"You do not understand me, sire," he said, very quietly. "Or, understanding, you do not pardon one who serves you even against your will. I am thirty-two years old; it is my comfort to believe that when you reach my age, when jealousy and anger have passed away and perhaps taken me with them, that you will think differently of Feodor Stanief. Will you allow me to order some refreshment brought?" he added. Adrian moved then, and the color rushed over his cheeks as he struck one small open palm on the arm of his chair. "I understand you," he cried passionately. "Oh, I understand! Can I trust you? It is that, Feodor. No one speaks his thoughts to me; every one _lies_. The Emperor told me that many times before he died. 'Do not trust your cousin,' he whispered to me on the last day. 'Then I must trust Dalmorov?' I asked. 'No,' he said, 'no; better Feodor than him. Trust no one.' And now you ask it of me." "Yet you came here to-night, sire," Stanief reminded him. "Because I must trust some one. Because I know Dalmorov and his falseness, while I do not know you, cousin." "Then I ask you only to suspend judgment until you do, sire. A regent there must be, I, or another if I die--" "I would rather have you than any one else in the world." "There is no one--I speak knowing our court--no one else whose pride and honor so compel him to loyalty. And I stand in grievous need of your protection, my imperial cousin." Adrian's head lifted haughtily. "Of my protection! You, now?" "I, now. Through you, if you lend your name to their use, my enemies can make the task I have set myself difficult beyond description." The kindling fire had caught, at last; with the first boyish impulsiveness of the interview Adrian's response flashed to meet the appeal. "You need not fear that! You need not fear me." "Thank you, sire," Stanief answered, simply and gravely. There was a pause. Allard wondered, as he discreetly observed the two, just what would have been the result if Stanief had brought less convincing seriousness to answer his cousin's sensitive pride and incredulity. "I have come alone," Adrian mused, with a half-sigh, "with Gregor. He does what I wish because he knows Dalmorov hates him and he is afraid to stand alone. So when I bade him bring me here secretly to-night, after I had presumably retired, he obeyed. I like to be obeyed." The expression of several moments before returned transiently. A playfully earnest warning of the other cousin's recurred to the listener; it appeared that both had "the habit of domination." "And so I must return at once, or they may discover I have gone. But I am glad I came, cousin; it seems easier now."