"It is Dalmorov again, and always," he declared savagely. "Monseigneur, I never thought myself vindictive, but surely it is time for his reckoning. You once said you would crush him while you could; to-morrow--" "To-morrow I can not," Stanief completed. "That is very true, John; to-morrow I can do nothing, nothing at all. _Sic transit_--you know the rest." For the first time he had received Allard in the apartments of the Grand Duchess, and Iría was seated by her husband in rapt and silent content. They also had returned recently from the palace; the shining folds of Iría's court dress lay over the floor in billows of rose-and-silver; again she wore the pearls whose tinted beauty echoed the soft luster of her face. "To-morrow!" Allard exclaimed impetuously. "Monseigneur, monseigneur, it is a quarter to twelve!" "So late? Well, so I would have the day find us: together. My Empire has shrunk to this room, yet left me a universe. For Dalmorov, be satisfied. Down in my desk are papers that can send him to a prison or a scaffold, as I choose. I have not been idle or forgetful; I thought of you." "And we waste time! We who count minutes," he sprang to his feet, afire. Stanief rested his head against the back of the chair, quieting the other's energy with a curious smile. "My dear John, I have had those papers for two months; two months ago I sent to England the poor wretch who earned his pardon by aiding me to get them." Stunned, Allard gazed at him. "Two months?" he repeated. "Two months?" All the long catalogue of insults, annoyances and petty wrongs rose before him, the open warfare and secret insinuations; slowly he gathered comprehension of the singular expression with which Stanief frequently had regarded his rival on such occasions. "Perhaps I liked to play with him," the level voice resumed. "Perhaps I did not care to deprive the Emperor of his companion while I had still so much work to be done. But I think I waited because of a quixotic dislike to using my superior strength of position against an antagonist; to being both accuser and judge. I am not a child, I have no intention of letting him escape and work mischief undisturbed; simply I leave him to Adrian's justice." "Then you--" "I shall give the evidence to the Emperor after the coronation and before I leave the city. If he chooses to pardon Dalmorov, very good; my part is done. However, I would not value the baron's chances much. My cousin is--my cousin." "Yes," Allard admitted reluctantly, he too knew the steel-hard Adrian. "Only, it seems a pity to give him to-morrow." Stanief laughed. "And I fancied you Americans good-natured! Let Dalmorov go with all the glittering wreckage of my regency. I have found the better part."