"No, monseigneur. I thought perhaps you--" he looked at Stanief interrogatively. "Would accompany her?" Stanief completed the question. "Perhaps." He touched the bell, and the long regard in which he enveloped Allard held many blended emotions besides its affection. "Has madame gone to drive, Dimitri?" he inquired of that attendant. "Her Royal Highness at this moment descends the stairs, Royal Highness." "Say to her that I would be glad to see her here, now, if she is at leisure." Dimitri vanished hastily. An instant later he opened the door, and Iría came noiselessly across the threshold with the exotic, Andalusian grace that made her least movement a delight. Both gentlemen rose at her entrance. Coloring faintly, she inclined her head to Allard, and crossed to Stanief, lifting her eyes to his with a certain delicate confidence and trust. "You sent for me, monsiegneur?" she questioned, in her rippling southern voice. "I asked you to come," he corrected. "Monsieur Allard has a message for you." She turned docilely to Allard, without leaving Stanief's side. "For me, monsieur?" Stanief looked from one to the other. Very lovely was the young girl in her trailing blue velvets and furs; her golden-brown hair clustering in full, soft waves under the large hat, her golden-brown eyes warm with expectation. Iría had acquired a dainty poise, not less gentle but more assured, during these months of emancipation and freedom under the Regent's protection. Allard gazed at her with frank admiration and friendliness as he explained: "Madame, the Emperor requests the happiness of your presence this morning, if the visit will cause no disturbance of your plans." Her dimpling smile responded to a demand sufficiently familiar. Adrian's love for her had long ago outlived surprise and become an accepted fact. "Thank you, monsieur," she answered, and again looked up at Stanief. "You are going, monseigneur? We may go together?" "I intended to ask it of you, if you will wait an instant for me to arrange these papers." Allard saluted them quietly, and withdrew. Like all the rest of the city, he fancied them most happy in each other. The Regent's aversion to the marriage had been forgotten in his bearing since the first day of his fiancée's arrival. Iría sank down in an arm-chair and loosened the furs under her round white chin, laying the huge muff in her lap. Quite innocently and without shyness she followed Stanief's movements as he tossed into a drawer the writing upon which he had been engaged and dropped on top the thin, keen knife left from the recent conflict. "Monseigneur," she said at last. Stanief winced ever so slightly; there were times when the formal title fell like a drop of acid on his nerves. "Madame la Duchesse?" he retorted. Iría laughed out in her surprise, all unconscious of his meaning. "Monseigneur, are you going to send Marya away from me?"