might be discreet.

Prince Michael, Beliani, Marulitch, and Nesimir had already formed
themselves into a whispering group. Stampoff was seated apart, morose
and thoughtful. The old man's elbows rested on his knees and his chin
was propped between his bony fists. Princess Delgrado had flung herself
forward on the table. Her face was hidden by her outstretched arms. This
attitude of abandonment, the clenched hands, the convulsive heaving of
her shoulders, were eloquent of tempest tossed emotions. She looked so
forlorn that her son was tempted to return to her side without delay;
but instead he walked quietly toward the four men clustered in the
center of the room. They started apart and faced him nervously. It
seemed that even yet they feared lest some uncontrolled gust of anger
might lead Alec to fling himself blindly upon them. Had they but known
it, he despised them too greatly to think of mauling them.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I have one small request to make. Give me your
word of honor--I will take it for what it is worth--that to-night's
happenings shall remain unknown to the outer world, and that there will
be no interference with my mother or myself before we leave D