Truxton King

"I am quite sure of that," he said. "Are you in trouble, Countess? Is there anything I can do?"

"It has to do with the Prince, not with me," she said. "And yet I am in trouble--or perhaps I should say, I am troubled."

"The Prince is a sturdy little beggar," he began, but she lifted her hand in protest.

"And he has sturdy, loyal friends. That is agreed. And yet--" she paused, a perplexed line coming between her expressive eyes.

John Tullis opened his own eyes very wide. "You don't mean to say that he is--he is in peril of any sort?"

She looked at him a long time before speaking. He could feel that she was turning something over in her mind before giving utterance to the thought.

At last she leaned nearer to him, dropping the ash from her cigarette into the receiver as she spoke slowly, intensely. "I think he is in peril--in deadly peril."

He stared hard. "What do you mean?" he demanded, with an involuntary glance over his shoulder. She interpreted that glance correctly.

"The peril is not here, Mr. Tullis. I know what you are thinking. My father is a loyal subject. The peril I suggest never comes to Graustark."

She said no more but leaned forward, her face whiter than its wont. He frowned, but it was the effect of temporary perplexity. Gradually the meaning of her simple, though significant remark filtered through his brain.

"Never comes to Graustark?" he almost whispered. "You don't--you can't mean your--your husband?"

"I mean Count Marlanx," she said steadily.

"He means evil to Prince Robin? Good Heavens, Countess, I--I can't believe it. I know he is bitter, revengeful, and all that, but--"

"He is all that and more," she said. "First, you must let me impress you that I am not a traitor to his cause. I could not be that, for the sufficient reason that I only suspect its existence. I am not in any sense a part of it. I do not know anything. I only feel. I dare say you realise that I do not love Count Marlanx--that there is absolutely nothing in common between us except a name. We won't go into that. I--"

"I am overjoyed to hear you say this, Countess," he said very seriously. "I have been so bold on occasion as to assert--for your private ear, of course--that you could not, by any freak of nature, happen to care for Count Marlanx, whom I know only by description. You have laughed at my so-called American wit, and you have been most tolerant. Now, I feel that I am justified. I'm immeasurably glad to hear you confess that you do not love your husband."