"There is nothing to call me home, sire," he replied. "My brother is not living, and my cousin, who was betrothed to him, has no wish or need of me. I think I never want to see the place as it is now. My life is here." "You loved her," Adrian said calmly. "How much you give one another, you quiet, gray-eyed people! Do not look like that, Allard;" he actually smiled. "I am too used to my intricate and intriguing subjects to fail in reading your truthfulness. And I have not watched you with the ladies of the court without learning that some woman, one that you loved, sat at the door of your heart." Allard wavered between exasperation and helpless dismay at the other's acuteness; there were occasions when his Imperial Majesty was almost uncanny. But he ended by remaining silent, as usual. Adrian at fourteen had been anything but a child; now, at sixteen, he was fairly matched with Stanief himself, and the lesser players stood back at a distance from the contest of wills. From those players Allard had learned the wise habit of drawing aside to let the Emperor's moods sweep past. "You and Iría," Adrian added, after a moment during which his thin, high-bred face hardened strangely and not happily, "you two at least are transparent, and free from under-thoughts. What time is it?" Allard glanced at his watch. "Eleven o'clock, sire." "You need not go when the Grand Duke arrives; I may want you afterward. Allard--" "Sire?" "I have been kind to you, if to no one else, I think. Kind, and constant. Perhaps I have guarded you from more pitfalls set by envy than you can conceive, or would credit. And you have served me, not Feodor or another. If you were forced to the choice now, would you follow the Regent or me?" The question could not have been more unexpected or more difficult. Allard caught his breath, utterly at a loss. Deceive Adrian he would not. To forsake Stanief even in appearance was not to be considered, and yet to exasperate the jealous and exacting Emperor still further against his cousin was bitterly unnecessary. "Sire--" "Go on." But he could not go on, his ideas in hopeless confusion. "I am waiting." "Sire, the Regent," he admitted with desperate candor. Adrian laid his pencil carefully on the map and closed the atlas, saying nothing at all. Allard flushed to the roots of his fair hair. "Not that I am ungrateful," he protested in hot distress. "Not that I do not remember, do not understand all that you have done for me, sire. And against you I would serve no one, not even him. I would hold my life a slight thing to give either of you. Sire," he took a step forward, his ardent gaze seeking the other's comprehension, "before the brother I loved, the woman I love, before any call, I would follow the Regent. He--I have no words for it. It is not that my loyalty to your Majesty is less, but that he claims me against the world."