An Uncrowned King Chapter 8 Part 3

“I am sure you must see,” Cyril went on quietly, “that both for her sake and his we must get this matter settled without any fuss.”

“If she marries him, I don’t think a little trouble would hurt her,” said Nadia, enviously.

“I hope it may be so. But you must remember that this marriage would be an arranged thing—a literal mariage de convenance, indeed. We could hardly expect her to feel towards Caerleon as—as you do, and although, if she cared for him, she might overlook even a scandal, yet if she did not, the merest whisper might turn her against him. Without considering her feelings in such a case at all, you must remember that it would be very painful indeed for Caerleon. I am sure you would not wish their married life to be unhappy.”

“If she married him for the sake of the crown, she would deserve to be unhappy,” said Nadia.

“I am afraid we must leave that to her own conscience,” said Cyril.

“Conscience!” cried Nadia, “and what of yours? If the King ever discovers what you have been doing this morning, I think—I should be almost sorry—even for you.”

“I leave myself in your hands, you see, in perfect confidence.”

“Oh yes, honour among thieves!” said Nadia, bitterly. “We are both plotting against the King, and therefore we may well keep faith with one another. Have you delivered all your messages now, Lord Cyril? If so, I must ask you to go, for I am busy. Pray ring for a waiter to attend you down-stairs.”

She gave him a distant bow, and remained standing by the table, tall and rigid, until he was out of sight, then dragged herself slowly across the corridor to her own room, groping with outspread hands as though she had been in darkness, opened the door, entered, locked it, and threw herself on the floor, a shuddering, sobbing heap.

“Quite an exciting morning!” said Cyril to himself, as he strolled back to the palace. “It’s a pity that that Nadia girl can’t be queen, after all. She is cut out for ruling a nation given to revolutions, like this one. I can fancy her facing a yelling mob without turning a hair. But melodrama in daily life is a bore. After our conversation one feels mean, somehow—rather as if one had been committing murder.”

All unconscious of what Nadia stigmatised as the plot against his happiness, Caerleon spent the morning in the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, listening, with what patience he might, to speeches of which he could not understand a word. It was his first opportunity of making the acquaintance of the other members of the Drakovics Ministry, who were on ordinary occasions rather cast into the shade by the commanding personality of their chief. The greater number of them were country gentlemen, belonging to the class of landed proprietors which formed the backbone of the nation, since each man’s tenants and villagers followed his lead in peace and war as his feudal vassals. Living in rude plenty, untouched by the influence of western luxury, on their own estates, these chieftains had found their patriotic and religious instincts outraged by the irregular life and Scythian sympathies of the late king, and they had given their support loyally to M. Drakovics at the time of the revolution, believing him to be the only man who could save the State from the various dangers which threatened it. They had accepted posts in the Administration merely in order that the prestige of their names might assist the Premier in his task, and he reciprocated the service by allowing them to remain at their ease in the country unless their presence was demanded at the capital on some important occasion, such as a parliamentary crisis; but they had rallied around him to-day in their full strength without being summoned, conspicuous in their rich national costume, magnificent with fur and gold embroideries. Caerleon they were prepared to welcome as the Premier’s choice, but their first meeting with him disposed them to take a fancy to him for his own sake; and when some one had remembered that the English were supposed to be, as a nation, lovers of sport, he received so many invitations to come and hunt various animals that he might have imagined that life in Thracia was mainly devoted to the chase.