“Simply that I should have become too powerful. You know me as I really am, dearest, a broken-down cobbler, patching things clumsily together. But to Scythia, which means Soudaroff, I am a plotter of the most dangerous type, at the head of a widespread conspiracy for establishing myself as ruler of Palestine, and bent on strengthening my position by royal alliances. You know, and I know, that when we quit Europe it will be to return to Sitt Zeynab and not leave it again, but end our days there in peace, away from the politics which nowadays I can’t touch without spoiling. But Soudaroff thinks, and very naturally too, after all the pains that have been taken to impress it upon him, that my leaving will be the sign for a desperate attempt--which he, knowing me as I was, believes will be successful--to oust the Scythian garrison from Jerusalem. If I have the additional support of the Schwarzwald-Molzau influence behind me, as he would infer if Usk was allowed to marry Helene, surely it is clear that his only chance is to put me out of the way?” “Cyril, you terrify me. Let us leave things to settle themselves, and go back to the desert at once.” “No, no; we’ll see the young folks out of the wood if we can. Though how we are to get things settled if Usk refuses to bring Félicia to book, I don’t know.” Usk, in the meantime, had gone to Nicholson’s rooms, and found the invalid sitting up in bed, his bright eyes looking ghastly by contrast with his hollow cheeks. “Thought you’d be coming in,” he said, “and I wouldn’t lie down, for fear I should go to sleep, though Jenkins has been at me incessantly. Look here; I wanted to show you this.” He held out the page of a newspaper, which had the unfamiliar look peculiar to English printed with French type. It was one of the ephemeral society sheets which spring up once or twice a season in the larger health resorts, and after enjoying a brief _succès de scandale_, suddenly sink out of existence. Usk looked at the passage to which he pointed:-- “Tuesday’s Carnival procession was quite the best and most fashionably attended of late years, and bearers of nearly every well-known name in Europe took part in it or were among the spectators. Observed of all observers were the ‘Famille Pierrot en deuil,’ comprising two ladies and two gentlemen attired in Pierrot costumes with deep black borders. The idea was most cleverly carried out, down to the black pompons which adorned the white sugar-loaf hats of the two Pierrettes; and universal admiration was attracted by the _abandon_ with which the wearers threw themselves into all the fun of the occasion. It is whispered that one of the Pierrots was the youthful monarch of a Balkan State, whose whole-hearted gaiety has given great delight to Nice this season; and that the ladies were the fascinating American tenants of one of the florally-named villas in the Croix de Marbre, whom he honours with a good deal of his society.”