"Like that," he was declaring hotly, speaking English in his preoccupation, "and Dalmorov sneered, listening. 'My cousin is having his fine old country-place in the mountains renovated, Allard, so I am informed.' 'I know nothing, sire,' I said. 'He is very far-sighted,' he answered coolly. Monseigneur, I will not go back; I came here to tell you that. I am weary of watching it; I will stay with you. I can come here as I always hoped to do, giving to you, not asking. Let me finish, please. The Emperor has been generous to me, however little so to you, and I am modestly rich in my own right. Why, the pension accompanying the star and order he gave me after that attempt to kill him, that alone is more than my solitary life requires. My tastes are simple--that automobile about which you laugh at me is not as you think. It is my pride to have regained my independence, monseigneur; to be able to come to you, free, and offer to do your secretary's work, Vasili's, what you choose, but to do it as a service of love. Long ago, on the _Nadeja_, I lent myself to aid your purpose, to make it mine. And now you have carried it through; next week the Emperor will be crowned. Now I claim the right to return to you; the work is done." "John--" "You can not refuse me that," he cried. "You have taken my life and made it center around you, now you can not bid me tear that core out and go on." As on their first night together, Stanief stretched his hand across the table for his companion's clasp. "No," he answered lovingly, "we can not go on without each other. If you will stay with a sinking ship, come; I am selfish enough to let you. But the charge I gave you is not finished, nor my purpose yet fulfilled. You must go back until next week is over." "The Emperor--" Allard began incredulously. "The Emperor needs you more than ever before. There are too many people who cling to the peace of the last years, who dread change and would force me upon the throne at any cost. The Empire--not Adrian's court--the vast middle class, the merchants, the quiet, staid aristocracy, the very peasants, want all to continue as it is. If I were still to govern with the Emperor they would rest content, but they see it will not be so. They fear Adrian, they know and detest Dalmorov and the party he represents. And they are not careful in their methods of obtaining what they want. John, if you knew the veiled insinuations, the bold offers, the tempters who pursue me night and day; if you knew how they watch for the hours when Adrian has been most hard, how they skilfully touch my pride, my patriotism, my resentment and knowledge of injustice, if you lived my life for twenty-four hours, then you might speak of weariness. But the worst--" Aghast, Allard stared at him, deep after deep of the inner court opening before his dizzy gaze. "The worst?" he repeated mechanically.