to-o 
 
 THE BINDWEED
 
 THE BINDWEED 
 
 A Romantic Novel 
 concerning the late Queen of Servia 
 
 BY 
 
 NELLIE K. BLISSETT 
 
 AUTHOR OF "FROM THE UNSOUNDED SEA" AND 
 "MOST FAMOUS LOBA " 
 
 1904 
 
 THE MANN VYNNE PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 LONDON NEW YORK
 
 Copyright, 1904 
 
 BY 
 E. MANN VYNNE
 
 Let us sit upon the ground 
 And tell sad stories of the death of kings'. 
 How some have been depos'd, some slain in war, 
 Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd, 
 Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd, 
 All murder 'd. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 2134533
 
 THE BINDWEED 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 E.NE ran up the stairs singing. 
 The stairs were long and steep, in one 
 of those high old houses that overhang 
 the two rushing rivers one from the East, one 
 from the West which, mingling, rush together 
 for a while in the city where East and West 
 mingle strangely on the frontier of a world of 
 dreams. Below, the two rivers flow quietly 
 side by side; above, gray and red roofs and 
 jutting, perilous windows make a picturesque 
 confusion of color and form, and black-haired, 
 wild-eyed women look out across the hurrying 
 waters, calling to each other from house to 
 house and balcony to balcony in a strange tongue. 
 The house where Liane lived was a little more 
 tumble-down than its fellows, a little more gray 
 and red and weather-beaten, a little more in- 
 clined to let in the rain in winter, and the sun in 
 summer; but in Salitza all houses do this more 
 or less. It had balconies looking across the 
 river, and Liane had grown a great pink rose in 
 a broken pot on that smallest, highest balcony of 
 all where the poor Markovitch family had their 
 tiny flat under the red tiles fierce old Stepan,
 
 2 THE BINDWEED 
 
 and mischievous Pavlo, the eldest boy, and little 
 Mikhail, the youngest, and Liane herself, who 
 spent her days in the big French shop on the 
 Boulevard Mikhail II, called poetically and 
 perhaps not without a certain amount of truth 
 the " Paradis des Dames." Liane was young and 
 pretty and miraculously quick of finger and eye, 
 with something of the unerring, instinctive taste 
 of her French mother, whom Stepan Markovitch 
 had married from the very same establishment 
 nearly twenty years ago. 
 
 The fierce old corporal of Royal Guards, with 
 his long mustache and martial air and the very 
 small pension, not too regularly paid, which was 
 his reward for years of service to an exacting 
 master, lounging one day in the sun on the 
 Boulevard Mikhail II, had seen the little 
 French girl go tripping down the street and 
 made up his mind with a promptitude character- 
 istic of his race. Next day the stout Parisian 
 who kept the shop received a visitor who fright- 
 ened her terribly until she made out his errand. 
 Then she sent for little Elise Caron and pre- 
 sented to her a suitor whose very appearance 
 would have sent most girls of her age and up- 
 bringing into hysterics. But little Elise Caron, 
 daughter of the most frivolous, if also the most 
 tragic, city in the world, felt the fascination of 
 the savage, the unexplored, the unknown. Per- 
 haps she had in her, developed in an unusual 
 degree, that passion for experiment, for explora- 
 tion, which all women have who are gifted with 
 any imagination at all. She married Stepan
 
 THE BINDWEED 3 
 
 Markovitch, corporal retired of the Guard, 
 and went to live in the high house over the river, 
 and the Boulevard Mikhail II knew her no 
 more. 
 
 It was a strange marriage enough, this union 
 of the East and the West, of two people who 
 could hardly speak the same tongue without mak- 
 ing a hundred mistakes ; perhaps for that reason 
 it succeeded as many marriages do not which are 
 entered into under apparently much more favor- 
 able circumstances. Elise never regretted the 
 day on which old Stepan saw her running down 
 the street. She died when her third child was 
 born, leaving Stepan inconsolable; and Liane, 
 gay and quick as herself, went to the " Paradis 
 des Dames " in her place. 
 
 Liane was a favorite in the shop. If a more 
 than usually captious customer was to be 
 charmed or cajoled, it was Liane who was called 
 for to do it; if a bow would not come right, or a 
 stupid apprentice had blundered, it was Liane 
 who was in request to repair the error; if a hat 
 had to be sent home in a hurry, it was Liane who 
 could be trusted to run all the way and not linger 
 to gossip with a friend. To Liane fell, in con- 
 sequence, many of the little privileges of her 
 kind a few yards of ribbon here, a shop-soiled 
 blouse there, a hat which would not sell but 
 which looked charming set off by Liane's dark 
 eyes and rosy cheeks trifles which make the 
 happiness of such unimportant little probation- 
 ers of fortune, and make, sometimes, their fates 
 as well. Perhaps it was in that very hat which
 
 4 THE BINDWEED 
 
 would not sell that a certain rather ugly German 
 in a blouse marked with machine oil and grease 
 saw her running along the Boulevard Mikhail 
 II and lost his soft heart to her at once and for 
 ever, after the sentimental and dashing fashion 
 of his race. 
 
 But all this time Liane is waiting on the stairs. 
 
 In reality, it took her hardly a moment to dash 
 up them and precipitate herself into the little 
 sitting-room. Pavlo was astride a chair, whis- 
 tling a wild country dance; little Mikhail was 
 on his knees before the stove making the coffee 
 which their French mother had taught them all 
 to make and love. Pavlo stopped in the middle 
 of his whistling and looked around as his sister 
 came in. 
 
 " Late, as usual, mademoiselle," he said in 
 French. " Have you been catching an officer of 
 the Guard for our supper? " 
 
 " An officer of the Guard ! " She fell on little 
 Mikhail, and with the skill born of long prac- 
 tice, caught up the coffee-pot before it boiled 
 over. " What use should I have for an officer of 
 the Guard, silly boy? " 
 
 " You might marry him, and get him to make 
 Mikhail and me generals," suggested Pavlo 
 practically. " Then we could all live in a big 
 house on the Boulevard Valitzine and have meat 
 all the year around and fish on Sundays. Liane, 
 go out at once and catch that officer of the 
 Guard!" 
 
 " I am going to have my supper first," she 
 laughed. " Afterwards we will see about it."
 
 THE BINDWEED 5 
 
 Little Mikhail fell back on the rug, and 
 looked up reproachfully at his brother. 
 
 " Liane is going to marry Fritz, and not a 
 horrid, stuck-up officer with spurs and waxed 
 mustaches," he announced. 
 
 Liane turned round with the coffee-pot in her 
 hand. 
 
 "Fritz!" she flashed. "Fritz! Do you 
 think I am going to do anything so foolish? 
 Why, Fritz hasn't a penny in the world, and 
 never will have." 
 
 " Wrong, mademoiselle. Fritz has just been 
 made foreman of the works down the river the 
 new ones. Oh, Fritz is not a parti to be sneered 
 at now, I can tell you. Fritz is a young man 
 with a future, and if you are wise you will think 
 twice before you refuse him. And he's about 
 the best fellow in Salitza," added Pavlo with 
 sturdy loyalty. 
 
 " Fritz is a dear," chimed in little Mikhail 
 from his corner, whither he had retired to nurse 
 the cat. 
 
 " And I'm to marry him because you and Mik- 
 hail are silly about him!" Liane cried. "Do 
 you think I am so ugly I couldn't find anyone 
 else?" 
 
 " Vain little girl ! " mocked Pavlo. " I never 
 said you were not quite pretty enough to marry a 
 king, did I?" 
 
 Liane laughed, soothed by the implied com- 
 pliment. 
 
 " I had my fortune told the other day," she 
 said, " and do you know it was just that."
 
 6 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " Just what? " cried Pavlo and Mikhail to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Why, that I should marry a king, stupid. 
 There, now take care how you treat me, or when 
 I am queen I shall say * Off with their heads! ' as 
 they do in the fairy-tales, and that will be the end 
 of you. Now get up and have supper, and 
 don't be foolish, and afterwards we will go for a 
 walk. Father will not be home till late." 
 
 They sat down to supper cabbage-soup, and 
 coarse bread with no butter. It was a meal at 
 which the poorest of English laborers would 
 have turned up his solid British nose, but they 
 ate it merrily, with simple, familiar little jokes 
 and innocent laughter. The sound of the rush- 
 ing rivers came up to them from below and a 
 band was playing in a cafe not far off, and they 
 were young and happy and the coffee was deli- 
 cious. Also it was summer and they had not a 
 care in the world. What did it matter to them 
 what they had to eat, so long as it was enough to 
 keep them from going hungry? 
 
 Long afterwards Liane remembered that 
 supper Pavlo's fun and little Mikhail's earn- 
 est face and the sound of the singing river and 
 the smell of cabbage-soup. 
 
 The meal was soon over, and, Liane's jacket 
 found, little Mikhail hustled into his best blouse. 
 They raced each other down the stairs, and 
 emerged hot and panting into the street. Lamps 
 were beginning to flicker at the corners of the 
 narrow, winding ways along the riverside; in 
 the cafe someone was singing to the accompani-
 
 THE BINDWEED 7 
 
 ment of a violin an air so wild and savage that 
 it seemed to take the listener back into long- 
 past ages of bloodshed and warfare to deeds 
 too dark to bear the light of modern day. 
 Liane shivered, and drew little Mikhail quickly 
 past the cafe door. 
 
 Once on the broad Ostraya Bridge which 
 leads from the old quarter across the river to 
 the newer town, the home of the nobles and the 
 place of commerce, there were no more wailing 
 songs, but only gaiety and light the white, 
 dazzling radiance of electric lamps all down 
 the Boulevard Mikhail II, and farther still, 
 twinkling like stars on a frosty night among the 
 fresh spring foliage of the gardens that line the 
 Boulevard Valitzine right on and on until the 
 long vista of little lights ended in a great half- 
 circle of pale splendor over the old West Gate 
 of the king's palace. 
 
 On the Boulevard Mikhail II the shops shone 
 warm and brilliant, their windows filled with 
 gorgeously colored goods designed to catch the 
 barbaric Salitzan eye. Red and blue cottons, 
 vivid as the plumage of a macaw, lengths of 
 crisp silk in orange and purple and rose; fat, 
 twisted ropes of beads, blue and gold and green, 
 strings of imitation pearls, and uncut turquoise. 
 All these in the commoner shops, but in the bet- 
 ter ones were Paris hats, and dainty collars of 
 lace and muslin, and pale tints, and a general 
 marked increase of articles likely to suit more 
 educated, if less decided, tastes. Then shops 
 full, even to the doorways, of flowers roses and
 
 8 THE BINDWEED 
 
 lilies-of-the-valley in great sheaves of delicate 
 sweetness, and bouquets of tube-roses, all in 
 quaintly shaped pots and jars of green pottery 
 which glittered in the light as though shot 
 through with all the tints of the rainbow. Then 
 came jeweler's shops with heavily barred win- 
 dows behind which gleamed coyly, as though 
 chary of their own beauty, diamonds, emeralds 
 and rubies in necklets and rings and bracelets, 
 and great stars, crescents and aerial aigrettes for 
 the hair, powdered with diamonds as though 
 with fine dust all transfigured by the soft 
 shaded electric lamps hung cunningly above 
 them just out of reach of the eye, and set off by 
 shining pillows of white satin or little velvet- 
 lined cases of red and green leather. 
 
 Moving to and fro before all these glories, a 
 crowd no less striking than the contents of the 
 shops. Peasants from the country, in their 
 rough clothes with gaudy handkerchiefs setting 
 off their wild features and black locks ; officers 
 in uniforms of a dozen colors, glittering with 
 gold or silver lace; beautiful women of the 
 great world of Salitza, emerging like butterflies 
 from the doors of the fashionable restaurants in 
 which they had been dining before going on to 
 the New Theatre or the opera-house beyond the 
 palace at the far end of the Boulevard Mikhail 
 the Pious; old gentlemen in immaculate shirt- 
 fronts no whiter than their imperials, escorting 
 pretty daughters or granddaughters smiling at 
 their first taste of gaiety; young gentlemen 
 these last mostly in uniform also convoying
 
 THE iBINDWEED 9 
 
 troops of chattering, laughing women in mi- 
 raculous dresses from Paris or Vienna. The 
 confusion of tongues would have done credit to 
 the Tower of Babel French, German, Italian, 
 English and guttural, barbaric-sounding Sa- 
 litzan. And, over all, was the clear night sky, 
 dark as purple velvet and sprinkled with stars, 
 with a pale young moon rising like a specter of 
 herself above the imposing loops and festoons 
 of iron-work on the Ostraya Bridge; around 
 all, the perfume of flowers, the refrain of a 
 waltz from a great mansion on the river bank 
 where moving couples showed against the 
 lighted and unfastened windows, the sound of 
 girls laughing, the rich, occasional trill of a 
 nightingale in the Ostraya Gardens. 
 
 To Liane Markovitch it was all enchantment. 
 She was silent as she walked along holding 
 Mikhail's hand, and hardly understood the gay 
 stream of chatter which flowed incessantly from 
 Pavlo's lips. It was the great hour of her day, 
 this evening promenade along the lighted boule- 
 vards in which she, the little insignificant 
 milliner of the " Paradis des Dames" became 
 for a time, at least, a citizen of the world and 
 felt the tides of life flowing round her, touching 
 her, almost lifting her from her feet as though 
 to bear her away with them, she knew not 
 whither. It was a current from a world be- 
 yond her own, a world of women in Parisian 
 dresses and officers in gay uniforms, and its very 
 contact, the careless strength of its irresistible 
 onward flow, filled her with a curious excite-
 
 io THE BINDWEED 
 
 merit, an inexplicable intoxication. Oh, to 
 wear a Paris frock, and diamonds in your hair, 
 and step in wonderful tiny shoes across the pave- 
 ment from the restaurant door to your carriage 
 with a blue and silver officer at your side, pass- 
 ing in a soft, delicious frou-frou of filmy silken 
 skirts from one pleasure to another! That was 
 happiness that was to be alive; not to run 
 from the Boulevard Mikhail II to the high old 
 house in the poor quarter and back again and 
 carry hats to women not half so pretty as your- 
 self and stand till you were weary showing one 
 lovely thing after another to querulous, blase 
 great ladies who were too spoiled by wealth and 
 luxury to admire anything or enjoy anything or 
 think of anyone in the world but themselves! 
 
 She grasped Mikhail's hot little sticky fingers 
 more tightly and tugged at Pavlo's arm. 
 
 "Come on, Pavlo! I am tired of loitering 
 here. Let us walk as far as the palace and per- 
 haps we shall seethe queen going to the opera." 
 
 They made^Beir way through the people and 
 set off running down the Boulevard Valitzine. 
 There were soldiers in front of the palace and 
 royal carriages were rolling to and fro. Liane 
 pressed as close to the gateway as the sentry on 
 guard would let her, and lifted Mikhail on her 
 shoulder. There was a rolling of wheels on 
 the stones of the courtyard within, the sentry 
 straightened himself up like a poker and sa- 
 luted, and a royal carriage came out very 
 slowly. Within it, clearly visible to Liane, sat 
 a pale, thin woman with beautiful, stormy
 
 THE BINDWEED 11 
 
 eyes, in an exquisite dress of pale yellow satin 
 veiled with lace embroidered with pearls and 
 diamonds. Liane drew a deep, gasping breath 
 of admiration. 
 
 The queen's carriage rolled on into the broad 
 road. The sentry fell into a less poker-like at- 
 titude. Little Mikhail, fidgeting on his sister's 
 shoulder, suddenly espied an interesting object 
 which seemed to him more worthy of attention 
 than a lady in a gorgeous dress. 
 
 "Look, Liane there's a boy on that bal- 
 cony." 
 
 She looked up. Mikhail was right. A boy 
 stood on the balcony directly above their heads 
 a boy of about fifteen, with pale, rather in- 
 significant features and the dark, stormy eyes of 
 the beautiful lady in the carriage. He leaned 
 over the rail of the balcony, looking up the 
 Boulevard Valitzine with a wistful face. 
 
 He was very close to Liane, Pavlo and Mik- 
 hail. They heard someone sp^k to him from 
 the room behind. He took his arms off the iron 
 railing, and spoke in reply, with an odd, forlorn 
 sound in his voice. 
 
 " I am coming in a moment, NikolaievitcH. 
 Look here at this jolly little chap laughing at 
 me. Do come and see." 
 
 Captain Nikolaievitch, prim and mincing in 
 his tight blue uniform, stepped gingerly forth 
 upon the balcony at his young master's request. 
 He looked down at Mikhail through an eye- 
 glass polished to the very last point of perfec- 
 tion.
 
 12 THE BINDWEED 
 
 "Isn't he jolly?" said the crown prince, a 
 pleasant smile coming into his worn, unboyish 
 face. 
 
 " Certainly, your royal highness," returned 
 Captain Nikolaievitch, with unenthusiastic po- 
 liteness. 
 
 " I suppose I couldn't have him up and 
 and speak to him? " suggested the future ruler of 
 Salitza timidly. 
 
 Captain Nikolaievitch froze within his rigid 
 casing of blue cloth and gold lace. 
 
 "Your royal highness is aware that such a 
 thing would be expressly contrary to orders. 
 Her majesty " 
 
 " Yes yes " the crown prince said hastily. 
 
 " Of course, I can't do it. I only thought for a 
 moment that I would like I wish I had a 
 brother like that, or something that belonged to 
 me. I suppose I couldn't give him anything, 
 Nikolaievitch, could I?" 
 
 Captain Nikolaievitch coughed icy disap- 
 proval. 
 
 " I do not see what your royal highness could 
 give the child. He appears to belong to the 
 poorer classes." 
 
 " I haven't any money," said the crown prince 
 sadly. " Stop I know " 
 
 He caught up a double handful of delicate, 
 sugar-coated bonbons from a silver dish on the 
 table beside the window and leaned over the 
 rail once more. 
 
 "Here, you you little chap there catch!" 
 he said.
 
 THE BINDWEED 13 
 
 Mikhail, suddenly becoming equal to an 
 emergency for the first time in his life, held out 
 the bulging front of his loose blouse. The bon- 
 bons descended into it and the crown prince 
 laughed. 
 
 "He's caught them all!" he said. "Look, 
 Nikolaievitch wasn't that neat?" 
 
 Mikhail, with a sweetmeat in his mouth, 
 waved his hand at the balcony. 
 
 "Thank you thank you thank you!" he 
 yelled. 
 
 "Mikhail!" Liane cried, scandalized. 
 "Don't you see it's the crown prince himself?" 
 
 The boy on the balcony heard the words. 
 
 "Never mind about the crown prince," he 
 said. "There are quite enough people already 
 to call me that. Look, Nikolaievitch, the girl 
 is frightened she's taking him away." 
 
 "A very good thing, if I may be permitted to 
 say so, your royal highness," retorted the out- 
 raged Nikolaievitch coldly. 
 
 Liane was hurrying away, horrified at her lit- 
 tle brother's audacity. But Mikhail, embold- 
 ened by the favor of a prince, waved a sticky 
 hand over her shoulder. 
 
 "Good-bye, crown prince!" he shouted with 
 his mouth full of almond paste. 
 
 " Good-bye, little chap ! " called back the boy 
 on the balcony. 
 
 They ran all the way back to the high house 
 across the river. Only on the topmost of the 
 steep stairs did they feel safe from the conse- 
 quences of this escapade. But the crown prince
 
 14 THE BINDWEED 
 
 stood for a long while on the balcony, looking 
 up the Boulevard Valitzine with very wistful 
 eyes and oblivious of Captain Nikolaievitch's 
 respectful but unmistakable disapproval. 
 
 " I wish I had something that belonged to 
 me," the lonely boy said once more. " I 
 wish " 
 
 The future ruler of Salitza sighed a long 
 sigh and was silent. 
 
 It is not in the Nikolaievitches of the world 
 that their royal masters can confide and too 
 often there are none but Nikolaievitches near 
 them: too often, both for the Nikolaievitches 
 and themselves and perhaps the world as well.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT was not six o'clock next morning when 
 Liane Markovitch ran down the stairs into 
 the street. The sunshine was dancing on 
 the little waves of the two rivers, turning their 
 gray to gold, and spring was in the air the 
 keen, delicious air of all lands where spring 
 means the melting of snows, the freeing of 
 streams and rivers from icy fetters, the return of 
 warmth and life and pleasure to everything 
 and everyone. 
 
 Early as it was, the town was awake grim, 
 savage, yet beautiful Khristovitz, the old 
 fortress-city of Salitza, the capital, the heart of 
 the whole country. Workmen in worn blouses 
 tramped quickly by, glancing admiringly at the 
 pretty girl who passed them. Liane quickened 
 her pace, for she knew that some of these men 
 were bound for the new works down the river 
 where Fritz Goldenburg had just been made 
 foreman. She did not want to meet Fritz just 
 then. 
 
 But on the Ostraya Bridge she met him face 
 to face Fritz with a flower in his cap and a 
 clean blouse, looking unusually spruce and 
 happy. He stopped, and pulled off his cap, 
 and gave her the flower. 
 
 u I picked it for you I thought I should 
 
 15
 
 16 THE BINDWEED 
 
 meet you this morning," he said. " I went up 
 to see you last night, but you were out." 
 
 He turned, and walked by her side across the 
 bridge, and she had to slacken her pace and 
 walk beside him. She fastened the bit of scar- 
 let blossom he had given her in her dress and 
 began talking quickly with forced gaiety. 
 
 " Yes, we were out last night. We went for 
 a walk and saw the queen starting for the opera 
 oh, and we had such an adventure! Fancy, 
 the crown prince himself actually spoke to Mik- 
 hail and threw him some sweets from a balcony 
 at the palace! I was so frightened! But Mik- 
 hail didn't mind a bit. He called out * Good- 
 bye, crown prince!' as if he had been used to 
 talking to princes all his life." 
 
 "A prince is only a man, like anyone else, 
 when you come to think of it," Fritz answered, 
 a little absently, watching the girl's half averted, 
 animated face and glowing eyes. 
 
 "Oh, Fritz! You must be an anarchist, or 
 something. Only a man! He could put us all 
 in prison if he chose." 
 
 " A poor sort of power to put people in 
 prison. I think a man who was really a king 
 would only care to let them out," Fritz Golden- 
 burg said. 
 
 Liane paused beside the thick ironwork of the 
 bridge and looked over at the swift waters 
 below. 
 
 " Yes, one would think that," she said reflec- 
 tively. " It must be horrible to walk about and 
 enjoy yourself and know that you were keeping
 
 THE BINDWEED 17 
 
 someone else shut up in a prison. But the 
 crown prince has never put anyone in prison, 
 you know he's only a boy, not much older than 
 Pavlo. Not a very nice-looking boy, either. 
 But he had such odd eyes." 
 
 "What was there odd about them?" asked 
 Fritz, smiling. 
 
 She went on, glad to keep talking on this 
 harmless subject. 
 
 " Oh, I don't quite know they were like the 
 eyes of a person who had never been happy and 
 
 never would be. They were " she stopped 
 
 for a moment. "They were hungry eyes, I 
 think." 
 
 Fritz Goldenburg looked into the hurrying 
 waters in silence for a moment, too. 
 
 " I understand," he said. " I suppose he has 
 not had a happy life, that boy. His father and 
 mother hate each other so bitterly that very 
 likely they have no time left for caring for 
 him." 
 
 "Why does the king hate the queen?" asked 
 Liane innocently. 
 
 " Because he is a bad man and a fool," said 
 Fritz curtly. 
 
 Liane was silent, watching the moving water 
 below. Presently she roused herself with a 
 little start. 
 
 " I must go I shall be late." 
 
 Fritz lifted his arm from the ironwork of the 
 Ostraya Bridge. 
 
 " It is not time yet you are early this morn- 
 ing, and I do not go to the works for half an
 
 i8 THE BINDWEED 
 
 hour. I can be late sometimes now, if I like, 
 
 Liane " his voice changed a little from its 
 
 usual slow, unruffled tone. " Liane did they 
 tell you about me?" 
 
 " Of course they did, and I was so glad. It is 
 nice for you, Fritz." 
 
 " Yes," he said slowly. " It is nice for me 
 if it brings me what I want. I wanted to be the 
 first to tell you, because then I could have told 
 you at the same time how much it might mean 
 to me if it did that and how little, if it did 
 not." 
 
 She looked at the water. It had come, then 
 she had better get it over as soon as possible. 
 
 " What do you want, Fritz? " 
 
 " You," he said simply. 
 
 They were both silent now. Liane played 
 with the scarlet flower in her blouse; Fritz 
 watched her with eyes that had suddenly grown 
 haggard and eager. 
 
 "I have always wanted you more than any- 
 thing in the world," he said presently. " I 
 have always loved you, ever since the first day I 
 saw you. You were running down the Boule- 
 vard Mikhail II and you ran up against me, and 
 then you begged my pardon and began to laugh 
 and I laughed too. I picked up the cardboard 
 box you were carrying, because you had 
 dropped it when you ran into me, and I saw ' Au 
 Paradis des Dames' on the lid. You had on a 
 black dress and a black hat with a big feather in 
 it, and it had been raining and the feather was 
 wet; and so was your hair it was as black as the
 
 THE BINDWEED 19 
 
 feather and your eyes were like diamonds. I 
 have always remembered how you looked then 
 I shall always remember it, to the very day I 
 die." 
 
 Still she did not move or speak, but stood 
 listening, impelled by a curious sense of fasci- 
 nation. But as for marrying him, and living 
 all her life with him in one of the high houses 
 on the river, always poor, always worked half 
 to death, always wearing shabby clothes and 
 never having quite enough to eat oh, surely, 
 surely, fate had something in store for her better 
 than that! 
 
 He touched her arm. 
 
 " Liane, what is it to be? Liane " His 
 
 voice trembled a little with eagerness. " Liane, 
 are you going to give me what I want?" 
 
 She turned suddenly and met his eyes. It 
 was strange, but it seemed to her that in them 
 she read the same wistfulness, the same sad 
 hunger for some object never to be attained, that 
 had struck her the night before in the eyes of 
 the boy crown prince. 
 
 "Oh, Fritz, I'm so sorry so sorry!" she said 
 brokenly. " Dear Fritz, I'll always be your 
 friend I'll always be fond of you fonder than 
 of anyone in the world next to father and Pavlo 
 and Mikhail. But I can't marry you indeed 
 I can't. I don't care for you like that. Oh, 
 don't ask me, Fritz it is so horrible to have to 
 refuse, and make you hate me and think me 
 cruel." 
 
 He stood quite still for a moment, and trie
 
 20 THE BINDWEED 
 
 gray look of sadness on his face hurt her with a 
 sharp, almost physical pain. 
 
 " I could never think any evil of you, Liane," 
 he said presently, " and I could never hate you. 
 There don't cry, Herzliebchen you must not 
 cry about me. I'm not good enough for you 
 I have always known that. Only only nothing 
 seems much use if I can't have you." 
 
 The tears were running down Liane's cheeks. 
 Fortunately the cathedral clock struck the half- 
 hour. Liane wiped her eyes hastily. 
 
 " I must go madame will be angry. Oh, 
 Fritz, you have made me so miserable and 
 look! I have lost your flower. It has fallen 
 over into the river. I am going to be wretched 
 all day I know I am. Oh, Fritz, do forgive 
 me before I go!" 
 
 He took the hand she held out and kept it for 
 a moment in his own. 
 
 "It is the last time you shall ever be made 
 miserable by me, Herzliebchen. There run, 
 now, or you will be terribly late and so shall I. 
 Never mind the flower I can get you plenty 
 more like it." 
 
 Yet, late as it was, he stood for quite ten min- 
 utes on the Ostraya Bridge after Liane had left 
 him, gazing sadly down the river after a tiny 
 speck of scarlet blossom which danced gaily on 
 the gray and golden waters. 
 
 The tears were dry on Liane's cheek before 
 she reached the " Paradis des Dames." It was 
 an immense relief not to see poor Fritz suffer 
 like that. At any rate, it was over now. He
 
 THE BINDWEED 21 
 
 could never ask her again. Her spirits began 
 to rise, despite her declaration of day-long 
 wretchedness. Why, after all, should she make 
 herself miserable about anything even poor 
 Fritz? It was spring, and the sun was shining, 
 and there were a hundred delightful things in 
 the world to think about and look at and wish 
 for and perhaps get, some day. People have 
 no time for tears at half-past six on a fine morn- 
 ing on the Boulevard Mikhail II. 
 
 She reached the " Paradis des Dames" just 
 as madame was beginning to conjecture what 
 particular form of horrible end could have been 
 the fate of her favorite. Liane stammered out 
 a hasty formula of excuse. She was very sorry 
 to be so late she had overslept herself. She 
 never remembered being so stupid before 
 she hoped madame would forgive her. Yes, she 
 had a headache, but that was nothing it would 
 pass off. 
 
 "Thou art pale thy pretty face has lost its 
 roses, my child, my little cabbage," said kind- 
 hearted madame, mixing her botanical figures 
 with a fine poetical disregard. " Go get thee 
 to the white cupboard in my chamber and fetch 
 hither the little bottle thou wilt find there but 
 yes! the little bottle. That is what will make 
 thy roses bloom once more." 
 
 Liane fetched the " little bottle," which, how- 
 ever, was not remarkable for the minuteness of 
 its size, and swallowed a dose of its contents 
 with much gratitude at being allowed to escape 
 so easily.
 
 22 THE BINDWEED 
 
 "Ah, the little bottle that waters the roses in 
 the cheeks when they grow pale," she remarked, 
 with the profound conviction born only of 
 happy personal experience. " Go now, my 
 little cabbage, put on the" black silk dress of 
 Katinka, whose dear grandmother has died to- 
 day for the third time never have I known a 
 girl so well provided with relations of a deli- 
 cacy but yes ! a delicacy. A puff of the blessed 
 air of heaven blows on one of Katinka's grand- 
 mothers and she is gone finished up extin- 
 guished. It is remarkable, also that these mel- 
 ancholy events always occur just after Katinka 
 has been paid her wages. It is almost as though 
 but we must not be uncharitable, my child. 
 It is possible that when I was of the age of 
 Katinka my grandmothers also died more fre- 
 quently than they do now. It is a fine day for 
 the funeral we must hope that Katinka will 
 enjoy herself. We will unpack the new hats 
 from dear Paris together. My little cabbage 
 shall be the first person in Khristovitz to try 
 them on. Also at mid-day I expect madame la 
 princesse, her excellency the Russian ambas- 
 sadrice. Be thou ready to serve her, for none 
 other ever pleases her so well." 
 
 It was long past mid-day, however, before 
 madame 1'ambassadrice arrived, in the most 
 magnificently appointed carriage with the finest 
 of horses and the most gorgeous of coachmen 
 and footmen to be found in all Khristovitz, and 
 a tall young Russian military attache trailing 
 with graceful and becoming languor in her
 
 THE BINDWEED 23 
 
 wake. She was received by madame with 
 much respectful effusion, led to the show-room 
 and placed in a chair. The beautiful attache 
 lounged over her, and looked a little at the hats 
 and a good deal at Liane. 
 
 " Ah, how lovely what a rose ! One can al- 
 most smell it," said little Princess Roumanine, 
 who seemed in an unusually gracious mood. 
 " Look, Vladimir, my friend, is it not perfect? " 
 
 " Perfect! " responded the attache, with heart- 
 felt fervor, looking not at the rose in question, 
 but straight at Liane Markovitch, who was 
 holding the confection in which it bloomed. 
 
 "You are making mademoiselle blush," said 
 Anna Roumanine, laughing. " I told you to 
 look at the rose, Vladimir Fedorovitch, not at 
 her. Though she is very well worth looking at, 
 I admit." 
 
 "Yes, my angel," responded Vladimir Fe- 
 dorovitch with his eyes on Liane's face. 
 
 "Vladimir, you are quite incorrigible! That 
 lilac is a trying color, it seems to me." 
 
 "Not for you, my angel," responded Vladi- 
 mir Fedorovitch in his deep, melancholy voice 
 that made sad music of the most commonplace 
 remark. "Nothing could try your com- 
 plexion." 
 
 Anna Roumanine laughed, well pleased. 
 Madame beamed respectful confirmation of the 
 attache's compliment. Liane went to fetch a 
 mirror from the table at the end of the room, 
 glad to escape from the young man's gaze. He 
 watched her across the room and turned his
 
 24 THE BINDWEED 
 
 back for a moment on his ambassadrice, on pre- 
 tence of examining a hat on a high stand behind 
 him. 
 
 "What a contrast!" he said to himself, think- 
 ing of the two women and comparing little 
 Anna Roumanine's made-up face and figure 
 and gilded hair with the splendid, unadorned 
 freshness of the girl who was serving her. 
 "What a face! What velvet eyes with depths 
 of fire beneath their velvet! What a figure 
 Venus before she grew fat and sat for her por- 
 trait to the old masters! How insufferably 
 mean and small Anna looks beside her! And 
 the old man keeps her so closely that she is no 
 good to me she hasn't lent me fifty rubles for 
 the last six months. I won't put up with it 
 much longer. I wonder what that girl's name 
 is?" 
 
 " Liane," called madame across the room, 
 "Liane, my child, be quick; and bring also the 
 new blue hat with forget-me-nots." 
 
 "Liane!" Vladimir Ourof thought. "In 
 French that means 'the Bindweed'! Not a 
 bad name. One day that girl will bind the 
 hearts of men to her carriage-wheels and grind 
 them to dust." 
 
 " Look, my friend," piped Anna Roumanine 
 in his ear. "You are not attending to anything 
 I say. I have asked you twice whether you pre- 
 fer the lilac hat to the blue one with the forget- 
 me-nots, and I don't believe you even heard 
 what I said!" 
 
 " There is no need, for you to wear forget-me-
 
 THE BINDWEED 25 
 
 nots," Vladimir returned musically. "You can 
 afford to leave them to women whom it would 
 be possible to forget." 
 
 " That is a pretty way of saying you like the 
 lilac hat best, I suppose! " laughed the little am- 
 bassadrice. " Very well, then, Vladimir, I 
 will take your advice, and if I look a perfect 
 fright in the thing it will be your fault. The 
 lilac one, if you please, madame. Oblige me 
 by sending it home at once I shall wear it this 
 afternoon at the palace garden-party." 
 
 The hat was put on one side, but madame 
 1'ambassadrice still fluttered around the show- 
 room, exclaiming here, criticising there, and 
 ruthlessly pulling about the finest creations of 
 the " Paradis des Dames" with her clumsy lit- 
 tle jeweled fingers. Vladimir Ourof followed 
 her listlessly. Liane, removed from the im- 
 mediate area of his stare, shot a glance at him 
 from under her long black eyelashes. He was 
 undoubtedly very handsome, though she had 
 not liked the way he looked at her or the way 
 he called Princess Roumanine "my angel" in 
 that sweet, deep drawl of his. He looked like 
 pictures she had seen of vikings, with his long, 
 fair mustache, beautifully cut features and deep 
 blue eyes that were almost violet in the shadow, 
 and his tall figure set off so magnificently by the 
 close-fitting uniform he wore. He must be 
 over six feet high, she thought, but he carried 
 himself with a grace most tall men never acquire, 
 so that his abnormal inches were at first hardly 
 apparent. He did not move guilty and stiffly,
 
 26 THE BINDWEED 
 
 like the men Liane had known, but softly and 
 almost stealthily, as a cat moves, with every 
 limb and every muscle seeming to sway and 
 shift in time to his movements. And behind 
 this grace, this almost feminine languor and 
 listlessness, there was the suggestion of terrible 
 strength and activity. She had seen many blue 
 and silver officers but never one like this. If a 
 fault could be found with him, it was a certain 
 hard look that shot, now and then, into those 
 beautiful eyes, especially when they rested on 
 his ambassadrice and she did not happen to be 
 looking at him. But Liane did not notice this; 
 nor did she remark the fact that his eyes were 
 set a shade slantingly in his head and were a 
 little nearer together than Europeans usually 
 have them. It was the only trace of the savage 
 Tartar blood which still ran, a heritage of un- 
 speakable barbarism, cruelty and duplicity 
 from his heathen forefathers, in the veins of this 
 seemingly exquisite production of the highest 
 civilization of Petersburg and Paris. 
 
 " She wants me to give her a hat," the beauti- 
 ful viking of foolish Liane's imagination 
 thought, as he followed Anna Roumanine in 
 her progress of inspection. " I would rather 
 give her a poisoned cup of coffee. One ought 
 to be able to bow-string women like that in a 
 sack and throw them over the Ostraya Bridge 
 when one has done with them, as they do in 
 Constantinople. The sultan, with all the na- 
 tions of Europe for his jailors, is the only abso- 
 lutely fret monarch in the world. Yes, my
 
 THE BINDWEED 27 
 
 angel, it is lovely, but it would not do for you. 
 That shade of pink is too crude for delicate 
 coloring like yours." 
 
 She gave a last, lingering, regretful look at 
 the coveted pink hat and turned to the stairs 
 which led to the shop below. 
 
 Liane did not know afterwards how it hap- 
 pened. Madame led the way, cautioning Prin- 
 cess Roumanine against the darkness of the 
 stairs. She stood back, making way for the at- 
 tache to follow the lady of his heart. He, how- 
 ever, gave her a long, confusing look out of 
 those beautiful eyes, and, with a slight bow, 
 moved aside as though bidding her precede 
 him. Perhaps, in her hurry, unnerved by 
 Vladimir's glance, she fell over the long train 
 of Katinka's silk skirt it surely could not have 
 been that one of the blue and silver officer's 
 pretty, polished boots occupied the whole 
 length and breadth of the top step. At any 
 rate, she tripped up on some unseen obstacle, 
 and fell violently against Vladimir Ourof, so 
 that he had to catch her in his arms to prevent 
 her from falling down the staircase upon the 
 diminutive princess and the voluble madame in 
 front. 
 
 "Oh, monsieur pardon me! A thousand 
 pardons!" Liane gasped out. 
 
 Ourof had caught her very tightly, and he 
 did not let go at once. Instead, she became 
 aware, with feelings of the liveliest horror, that 
 he was resisting her efforts to free herself and 
 that the viking mustache was against her lips,
 
 28 THE BINDWEED 
 
 completely stifling her feeble attempt at an 
 apology. 
 
 "Let me go ah!" Her voice rose into a 
 choking cry, and he released her rapidly. The 
 ambassadrice in front stopped on the staircase 
 as though a bullet had struck her. 
 
 "Vladimir, what are you about? What is 
 the matter?" 
 
 Liane fled away into the farthest recesses of 
 the show-room. Even as she retreated she 
 heard the attache answering in his melodious, 
 unmoved way : 
 
 " It is nothing, my angel do not alarm your- 
 self. Mademoiselle lost her balance and I had 
 the felicity of saving her a fall. She is not in- 
 jured in the least." 
 
 The ambassadrice swept on, in such visible 
 perturbation of spirit that she forgot to remind 
 madame again that she wanted the hat for the 
 palace garden-party. Once safely hidden from 
 public scrutiny in the convenient shelter of the 
 carriage, the tempest of her wrath burst forth 
 upon him with ungovernable fury. 
 
 "You kissed that girl, Vladimir Fedorovitch! 
 Oh, don't deny it I know you did. I heard 
 her cry out I ought never to have gone on or 
 left you with her, even for that moment, for I 
 know by this time what you are. You are tired 
 of me, though I have given up everything for 
 you!" cried the poor little ambassadrice, break- 
 ing into tears, and assuming the air of an 
 unfortunate heroine of romance, though it is 
 difficult to say what possible sacrifice she had
 
 THE BINDWEED 29 
 
 made for her lover, except very occasional loans 
 of money and the affection of a husband 
 twenty years her senior, who had always bored 
 her to death. " You are tired of me you never 
 offered me a hat, and you only said that pink 
 one wouldn't suit me because you didn't wish 
 to give it to me. Oh, what a cruel world it is, 
 and how miserable I am! And crying always 
 makes my nose red, and I shall not be fit to be 
 seen at the palace, and then that cat, Natalia 
 Morisof, will be sure to tell everyone that I 
 have been quarreling with you!" 
 
 "Then I should advise you not to cry, my 
 dove, and your no.se will not in that case be red, 
 and Natalia Morisof will not be able to say any- 
 thing about you," remarked Vladimir coldly and 
 without penitence. 
 
 " I don't want to go to the palace or anywhere 
 else, except my grave," wept Anna Roumanine. 
 " You spoil all my happiness, Vladimir Fedoro- 
 vitch!" 
 
 Perhaps Ourof thought he had punished her 
 enough; perhaps he was not in the mood to 
 sever his connection with her forever by one 
 final quarrel. He relented, and put his arm 
 round her, and she fell against his shoulder and 
 sobbed less violently. 
 
 " I think you will find the palace much more 
 amusing than your grave, my angel. You 
 shouldn't say these things to me when you know 
 that I adore you passionately that you are the 
 only woman in the world that I care even to look 
 at, much less to kiss."
 
 30 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " You did kiss her," persisted the melting am- 
 bassadrice faintly. 
 
 " No, my white dove, I did not do anything 
 of the kind I swear it on my honor! The girl 
 tripped up, and would have fallen down the 
 staircase upon you if I had not caught her, and 
 of course she was frightened and cried out. And 
 then you conclude that I was kissing her!" 
 
 "Oh, Vladimir, my darling, forgive me!" 
 She burst into a fresh flood of tears. " Oh, how 
 unkind I am to you and I love you so I 
 would do anything in the world for you!" 
 
 He bestowed a fervent salute upon the edge 
 of her bonnet. 
 
 "Do not speak of it again, my angel. It is 
 all over it never happened. Only, do not 
 bring these ridiculous accusations against me 
 again." 
 
 " She was a beautiful girl, though, all the 
 same," reflected the mollified ambassadrice. 
 " You must admit that, Vladimir." 
 
 " I do not admit that anyone is beautiful but 
 you, because I never look at anyone else. And 
 now, my angel, I am sorry to trouble you with 
 such sordid details you who should always 
 lead the life of an exquisite butterfly and flit 
 from flower to flower and never think of any- 
 thing unpleasant but I shall have to ask you to 
 lend me some money until they are graciously 
 pleased to remember my pay in Petersburg. It 
 is the greatest nuisance and I hate to worry you, 
 but 
 
 " Oh, Vladimir, I am so glad to be able to do
 
 THE BINDWEED 31 
 
 anything to show you how sorry I am that I 
 suspected you. How much do you want?" 
 
 So peace was restored, on a sound financial 
 basis, and the little ambassadrice was wreathed 
 in smiles before she reached her own door, and 
 more in love with her beautiful attache than 
 ever. She did not guess how near she had been 
 to losing him altogther, or suspect that this 
 calamity was only averted by the generosity 
 with which she promised to lend him by far 
 the greater portion of a very liberal quarter's 
 allowance.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WHEN madame went to ascertain what 
 had happened to her favorite she found 
 her at the further end of the show-room 
 in a condition bordering on hysteria. Hope- 
 lessly bewildered, but sympathetic as ever, the 
 good woman took her in her arms. 
 
 "My child, my little cabbage, what ails thee? 
 Hast thou hurt thyself hast thou nerves, my 
 darling, or the grippe? Thou art trembling all 
 over thy poor hands are as ice and thy face, 
 my faith! is like fire. Come, tell me, my little 
 one." 
 
 Liane cowered shaking in madame's kind 
 arms. 
 
 " He kissed me that man," she gasped at 
 last. " Oh, dear madame, do not ask me to 
 come into the show-room again when he is here! 
 It would kill me he is bad he is evil." 
 
 Madame soothed her tenderly. 
 
 "Thou shalt never serve them again. What 
 impertinence to kiss a girl of mine almost 
 under my very nose! Oh, they are wretches, 
 these blue and silver officers, with their voices 
 as of a cat licking up the cream! Not often do 
 I allow them within my doors it is not conven- 
 able with so many young girls about but 
 
 32
 
 THE BINDWEED 33 
 
 madame 1'ambassadrice was with him and I 
 should have thought she would have looked 
 after her own property." 
 
 "He loves her the ambassadrice?" Liane 
 asked. 
 
 " I know not, my cabbage. I think he loves 
 any sort of wickedness. And I have heard also 
 that he loves the gold of M. le Prince Rou- 
 manine no less than he loves madame la prin- 
 cesse. Do not vex thy pretty head about him 
 any more. He shall not come here again." 
 
 But Liane could not avoid vexing her head 
 over the delinquencies of the beautiful attache. 
 She never ran along the Boulevard Mikhail II 
 without a lurking thought, half fear, half hope, 
 that at any moment she might see that tall figure 
 coming towards her, and hear the deep, sweet, 
 drawling voice in her ear. She could hear it 
 still, that drawling, musical voice, with its odd 
 foreign accent, its little, unaccustomed slurring 
 of certain letters which its owner did not seem 
 to think it worth his while to pronounce. She 
 could see the lazy blue eyes watching her with 
 the expression which she could not read and 
 which filled her with a contradictory form of 
 misery and confusion which was yet very near to 
 happiness. It was true that her first feeling 
 towards him had been one of dislike, almost of 
 terror, but those unpleasant impressions wore 
 off. 
 
 " Thou art pale, my little one," kind-hearted 
 madame would often say to her. " See, here is 
 a hat to be taken home run, put on thy hat, a
 
 34 THE BINDWEED 
 
 breath of air will bring back thy roses on 
 this hot day. Do not hurry thyself look in 
 Madame Claire's window as thou comest back, 
 and tell us what terrible things thou seest there. 
 Ah, that Claire to pretend to give us here the 
 mode of Paris or Vienna! What impertinence! 
 She has the soul of a sausage-seller and as much 
 eye for color as a blind mole. Her windows 
 desolate the heart of a true artist. Go, my 
 child, and tell us how many colors the Claire 
 has jumbled into one miserable toque." 
 
 So Liane went, and took home the hat, gen- 
 erally to some splendid house on the Boulevard 
 Valitzine. Her heart beat in a sickening way 
 as she passed the Russian embassy. Somewhere 
 behind those white walls with their rows of 
 glittering windows fringed with flower-boxes 
 gay with scarlet, white and green was the tall 
 attache, who loved madame I'ambassadrice, 
 and all other tempting, fascinating, forbidden 
 things. 
 
 From reflections such as these Liane would 
 rouse herself with a start. How silly she was, 
 to be thinking of this blue and silver officer, who 
 had done nothing but offer her the coolest of 
 insults, and there was poor Fritz Goldenburg, 
 who wanted to marry her and would have 
 jumped over the Ostraya Bridge to please her. 
 She did not see him often now, and she thought 
 to herself, somewhat remorsefully, that it was 
 amazing how little she missed him. Six months 
 ago his absence would certainly have made a 
 difference in her life. Now she listened to
 
 THE BINDWEED 35 
 
 Pavlo's remarks on the subject of the infre- 
 quency of his visits to the high house on the river 
 with hardly a thrill of interest. 
 
 " It would have been very nice if you had 
 married Fritz," little Mikhail remarked sor- 
 rowfully one evening as he nursed the cat by the 
 stove while Liane made the coffee, " because I 
 should have had another brother that I like. If 
 you marry a blue and silver officer " 
 
 He was amazed by the suddenness with which 
 the coffee boiled over and scalded the cat, whose 
 name was Ivan the Terrible, though it had once 
 upset its master's christening arrangements con- 
 siderably by presenting the establishment with 
 a family of kittens. 
 
 " I shall not marry any officer," Liane said 
 quite sharply. " You should not say such things, 
 Mikhail you know it was only Pavlo's fun." 
 
 " Well, you needn't be cross. You said more 
 than that yourself you said you were going to 
 marry a king." 
 
 Liane laughed, put the coffee-pot on the table 
 out of harm's way and picked up the injured 
 Ivan the Terrible from the floor. 
 
 " Oh, it's very likely I shall do that, isn't it? 
 Come and have your supper, and don't talk 
 about things little boys do not understand. Poor 
 pussy, did I hurt its little paw?" 
 
 Ivan the Terrible allowed herself to be 
 soothed by an offering of milk, and Mikhail 
 ate his supper in gloomy silence. They had 
 hardly finished when Fritz Goldenburg came in. 
 
 " I came to say that I think you had better
 
 36 THE BINDWEED 
 
 stay at home tonight," he said, when he had 
 greeted them. "The city seems in rather an 
 excited state and there may be a row at any 
 moment." 
 
 a Oh, let us go and see!" cried Pavlo, jump- 
 ing up from his chair. But Fritz looked wor- 
 ried and anxious. 
 
 " I have nothing to say to your going, if you 
 like, Pavlo, but don't take your sister or Mik- 
 hail. It is not safe for them." 
 
 "Are they going to fight and kill each 
 other?" asked Mikhail hopefully. 
 
 " It is quite possible," Fritz answered, smil- 
 ing in spite of himself at the boy's tone. 
 
 " I have never seen people do that," remarked 
 Mikhail reflectively, as though he were weigh- 
 ing in his mind the comparative attractions of 
 bloodshed. 
 
 Fritz took him on his knee. 
 
 " Pray to the good God that you never may, 
 little one. It is not a pleasant sight. Pavlo, if 
 you are really going, take care, and do not get 
 mixed up in any fighting." 
 
 "I am not going to fight," retorted Pavlo 
 scornfully. " The king isn't worth fighting for, 
 I'm sure, and anyway we never get any good 
 from anyone king or parliament or anything 
 else. Good-bye, I will go and have a look at 
 the fun." 
 
 He caught up his cap and ran off. Liane, 
 who was washing the supper things, looked 
 across at Fritz uneasily. 
 
 " Father does not like to hear Pavlo say that.
 
 THE BINDWEED 37 
 
 He gets so angry if anyone talks against the 
 king. He says it doesn't matter how bad he is, 
 it is our duty to be loyal to him just the same. 
 He will be furious if there is a rising against 
 him." 
 
 " I'm afraid you must be prepared for him 
 to come home very furious indeed tonight, then, 
 for there is certainly going to be a rising. Khris- 
 tovitz is not going to stand much more of King 
 Mikhail V," said Fritz, thinking of the number- 
 less acts of folly with which Mikhail V had de- 
 graded the calling of a sovereign in the eyes of 
 all Europe. 
 
 "What will they do with the queen?" 
 
 " Nothing, I should think. Everyone is sorry 
 for her, though she is a foreigner and has never 
 been popular. I expect they will depose the 
 king or force him to abdicate in favor of the 
 crown prince." 
 
 "Then that boy will be king," said Liane 
 slowly. 
 
 "Yes. He will be able to put people in 
 prison if he likes, as you said he could the other 
 day." 
 
 " He will be able to let them out, too, as you 
 said a real king would want to do," she an- 
 swered, smiling. 
 
 Fritz shrugged his broad shoulders. 
 
 " I never heard you say all these things before, 
 Fritz," Liane remarked wonderingly. 
 
 He forced himself to smile, and quoted a 
 well-known proverb of the country. 
 
 " ' A wise man walking among wolves does
 
 38 THE BINDWEED 
 
 not wear a sheepskin coat.' It is not always safe 
 to say what you feel or think in this country, I 
 am afraid." 
 
 "Oh, I hope Pavlo will not get into trouble! 
 He is so reckless he never cares what he says. 
 Fritz, do you think there is really going to be a 
 revolution?" 
 
 " I can't say certainly let us hope it will 
 all pass off quietly." 
 
 " Things of that sort never do pass off quietly 
 in Salitza," Liane answered truly enough. 
 " There is always a terrible fuss, a lot of people 
 are killed and no one is any better for it after- 
 wards." 
 
 So they sat talking, longer than Liane sus- 
 pected. Fritz saw that she had forgotten the 
 lateness of the hour in the interest of their un- 
 usual conversation, and, anxious as he himself 
 was beginning to be at the prolonged absence 
 of Stepan Markovitch and his son, he did not 
 care to remind her of the flight of time. She 
 realized it at last by seeing that little Mikhail 
 was fast asleep in the corner, with Ivan the Ter- 
 rible snoring audibly on his knees. Then she 
 glanced at the clock and rose from her chair 
 with an exclamation of dismay. 
 
 " Oh, Fritz, it is just on twelve o'clock and 
 father and Pavlo have never come home! What 
 can have happened to them? Fritz, what shall 
 I do?" 
 
 He saw that to attempt to disguise his anxiety 
 any longer would be useless. 
 
 " I did not like to say anything to you, Liane,
 
 THE BINDWEED 39 
 
 but I am afraid that they would not have left 
 you all this time alone unless something, had 
 happened. Shall I go and try to find them?" 
 
 " No, no you could not find them and per- 
 haps you might be hurt. Oh, Fritz, what was 
 that?" 
 
 Fritz also had sprung to his feet as a deep, 
 ominous boom burst upon the silence of the 
 quiet little room. It was the great bell of the 
 Khristovitz cathedral beginning to ring the 
 
 Ereat bell whose voice means fire and storm, 
 ouder and louder it grew a sound of terror 
 and confusion made audible in a single, awful 
 note. 
 
 He was the first to recover himself. In a sec- 
 ond he had unfastened the window and was out 
 on the little balcony where Liane's pink rose 
 hung furled in rosy slumber. She followed him 
 and they stood together in the narrow space, 
 listening to the booming of the great bell. 
 Then, beyond that sound, they became conscious 
 of another shrill, penetrating and more ter- 
 rible still. 
 
 "The bugles! They are calling out the sol- 
 diers!" Liane cried, catching at her compan- 
 ion's arm in the extremity of her dismay. " Oh, 
 Fritz, Fritz, where is my father where is 
 Pavlo?" 
 
 He put his arm around her protectingly. 
 
 " Be brave, Herzliebchen do not tremble so. 
 The bugles don't mean that anybody is hurt, 
 you know. Perhaps the troops will be out in 
 time to prevent a riot. Anyway, nobody will
 
 40 THE BINDWEED 
 
 fight for that blackguard Mikhail they will be 
 far too pleased at the prospect of getting rid of 
 him." 
 
 But Liane was almost wild with frantic ter- 
 ror for her father and Pavlo. Fritz could not 
 persuade her to leave the balcony and return 
 to the room where Mikhail still sat curled up in 
 his chair unconscious of the excitement around 
 him. At last the German fetched Pavlo's cloak 
 and wrapped her in it against the damp air ris- 
 ing, even on a summer night, from the river-bed 
 below. Still the great bell boomed its message 
 of alarm over the waking city still the shrill 
 cry of the bugles at the barracks flung a silver 
 challenge into the disturbed air. Straining 
 their eyes through the darkness, they saw an 
 ugly red glow rising in the sky. Then came 
 sudden scarlet flashes amid the blackness, re- 
 flected upwards, though the actual light itself 
 was hidden from them by the high houses on 
 the opposite side of the river. A sharp, sicken- 
 ing rattle of musketry followed cries of fear 
 and horror and wrath, echoes of a fierce strug- 
 gle raging in the direction of the Boulevard 
 Valitzine. The wind bore every sound clearly 
 across the river. It seemed to them that they 
 could even smell the powder. 
 
 "Oh, Fritz my father! Pavlo!" poor Li- 
 ane whispered. " They are fighting down there 
 people are being wounded, and killed. Oh, 
 I can't bear it! Let us go and see what is hap- 
 pening. Don't stay here and do nothing, while 
 they are being shot!"
 
 THE BINDWEED 41 
 
 She would have broken from him to carry this 
 intention into effect, but he caught her and held 
 her back. 
 
 " I can't let you go, Liane. Your father him- 
 self would forbid it. No " as she struggled to 
 escape from him " I must keep you here 
 Herzliebchen, don't make me hurt you I shall 
 bruise your wrists if you pull like that." 
 
 She burst into tears. 
 
 "Oh, you are afraid! Oh, let me go let me 
 go! If you are such a coward, let me go and 
 look for them myself!" 
 
 But Fritz did not relax his iron grasp. 
 
 "You don't know what you are saying, my 
 poor darling. I would go, but the moment I 
 had gone you would be out in the streets, and 
 they are no place for women tonight." 
 
 She wept still stormy, hysterical tears of rage 
 and terror. 
 
 " Father and Pavlo are being shot, and you 
 keep me here! Listen they are firing again 
 and there is another bugle sounding! Oh, let 
 me go!" 
 
 He held her firmly, in a grasp that hurt her, 
 and at his wit's end to know what to do. The 
 great bell was ringing more loudly than ever, 
 the sky was red and angry, the firing seemed 
 closer to them than it had done at first. Lights 
 flitted from window to window in the houses 
 on the other side of the river; they heard people 
 running to and fro along the waterside below 
 calling to each other in excited voices. And 
 still, in the room behind them, little Mikhail
 
 42 THE BINDWEED 
 
 slept on, with the big cat stretched across his 
 knees, her tail sweeping the floor and one tabby 
 paw resting on her master's hand. 
 
 Suddenly they heard steps on the steep stairs 
 up which Liane had run singing so often when 
 she came home from the Boulevard Mikhail 
 II. These were hurried, stumbling steps that 
 struck a quick chill to Liane's heart. She 
 ceased to struggle with Fritz, and stood breath- 
 less, trembling and white as death. 
 
 It was Pavlo who burst into the room Pavlo 
 as they had never seen him before, stained with 
 blood, pale, ominous, terrible. Fritz released 
 the girl's wrists and she sprang across the room 
 with a cry. Then stood still, gazing with ques- 
 tioning eyes into her brother's face. 
 
 "Father ?" she gasped. 
 
 Pavlo's eyes were dry, and blazing with fear- 
 ful excitement. He stood in the middle of the 
 room, stiff and straight, as though frozen. 
 
 "They are bringing him back," he said. 
 "They are bringing him back." 
 
 Little Mikhail woke up and the big cat 
 jumped down upon the floor. 
 
 The child looked up, bewildered, at his 
 brother. 
 
 "What is the matter?" he said in a sleepy 
 voice. "What has happened to you?" 
 
 But Pavlo did not hear him. He began to 
 speak, slowly, and with difficulty, in that same 
 dreadful, mechanical tone. 
 
 " It was at the corner of the Boulevard Valit- 
 zine," he said. " Everybody was waiting about
 
 THE BINDWEED 43 
 
 and saying that the soldiers were going to the 
 palace to kill the king. I was wedged in and 
 didn't know that father was anywhere near. 
 Then down the Boulevard Mikhail we saw the 
 soldiers coming from the barracks as hard as 
 they could come. There was a tall officer lead- 
 ing them, and as he came he called out ' Death 
 to Mikhail of Paris!' you know they call the 
 king that. And then I saw father spring out 
 into the very middle of the road just in front of 
 the troops, and he cried ' I have served,. him and 
 his father before him, and I will strike one more 
 blow for him before I die. God save King 
 Mikhail!' and he fired that old pistol of his 
 right at the officer's head. But it didn't hurt 
 him and the next moment he had shot father I 
 saw him lying in the road, and the officer went 
 on, as if nothing had happened, calling out 
 'Death to Mikhail of Paris!' as he had done 
 before. Someone dragged father out of the 
 road, and I fought my way to him somehow and 
 knelt down by him. But he was quite dead." 
 
 There was a moment of silence. They all 
 stood motionless and incapable of speaking 
 incapable even of understanding the dreadful 
 thing that had happened. Then on the stairs 
 they heard the heavy shuffling sound of men 
 carrying a burden. Fritz Goldenburg moved 
 to the door and threw it wide open, waiting 
 with bent head and a heart full of pity and 
 regret. 
 
 But Liane and Pavlo and little Mikhail clung 
 together, speechless and tearless. Stepan Mar-
 
 44 THE BINDWEED 
 
 kovitch had fought his last fight for the king 
 from whom he had not received even the meager 
 pay, due to him for years of faithful service. 
 The old corporal had died for the only master 
 his simple pride had ever acknowledged Mik- 
 hail V of Salitza Mikhail of Paris, whom his- 
 tory christens " Mikhail the Bad."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT the palace on that eventful night the 
 A\ crown prince had gone to bed at ten 
 JL JL o'clock, according to his invariable 
 custom. 
 
 He was perhaps the only person in Khris- 
 tovitz who was entirely ignorant of the fact that 
 the storm which had long been brewing in that 
 always tempestuous land was on the point of 
 breaking into open fury. It wanted now only 
 a trifle to cause the final outburst Mikhail had 
 only to make himself a little more unpopular 
 than he was already. Possibly the ill-luck of 
 those whom, as we are told, the gods wish to 
 destroy and therefore curse with momentary 
 madness, inspired him at this turning-point in 
 his career. He was desperately in want of 
 money and it occurred to him that a new tax 
 might temporarily relieve his difficulties. He 
 suggested this to the servile parliament which 
 in reality did not dare to oppose any proposi- 
 tion the king might make. The tax was laid 
 on the already sorely tried Salitzans and the 
 storm burst. 
 
 But of all this the crown prince was entirely 
 ignorant. It was not the custom of his royal 
 parents to take him into their confidence, and 
 Captain Nikolaievitch did not occupy his post 
 
 45
 
 46 THE BINDWEED 
 
 for the purpose of supplying his charge with 
 political information. The crown prince dined 
 in his own apartments, spent a dull evening his 
 evenings had a way of being dull and retired 
 to rest at the appointed hour. 
 
 At midnight he woke with a start, to find the 
 electric light on and, standing at his bedside, 
 the figure of the queen in a gorgeous dinner 
 dress, pale and obviously disturbed. He sat up 
 in bed and looked at her in astonishment. In 
 the distance he fancied he could hear rather an 
 unusual amount of sound and confusion. 
 
 "What is that noise?" he asked, rather 
 sleepily. 
 
 The beautiful pale queen smiled. It was not 
 a pleasant sort of smile at all, her son thought. 
 
 "That noise is a revolution," she answered 
 with somewhat ghastly composure. 
 
 The crown prince sat up very straight among 
 his pillows. He had read of revolutions, but 
 they had never seemed very real things to him 
 before, rather like literary shadows of events 
 which happened when the world was an inter- 
 esting place and people did things, as he put it 
 to himself. He had long ago decided that the 
 world had ceased to be an interesting place of 
 residence about the time that he was born. 
 Now, however, he had suddenly waked in 
 the middle of the night, after a day that had 
 been rather more wearisome than most, to be 
 told that a revolution was actually happening 
 just outside the palace gates. 
 
 "What do the people want?" he asked.
 
 THE BINDWEED 47 
 
 "To kill the king," the queen said, quite 
 calmly. 
 
 Kasimir of Salitza sprang suddenly out of 
 bed. 
 
 " Where is he?" he said. " I must go to him 
 tell me where he is." The boy's eyes were 
 flashing. 
 
 " He is over the frontier by this time, I ex- 
 pect," the queen answered in a tone of such bit- 
 terness that he started. " He has deserted us at 
 the last, just as I always knew he would he has 
 put us in danger by his own folly and left us to 
 get out of it as best we can. He will be in Paris 
 tomorrow morning but where we shall be I 
 don't know." 
 
 The crown prince stood quite still by the side 
 of the bed, staring at her. She went on. Even 
 in the midst of her own danger she could not 
 forget the bitterest thing of all that the man 
 whom she had once imagined a hero though 
 he had long ago dispelled most of her illusions 
 about him had proved himself nothing but the 
 worst of cowards. She was so angry with him 
 that she could hardly realize the peril in which 
 she herself stood. 
 
 " Yes he has fled. He must have known this 
 was going to happen. I suppose he did not 
 warn me because he thought he would be more 
 likely to escape alone. I went to his rooms and 
 found that he had been gone for some hours. 
 I had his desk broken open and found a paper 
 which he had apparently written just before 
 leaving. He has abdicated in favor of you, and
 
 48 THE BINDWEED 
 
 appointed a council of regency with Schamiratz 
 at its head." 
 
 General Schamiratz being the popular hero 
 of Salitza, his selection as head of a council of 
 regency was perhaps the wisest, as it was the 
 last, act of Mikhail V's unlucky reign. Mean- 
 while, the uproar outside was increasing every 
 moment. The great bell of Khristovitz cathe- 
 dral began to ring, and here, as in that humbler 
 home beyond the river where Fritz Goldenburg 
 and Liane Markovitch stood listening to it, the 
 sound filled the hearers with dismay. 
 
 " The troops they must be called out! They 
 at least will obey Schamiratz," Kasimir said. 
 
 " Not if he tries to save us. Listen ! " 
 
 Through the partially open windows came 
 the cry, clear and unmistakable, " Death to the 
 king! Death to Mikhail of Paris!" 
 
 The queen, hearing it, shivered as though 
 with cold. 
 
 "They mean mischief or they would not call 
 him that." For the first time in her life she 
 looked at the boy before her for advice, even 
 for protection. " Kasimir, it is serious what 
 shall we do?" 
 
 There was a knock at the door, and Captain 
 Nikolaievitch entered hastily, stiff and formal as 
 always. 
 
 " I have come to ask your majesty what is to 
 be done. They are trying to force the gates. 
 Already some of the rioters have got into the 
 gardens." 
 
 Having delivered this unpleasant piece of in-
 
 THE BINDWEED 49 
 
 formation, he stood motionless, with the air of 
 an automaton waiting to be wound up. 
 
 The queen looked at the crown prince, who, 
 in his turn, looked at Nikolaievitch. 
 
 " Ring that bell, if you please," said Kasimir, 
 " and tell Josef to come to me I must have some 
 clothes on before I can do anything." 
 
 The bell was rung accordingly, and Josef ar- 
 rived, mortally frightened. As valet to the 
 crown prince, he was beginning to fancy him- 
 self an important political person and certain 
 to be shot. Kasimir gave his orders quietly and 
 clearly. 
 
 " My uniform, Josef, and all the orders you 
 can find. Be quick there is no time to lose." 
 
 " What are you going to do? " asked the queen 
 curiously. 
 
 Kasimir was aiding Josef's trembling fingers 
 to button the tight blue uniform of a lieutenant 
 of the Guard over his sleeping-suit. 
 
 " I don't know. That's right, Josef. Now the 
 orders." He took the velvet case which held 
 them from the valet's hands and opened it. 
 
 "Nikolaievitch, you're not frightened pin 
 these on for me, please." 
 
 Captain Nikolaievitch obeyed in silence. 
 The queen looked on impatiently. 
 
 " We are all going to be shot," she said. " I 
 don't see that you will do much by putting on 
 uniform." 
 
 But Kasimir did not answer. As he said, he 
 did not quite know what he was going to do; 
 but he knew that the only way to do anything at
 
 50 THE BINDWEED 
 
 all was to do it in uniform. A silk sleeping- 
 suit was not the sort of garment in which to cope 
 with revolutions. 
 
 " Now I am ready," he said, as Nikolaievitch 
 pinned the last Grand Cross in its place. 
 " Come, Nikolaievitch." 
 
 He ran down the broad staircase, followed by 
 Nikolaievitch, and, at some little distance, by 
 the queen. As they went, they heard firing in 
 the Boulevard Valitzine. Clearly, whatever 
 was to be done must be done quickly. 
 
 Kasimir went to the window of the balcony 
 over the great gates the balcony over which a 
 pale half-circle of electric light was usually 
 burning. Through the shutters, he could see 
 that it had been turned off, lest its radiance 
 should assist the rioters to find a way in. He 
 threw the shutters back and began to unfasten 
 the closed window. 
 
 "Turn on the light, Nikolaievitch the but- 
 ton is the other side." 
 
 " But what is your majesty going to do?" 
 asked Nikolaievitch, bewildered, for once, out 
 of his decorous silence and groping for the elec- 
 tric button. 
 
 Kasimir stopped dead and stood still, with 
 the shutter in his hand. His majesty! So he 
 was really king those were his subjects outside, 
 not those of Mikhail of Paris, the father of 
 whom he knew no good and towards whom he 
 had only feelings of mistrust and dislike. His 
 majesty! An odd thrill ran through his veins 
 as he stood there with possible and even prob-
 
 THE BINDWEED 51 
 
 able death waiting for him on the other side of 
 a few slips of wood and a sheet of plate-glass. 
 Then he undid the last bolt and slipped back 
 the window-fastening. He had not known what 
 he was going to do before now he knew. 
 
 He threw back the window and stepped out 
 on to the balcony just as Nikolaievitch, in the 
 corridor behind him, came suddenly on the 
 button for which he was searching behind the 
 curtains and turned on the great half-circle of 
 electric light over the West Gate. 
 
 For a moment Kasimir was almost blinded 
 by the sudden glare of light. Then he saw what 
 he had come to face the mad crowd surging 
 from end to end of the broad Boulevard Valit- 
 zine, almost as far as the eye could reach. Even 
 Captain Nikolaievitch, who was not a coward, 
 stood back from the window. His reading of 
 the laws of court etiquette did not go as far as 
 suicide. He waited for the shot which was to 
 demonstrate the exact limit of his royal master's 
 folly. 
 
 But it did not come. The crowd, too, was 
 dazzled by the sudden light that had flamed 
 out on the balcony above the West Gate. It 
 paused even in the midst of its madness, its 
 fury of revolt and vengeance, and every eye 
 looked up. 
 
 There, on the narrow balcony, under the great 
 half-circle of pale splendor, stood a boy of fif- 
 teen in the blue uniform of a lieutenant of the 
 Guard bareheaded, unarmed, alone. 
 
 The uproar died. One or two men leveled
 
 52 THE BINDWEED 
 
 their pistols at the figure on the balcony, but no 
 one fired. Then, from the middle of the ar- 
 rested mass of people, a voice cried : 
 
 "Where is the king?" 
 
 Kasimir moved forward and laid his hand on 
 the iron railing of the balcony. There was a 
 breathless silence. The great bell had ceased 
 to boom; the crackling of musketry was still. 
 Then he spoke, in a clear, quiet voice that every- 
 one could hear. 
 
 " My father has fled. He is across one of the 
 frontiers by now," he said. " He has abdicated 
 in my favor, and appointed a council of regency, 
 with General Schamiratz at its head." 
 
 A faint murmur went up which might have 
 meant approval of General Schamiratz. On the 
 other hand it might have been the growl of the 
 human wild beast balked of its prey. Some- 
 where at the back of the crowd two or three 
 people shouted " Mikhail of Paris! The king! 
 We want the king!" 
 
 Kasimir leaned over the railing. A sudden 
 sharp ring as of steel came into his thin, high 
 voice. 
 
 " I am here," he said. "I am the king! 
 
 There was a moment of silence. In the room 
 behind, Nikolaievitch held his breath. "They 
 will fire now," he said to himself. 
 
 But they did not. Instead, they stared at the 
 blue figure on the balcony under the white, flam- 
 ing lights the boy who had come out unarmed 
 and alone to face a revolution in defense of his 
 crown. A wild, half-civilized people, they had
 
 THE BINDWEED 53 
 
 the savage's appreciation of courage. Personal 
 bravery was perhaps the only sovereign quality 
 they reverenced in any man. Had Kasimir be- 
 trayed the slightest fear had his voice failed 
 him, even for an instant, or the smallest sign of 
 uneasiness appeared in his bearing, not all the 
 armies of Europe could have saved him. 
 
 There was a moment of absolute, nerve-strain- 
 ing silence. Then, from almost every throat 
 in that savage crowd, one great cry went up. 
 
 "The king! Hurrah for Kasimir! Kasimir! 
 Long live the king!" 
 
 Mechanically Kasimir's hand went up to his 
 bare head, and he saluted his subjects. The cry 
 of acclamation swelled and became a roar. The 
 roar became a tempest, a hurricane of cheers. 
 
 It was over. Mikhail of Paris was gone. 
 The throne was safe. Kasimir I was king in 
 Khristovitz. 
 
 It was some time before the cheering ceased. 
 Kasimir did not move from the balcony while 
 it lasted. When it began to flag, for the reason 
 that human throats, even in Salitza, are not 
 made of brass, he looked back at Nikolaievitch, 
 who had come out into the frame of the window. 
 
 " Ask her majesty to come here," he said. 
 
 Nikolaievitch stepped back. A moment 
 more, and the pale, beautiful queen in her daz- 
 zling dress stood on the balcony beside her son. 
 He led her forward to the railing, and then, 
 with a sudden impulse, bent and kissed her 
 hand. 
 
 Again and again the cheering rose, wild,
 
 54 THE BINDWEED 
 
 enthusiastic, irresistible. It was the touch of 
 human feeling wanted to rouse the loyalty of an 
 impressionable people to fever pitch. 
 
 The scene which followed is indescribable. 
 In a more civilized country it would be impos- 
 sible. Kasimir stood on the balcony, almost 
 stunned, completely deafened. Tears were run- 
 ning down the faces of half the people below 
 the great, strong, savage peasants, the wild, un- 
 manageable, ill-paid soldiers, who had come 
 out to kill Mikhail of Paris and had ended by 
 going almost mad with enthusiastic loyalty for 
 his son. On the farthest edge of the crowd a 
 tall officer in a heavy regulation cloak, the high 
 collar of which he kept well up about his face, 
 stood and watched this final development of a 
 very promising revolution with an ill-pleased 
 air. He was the man who had shot down old 
 Step an Markovitch. 
 
 Someone in the crowd touched his arm as he 
 stood there. He turned to find a man cloaked 
 like himself standing beside him. His face was 
 shaded by the brim of his hat, but he too did not 
 appear pleased with the sudden turn events had 
 taken. 
 
 " It is all over, you see," he said, addressing 
 the tall officer in French, in a voice carefully 
 lowered. " It did not come off. We did not 
 reckon on this." 
 
 The officer smiled quietly. 
 
 "No, man cher, we did not reckon upon this, 
 certainly," he answered. " I ask you, in the 
 name of common sense, how could anyone have
 
 THE BINDWEED 55 
 
 reckoned upon anything so absurd? Bah! these 
 savages what an infernal pandemonium! I 
 shall be deaf for a week." 
 
 " It is exasperating," the man beside him re- 
 marked in a tone of most genuine disgust and 
 disappointment. 
 
 " It is not our fault, but it is annoying, I ad- 
 mit. You will not get your man in this time. 
 But do not concern yourself too deeply. Re- 
 member the proverb * Today to thee, tomorrow 
 to me.' " 
 
 "Tomorrow ! What consolation is that to 
 me, I should like to know? With a boy on the 
 throne who can improvise a coup-de-theatre 
 like this at a moment's notice, the devil himself 
 can only tell when tomorrow will be." 
 
 The tall officer who had shot Stepan Marko- 
 vitch looked over the head of the crowd at the 
 figure of the boy on the lighted balcony, and 
 laughed softly. 
 
 " Do not disturb yourself, my friend," he said. 
 "Tomorrow or next week it will be all the 
 same in the end." 
 
 The two men slipped away through the 
 crowd. Gradually the excitement subsided, the 
 people dispersed, singly, or in little groups, eag- 
 erly discussing the events of the night. Kasimir 
 and the queen left the balcony. Almost uncon- 
 sciously she led the way back to the room which 
 they had quitted so short a time before, under 
 circumstances so dramatically different. 
 
 Arrived there, she stood and looked for a few 
 moments in silence at this boy whom she felt
 
 56 THE BINDWEED 
 
 dimly she had never understood before whom 
 she did not understand now. He was very pale 
 and she noticed that his hands were trembling 
 as they had not done when, in danger of his life, 
 he had helped Josef put on his uniform. An- 
 other woman would have caught him in her 
 arms and wept over him. But the queen had 
 spent all her tenderness on a man not worthy of 
 it nor, indeed, of her; she had none left for Kasi- 
 mir, the child of a short-lived and ill-fated pas- 
 sion, brought up in an atmosphere of hatred and 
 bitterness. Only, dimly, as it were, she felt that 
 she should bestow upon him some sign of ap- 
 proval and affection. It was not her fault that 
 fate had left her so little to give to anyone. She 
 put her hand on his shoulder and brushed his 
 white cheek lightly with her lips. 
 
 " You have behaved very well, Kasimir," she 
 said. " I think you have saved all our lives. 
 Now go to bed and rest yourself. Tomorrow 
 everything will be quiet again and Schamiratz 
 will take over the arrangement of our tangled 
 affairs. Goodnight." 
 
 She went out, hardly moved from her ha- 
 bitual bitter calm the calm which had been 
 born so hardly out of such infinite agonies of 
 shame and disgust and disillusionment unutter- 
 able. 
 
 Kasimir obeyed her mechanically. He un- 
 dressed without Josef's help, and lay down in 
 the cool, refreshing darkness. For a long time 
 he did not move, lying quietly, looking open- 
 eyed into the dark. Then a sudden passion of
 
 THE BINDWEED 57 
 
 some emotion which he could not have ex- 
 plained to himself swept over him. He buried 
 his face in the pillows and the bed shook with 
 his stifled sobs. 
 
 Tomorrow General Schamiratz would prac- 
 tically be king of Salitza. Everything would be 
 quiet again, as the queen had said. But tonight 
 for a few moments the royal cage-door had been 
 opened and the captive within had breathed the 
 swift, intoxicating air of freedom the lonely 
 boy had for a little while played the part of a 
 man, face to face with his fellow-men, for one 
 brief, marvelous space, if only in a struggle for 
 life, no longer alone.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 TO the high house beyond the river the 
 accession of Kasimir I had brought sor- 
 row and desolation. Pavlo, especially, 
 could not recover from the shock of that mo- 
 ment when he had knelt in the Boulevard Valit- 
 zine by his dead father's side and seen the man 
 who had shot him down passing on unconcern- 
 edly, with the cry " Death to Mikhail of Paris!" 
 upon his lips. 
 
 " I know his regiment," Pavlo said to Fritz 
 Goldenburg, now become the comforter of their 
 sorrow as in happier days he had so often been 
 the sharer of their simple pleasures. " I know 
 his regiment it was the Sixth. I know them 
 by their silver tassels no other regiment wears 
 tassels exactly like those. I will wait for that 
 man and kill him." 
 
 " You must not do that, Pavlo," Fritz said, his 
 stolid Teutonic nature appalled by the fierceness 
 of Salitzan hatred. 
 
 "He killed my father, didn't he? Why 
 shouldn't I kill him?" 
 
 According to Salitzan ideas, the question was 
 unanswerable. But Fritz tried to answer it as 
 best he could. 
 
 " It is true that he killed your father, but it 
 
 58
 
 THE BINDWEED 59 
 
 does not follow that it would be right for you 
 to kill him." 
 
 "Right!" repeated Pavlo impatiently. "I 
 don't know anything about it's being right. I 
 mean to do it that is all." 
 
 " But we should do what is right, Pavlo." 
 
 The boy shook his black head. 
 
 " That is all very well for you. You're a Ger- 
 man. I'm not. I shall kill the man who shot 
 my father." 
 
 Fritz went in despair to Liane and told her 
 what her brother was contemplating. 
 
 " He is quite capable of shooting a whole regi- 
 ment," he said. "You must try and persuade 
 him to be reasonable he is beyond me." 
 
 Liane also tried her hand at rendering her 
 brother amenable to reason. 
 
 "After all, poor father fired first," she said. 
 " He might have shot the officer you don't 
 seem to think of that." 
 
 " But he didn't," argued the boy. " He didn't, 
 Liane. What is the use of saying silly things 
 like that? The soldiers were on their way to 
 the palace to kill the king and father was right 
 to do what he did. If he had killed the officer 
 in defence of the king's life, that would have 
 been right too." 
 
 " I thought you were against the king," poor 
 Liane said in despair. " I am sure I have heard 
 you abuse him often enough." 
 
 " I am talking about father, not about the 
 king." 
 
 In the vain hope that his blood-thirsty inten-
 
 60 THE BINDWEED 
 
 tions might be diverted by conversation, she 
 made him tell her again what had happened. 
 It was the Sixth Regiment he was quite sure 
 of that. He had not been able to see the officer's 
 face he had put the collar of his cloak up, and 
 besides he, Pavlo, was a little behind him, on the 
 right-hand side of the Boulevard Valitzine. He 
 would know him again anywhere. He would 
 know his voice if he heard it, even without see- 
 ing him at all. The man's voice seemed to have 
 struck him, though he could not explain why. 
 He could not describe him very clearly. He 
 was very tall, and the boy thought he had fair 
 hair and a fair mustache yes, he was almost 
 certain about the mustache. 
 
 It was a description which might have fitted 
 almost any officer in the Salitzan army, though 
 Salitzans, as a rule, are dark. Still, it was 
 possible that Pavlo had made a mistake about 
 the color of the man's hair. But it would be 
 easy enough to find him everybody would 
 know the names of the officers in the Sixth. 
 
 Liane told Fritz what he said. The German 
 looked grave. 
 
 " My brother is a lieutenant in the Sixth," he 
 said. " I know the names of most of the officers. 
 The colonel is Gliska, one of the new council 
 of regency. It certainly could not have been 
 Gliska. He wouldn't have led the way to the 
 palace crying ' Death to Mikhail of Paris!' 
 We may as well put that out of our minds at 
 once. I don't know who could have led the 
 regiment that night everything was in such
 
 THE BINDWEED 61 
 
 confusion. My brother is in Berlin on leave, 
 and Major Janno is in bed with a broken leg." 
 
 They spent some days in dreadful uncertainty 
 as to Pavlo's intention. Then their anxiety was 
 relieved. He came in one day and threw him- 
 self into a seat with a harassed air. 
 
 " I have seen every officer in the Sixth," he 
 said. "There was a sort of review this morn- 
 ing out at Mirsk, and I thought he might be 
 there. But he was not. He evidently is not an 
 officer in the Sixth at all." 
 
 Liane and Fritz breathed more freely for the 
 time being. 
 
 After the excitement of the revolution which 
 had cost Mikhail V his crown, Khristovitz had 
 grown quiet again, as the queen had prophesied 
 it would. General Schamiratz was the idol of 
 the army and the popular hero of Salitza; but 
 it was not altogether his influence that had 
 brought about this happy state of things. The 
 coolness of the boy king on that eventful night 
 had impressed the public mind more deeply 
 than those in authority supposed. Certainly 
 Schamiratz would have smiled a pitying smile 
 if he had been told that the peaceful manner 
 in which the capital had accepted the new re- 
 gime was due as much to the enthusiasm for 
 Kasimir as it was to any affection for him. 
 Schamiratz had a very clear idea of his own 
 merits and a very high opinion of his own popu- 
 larity. It would not have pleased him to con- 
 sider his sovereign in the light of a rival; nor 
 would it have been a very propitious commence-
 
 62 THE BINDWEED 
 
 ment for his sovereign, to tell the truth, if the 
 fact had been unduly forced upon the gallant 
 general's notice that the king was quite as popu- 
 lar as himself. 
 
 So the " Lion of Mirsk," as his admirers 
 called him, took every opportunity of riding 
 about the city on his white charger and arousing 
 all the enthusiasm that he could for his own 
 person. It was all for the king's ultimate good, 
 no doubt. But to Kasimir, shut up in the palace, 
 the hours seemed very long. 
 
 That moment of liberty on the balcony was 
 already receding into the dim regions of mem- 
 ory. But it was a memory that stung him. It 
 was by his own act that he was king at all that 
 a tragedy had been averted; yet now that the 
 danger was over, no one seemed to consider him 
 a person of much account. Under all the pomp 
 with which they were careful to hedge him in 
 from all intercourse with his own subjects, he 
 detected the eternal irony of things the farce 
 which surrounded with all the emblems of 
 power and dignity one who was in reality little 
 more than a captive. This boy, silent, nervous, 
 intensely sensitive and impressionable, had the 
 wit to see through the dismal comedy, if not the 
 strength to put an end to it. On the very day 
 after his accession, Schamiratz, with his blunt, 
 hearty manner which innocent people imagined 
 to be the index of a frank and honorable nature, 
 brought the royal marionette a bundle of papers 
 to sign. 
 
 "Your majesty need not be troubled with
 
 THE BINDWEED 63 
 
 needless details," he remarked, in the bluff and 
 breezy tones which characterized the Lion of 
 Mirsk. " It will only be necessary for you to 
 sign these documents. I have seen that they are 
 all in order." 
 
 Kasimir's grave mouth kept from even the 
 suspicion of a smile. His voice was perfectly 
 expressionless and polite as he answered: 
 
 " You are very kind, general. I think I will 
 read the papers." 
 
 He read them, steadily and persistently, from 
 beginning to end. Schamiratz stood by, impa- 
 tient and uneasy. Then the king began to ask 
 questions. Schamiratz fidgeted palpably. Was 
 the king actually going to take an interest in 
 affairs of state? If so, it struck him that the 
 late revolution had been singularly unsucessful. 
 
 Kasimir was perfectly aware of his impa- 
 tience; but not the most accomplished actor 
 could have appeared more utterly unconscious 
 of it. Schamiratz became more and more un- 
 easy, for it was clear to him that this boy of fif- 
 teen was as capable of forming an opinion even 
 of intricate affairs of policy as many people 
 twice his age. Some time after he had gone, 
 the queen came to Kasimir's study. 
 
 "What have you been saying to Schami- 
 ratz?" 
 
 He looked down almost timidly. With a man 
 he could to a certain extent hold his own, in his 
 own way; with a woman he was hopelessly at 
 a loss, even though that woman was his mother. 
 
 " I don't know what I said nothing particu-
 
 64 THE BINDWEED 
 
 larly important. We discussed the papers he 
 brought for me to sign. He intends taking cer- 
 tain measures at once which I should have 
 thought " 
 
 The queen broke in hastily. 
 
 " For all our sakes, don't think about these 
 affairs, Kasimir or think what Schamiratz 
 wishes! You will get into worse trouble than 
 your father, if you offend Schamiratz. Mik- 
 hail at least never meddled in politics or inter- 
 fered with the government until that unlucky 
 tax. You saw what happened then." 
 
 Kasimir looked down still. A curious expres- 
 sion of humiliation, almost of disgust, was upon 
 his face. So he was king not by the grace of 
 God, but by the favor and protection of General 
 Schamiratz ! It seemed to him that royalty was 
 a cheap and rather nasty commodity. 
 
 The queen looked at him curiously. To her, 
 all matters connected with the ruling of the 
 kingdom seemed more or less banal and even 
 irritating. What did it matter, after all, what 
 measures Schamiratz did or did not take? 
 There would always be a certain number of 
 people who were satisfied with the existing con- 
 dition of things, and another much greater num- 
 ber who would be satisfied, on principle, with 
 nothing at all. To her mind, it was safest to let 
 both parties alone. She proceeded to express 
 this view, at some length and with considerable 
 vehemence. 
 
 Kasimir heard her in respectful, if unillumi- 
 nating, silence. He naturally did not agree with
 
 THE BINDWEED 65 
 
 her in the least. The memory of that moment 
 of freedom on the balcony over the West Gate 
 still hung in his mind. 
 
 She left him at last, and took an opportunity 
 of expressing to General Schamiratz her 
 opinion that the king's sudden interest in affairs 
 of state would soon pass away. 
 
 " If I may be permitted to say what I think," 
 replied Schamiratz he never expressed one 
 half of what he thought " I think his majesty 
 needs needs relaxation. Young society a lit- 
 tle pleasure, in brief," he ended, smiling with 
 every appearance of the frankest good-humor. 
 
 The pale queen glanced at him with a swift, 
 passing gleam of mistrust in her eyes. Plea- 
 sure! Was that to be the cure for Kasimir's 
 precocity? She shivered at the word. Sixteen 
 years spent as the wife of Mikhail of Paris had 
 given the word for all time a sinister sound in 
 her ears. 
 
 "What do you want to do to him?" she 
 said, with the sudden fierceness of the mother 
 whose child is menaced by a danger. 
 
 Schamiratz opened his eyes a little. 
 
 "Do to him, madame? I am always at his 
 command, and at yours. But it struck me that 
 the king has no friends, no intimates." 
 
 " A king can have no friends," the pale queen 
 answered bitterly. 
 
 Schamiratz bowed. 
 
 " I venture to disagree with you, madame. 
 The more friends a king has, the better for 
 him."
 
 66 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " And for them," she smiled, with a touch of 
 irony. 
 
 Schamiratz bowed again. 
 
 " Madame, you do me an injustice. What 
 have I to gain by the king's favor? But I have 
 sons who might well be the king's friends, to 
 his advantage as well as to their own." 
 
 The queen turned away for a moment and 
 was silent. 
 
 " I will advise the king to appoint your sons 
 to his household," she said at last, and dismissed 
 him with an unusual amount of hauteur. 
 
 It was done. Ivan and Sasha Schamiratz 
 were appointed to the king's household one 
 might almost say, to the king's intimacy. He 
 was tacitly told to make friends with them and 
 they were told, by no means tacitly, to make 
 friends with him. They were both some years 
 older than himself handsome, reckless, un- 
 scrupulous, brought up in a school which rev- 
 erenced nothing in heaven or earth. 
 
 At first they disgusted Kasimir; afterwards 
 they fascinated him. He followed their lead, 
 imitated their example. After all, it was no use 
 to take life seriously. He could do nothing in 
 the kingdom he, the king, the tool of General 
 Schamiratz. He might as well enjoy himself, 
 as his father had done. 
 
 Even General Schamiratz was astonished at 
 the success of his little scheme and the readiness 
 with which the king followed the example of 
 his amiable sons. " He is the son of Mikhail of 
 Paris, after all," he said to himself comfortably.
 
 THE BINDWEED 67 
 
 But Schamiratz was far from guessing how 
 completely the king saw through the scheme, 
 even while he permitted it to succeed, and with 
 what a sick loathing he hated himself for not 
 being strong enough to revolt against the man 
 who was his master. There were times when 
 the full realization of his position was almost 
 more than he could endure when for days he 
 would shut himself up alone in his apartments, 
 seeing no one, and give way to black fits of de- 
 spair. His temper became uncertain, and he 
 indulged in occasional outbursts of passion be- 
 fore which even the light-hearted cynicism and 
 callousness of Ivan and Sasha Schamiratz 
 shrank appalled. 
 
 Stones of the king's delinquencies got about 
 very rapidly. It is easy to give a king a bad 
 name in Salitza, and, once given, it is a fixture 
 forever. Black tales of what went on at the 
 palace soon undermined the transient popular- 
 ity which Kasimir had won for himself on the 
 night of his accession. " He is the son of Mik- 
 hail of Paris," was the general verdict. In cer- 
 tain quarters people were already beginning to 
 discuss the advisability of deposing him, and 
 electing Schamiratz king. 
 
 The only person who tried to save Kasimir 
 was the queen. She saw the mistake she had 
 made in yielding to Schamiratz's suggestion. 
 One day she went to Kasimir's study, and found 
 him alone. 
 
 " I wanted to speak to you," she said. 
 
 Yet she did not find it easy to say what she had
 
 68 THE BINDWEED 
 
 come to say. She looked instead at Kasimir's 
 face. It was sullen, and there was a dangerous 
 light in his eyes. 
 
 "It is best to speak plainly," she said at 
 last. 
 
 He interrupted her. 
 
 "There is no need for you to speak plainly, 
 madame. I know what you have come to 
 say." 
 
 A kind of desperation seized her. 
 
 "You don't know what you are doing. Al- 
 ready people say you are as bad 'as as your 
 father. And it is worse in your case than in his, 
 because you are so young." 
 
 Kasimir smiled. "Young?" he said. "Have 
 I ever been young? I don't remember it." 
 
 "Alter send away the Schamiratzes." 
 
 "You asked me to appoint them," said the 
 king. 
 
 " I didn't know what they were, or that you 
 would follow their example. I find now that 
 they have a terrible character in their regiment 
 they ought not to be admitted within any 
 decent person's doors." 
 
 " I am not a decent person," said Kasimir bit- 
 terly. " I am only the king! " 
 
 "Kasimir !" she cried. 
 
 His sullen eyes blazed suddenly. 
 
 " Leave me alone don't come here to re- 
 proach me," he said roughly. " Do you think 
 I can't do that for myself? " and he threw him- 
 self into a seat and dropped his head in his 
 hands.
 
 THE BINDWEED 69 
 
 She stood looking at him, utterly at a loss 
 what to do. 
 
 " If you have any love for me " she be- 
 gan at last, with the hesitating air of one trying 
 the efficacy of an argument of which he is by 
 no means sure. 
 
 He lifted his head. 
 
 " Don't talk about that! You are my mother 
 I know that. But have you ever loved me? 
 Have you ever been anything to me? You 
 haven't been unkind you could not be that to 
 a dog. But I think you love your dogs better 
 than me and understand them more." 
 
 It was a terrible thing for her to hear. The 
 most terrible part of it was that it was true. She 
 tried to answer, but failed. 
 
 He understood her silence. 
 
 " You see it is true. Don't think I want to 
 hurt you don't think I am reproaching you. 
 It is not your fault. People are as they are made. 
 Perhaps if I had been different you would have 
 cared for me." 
 
 Some instinct of pity and tenderness drew her 
 to him. She put her hand timidly on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Kasimir I didn't know I didn't under- 
 stand that you wanted me. I how was I to 
 
 know? Your father " She paused. "Your 
 
 father did not want me or only for a little 
 
 while when " Again she broke off. It was 
 
 not easy even now for her to speakjof Mikhail. 
 " I never knew you felt like this you were 
 always so silent, so reserved, even as a little
 
 70 THE BINDWEED 
 
 child. And everyone was afraid of my in- 
 fluence with you because I am a foreigner. But 
 now can't we begin again now? " 
 
 For a moment Kasimir sat very still. It 
 seemed to her that he hesitated. Then he pushed 
 his chair away from the table at which he sat 
 and rose abruptly to his feet. Her hand fell to 
 her side. 
 
 " It is too late now," he said.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IT was with slow steps and a heavy heart that 
 Liane Markovitch took her way now to the 
 " Paradis des Dames." No more singing 
 on the stair, no more joyous little suppers on 
 cabbage soup and dry bread and happy, careless 
 laughter. No more gay rambles along the 
 Boulevard Mikhail II of an evening, with 
 Pavlo chattering at her side and Mikhail's hot 
 small fingers clinging to her hand. No more 
 fun, no more gaiety. A black cloud hung over 
 them all. 
 
 In vain good madame of the " Paradis des 
 Dames" tried to comfort her favorite. 
 
 " See, now, my cabbage, thou art young 
 these sad days are not for ever. Come, there 
 are hats from dear Paris today hats new and 
 beautiful, which will drive the Claire to dis- 
 traction." 
 
 But not even professional feeling against " the 
 Claire " could drive Liane's sadness away. 
 Who could tell how soon Pavlo might find the 
 tall officer who had shot his father? 
 
 She told her sorrows to madame, who held up 
 her hands in horror. 
 
 "My poor child, how terrible! But why 
 dost thou not go to the police?" 
 
 "And betray Pavlo?" asked poor Liane, 
 
 71
 
 72 THE BINDWEED 
 
 bursting into tears. "My own brother oh, I 
 can't do that!" 
 
 "Ah, this terrible country! No, my darling, 
 I see thou canst not do that. The good God 
 Himself can only tell what mischief that might 
 bring upon you all ! " 
 
 " That is what Fritz says." 
 
 "And who is Fritz, my cabbage?" 
 
 Liane told her, with a faint color dawning in 
 her tear-stained cheeks. 
 
 " And why dost thou not marry this excellent 
 young man?" inquired madame, not unnatur- 
 ally. 
 
 Liane looked very hard at the new hat which 
 she was unpacking. 
 
 "Oh, madame I I don't know. He is 
 everything that is good and kind, but but it 
 isn't wanting to marry him, madame." She 
 grew very red. " I I don't love him." 
 
 "Love him! What nonsense hast thou got 
 into thy stupid little head? Love!" madame 
 sniffed contemptuously "What is love, I 
 should like to know? If the young man is all 
 thou hast said, he would be a most suitable hus- 
 band for thee and thou wouldst soon love him 
 as well as other women love their husbands, and 
 a great deal more. What has given thee these 
 foolish ideas about love, my cabbage?" 
 
 " I don't want to marry a man I don't love, 
 madame. I I should very soon hate him, if I 
 did." 
 
 Madame assumed an air as nearly severe as 
 her native good-nature would permit.
 
 THE BINDWEED 73 
 
 " My child, this life that we live is not a 
 foolish book. There it is true that people 
 marry each other for love; but in real life it 
 is not so. Here we marry the best man we can 
 find, with the most money or sometimes, seest 
 thou, the worst man, with the most money and 
 make ourselves as happy as we can, and do not 
 dream dreams of the impossible. One man is 
 the same as another, when it comes to living 
 with him. One gets used to all things in time, 
 my cabbage. When I married Jules I would 
 not have believed that I should miss him so 
 much if he were to die no, not if an angel had 
 come down from heaven to tell me so." 
 
 So madame pleaded the German's cause as 
 he himself did not try to plead it. 
 
 One evening he found Liane more than usu- 
 ally pale and anxious. " Pavlo has not come 
 home," she said. " I went to the place where 
 he works and they have not seen him all day. 
 Oh, Fritz, what shall I do?" 
 
 "We can only wait and see. Perhaps he has 
 only gone off on one more wild-goose chase 
 after this officer of his." 
 
 But Pavlo did not come home at all that 
 night. Liane sat waiting until the dawn crept 
 up over the distant spire of the cathedral and 
 the thrushes were in full chorus in the Ostraya 
 Gardens. Then she threw herself on her bed 
 and wept as though her heart was broken 
 as indeed she thought it was. 
 
 It was a sad and weary shadow of the Liane of
 
 74 THE BINDWEED 
 
 old days who crept into the " Paradis des 
 Dames" that morning. Madame tried to com- 
 fort her, though in her own heart she feared 
 the worst. At mid-day Fritz Goldenburg ap- 
 peared in the Boulevard Mikhail II and asked 
 to see Liane. She flew to him, alarmed by his 
 appearance at that unwonted hour and in that 
 unwonted place. His face was grave and he 
 had a copy of the Khrtstovitz Courier in his 
 hand. 
 
 "There is a paragraph here I don't know 
 whether it is about Pavlo, but I thought I would 
 bring it to you." 
 
 The paragraph was brief. 
 
 " This evening two officers whose names we are unable to 
 discover were fired upon in the Boulevard Valitzine by a 
 young man who fled immediately he had committed this out- 
 rage upon the public peace. The young man wore a work- 
 man's dress, but this may have been a disguise. His name is 
 not known. We are pleased to learn from a bystander that 
 neither of the two officers was injured." 
 
 Liane dropped the paper and looked at Fritz. 
 
 " It is Pavlo I am sure it is," she said. 
 " Now he will go to the mountains and join the 
 brigands, as he threatened more than once to 
 do when father was angry with him." 
 
 " He may not have been the man who did this 
 at all," Fritz said, trying to believe in his own 
 words. " He may come back today." 
 
 " It was Pavlo I know it was. Oh, Fritz, 
 now he will go to the mountains an-d be shot and 
 we shall never see him again! "
 
 THE BINDWEED 75 
 
 And indeed it looked as though she were 
 right, for Pavlo did not return. They dared 
 not make any inquiries about him for fear of 
 drawing attention to his absence from home. 
 Liane was worn out with sorrow and anxiety. 
 Pavlo was her favorite of the two boys he had 
 shared her amusements and helped her to keep 
 the tiny flat, lightening every task with nonsense 
 and laughter. Her pale face and hollow eyes 
 cut Fritz to the heart. He would have given 
 his own life cheerfully to bring Pavlo back to 
 his sister's arms. 
 
 In reality, there was more than Pavlo's fate 
 to be thought about. Old Stepan's irregularly 
 paid pension was gone and they had no more 
 the earnings of his eldest son to depend upon. 
 Money, always a scarce commodity in the little 
 flat under the tiles, was now scarcer there than 
 ever. Mikhail was too young to do much, 
 though he already ran errands for madame, 
 who had suddenly discovered that the " Paradis 
 des Dames" could no longer exist without the 
 services of a small and very mischievous boy of 
 precisely Mikhail's size and age. 
 
 When the winter came the situation grew 
 grave. If they had enough for food and rent, 
 there was not enough for firing. Something 
 must be done. With a sinking heart Liane told 
 Fritz that they must find a cheaper flat. 
 
 Mikhail had run out for a few moments on 
 an errand for Fritz. The German sat silent for 
 a while before he spoke. He remembered that 
 morning on the Ostraya Bridge. Would it be
 
 76 THE BINDWEED 
 
 of any use to try his luck again? He looked at 
 Liane with a sick longing at his heart. 
 
 " If you would let me take care of you, dear," 
 he said, "you need never worry about these 
 things any more. Liane won't you try? I 
 don't want to press you to say yes, I don't want 
 to vex you. But Liane, if you would marry 
 me I would never let you regret it." 
 
 There was silence in the little room. Liane 
 had dropped her work across her knees. Her 
 head was bent, so that Fritz could not see her 
 face. He came over to her gently, and took 
 her hands in his. " Let me try and make you 
 happy again, Herzliebchen. We will not go 
 away from here. We will live here all to- 
 gether you and I and Mikhail." 
 
 She had let him take her hands. She sat mo- 
 tionless for a second. "You are too good for 
 me," she said presently. " Fritz, I hate to say 
 it, but I must be honest I must tell you the 
 truth. If I marry you it will be because I am 
 poor and unhappy and want someone to take 
 care of me, and of Mikhail. I can't pretend 
 that I care for you, because I don't. I like you 
 very, very much that's all. If you marry me 
 knowing this, you mustn't blame me if I disap- 
 point you afterwards." 
 
 He took her in his arms and kissed Her very 
 tenderly. 
 
 "You will never disappoint me, Herzlieb- 
 chen. Liane, I am very humble I don't ask 
 much. If you will like me a little a very 
 little, dear "
 
 THE BINDWEED 77 
 
 She was touched and softened. Perhaps at 
 that moment she came nearer to loving him 
 than she was ever to do again. 
 
 " Dear Fritz, I like you more than anyone 
 else in the world," she said. 
 
 So it was arranged, and Fritz Goldenburg 
 had the desire of his heart. But that night 
 when he had gone, and Mikhail had been put 
 to bed, after expressing his entire approval of 
 his sister's betrothal and even going so far as 
 to guarantee the pleasure of Ivan the Terrible 
 at receiving Fritz into her family circle when 
 the lights were out, and all the world of their 
 riverside quarter was asleep, Liane sat at her 
 window, and looked across the river with wist- 
 ful eyes. As she looked, her eyes clouded with 
 a sadness bitterer than tears. It was the end 
 of all her dreams, and dreams die harder, per- 
 haps, than realities. Nothing was left except 
 possibly the memory of a blue and silver officer 
 lounging round the show-room of the " Paradis 
 des Dames" in Princess Roumanine's wake, and 
 looking at her with beautiful, inscrutable blue 
 eyes, which were yet a little cruel and even sinis- 
 ter, she could not have told why. With a sigh 
 she put it from her, drew down the blind, and 
 went slowly and sorrowfully to bed. 
 
 They were married within a fortnight, to 
 madame's great relief and delight. The good 
 woman won Mikhail's heart forever by present- 
 ing Ivan the Terrible with an enormous white 
 satin bow in which to celebrate the happy event.
 
 78 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " It is a great comfort that you have married 
 a man who likes cats," he remarked to Liane. 
 " If you had had a blue and silver officer, as 
 Pavlo used to tell you to do, he might have been 
 horrid to Ivan." 
 
 But he did not see the look that his innocent 
 speech brought into the velvet eyes that Vladi- 
 mir Ourof had admired, nor would he have 
 understood it if he had. The dream was over. 
 She had married Fritz. 
 
 On the very day of their marriage an incident 
 occurred which made some stir in high circles 
 in Khristovitz. Vladimir Ourof and a party 
 of friends were wolf-hunting in the hilly coun- 
 try beyond Mirsk. Vladimir got separated 
 from the rest and found himself in a little clear- 
 ing in the forest round what seemed to be a 
 woodcutter's hut. He went to the door, think- 
 ing to ask the way, of which he was by no means 
 sure. For some time his knocking had no effect. 
 Then the door was opened by a boy of fifteen or 
 sixteen, poorly dressed, thin, and apparently in 
 great want of food. He looked for a moment 
 in the attache's face, with a wild expression of 
 astonishment and anger. Then he whipped a 
 knife out of his sash and sprang at him like a 
 tiger-cat. 
 
 He might as well have thrown himself against 
 an iron wall. Vladimir was one of those men 
 who are always ready for danger and keep their 
 nerve even under the most sudden assault. The 
 boy, weakened as he was by long privations, had
 
 THE BINDWEED 79 
 
 no chance with him. Vladimir caught him in 
 a grip of steel, wrenched the knife out of his 
 hands, and held him away from him, looking 
 at him with a cruel gleam in his eyes. 
 
 " This is the second time you have tried to kill 
 me," he said. " It was you who shot at me in the 
 Boulevard Valitzine a month or two ago. Now 
 I am going to kill you." 
 
 Still holding both his hands in one of his own, 
 the Russian took a tiny silver-mounted revolver 
 from his pocket a pretty little toy which had 
 been a gift from Anna Roumanine. He looked 
 at the boy for a moment more. 
 
 " Have you anything to say before I shoot 
 you?" he asked. 
 
 The boy did not try to struggle. His whole 
 strength seemed to have been exhausted in that 
 one murderous leap at his enemy. He lifted a 
 pair of beautiful, soft black eyes to Vladimir's 
 blue ones. 
 
 " No," he answered, panting a little. " I 
 tried to kill you because you shot my father. 
 I am sorry I didn't do it that's all. Shoot me 
 if you like I don't want to live." 
 
 Vladimir still looked at the thin, worn face. 
 Where had he seen eyes like those before? For 
 the fraction of a second he wavered in his de- 
 termination. Then he glanced at his own hand. 
 It was streaming with blood from a deep gash 
 on the wrist, which he had not felt in the 
 struggle. 
 
 The cruel gleam came back to his eyes. He 
 lifted the pretty little revolver and pressed it
 
 8o THE BINDWEED 
 
 against the boy's temple, just beneath the thick, 
 curling hair. 
 
 "Are you ready?" he said. It was his way 
 of paying a compliment to his adversary's cool- 
 ness in the face of death. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," the boy said quietly. 
 
 Vladimir fired. The slight figure swayed 
 away from him and fell at his feet with a chok- 
 ing cry. Vladimir put the little revolver in his 
 pocket, and, kneeling down, felt the boy's heart. 
 It had ceased to beat almost as he fell. 
 
 The attache knelt on for a moment more, 
 scrutinizing the boy he had just shot in cold 
 blood, without a trace of pity or feeling of any 
 kind on his face. He had loosened the thin 
 shirt and now saw that a little steel chain hung 
 about his victim's throat, supporting a tiny pho- 
 tograph of a woman in the dress of twenty years 
 ago, cased in a cheap miniature frame. Vladimir 
 detached the chain, looked at the photograph, 
 and put both in his pocket, side by side with the 
 silver-mounted revolver. There was not much 
 chance that the boy's body would ever be found, 
 but it was always safest to remove anything that 
 might lead to identification. Then he dragged 
 the body into the hut, and shut the door. 
 
 For an hour or more he wandered in the 
 forest, unable to regain his party. He was in 
 a bad temper, for the gash in his wrist was pain- 
 ful. When at last he found his friends he was 
 beginning to wish that the wolf-hunt had never 
 taken place. 
 
 But his friends were very pleased with them-
 
 THE BINDWEED 81 
 
 selves after a good day's sport, and very much 
 inclined to be witty on the subject of his dis- 
 appearance. 
 
 "Vladimir has been wolf-hunting with the 
 woodman's pretty daughter. Trust him to 
 amuse himself while other people are hard at 
 work! Tell us the color of her hair, Vladimir." 
 
 " Why, he's got a cut on the wrist I could put 
 three fingers in!" cried someone, surprised. 
 "What has happened to you, Ourof?" 
 
 "The woodman's pretty daughter has teeth 
 as beautiful as her eyes! " and there was a gen- 
 eral laugh. 
 
 Vladimir disposed of a stiff glass of brandy, 
 smiling composedly all the while at these pleas- 
 antries. Then he told his story. It was one so 
 usual in that part of the world that no one 
 dreamed of casting a suspicion upon his ve- 
 racity. He had lost his way and strayed into an 
 unfamiliar portion of the forest. There he had 
 been attacked with a knife by a man who first 
 demanded his money. The knife hurt his wrist, 
 and then he got out his revolver, upon seeing 
 which the robber fled. The cut was a mere 
 scratch would someone oblige him by tying a 
 handkerchief round it? But it was very annoy- 
 ing to have lost a day's sport. 
 
 That evening when Vladimir lounged into 
 his ambassadrice's boudoir, she ran to him with 
 a cry. 
 
 "Oh, Vladimir, I have been so frightened 
 about you! Oh, that wicked man I would 
 kill him if I could! My friend, you are pale
 
 82 THE BINDWEED 
 
 you are in pain. Ah!" she recoiled from him 
 with a pretty, affected little scream of terror 
 "your hand is bound up you are badly hurt!" 
 She dragged him down on to a rose-silk sofa, 
 and exclaimed over him, and petted him, and 
 worked herself into a condition of the most 
 charming tender sympathy and terror. 
 
 "It is nothing really nothing," he told her; 
 but she would not be content until he had told 
 her the whole story or at least, his own version 
 of it. 
 
 "And you shot at him!" she cried, when he 
 had finished, in an ecstasy of admiration. "You 
 defended yourself, wounded as you were ah, 
 my hero! my paladin!" 
 
 She threw herself into his arms in tears. But 
 this was a little too much, even for Vladimir 
 Ourof, who, whatever his sins, had a certain 
 sense of humor, and was not a fool. 
 
 "It isn't particularly heroic to defend one's 
 life, I imagine," he said, somewhat coldly. 
 " You let your feelings run away with you, my 
 angel." 
 
 " I know I do you always said you adored 
 impulsive women," returned the unsuspecting 
 ambassadrice triumphantly. "Oh, Vladimir, 
 what should I have done if you had been killed? 
 And my poor little gift saved your life, my dar- 
 ling," she murmured, taking it from its place in 
 his pocket, and pressing it theatrically to her 
 lips. 
 
 A gleam of sinister amusement shot into 
 Ourof's beautiful eyes. He saw again the little
 
 THE BINDWEED 83 
 
 hut in the forest the boy'9 slight figure 
 stretched upon the ground. 
 
 "Yes, my white dove," he said, in his soft, 
 deep, drawling voice, "your little gift saved 
 my life."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FOUR years had passed since Fritz and 
 Liane were married. They still lived in 
 the high house by the riverside, but they 
 lived there now by themselves, for little Mik- 
 hail, whose ambitions had always lain in a mili- 
 tary direction, had become a drummer-boy in a 
 regiment quartered in a frontier town. Liane 
 still went every day to the " Paradis des Dames," 
 for Fritz was at the works up the river from 
 seven in the morning up to eight or nine o'clock 
 at night, and she hated being left alone in the 
 little flat with Ivan the Terrible, now grown 
 fat and lazy and irritable of temper since the 
 departure of her master. So every morning 
 still saw her in the Boulevard Mikhail II, 
 much to madame's delight. 
 
 " What should I have done without thee, my 
 cabbage," that good lady would inquire pathet- 
 ically, " hadst thou married a man less excellent 
 than thy admirable Fritz?" 
 
 " He is very good too good for me," Liane 
 always said in reply to these praises of Fritz. 
 But there was not much enthusiasm in her tone. 
 She had tried at first to make some response to 
 his tenderness to repay him for all he did for 
 her. She would have given everything in the 
 world to love him, if only because by doing so 
 
 84
 
 THE BINDWEED 85 
 
 she might discharge the infinite debt she owed 
 him ; but she came of a race whose passions, both 
 of love and hate, are impatient of control. She 
 tried hard to love Fritz and the very effort, 
 and the sense of its failure, bred in her heart a 
 sick weariness which in time became almost dis- 
 like. His tenderness irritated her because she 
 could not return it, and she drew more and more 
 into herself. She grew hard, and silent, un- 
 sympathetic, and at times unkind. She tried 
 to make amends afterwards, but the effort only 
 made things worse. Yet he was very patient 
 still it was not in him to be otherwise with any 
 living thing, much less with Liane. She wished 
 at times that he would grow weary of wasting 
 his love upon one so unresponsive, but he was 
 not of those who can change. 
 
 There were gray days up there in the little 
 flat where once all had been so gay and bright. 
 Ah, how long ago they seemed, those days of 
 careless gaiety! What sweet, foolish visions 
 she had dreamed in the old days and how 
 utterly they had come to nothing! There was 
 no place now in her life for dreams of any kind 
 no place for that wild, poetic, passionate 
 spirit which beat its wings against the cage-bars 
 of commonplace real life and sighed desper- 
 ately for it knew not what. 
 
 It was a spring morning like that day long 
 ago when she had stood with Fritz on the 
 Ostraya Bridge. In the Ostraya Gardens the 
 thrushes were singing as though their little 
 speckled throats must burst with sweetness.
 
 86 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Liane, going to the Boulevard Mikhail II, 
 paused to hear them. She stood on the broad 
 bridge and looked down at the gray and golden 
 waters dancing below. Gradually she forgot 
 everything in the world but the dance of the 
 waves as they went by under the dark arches of 
 the bridge, and the song of the birds in the 
 gardens beyond. She leaned over the ironwork 
 of the balustrade, and a flush came into her 
 cheeks and her eyes grew wide and dreamy. 
 She was a girl again, and gay and happy. 
 
 A tall man with a cloak across his shoulders 
 saw her standing there and looked at her 
 thoughtfully. It was Vladimir Ourof. He 
 had been dancing all night at a ball at the em- 
 bassy and any other man would have been in 
 bed at that moment feeling himself a martyr 
 to the absurd manner in which society chooses 
 to amuse itself. Vladimir bore the inflictions 
 of popularity with graceful resignation. He 
 had nerves of iron and nothing ever tired him. 
 There was to be a review at Mirsk that morn- 
 ing and it seemed foolish to go to bed at five in 
 the morning for the purpose of getting up at 
 seven. The tall attache drank his morning cof- 
 fee and went for a walk. And on the Ostraya 
 Bridge he saw Liane. 
 
 He had an unfailing memory for faces and 
 knew her at once, remembering with a touch of 
 ironical amusement, that day in the " Paradis 
 des Dames" when he had kissed the pretty girl 
 who served his ambassadrice almost under his 
 ambassadrice's pretty little foolish nose. And
 
 THE BINDWEED 87 
 
 how lovely the girl had been how lovely she 
 was still ! He had seen many pretty women in 
 his time, but here was the queen of them all. 
 He stood there smoothing his mustache, and 
 studying her the velvet eyes that had taken his 
 fancy before, the pale, delicately cut features, 
 the black hair piled in thick masses under the 
 brim of a simple straw hat. 
 
 She turned suddenly and saw him. The color 
 flamed into her face and the velvet eyes glowed 
 as though with fire. It was a day of long ago 
 come back to her indeed, and Vladimir Ourof 
 had come with it. 
 
 Vladimir saw the look. He was not impres- 
 sionable, and, for all the long list of his con- 
 quests, he was not given to falling in love at first 
 sight. But here was the most beautiful woman 
 he had ever seen and he had sense enough to 
 know it. He did not look at her again. He 
 simply walked past her in a preoccupied way, 
 and caught his sword in her dress. 
 
 The army of Salitza, when it does these 
 things, even to ladies, does not as a rule trouble 
 itself to apologize very profoundly for its awk- 
 wardness. Vladimir did. He apologized so 
 well, indeed, that five minutes later he was still 
 standing on the Ostraya Bridge by Liane's 
 side. 
 
 He was very careful. He saw that she knew 
 him, that she remembered the " Paradis des 
 Dames." He spoke of the fine morning, of the 
 thrushes singing in the gardens, the exquisite 
 gray and gold of the waves rushing under the
 
 8B THE BINDWEED 
 
 bridge. His conversation might have been 
 printed as a model of simplicity and decorum. 
 But all the time his eyes were upon her with the 
 look she remembered so well from that day in 
 the " Paradis des Dames." 
 
 The cathedral clock struck six, and Liane 
 started. 
 
 " It is late what have I been thinking of to 
 stay here so long? " she said, trembling suddenly 
 with a strange sort of fear. " Goodmorning, 
 monsieur!" 
 
 " I had forgotten that such a thing as time still 
 existed," Vladimir said softly, and gave her one 
 more look out of those confusing eyes of his be- 
 fore she could hurry away. 
 
 For himself, he was not in any hurry at all. 
 He strolled slowly back to the embassy, where 
 his horse was waiting for him, and set out for 
 the review at Mirsk. 
 
 After dinner he received a summons from 
 Prince Roumanine. He found the little am- 
 bassadrice's husband in his study, with a cigar- 
 ette between his lips, and a thoughtful expres- 
 sion upon his small, wrinkled face. He was 
 one of those dry, elderly men who appear never 
 to have been young, and who never seem to 
 grow any older than they have always been. 
 He nodded at Vladimir Ourof and blinked at 
 him with a pair of weak gray eyes which were 
 yet uncommonly well able to see all that went 
 on about him. 
 
 "Sit down, Ourof," he said, in a high, ex- 
 pressionless voice which sometimes gave his
 
 THE BINDWEED 89 
 
 wife "nerves." " I suppose you have been bored 
 to death? This Schamiratz is a singularly 
 stupid person. What is the good of reviewing 
 this ridiculous toy army of his, which consists of 
 three men and a boy, and with which he dare 
 not go to war?" 
 
 Vladimir smiled. 
 
 " Schamiratz seemed to enjoy himself, excel- 
 lency. And I am very seldom bored. I possess 
 the happy faculty of becoming interested in 
 small things." 
 
 Roumanine offered the young man his cigar- 
 ette-case. 
 
 " I want to talk to you. You are the only one 
 here who has any brains. You are a favorite at 
 the palace, I believe. Do you see much of the 
 king?" 
 
 "A good deal, excellency. I have often the 
 honor of playing tennis with him. He is a 
 good player, and likes an adversary who can 
 give him some trouble." 
 
 "And are you undiplomatic enough to beat 
 his majesty?" 
 
 " Occasionally, excellency. To be beaten is 
 a charming novelty for him even a king must 
 get tired of winning in time." 
 
 Roumanine stroked his short beard, and 
 smiled faintly. 
 
 " I see you possess high diplomatic qualities, 
 my dear Ourof. Well how does he strike you, 
 this young man? There are tales told of him in 
 Khristovitz I don't know whether they are
 
 90 THE BINDWEED 
 
 "When one hears evil of a man, excellency, 
 it is generally safest to believe it especially if 
 one has any personal dealing with him. I im- 
 agine that most of the tales you have heard are 
 true." 
 
 " He is supposed to be very much against for- 
 eigners. Especially against us." 
 
 "Ah, most nations are that. It is because 
 they do not understand our peaceful intentions 
 towards other Powers and the absolute frank- 
 ness and straightforwardness of our diplomatic 
 methods." 
 
 Roumanine rubbed his beard until the short 
 gray hairs bristled. His weak eyes blinked at 
 space. 
 
 " Exactly exactly. It is very extraordinary, 
 when our one desire is to promote peace and the 
 welfare of Europe in general. Yet we are 
 always being misunderstood and suspected. 
 Even those fools of English don't trust us, 
 though they will believe in almost anybody. 
 And as for the Americans! It is simply un- 
 pardonable when one Power hasn't even the 
 decency to pretend to believe what another tells 
 it besides, it is so ill-bred. One would almost 
 suppose that they considered diplomacy another 
 word for lying." 
 
 Vladimir knocked the ash off the top of his 
 cigarette. 
 
 "Almost, excellency," he assented with an 
 unmoved face. 
 
 Roumanine sighed softly, as though bewail- 
 ing in his own mind the want of faith of the
 
 THE BINDWEED 91 
 
 Great Powers in the good intentions of the 
 country he represented in Salitza. 
 
 "Yes yes it is very annoying. But the 
 king you don't suppose he could be influ- 
 enced?" 
 
 " He might be influenced, excellency, but 
 what would be the good of influencing him? 
 Schamiratz governs the country and his sons 
 rule the king." 
 
 " Yes, but things might happen Schamiratz 
 might drink a cup of coffee which didn't agree 
 with him in a country like this, these deplor- 
 able things are always happening." 
 
 " Even if so dreadful an event as your excel- 
 lency mentions were to happen, the king is in 
 the hands of Ivan and Sasha Schamiratz." 
 
 " There is still the other man the pretender." 
 
 "There was a party in the country which 
 hoped he would come in at the last revolution." 
 
 "You know everyone in Paris I suppose 
 you know him?" 
 
 " Slightly. He is rather a mild sort of per- 
 son, with no enterprise. He has a penchant for 
 pretty opera-singers, imagines himself a musical 
 genius in consequence, and plays the flute very 
 much out of tune." 
 
 Roumanine smiled at the description. 
 
 " I never knew an amateur who played it 
 otherwise. Well he might be influenced." 
 
 " Doubtless, excellency but we should be 
 put to all the trouble and expense of organizing 
 another revolution in order to put him on the 
 throne."
 
 92 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " That is true. Then we had better turn our 
 attention to the king. I suppose some kind of 
 influence could be brought to bear upon him. 
 If not a man's, then a woman's." 
 
 " He is afraid of women." 
 
 " I do not believe in these young men who are 
 afraid of women," Roumanine answered some- 
 what drily. " I have never yet met a man who 
 was at all afraid of the right woman." 
 
 "And if the influence of the right woman 
 
 were in our favor " the tall attache observed 
 
 thoughtfully and did not finish the sentence. 
 
 "Exactly. Now you see what I mean. If 
 we can't influence the king through a man, we 
 must do it through a woman. If we can do it 
 through neither, then he must go." 
 
 " Exit Kasimir. Enter Zanovitch," said Vlad- 
 imir, as though quoting from the stage direc- 
 tions of a play. 
 
 " Exactly," said Roumanine again. 
 
 "And what if Zanovitch ?" 
 
 Roumanine lighted himself another cigarette. 
 
 " Ah, my friend, that is all on the knees of the 
 gods. Even in diplomacy it is best not to look 
 too far ahead it disturbs one's sense of per- 
 spective. Zanovitch will probably see which 
 way the interests of European peace lie and 
 place himself with us upon the side of civiliza- 
 tion and tranquillity. If not " 
 
 There was silence in the room for a moment. 
 The ambassador looked into space with a con- 
 templative air. Vladimir Ourof examined the 
 toes of his beautifully polished boots.
 
 THE BINDWEED 93 
 
 " If not, excellency," he said presently, as 
 though continuing Roumanine's remark, " there 
 is always coffee." 
 
 Roumanine made a little sudden movement 
 of dissent. 
 
 "My dear Ourof, you are laughing at me!" 
 
 Vladimir lifted his eyes from the contempla- 
 tion of his boots. 
 
 " I should not dream of such a thing, excel- 
 lency," he said. " But of course we will try 
 other means first."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A~TER that morning on the Ostraya 
 Bridge Liane was continually haunted by 
 Vladimir Ourof. If she lingered on the 
 bridge for a moment on her way to work, he was 
 certain to appear; when she left the " Paradis 
 des Dames " in the evening, she almost always 
 met him somewhere in the Boulevard Valitzine, 
 or the Boulevard Mikhail II. He was always 
 at hand, and she grew to look for his presence 
 to miss it when he did not appear. 
 
 Somehow the high house on the riverside was 
 less dull now that Vladimir had again come into 
 her life. There was the possibility of seeing 
 him during the day to keep her company. At 
 night she wondered whether she would see him 
 next morning; in the morning she wondered 
 whether she would meet him again at night. 
 The day began to mean to her one thing and 
 nothing else whether she would see Vladimir 
 Ourof. 
 
 She began to sing again now, as she ran up 
 the stairs, with a step light and careless as in 
 the days of long ago. Fritz heard her once or 
 twice and took comfort. She was happy it 
 was all that he asked. Her happiness was a 
 hundred times dearer to him than his own. But 
 she herself could not have said whether she was 
 
 94
 
 THE BINDWEED 95 
 
 happy or not. She was living in a kind of 
 dream, from which she did not want ever to 
 wake. What did it matter about the rest of the 
 world, and the little, stupid things that happened 
 every day? She had escaped at last into a land 
 where they could weary her no more. Vlad- 
 imir would meet her in an hour's time she 
 could not think of anything else but that. 
 
 The waking came at last, one night when 
 there was an open-air fete in the Ostraya 
 Gardens. She had stolen out for an hour, for 
 Fritz had not come home, and the little flat 
 under the tiles was very silent and dull. The 
 Ostraya Gardens looked like fairy-land, with 
 tiny electric lamps hanging in ropes of blue and 
 gold and red from the branches of the trees. 
 She strayed along the lighted paths for a few 
 moments before she saw Vladimir Ourof walk- 
 ing towards her. She smiled at him in silence, 
 and in silence he turned and walked slowly be- 
 side her. 
 
 It was fairy-land indeed the colored lamps, 
 the sound of music stealing to them softly under 
 the illuminated trees. A spell seemed to be on 
 her she did not care to speak. Side by side 
 they strayed along the winding paths. She did 
 not notice that they had left the crowd very far 
 away and were alone, until Vladimir suddenly 
 stopped and stood motionless before her. 
 
 She stopped too, suddenly trembling, filled 
 with a strange sense of fear. She looked up at 
 him with wide, terrified eyes. In another 
 second he caught her in his arms and held her,
 
 96 THE BINDWEED 
 
 kissing her madly, again and again, crushing 
 her, hurting her. 
 
 Just for a moment she did not resist. She 
 would never see him again, as long as she lived, 
 but, for this one moment, she would drain the 
 last dregs of the cup of happiness which she was 
 about to dash from her lips forever. 
 
 She tore herself away from him. For a 
 second she stood motionless before him, with 
 her hand to her throat as though she could not 
 breathe. 
 
 "Never dare speak to me again!" she gasped 
 at last, and turned and fled away from him like 
 a deer under the lighted trees. 
 
 He stood there looking after her, absolutely 
 paralyzed with astonishment and rage. 
 
 But she did not look back. Like the wind she 
 fled through the least frequented paths of the 
 gardens and gained the gates. Panting and 
 trembling, she hurried over the bridge and 
 along the riverside ways to the high house be- 
 yond. Up the steep stairs she ran, and turned 
 the handle of the door at the top. 
 
 She pushed the door open softly, and looked 
 in. Fritz was sitting at the little table, with 
 a copy of the Khristovitz Courier before him. 
 Ah, how peaceful it looked, the quiet little room 
 with Ivan the Terrible licking herself on the 
 rug and Fritz's kind face bent placidly over 
 the paper! How peaceful and still and quiet 
 and she had been where? In heaven, or in 
 hell? She did not know then she never would 
 know; but she felt Vladimir Ourof's arms
 
 THE BINDWEED 97 
 
 around her and his kisses on her lips. With a 
 sudden cry of fear, of remorse, she crossed the 
 room, and threw herself on her knees by the 
 chair where Fritz was sitting. 
 
 "Oh, Fritz, save me forgive me!" 
 
 It was some time before he could soothe her 
 apparently inexplicable terror. Then, in a 
 voice broken with sobs, she told him everything. 
 
 Fritz Goldenburg sat and listened with a 
 sinking heart. There was only one thing which 
 comforted him. She had drawn back before 
 it was too late she had repented of her folly 
 while it was no more than that, and confessed 
 all and asked him to forgive her and help her 
 to escape from the ruin which lay before her. 
 
 He lifted her from the ground and soothed 
 her as he would have soothed a child; and she 
 clung to him, and grew gradually more quiet. 
 
 " Fritz, will you ever forgive me? Ah, don't 
 kiss me I am not fit for you to touch! If you 
 only knew I can't tell you everything, I am 
 afraid you would hate me if I did. It was my 
 fault all my fault. Oh, Fritz, don't hate me ! " 
 
 He only held her closer. 
 
 " Don't cry so, Herzliebchen" he said. " You 
 have told me you will never see the man 
 again. You didn't deceive me and lie to me, 
 as some women would have done. And as for 
 
 hating you " he broke off, and was silent for 
 
 a moment. " You must never think of that. I 
 have always loved you and I shall love you to 
 the last hour of my life." 
 
 "You will keep me safe you will keep me
 
 98 THE BINDWEED 
 
 away from from him? " she whispered. " I'm 
 afraid of myself, Fritz afraid. I can't trust 
 myself any more." 
 
 "You must swear to me that you will never 
 see this man again." 
 
 But he saw that she hesitated. 
 
 " If I should break my oath, Fritz ?" she 
 
 said, and he felt her shudder. 
 
 "What am I to do?" he asked in something 
 like despair. 
 
 "If you would take me away quite away 
 somewhere in another country where he could 
 never come. Take me to Germany, Fritz!" 
 
 If he could only do that! But he knew that 
 it was impossible for him to leave Khristovitz. 
 
 " You won't swear that you will never see him 
 again, then?" he said very sadly. 
 
 She clung to him, shuddering, shivering, as 
 though with violent cold. 
 
 " I will try," she answered, very low. " Oh, 
 Fritz, I will try, with my whole heart and soul. 
 But I can't swear I can't trust myself to keep 
 my word." 
 
 He said no more what, indeed, could he 
 say? It would have been easy to be harsh with 
 her, but he knew that it would have driven her 
 straight to Ourof. 
 
 She would not go again to the " Paradis des 
 Dames." She sent some excuse to madame 
 she was ill, and besides, Fritz wanted her at 
 home. She stayed all day in the hot little flat 
 under the tiles and grew every hour more 
 wretched. The flat stifled her in those hot sum-
 
 THE BINDWEED 99 
 
 mer days she was sick for a breath of fresh air, 
 for the movement and gaiety of the Boulevard 
 Mikhail II. 
 
 And Vladimir Ourof, the cause of all her 
 trouble, was almost as miserable as she was. He 
 was caught at last, the blue and silver dandy, the 
 exquisite lady-killer whose boast it was that, for 
 all the hearts he had broken, he had never once 
 lost his own. This was another sort of woman 
 from any he had known she was no Anna 
 Roumanine, frail and foolish, to be won and 
 wearied of in a week. It would be difficult to 
 describe the disgust with which the poor little 
 ambassadrice filled her paladin's faithless soul 
 during those few weeks after the fete in the 
 Ostraya Gardens. 
 
 But his preoccupation and unresponsiveness 
 brought about a crisis before long. One even- 
 ing she sank on the rose-silk sofa in tears. It 
 was the old story he was tired of her she 
 would poison herself she would never live on 
 if he deserted her. 
 
 Vladimir stood by the sofa, and looked at her. 
 How absurd she was how she irritated him, 
 and bored him! What devil of perversity led 
 her to make a scene with him tonight when he 
 was in a bad temper and desperately in love 
 with another woman, who apparently did not 
 intend to have anything more to do with him? 
 He was savage with a sense of his own failure 
 and mad with frustrated passion. A sudden 
 fury swept over him. 
 
 "You fool!" he said through his teeth in a
 
 ioo THE BINDWEED 
 
 voice his ambassadrice had never heard. " You 
 miserable little, painted, ridiculous fool!" 
 
 With a gasp Anna Roumanine left off sob- 
 bing, and stared up at him with amazed, incred- 
 ulous eyes. Alas, they were not to remain in- 
 credulous long! There was no mistaking the 
 cold fury of his face the bitter contempt in 
 his eyes. His lips were drawn back a little over 
 his white teeth, as a vicious horse will draw its 
 lips back before it bites. Anna Roumanine 
 gave a queer, choking cry. "Vladimir !" 
 
 But he was not in the mood for pity, or even 
 for prudence. 
 
 "I will have no more of these scenes!" he 
 said brutally. " I have been made ridiculous 
 by your jealousy and vanity quite long enough! 
 Tired of you! I have been tired to death of you 
 for years!" 
 
 She held out her poor little helpless, jeweled 
 hands in a gesture of entreaty, of agonized ap- 
 peal which would have touched another man to 
 compassion, if to nothing else. 
 
 "Vladimir! Why are you so cruel what 
 have I done?" 
 
 "You have bored me to death," he said curtly. 
 " Now we will have no more of it, if you please. 
 This is the end." 
 
 He turned to the door. With a cry that was 
 almost a scream she sprang up from the rose- 
 silk sofa and ran after him and caught his arm. 
 Her face was gray and colorless under its paint 
 and her eyes were the eyes of a thing stricken 
 with terror.
 
 THE BINDWEED 101 
 
 "Vladimir Vladimir don't leave me! 
 How am I to live without you how am I to 
 bear my life? You are all I ever had you 
 are everything in the world to me. Kill me, if 
 you like, but don't leave me I love you so 
 Vladimir! I love you so!" 
 
 The cry came straight from the heart which 
 lay beneath all her silliness and shallowness 
 the heart which had spent all its strength on 
 this one foolish, guilty passion. He tore the 
 little clinging, desperate hands from his sleeve 
 so roughly that he hurt her; but still she tried 
 to bar his way to the door. Losing all control 
 of himself, he caught her by the shoulders and 
 sent her staggering across to the sofa. She fell 
 face-downwards among the rose-silk cushions, 
 and lay there, pitifully still. 
 
 Poor little Anna Roumanine! Poor little 
 butterfly, bruised and broken upon the grinding 
 wheel of life! Perhaps it was nothing but a 
 just payment for her many sins and follies 
 which was meted out to her by Vladimir 
 Ourof's hand. But how can one judge a but- 
 terfly hardly, and not pity her, lying there 
 among her rose-silk cushions with her shallow 
 little soul^torn with agony and her toy world in 
 pieces round her? 
 
 Vladimir, however, was past pity. He left 
 the house as quickly as he could and found him- 
 self out in the cool night air with a sense of in- 
 finite relief. He went quickly along the Boule- 
 vard Valitzine and the Boulevard Mikhail II 
 and on to the Ostraya Gardens. He did not
 
 102 THE BINDWEED 
 
 quite know what led him there. He walked 
 under the trees where only a few weeks ago he 
 had walked with Liane Goldenburg. They 
 were dark now and in the distance a band was 
 playing softly a wild, melancholy air. He 
 wandered to the place where they had stood on 
 the night he had last seen her. If she would 
 only come! He had not understood how great 
 was the hold she had over him until she had dis- 
 appeared, as it seemed, forever, leaving not a 
 clue behind by which he might have traced her. 
 
 That night Liane stood long on the little bal- 
 cony, gazing wistfully towards the Boulevard 
 Valitzine. Fritz had been detained late at the 
 works, as he was sometimes. He probably 
 would not be home until eleven, or even later. 
 A voice seemed calling her down to the city 
 to the Ostraya Gardens, cool and deep and 
 green in the shadows of a summer night. She 
 tried to shut her ears to it, but in vain. A kind 
 of terror seized her oh, if Fritz would but 
 come home! Then she would feel safe again 
 and this horrible temptation would leave her 
 the horrible, irresistible temptation to go down 
 to the Ostraya Gardens and see Vladimir Ourof 
 once again! 
 
 She stood fighting with herself, pale, breath- 
 less, trembling. It had come at last, as she had so 
 feared it would, when Fritz was away and there 
 was nothing to defend her from it the sick 
 longing for Vladimir's voice, for the sight of 
 his tall figure coming towards her under the 
 trees. If she might but see the place where she
 
 THE BINDWEED 103 
 
 had seen him last surely, surely, there could 
 be no harm in that? He would not be there 
 had she not told him never to dare to see her 
 again? There could be no harm in her going 
 down for a few minutes. 
 
 With feverish haste she put on her hat and 
 ran down the stairs. At the gates of the gar- 
 dens she paused for a second and hung back. It 
 was wrong she would never be able to look 
 Fritz in the face again if she went in. But 
 she went in. 
 
 Like one in a dream she went along the 
 shadowy paths. Like one in a dream she saw 
 Vladimir's tall figure coming towards her in 
 the gloom. She did not hesitate now she did 
 not try to turn back. It was too late. Her 
 chance was gone. 
 
 He drew her to him without a word and she 
 threw her arms around his neck and nestled 
 against him with a little, tired sigh. What 
 was the use of resistance? The dream was 
 carrying her away with it. It was too late to 
 turn back. 
 
 When she roused herself he would not let her 
 go. She looked up at him with a strange 
 shadow in the velvet eyes he loved. 
 
 " I must go back," she whispered. 
 
 "You will never go back," he said in her ear, 
 in the deep, sweet voice that had mastered her 
 so long ago. " You will come to Paris with me 
 by the midnight train." 
 
 For one moment she saw, as in a vision, the 
 little room high up under the tiles and Fritz
 
 104 THE BINDWEED 
 
 standing there alone. Then she hid her face 
 against Ourof s shoulder. 
 
 " Take me where you like," she said. " You 
 are stronger than anything else in the world 
 I understand that now. I have always be- 
 longed to you in my heart I have always seen 
 your face and heard your voice. I don't care 
 what happens nothing seems to matter much. 
 I can never escape from you again." 
 
 And up in the little room under the tiles, 
 Fritz was waiting for her as she had seen him 
 waiting. He had come in late and not found 
 her there. A horrible fear awoke in his heart 
 she was gone to Ourof, as he had always 
 known she would go some day. He stood there 
 irresolute. Then he went down to the Ostraya 
 Gardens. 
 
 He went to the gate-keeper. Yes, he had 
 seen the young woman he described. She had 
 gone out quite half an hour ago with a tall 
 officer in a military cloak. He had heard the 
 officer say to her "We shall be late we shall 
 lose the Paris train." 
 
 The Paris train! Poor Fritz! He stood 
 there, staring at the man. 
 
 "You wanted to catch them?" the gate- 
 keeper said, beginning to suspect something of 
 the real state of the case. " I'm afraid you are 
 too late, my friend. It is five minutes past 
 twelve now I must shut the gates. Hark! 
 There is the whistle the train has gone! " He 
 turned his back mercifully upon the German.
 
 THE BINDWEED 105 
 
 But Fritz stood still and speechless, with his 
 eyes on the railway-bridge which crosses the 
 river close to the Ostraya Gardens. He saw the 
 train come tearing across it, a long line of bril- 
 liantly lighted carriages, dashing from one dark 
 shore of the river to another. It passed with a 
 rattle and a shriek, the long, swaying, golden 
 thing. Darkness and silence descended again 
 upon the river it was gone, bearing Liane 
 away to Paris with Vladimir Ourof. 
 
 Very slowly he went back to the lonely little 
 room under the tiles, and sat down at the table 
 and hid his face in his hands. 
 
 The summer dawn was stealing through the 
 curtains when he got up and went to the little 
 table in the corner, where old Stepan's pistols 
 were kept. 
 
 It was mid-day before he was found, sitting 
 dead by the table, as though waiting still for the 
 woman who would never come back.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A' the corner of the Boulevard Valitzine, 
 just where it joins the Boulevard Mikhail 
 the Pious, you will see still a tall white 
 house with green-painted iron balconies at every 
 window. It was here, on the second floor, that 
 Liane Goldenburg came three months after her 
 husband's suicide. 
 
 She heard of that in Paris. Vladimir Ourof 
 had been astonished, and perhaps a little piqued 
 as well, by the violence of her grief. For three 
 days she lay in a darkened room, and would 
 hardly speak to him. Then a spirit of reckless 
 gaiety seemed to seize her. She got up, made him 
 take her everywhere, asked to see everything, to 
 hear everything was never still for a moment. 
 There was a fire in her eyes before which even 
 Vladimir felt a little uneasy. She never spoke 
 of Khristovitz. When he suggested going back, 
 she hesitated and begged for a week more. At 
 the end of the week, it was the same thing. 
 At last he was forced to return to Salitza. He 
 could get no further extension of the leave which 
 had already been protracted to an unusual extent. 
 
 So they went back and she came to the tall 
 
 white house on the corner of the Boulevard 
 
 Valitzine. It was easy to explain her absence 
 
 to the few persons who were interested in it. 
 
 10$
 
 THE BINDWEED 107 
 
 An uncle of her mother's had died in Paris, leav- 
 ing her all his fortune, and she had been obliged 
 to go there to claim the money. She had heard 
 of Fritz's suicide in Paris and the news had so 
 prostrated her that she was too ill to come back 
 at once. She could not explain the mystery of 
 his dreadful act. He had been dismissed from 
 the works probably that had disturbed his 
 mind. 
 
 All this she said in an odd, mechanical way, 
 like one repeating a lesson. Good madame at 
 the " Paradis des Dames" held up her hands in 
 horror at her pale face and the haunted look in 
 her eyes. 
 
 "And thou art rich thou hast fine clothes 
 and jewels, my cabbage," she said innocently. 
 " Thou lookest beautiful as a queen." 
 
 Liane looked down at the exquisite dress she 
 wore Vladimir had chosen it; at the diamonds 
 glittering on her fingers Vladimir's gifts. A 
 strange smile crossed her face. 
 
 It was true she had everything in the world 
 that she had longed for so passionately in the old 
 days. She had even Vladimir Ourof's love as 
 well. But she had also always before her eyes 
 that little room beyond the river, with Fritz 
 sitting by the table, dead, as much by her act as 
 though she had shot him with her own hand; 
 she had always in her ear the sound of the shot 
 that had killed him. She had sat at the opera 
 in Paris, and heard it, louder than all the music. 
 She knew that she would hear it to the last day 
 of her life. Once she spoke to Ourof about it.
 
 io8 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " Your nerves are wrong, my darling," he 
 said. " It is imagination there is no pistol- 
 shot. Think! Shouldn't I have heard it, too? 
 It is fancy you heard something fall down, 
 perhaps, and thought it was a shot." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "No it was no fancy. I heard it and I 
 knew what it was. I am always hearing it 
 not in the daytime so much, but at night, or 
 when I am alone." 
 
 Vladimir glanced up at her quickly, with real 
 pain in his eyes. 
 
 " Yes, that is why I hate your leaving me even 
 for a few moments," she said, answering his un- 
 spoken question. " That is why I am always 
 asking you to take me about. It isn't that I care 
 for going it is because I want to forget not 
 to think." 
 
 " But you are not responsible for your hus- 
 band's death. A man does not necessarily shoot 
 himself because his wife leaves him," the 
 attache argued. 
 
 Again she shook her head. 
 
 " You don't understand. I was everything to 
 poor Fritz." 
 
 "And are you not everything to me?" he 
 asked, with a sudden little stab of the jealousy 
 he had made his ambassadrice endure so often, 
 unpitied. He drew her closer to him and 
 looked almost fiercely into the velvet eyes. 
 " You repent coming to me is that it? If you 
 had the chance over again, you would not 
 come?"
 
 * 
 
 THE BINDWEED 109 
 
 He felt her tremble, but the velvet eyes never 
 faltered from his own. 
 
 "No, Vladimir," she said very sadly. " That's 
 the worst of it if I could, I wouldn't go back. 
 If I had the chance over again, and knew what 
 Fritz would do, I should come to you just the 
 same." 
 
 A very real tenderness awoke in the fickle 
 attache's heart. 
 
 " I will teach you to forget," he said earnestly. 
 " I will make you so happy that you will not be 
 able to remember." 
 
 " Even you cannot do that," she said. 
 
 He could not, but he tried, honestly enough. 
 Fickle, selfish and cruel as he was, if he had a 
 genuine feeling for anything, it was for her. He 
 spent every moment he could spare with her; 
 he heaped the most exquisite gifts upon her. 
 They were quite probably unpaid for, but the 
 sentiment which offered them was very real. 
 
 One evening he came to the tall white house 
 in the Boulevard Valitzine earlier than usual, 
 with a great bouquet of pink and white roses in 
 his hand. 
 
 " Sczeverdin is playing at the Cafe Valitz- 
 ine," he said. "We will go and hear him." 
 
 She glanced in the long glass beside her. 
 
 " As I am, Vladimir? Will this dress do? " 
 
 He looked at the dress it was white, with 
 masses of falling lace. There were pearls at 
 her throat and in her splendid hair, and the 
 roses he had just given her were in her hand. 
 
 " Yes come as you are," he said. " You are
 
 no THE BINDWEED 
 
 perfectly beautiful tonight." He touched the 
 hand that held the roses with his lips and smiled 
 at her. "You are always perfectly beautiful," 
 he added, in a tone in which he had never paid 
 a compliment to little Anna Roumanine. 
 
 She smiled too, and a light of triumph came 
 into her eyes. Sometimes she forgot the little 
 room under the tiles, for a moment or two. She 
 forgot it now. She went down to the waiting 
 carriage by Vladimir's side with a radiant face. 
 The enchantment of the moment mastered her. 
 It was the old ideal of happiness to roll along 
 the Boulevard Valitzine in a carriage with a 
 blue and silver officer by her side. She looked 
 at Vladimir and smiled again, and touched his 
 arm with a little caressing movement. 
 
 " I am happy, Vladimir," she whispered, 
 " It is fairy-land look at the lamps among the 
 trees. How beautiful it is to be alive!" 
 
 The light was still in her eyes when they 
 entered the cafe. People forgot the music and 
 watched her as she picked her way among the 
 little tables. They found one at last, in a corner 
 away from the rest. Vladimir ordered dinner, 
 and she laid her roses on the table, and looked 
 about her. 
 
 The gipsy band was playing a wild, fantastic 
 dance. Sczeverdin, the leader, conducted it 
 with gestures that seemed as wild and barbaric 
 as the music itself. Presently he would play 
 it was too early yet. People were talking over 
 their dinners and not attending to the music. 
 Even Sczeverdin's black eyes roamed occasion-
 
 THE BINDWEED in 
 
 ally round the room, as though for him, too, the 
 solemn business of the evening had not begun. 
 
 Suddenly Liane laid her hand on the attache's 
 arm. 
 
 "Look, Vladimir that officer who has just 
 come in. Surely it is the king! " 
 
 Vladimir followed the direction of her 
 glance, and saw that she was right. It was the 
 king, attended only by Sasha Schamiratz, and 
 evidently incognito, in the plain, undress uni- 
 form of an officer of the Guard. Presumably 
 he, too, had come to hear the gipsy violinist who 
 was drawing enthusiastic crowds to the Cafe 
 Valitzine. Liane, remembering the night 
 when he had given the bonbons to Mikhail, 
 looked at him with interest. He had altered 
 considerably, and not for the better. His al- 
 ways slight figure seemed to have grown thin- 
 ner; his face had a haggard look; the sensitive 
 mouth had become nervous. He carried him- 
 self with a curious mixture of awkward shyness 
 and military stiffness. When he entered the 
 cafe all the tables were occupied, and he stood 
 by the door 1 apparently in some embarrassment, 
 and speaking in a low voice to Sasha 
 Schamiratz. 
 
 Vladimir looked across the room at him, and, 
 catching his eye, rose from his seat. 
 
 " I will ask him to share our table," he said. 
 " Don't be afraid of him on these occasions he 
 is only Captain Mikhailovitch." 
 
 Before Liane could reply he was half across 
 the room. She saw him speak to the king for
 
 ii2 THE BINDWEED 
 
 a moment or two. Then they all came across 
 to the table where she was sitting. 
 
 " Let me present Captain Mikhailovitch 
 Madame Goldenburg Lieutenant Schami- 
 ratz," Vladimir said. 
 
 The king bowed in his stiff little way, like a 
 shy school-boy. 
 
 "Madame permits that we share her table?" 
 he said, speaking in French, but with a strong 
 Salitzan accent. " It is tiresome that the room 
 is so full." 
 
 " So many people have to come to hear Scze- 
 verdin," she said, smiling at him with a sudden 
 desire to put him at his ease and forgetting that 
 he was a king surely kings were not often so 
 shy! He smiled too, and the smile changed his 
 face completely. 
 
 "Yes, of course that is it," he answered, 
 speaking more naturally. " They say he is very 
 wonderful. I don't understand music, but 
 sometimes these gipsy bands make me think that 
 I really care for it a great deal more than I am 
 supposed to do. Their music carries one away 
 it is real, it is alive, it isn't something that a 
 man has made up to sell." 
 
 The ice was soon broken. The king had al- 
 ways liked the Russian attache who played ten- 
 nis so well and was undiplomatic enough to 
 beat him. Vladimir's ready acceptance of his 
 incognito, and the promptitude with which he 
 had come to his assistance and offered him his 
 own table, pleased him and put him at his ease. 
 It was true that he was a little afraid of the beau-
 
 THE BINDWEED 113 
 
 tiful woman who presided over the table. He 
 glanced at her furtively as he sat beside her, 
 and grew less and less afraid. 
 
 She was more beautiful than anyone he had 
 ever seen, but she did not seem to be aware of 
 her own advantages, as most of the women he 
 had met appeared to be to a somewhat painful 
 degree. Her voice was soft and a little sad, and 
 her manner was very simple. She was not 
 nervous with him she did not put on an air of 
 ostentatious respect when she spoke to him as 
 the queen's ladies were always careful to do. 
 Indeed, it struck him that she was aware of his 
 shyness and wanted to make him comfortable. 
 The idea went a long way towards thawing his 
 reserve. He was talking to her quite easily at 
 the end of ten minutes, and Vladimir Ourof was 
 aware of the fact, smiled to himself as he ate 
 his dinner and devoted his conversation to Sasha 
 Schamiratz. 
 
 "This is the young man who is afraid of 
 women!" he thought, with a touch of satirical 
 amusement. 
 
 The dinner came to an end at last, and so did 
 the wild and rather noisy dances which Scze- 
 verdin perhaps thought good enough for an 
 audience engaged in the prosaic occupation of 
 dining. A little thrill of expectation ran round 
 the cafe as Sczeverdin took up his violin, tossed 
 back his grizzled black hair and cast a rapid 
 glance round him. His eyes fell on the little 
 table in the corner on the young king with his 
 worn face and wistful eyes, on Liane in her
 
 ii 4 THE BINDWEED 
 
 white dress with the roses lying beside her on 
 the table. Very slowly the gipsy laid his violin 
 against his shoulder and began to play. 
 
 A stillness fell upon the cafe, broken only by 
 the sighing accompaniment of the band, very 
 faint and far-away. As he listened, the worn 
 look faded from Kasimir's face. He forgot 
 where he was, he forgot everything but Scze- 
 verdin's music, wild 'and sweet and sad, and the 
 face of the beautiful woman who sat beside him. 
 In some strange way Liane Goldenburg and 
 Sczeverdin's music seemed to belong to each 
 other. 
 
 The sighing of the band grew louder. It be- 
 came a tempest, a hurricane, and over it all, 
 clear and high, like a voice calling a nation to 
 battle, rose the sound of Sczeverdin's violin. It 
 was a trumpet the very clarion-call of victory 
 itself. Squadron seemed hurled against squad- 
 ron, cannon boomed, and bugles sang. There, 
 in the lighted cafe, they heard the tramp of men 
 marching to war, the shock of the meeting, the 
 passion and despair and glory of the struggle 
 as it ebbed and flowed and finally subsided into 
 a dying thunder-growl of distant cannon, a 
 sound of feet marching away. Twilight fell 
 upon the field of battle, and then night. The 
 band sank to a whispering lament, breathing 
 softly over the place where heroes had fallen. 
 
 And then, out of the night, out of the silence, 
 came the silvery voice of the violin again, sing- 
 ing, as none other had ever sung it, the old 
 national War Hymn of Salitza. The effect
 
 THE BINDWEED 115 
 
 was indescribable. For a moment no one 
 moved or seemed to breathe. Then, with one 
 impulse, every man in the cafe sprang to his 
 feet as though to the call of the trumpet. 
 
 So they stood, tense with the feeling which 
 Sczeverdin's magic had evoked. No one 
 noticed the king, standing straight and still at 
 the little corner table no one but Liane Gold- 
 enburg, who looked at him suddenly and smiled, 
 with an odd touch of pride in the old war-song 
 of her father's native land. 
 
 The king's face was transfigured. There 
 were tears in his eyes, and the hand which rested 
 on the edge of the table was clenched as if upon 
 the hilt of a sword. He met Liane's smile and 
 answered it, and for a moment his gaze held 
 hers. Then, with a sudden movement, he put 
 out his hand, tore a single rose from the bouquet 
 beside her, and stuck it through the little slip of 
 green ribbon of the Order of St. Mikhail which 
 was the only ornament of his plain blue coat. 
 
 Neither Vladimir Ourof nor Sasha Schami- 
 ratz saw the action. But Liane's eyes fell sud- 
 denly, with a momentary sense of something 
 that was almost fear. Why had he taken the 
 rose, this strange, shy king with his awkward 
 manner and his wistful eyes? What did it 
 mean? 
 
 She had no time to decide then. The music 
 ceased in a frenzy of applause. Sczeverdin 
 could not be induced to play again. He took 
 a large silver shell which one of the band 
 handed to him, and came down into the cafe,
 
 n6 THE BINDWEED 
 
 going from table to table, smiling at the compli- 
 ments which assailed him on every side, and 
 bending his grizzled head with dignity as the 
 money rattled in showers into the silver shell. 
 He came to the next table to that where the king 
 was seated, looked up at him, bowed, and would 
 have passed by; but Kasimir, with a sudden im- 
 perious gesture, called him back. Vladimir 
 was speaking to the waiter who had attended 
 them, and Sasha Schamiratz was looking with 
 a fascinating expression or one which was in- 
 tended to be fascinating at a pretty woman at 
 the next table. 
 
 "Why didn't you ask us for money?" Kasi- 
 mir said, in his abrupt way, holding out a gold 
 piece. 
 
 Sczeverdin did not take it. 
 
 " Let the others pay," he said. " I will not 
 take gold from you. The honor is enough for 
 me. I shall always remember that tonight I 
 have played to a king" his black eyes fell on 
 Liane's face, and he lowered his voice, and 
 smiled "and to a queen!" he added, and 
 passed on, smiling still, an odd, mysterious 
 smile, with the silver shell in his hand.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE king's head was spinning when he 
 left the Cafe Valitzine. The lights, 
 the music, the intoxication of that mo- 
 ment when, in the midst of the War Hymn, 
 moved by an uncontrollable impulse which he 
 could not explain even to himself, he had taken 
 the rose from Liane Goldenburg's bouquet and 
 stuck it behind the ribbon of St. Mikhail, still 
 held him under a sort of spell. He sent Sasha 
 Schamiratz back to the palace in the carriage 
 which was waiting for them, and walked away 
 down the Boulevard Valitzine and the Boule- 
 vard Mikhail II alone. For a while at least he 
 felt that he must escape from the spying eyes of 
 the Schamiratzes. The music of the War 
 Hymn was having an effect upon him of which 
 Sczeverdin had little dreamed when he began 
 to play it. 
 
 Down the Boulevard Mikhail II he went, 
 and on to the Ostraya Bridge. The peace of 
 the darkness, the cool air coming up from the 
 shade of the Ostraya Gardens, brought him 
 gradually to himself. He drew a long breath 
 and leaned more easily against the iron-work. 
 
 He was not certain, as he stood there, whether 
 it was the War Hymn after all, which had af- 
 fected him, or the look in Liane Goldenburg's 
 
 117
 
 ii8 THE BINDWEED 
 
 eyes as she turned towards him. He was never 
 sure of that, either at the time or long after- 
 wards. It was the little spark which had 
 lighted a great fire Sczeverdin's playing, 
 Liane's smile. 
 
 Ever since that night of the revolution he had 
 been in slavery to Schamiratz, to Sasha and 
 Ivan, perhaps even to himself. He had never 
 rebelled against the tyranny which forced him 
 into the society of the young Schamiratzes 
 while their father ruled the country of which 
 Kasimir was supposed to be king. A fatal 
 weakness, the outcome of years of repression 
 and reserve, and deep-seated disgust in his own 
 powers, in his own good fortune, had kept him 
 inactive and silent, though only too painfully 
 aware of his position. No one suspected him of 
 a desire to rule his own kingdom. He had 
 known quite well that trap after trap had been 
 laid for him to get him into disrepute with his 
 own subjects that the mad escapades into 
 which Ivan and Sasha Schamiratz were always 
 dragging him, and of which he, and not they, 
 got the discredit, were all moves in the great 
 game against him. If in any moment of anger 
 he had ever felt inclined to resent his lot, it had 
 never seemed worth while to put the inclination 
 into action when the moment was over. There 
 was no one in his life to whom he could turn for 
 praise or sympathy when his fetters were broken 
 no one who would even understand the im- 
 pulse which had led him to break them. What 
 then was the use of troubling to break them at
 
 THE BINDWEED 119 
 
 all? It was all labor in vain, he told himself. 
 Better to leave it alone and amuse himself with 
 the Schamiratzes. 
 
 But tonight something seemed to have 
 changed. He could no longer console himself 
 by a cynical acceptance of the evils of his fate. 
 Something within him had risen in hot revolt, 
 upsetting all his hardly acquired philosophy, 
 dealing sudden destruction to the apathy which 
 had bound him for so long. He must do some- 
 thing to free himself, or stifle in the suffocating 
 atmosphere of oppression in which he existed. 
 Mikhail V's act of abdication permitted 
 Schamiratz and his creatures to retain their 
 power for another two years until he was 
 twenty-one. Two years more! 
 
 He turned quickly and walked back to the 
 palace. He went straight to his own apartments 
 where Ivan and Sasha would be waiting for 
 him. They were there as he expected. Ivan 
 was palpably in a bad temper. Sasha greeted 
 his sovereign with a significant smile. 
 
 " We were beginning to feel anxious, sir," he 
 remarked. " Ivan wanted to rouse the police, 
 but I said that you had only gone off to reflect 
 upon the charms of Madame Goldenburg in 
 romantic solitude." 
 
 Kasimir started as though he had been shot. 
 So that was the interpretation which the amiable 
 Sasha had put upon his solitary walk! 
 
 " You seem to have paid more attention to my 
 reflections than they deserve," he said ironically. 
 " They were not romantic in the least."
 
 120 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Sasha had evidently spent the time which the 
 king had devoted to reflection in endeavoring 
 to get as nearly drunk as an iron head would per- 
 mit. He had gone far enough to dull his own 
 naturally acute perception of his sovereign's 
 moods, and did not see that he had already said 
 more than the king liked. His significant smile 
 broadened a little, and, with a gesture of gay 
 and bantering familiarity, he slapped the ruler 
 of Salitza on the back. " Don't say it wasn't 
 Madame Goldenburg, Kasimir," he cried jovi- 
 ally. " Didn't I see the rose she gave you in your 
 coat?" 
 
 He got no further. The king stopped him 
 with a look so terrible that it became apparent 
 even to his dulled perceptions that he had made 
 a mistake. 
 
 "You forget yourself," Kasimir said, in a 
 voice literally shaking with passion. 
 
 There was a dead silence. Neither of the 
 Schamiratzes dared to speak. The king walked 
 slowly across to the bell and rang it. 
 
 The servant who came in a moment later 
 found Ivan and Sasha Schamiratz standing 
 silent, with scared and trembling looks. The 
 king was looking out of the open window with 
 his back to them. 
 
 " Show Lieutenant Schamiratz to his room," 
 he said, without turning his head or raising his 
 voice. 
 
 The wretched Sasha was far too thunder- 
 struck to protest, but Ivan made a step towards 
 the tense figure of the king at the window.
 
 THE BINDWEED 121 
 
 " Sir I entreat your majesty to pardon my 
 brother. He " 
 
 Kasimir glanced at him over his shoulder. 
 
 " I have ordered your brother to his room," 
 he said. " If you do not wish to be placed under 
 arrest, you will see that he goes there as quickly 
 as possible. I have no further need of the serv- 
 ices of either of you." 
 
 There was clearly nothing more to be done. 
 The Schamiratzes passed out slowly, crestfallen 
 and cowed. It had come their helpless prey 
 had turned and rent them at last. 
 i When they had gone, the king stood for quite 
 ten minutes at the window. A very madness of 
 shame and anger possessed him. Presently he 
 sent for Nikolaievitch. 
 
 " I want a regiment from the barracks here 
 within a quarter of an hour," he said briefly. 
 " Bring them in by the garden gate here is the 
 key of the private door. Don't let them be 
 noticed more than you can help. When they are 
 here, come and tell me." 
 
 Captain Nikolaievitch was himself a man of 
 few words. It was his business to obey the king's 
 orders. He obeyed them now. In less than the 
 alloted quarter of an hour he reported the 
 arrival of the required force. 
 
 Kasimir gave his orders quietly and quickly. 
 Within ten minutes of the arrival of the soldiers 
 at the palace an urgent summons to the royal 
 presence was in the hands of every member of 
 the council of regency. No one suspected any- 
 thing, though all were surprised and curious.
 
 122 THE BINDWEED 
 
 They made all the haste they could to get to the 
 palace and satisfy their curiosity. 
 
 One by one they filed into the empty council 
 chamber. It wore its most ordinary aspect, with 
 its long table covered with rather shabby green 
 baize, its row of solid chairs, and the king's 
 seat at the head of the table, with the royal arms 
 embroidered on its back. The few royal por- 
 traits which hung on the walls looked down ex- 
 pectantly, and Mikhail of Paris, over the carved 
 fireplace, gorgeous in the uniform of a field mar- 
 shal, wore an ironical smile on his keen, dark 
 face. The regents of Salitza consulted together 
 in low voices as to the meaning of the summons 
 which had brought them to the palace at this 
 unusual hour. 
 
 Suddenly the great doors at the end of the 
 council chamber were thrown open and the king 
 entered, followed by Captain Nikolaievitch, the 
 officers of the Third Regiment and a file of sol- 
 diers. The regents gave a kind of stifled cry 
 and then were silent. Kasimir advanced to the 
 table, looking very young and slight and boyish 
 in his plain blue uniform. 
 
 He came straight to his own seat, but he did 
 not sit down. Instead, he stood there beside it, 
 looking at them with eyes which they could not 
 read. No one moved. General Schamiratz 
 gazed obstinately at his boots and was seen to 
 bite the fringe of his white mustache. Colonel 
 Gliska, of the Sixth Regiment, put his hand 
 furtively on his sword. The rest of the council 
 simply stared with amazed faces at the king.
 
 THE BINDWEED 123 
 
 He spoke at last. His voice was quite calm 
 a little high and thin, as it had always been, but 
 perfectly decided. He spoke very slowly, as 
 though weighing his words as he uttered them. 
 
 " I have sent for you tonight, gentlemen," he 
 said, "to tell you that tomorrow there will no 
 longer be such a thing in Salitza as a council of 
 regency." 
 
 A startled movement ran around the council 
 chamber. Schamiratz shot a glance across the 
 table at Gliska. The colonel of the historic 
 Sixth took his hand from his sword with sudden 
 haste. 
 
 The king went on. 
 
 " By the terms of my father's act of abdication 
 the regency has still two years to run. It is in no 
 spirit of disrespect to his judgment that I now 
 set this arrangement aside. No man can decide 
 what measure, however wise at the moment, will 
 stand the test of time no man, however far- 
 seeing, may rule the future by the laws of the 
 past. It would have been unusual, I admit, to 
 hand the government of any nation over to a 
 boy of fifteen. But I am a boy no longer I 
 have the right to rule the country which has been 
 entrusted to me. I have summoned you here 
 tonight to tell you, with my own lips, that I now 
 claim this right. I shall no doubt make mis- 
 takes I realize, as no one else can do, the diffi- 
 culty of the task and how little fitted I am to dis- 
 charge it successfully; but if I allowed con- 
 siderations of this sort to hamper me in what I 
 feel to be my duty, both to the nation and myself,
 
 124 THE BINDWEED 
 
 I should only increase the number of my own 
 disqualifications by adding cowardice to incom- 
 petence. Gentlemen, to all of you here present 
 except one I appeal for the help which only 
 you can give me in this difficult hour the 
 loyalty and fidelity which Salitza has so often 
 and so gloriously proved for my house in the 
 past, and in which I trust she will never fail 
 us in the future." \ 
 
 Colonel Gliska made a quick movement of re- 
 sponse. 
 
 " If loyalty and fidelity are what your majesty 
 asks," he said hotly, "by God! you shall have 
 mine." 
 
 Kasimir turned to him with a little smile in 
 his eyes and held out his hand. 
 
 " There is no man in the kingdom whose sup- 
 port could be more welcome to me than yours, 
 Gliska," he said. "The man who was faithful 
 to my father is not likely to fail me." 
 
 Then, with a sudden change of manner, he 
 turned to the Lion of Mirsk on the other side 
 of the table. 
 
 " Before I say more, I have to do something 
 which is inexpressibly painful to me. I would 
 avoid it if I could, if only because I know that 
 to many people it will wear the aspect of per- 
 sonal feeling. If for a moment I supposed my- 
 self to be acting from a motive of that kind, I 
 should regret the action even more than I do at 
 present." 
 
 He paused, for the first time showing some 
 sign of emotion. His high clear voice shook a
 
 THE BINDWEED 125 
 
 little as he addressed the man who stood silent 
 and sullen on his right hand. 
 
 "General Schamiratz, you have abused the 
 power which was entrusted to you the power 
 which made you the guardian of a nation and 
 the ruler of a king. How you have failed in 
 your duty to your country your country herself 
 knows. How you have failed in your duty to me 
 I alone know, and, for the sake of the deed 
 which gained for you the name by which Salitza 
 is proud to call you, even now, I shall keep that 
 knowledge to myself. But I cannot pass over 
 your conduct. Within twenty-four hours you 
 will resign your command and retire to your 
 estates. It will be well if you think fit to do 
 this quietly and without comment, and so spare 
 me and yourself the pain of unavailing expla- 
 nations." 
 
 There was silence in the council chamber. 
 The deposed regents held their breath. Then 
 Schamiratz, purple with passion to which he 
 dared not give way, laid his sword on the table 
 before the king. 
 
 " I resign my command," he muttered, in a 
 strangled voice, " and with it I renounce my 
 connection with your majesty's army." 
 
 The king bent his head. 
 
 " I accept both your resignation and your re- 
 nunciation," he said, " though I regret the man- 
 ner in which you have chosen to tender them. 
 For the many services which you have rendered 
 to Salitza I thank you in the name of the whole 
 nation. For the rest we will say no more."
 
 i 2 6 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Very slowly Schamiratz bowed and left the 
 room in which he had sat so many times as the 
 actual ruler of Salitza. The others watched 
 him with fascinated eyes. They could hardly 
 believe the evidence of their senses or under- 
 stand that the powerful Schamiratz, the great- 
 est man in Salitza, had been disgraced, ban- 
 ished, and outwitted, in the short space of a few 
 minutes and by the boy whom he supposed to be 
 his helpless tool. 
 
 The door of the council chamber closed upon 
 Schamiratz forever, and the king, with a sharp 
 sigh of relief, turned to the men who remained. 
 
 " It is late," he said, in his natural voice, 
 " and I think nothing more can be done tonight. 
 Tomorrow we will begin afresh. I will wish 
 you goodnight, gentlemen." 
 
 " But not before we have assured your majesty 
 of our loyalty and devotion," Gliska cried. 
 " Sir, you have spoken like a king, and acted 
 like one. You are right the regency has 
 lasted too long. Let the council of regency be 
 the first to tell you so and to offer you their 
 homage in the hour in which you have claimed 
 your right to sit on the throne of your fathers." 
 
 He dropped on one knee as he spoke, and 
 lifted the king's hand to his lips. There was 
 an instant of hesitation, and then, when he rose, 
 the whole council of regency, one by one, fol- 
 lowed his example. It was perhaps a greater 
 triumph for Kasimir than the night of the revo- 
 lution, for here at least was no mad mob, carried 
 away by the sentiment of the moment. The re-
 
 THE BINDWEED 127 
 
 gents had every reason to feel sore, for they had 
 certainly been tricked into a rather ignominious 
 position; but, after the first swift shock of re- 
 sentment had passed, they could not but recog- 
 nize the justice of the king's action. He was no 
 longer a child; and Schamiratz had gone too 
 far. 
 
 So they filed out in a better temper than 
 might have been expected. Kasimir told off 
 the delighted Third Regiment to guard the 
 palace and keep order in case of accidents. It 
 was still on the cards that Schamiratz might use 
 the tremendous influence he possessed to raise 
 the army against the sovereign who had dis- 
 graced him, and indeed it is possible that only 
 the unexpectedness of the king's attack upon 
 him prevented this. Mingled with his anger 
 at the disgrace which had fallen upon him so 
 deservedly was a sort or relief. His life at any 
 rate was safe; his revenge could wait until an- 
 other day. 
 
 Meanwhile the king went to his own apart- 
 ments. He was very tired, now that the ex- 
 citement of his act of self-emancipation was at 
 an end. But he was not to rest yet. Kasimir 
 had hardly regained his rooms when the queen 
 came to him. 
 
 She was perhaps the last person he wished to 
 see at that moment; yet at the sight of her he had 
 one of his rare impulses of frankness and enthu- 
 siasm. He went to her quickly and took her 
 hand and kissed it. 
 
 "You will wish me good luck, won't you?"
 
 i 2 8 THE BINDWEED 
 
 he said, almost pleadingly. " I suppose you 
 have heard what has happened, or you wouldn't 
 have come. You don't know how glad I am 
 that you did come." 
 
 She took her hand from his and looked at him 
 with an air at once cold and disturbed. 
 
 "You have dismissed the council of regency?" 
 
 "Yes," he said, and drew a long breath of 
 relief. Then he looked at her pale face. A 
 chill struck him, but he tried to smile. 
 
 "You told me to dismiss the Schamiratzes," 
 he said. "Well I have dismissed them all. 
 You told me to to alter. I mean to do that 
 too." His eyes softened suddenly, and his voice 
 sank a little. " You will help me won't you? " 
 
 For one moment she stood looking at him, 
 pale, distressed, annoyed. Ah, how simple it 
 would have seemed to another woman, to have 
 answered his appeal in the spirit in which it had 
 been made how simple how natural! And, 
 if she had done so, who can say what evils it 
 might not have averted? 
 
 But she did not understand it was not given 
 her to read the nature of the son of Mikhail of 
 Paris. At the back of her mind she felt always 
 the old mistrust and suspicion which she had 
 felt for his father. She felt it now. There was 
 a cloud between them which neither he nor she 
 could dispel. 
 
 "Help you!" she said bitterly. "Help you! 
 If you persist in this sort of madness, neither I 
 nor anyone else will be able to help you long." 
 
 The king turned away, biting his lip. What
 
 THE BINDWEED 129 
 
 a fool he had been to hope for sympathy from 
 her, or even common justice! The old chill 
 struck to his heart the old dull pain of mis- 
 understanding and solitude. He had played his 
 part and played it successfully and who was 
 there to applaud him? He walked slowly away 
 from her towards the window at which he had 
 stood during the removal of Sasha Schamiratz. 
 
 " I am sorry you don't approve of my action," 
 he said very coldly. " We will not discuss it. I 
 am tired. I shall be glad if you will leave me." 
 
 She went without a word, feeling oddly hum- 
 bled in the midst of her anger. 
 
 Kasimir stood at the window for a long while 
 after she had left him, looking with weary, dis- 
 illusioned eyes into the summer night. The 
 barren victory the conflict waged in vain! 
 Were these always to be his lot? 
 
 Suddenly the face of another woman rose be- 
 fore him out of the night. He put up his hand 
 and felt for the dead rose behind the ribbon of 
 St. Mikhail the rose which he had taken from 
 Liane Goldenburg's bouquet in the Cafe Valitz- 
 ine. 
 
 Were all women like that were they all like 
 the queen? Was there not perhaps one in the 
 world who would sympathize with him who 
 would not blame him who would understand? 
 
 He did not answer the question. He only 
 stood there looking very wistfully into the night, 
 with the dead rose drooping between his fingers.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NEXT morning Khristovitz was in a 
 state of excitement. A large placard 
 on the palace gate announced, in very 
 simple language, the end of the regency, and 
 appealed to the people of Salitza to support 
 their king. It was a singularly unstatesmanlike 
 composition, this first address of Kasimir I to 
 his subjects almost as unstatesmanlike, indeed, 
 as that first reckless utterance of his when he 
 had stood on the balcony over the West Gate 
 and boldly informed a howling mob that he was 
 the king; but perhaps it did not succeed any the 
 worse for that. With the general surprise was 
 mingled also not a little admiration for the boy 
 who could outwit so accomplished a popular 
 hero as Schamiratz. That gallant general had 
 not done his own cause much good by the man- 
 ner in which he had accepted his dismissal. 
 Had he elected to fight for his position, all Sa- 
 litza would most probably have fought with 
 him; but even the most enthusaistic followers 
 cannot do much for a leader who hauls down 
 his flag at the first sign of a struggle, and departs 
 in a pet to his estates. This was what the great 
 Schamiratz chose to do, and his admirers felt 
 disappointed in him, not without very good rea- 
 son. They would never believe in him again. 
 
 130
 
 THE BINDWEED 131 
 
 The irreconcilables among them remembered 
 the existence of Zanovitch, the pretender, occu- 
 pied peacefully in Paris with easy airs for the 
 flute, which, according to Vladimir Ourof, he 
 played out of tune. A small number of the 
 most rabid of all sent an expression of their 
 loyalty to Zanovitch himself. The poor harm- 
 less pretender received it with consternation, 
 and for some days afterwards played more out 
 of tune than usual. A vague idea of his own 
 importance woke in his not very acute brain, 
 and it struck him that he would not mind being 
 a king in the land from which his ancestors had 
 managed to get themselves ejected by a long 
 career of violence, oppression, and unchecked 
 passions. 
 
 It never occurred to this innocent amateur 
 flutist how utterly unfitted he was to cope with 
 the stormy ways of a stormy country like his 
 native land, the very language of which he had 
 almost forgotten, nor how much better off he 
 was in Paris with his mild musical enthusiasms 
 for sentimental airs and pretty opera-singers. 
 The shadow of his own greatness fell upon him 
 like a cloud, and his former amusements con- 
 tented him no more. He sent a florid reply to 
 those faithful souls who had remembered their 
 lawful sovereign in his lonely exile. He spoke 
 in a suitably homesick manner of the beloved 
 fatherland without which he had existed in per- 
 fect comfort for some forty and more odd years. 
 Carried away by his own enthusiasm he even 
 held out vague hopes of some blessed, far-off
 
 132 THE BINDWEED 
 
 day when he should once more set foot on the 
 soil whereon his fathers had dwelt as kings. 
 
 The faithful received this charming composi- 
 tion with suitable joy. They had not the slightest 
 intention of risking their own safety to bring 
 about the restoration of the Zanovitch dynasty; 
 but a turn of the wheel might at any moment set 
 Zanovitch on the throne by no act of theirs, for 
 Kasimir was the last of the other line. It was 
 well, therefore, to be prepared for accidents. 
 
 In the midst of the popular excitement Kas- 
 imir preserved an unmoved air. To say that he 
 felt any thrill of pleasure in his own emancipa- 
 tion would be impossible. He must be content, 
 for the future, to do what he thought best with- 
 out looking for applause, or even comprehension. 
 
 Yet, because he was too young yet to resign 
 himself without a struggle to this unattractive 
 fate, he remembered that moment when, in the 
 first bitterness of his disappointment at the 
 queen's displeasure, his hand had instinctively 
 gone to the rose which he had taken from Liane 
 Goldenburg's bouquet. 
 
 It was past mid-day when a card was brought 
 to Liane with the name of Captain Mikhailo- 
 vitch on it. She looked at it for a second in 
 some astonishment, for she, too, had heard of the 
 coup d'etat. Then she said that she would 
 receive Captain Mikhailovitch. 
 
 He came in in the abrupt way which she had 
 noticed in the Cafe Valitzine. The slight, ner- 
 vous, awkward figure, the sensitive face, the 
 wistful eyes, all struck her with a sudden sense
 
 THE BINDWEED 133 
 
 of pity. How young he looked to battle with 
 affairs of state, to brave the hatred of Scham- 
 iratz! She rose from her low chair and went 
 towards him with a warmth of half-compas- 
 sionate admiration in her soft eyes. He moved 
 towards her quickly through the gloom of a 
 room darkened from the sun. Then she saw for 
 the first time that in his hand was a huge bunch 
 of violets, tied with a purple ribbon. He held 
 it out to her almost shyly. 
 
 " I brought you these, madame," he said 
 briefly. 
 
 She took them, smiling. 
 
 " Ah, how sweet they are ! how kind of you ! 
 But am I to thank Captain Mikhailovitch, or 
 the king?" 
 
 He made a sudden little gesture of impa- 
 tience, of irritation. 
 
 " If you like the violets, madame," he said, 
 "shall I tell you how you can thank me?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " By forgetting that I am a king." 
 
 She held out her hand. 
 
 "Thank you, Captain Mikhailovitch!" she 
 said softly. 
 
 He took her hand and kissed it, and looked up 
 at her with a smile. She remembered that night 
 long ago when he had smiled at little Mikhail. 
 
 " I don't come here as the king," he said. " I 
 don't quite know why I am here at all. There 
 are a hundred and fifty things to be done all 
 Khristovitz is cursing me at this moment. There 
 will probably be a revolution tonight and that
 
 i 3 4 THE BINDWEED 
 
 will very likely be the end of me I thought I 
 should like to see you again, at any rate. It was 
 fine at the Cafe Valitzine last night, wasn't it? 
 It was worth living through centuries of monot- 
 ony to feel like that, even for a moment or two. 
 Of course it is all over now I see that I might 
 as well have left the Schamiratzes alone. I have 
 made myself unpopular for nothing. I have 
 made enemies, I have turned the whole country 
 upside down. But it was worth it all last 
 night." 
 
 He broke off abruptly. He was talking as he 
 had never talked before to any human being 
 what madness possessed him? Of course she 
 would not understand no one ever did. 
 
 He looked at her nervously. Her eyes were 
 shining. Was it possible that she did under- 
 stand? 
 
 " Ah, you mustn't say that you mustn't think 
 that!" she answered. "It was right to send 
 Schamiratz away. When people begin to see 
 what you have done, they will thank you for it." 
 
 He sat very still, with his eyes fixed on the 
 ground. Was it possible, he asked himself? 
 Was there really someone in the world who 
 did not blame him who gave him credit for 
 having meant well, however disappointing the 
 result of his good intentions? 
 
 "You think that?" he asked, after a minute 
 or two. "You are not saying it because I am 
 the king?" 
 
 The simplicity of the question brought the 
 shadow of a smile to her face, though she could
 
 THE BINDWEED 135 
 
 not but recognize its pathos too. He was so 
 used to being deceived, and flattered he asked 
 her for truth as a child asks, unconsciously ap- 
 pealing against the falsehood which is meant to 
 pacify it. 
 
 " I have not the honor of knowing the king," 
 she said. " I am speaking to Captain Mikhailo- 
 vitch." 
 
 " Forgive me," he said quickly. " You see, I 
 am not used to the truth. And one wants some- 
 times to know it not to be cajoled, not to be 
 blamed, but just to be treated as an ordinary 
 human being." 
 
 She remembered that morning on the Ostraya 
 Bridge, and Fritz saying that princes were only 
 men. 
 
 " I used to think kings ogres," she said 
 lightly. 
 
 He laughed, with a little note of bitterness in 
 his laughter. 
 
 "You were quite right. They are ogres to 
 themselves." He rose to his feet with a sigh. 
 " I must go and do some of the hundred and 
 fifty things that I mentioned just now. Madame, 
 for half an hour you have almost made me forget 
 that I am a king. May I come here again, when 
 I want very much to forget it for a little while? 
 May I?" 
 
 She hesitated for an instant, and then drew 
 herself up rather stiffly. 
 
 " It is not for me to say where your majesty 
 may or may not go." 
 
 He interrupted her impetuously.
 
 136 THE BINDWEED 
 
 "No no it is for you to say! It is Mik- 
 hailovitch who asks not the king. The king 
 could not come here do you think I don't know 
 that? The king has no friends do you think 
 I don't know that, too? But surely Mikhailo- 
 vitch may come." 
 
 But neither to the king nor to Captain Mik- 
 hailovitch was her permission given, but rather 
 to the boy crown prince who had thrown the 
 bonbons to Mikhail nearly five years ago. 
 
 She told Vladimir of the king's visit. The 
 attache's eyes narrowed a little as he listened. 
 She glanced at him uneasily. 
 
 " Ought I to have said he could not come, 
 Vladimir? I didn't know what to do." 
 
 Vladimir smoothed the ends of his long 
 mustache and looked at her with a meditative 
 air. 
 
 " You did quite right. That young man may 
 be very useful to me." 
 
 Her feeling of uneasiness deepened. 
 
 " Useful to you the king? But how? " 
 
 Vladimir smiled at her indulgently. 
 
 " My angel, you are not a diplomatist. Don't 
 you know that the king is said to be prejudiced 
 against Russians against Russian policy, and 
 Russian influence? Roumanine would give a 
 good deal to convince him of the purity of our 
 aims and teach him that the best interests of 
 his country depend upon his behavior to us. 
 Hitherto no one has ever been able to influence 
 him at all. He was not important before, so it 
 would not have been worth while to try. But
 
 THE BINDWEED 137 
 
 now " He broke off, and still she sat look- 
 ing at him, as though for some further explana- 
 tion. 
 
 " And who is to influence him now?" 
 
 "You are," Vladimir said briefly. 
 
 " 1 1 How in the world am I to influence the 
 king?" 
 
 " My angel, you are extraordinarily inno- 
 cent!" he said, with the very faintest suggestion 
 of a sneer in his voice. " Why do you imagine 
 the king came here yesterday?" 
 
 " I don't know," she answered, trembling sud- 
 denly. "I don't know!" 
 
 " Because you are the most beautiful woman 
 he has ever seen," the attache said quietly. 
 
 She sprang to her feet in an instant, with blaz- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 "Vladimir! How dare you say such a thing 
 to me? Oh, I see what you want! I am to 
 delude that poor boy, I am to influence him, as 
 you call it, I am to make him fall in love with 
 me, and you will turn it all to your advantage 
 for the sake of Russia! What do I care for 
 Russia? Do you think that because I did 
 wrong for you I am a bad woman that I have 
 no heart and no conscience? What right have 
 I given you to insult me with such a plan as 
 this?" 
 
 She stood trembling with shame and anger; 
 and Vladimir Ourof watched her lazily from 
 the low chair in which he sat. 
 
 " It is you who insult me," he said gently. 
 "What have I done? I certainly told you that
 
 138 THE BINDWEED 
 
 you might influence the king in the interests of 
 Russia what harm was there in that? It will 
 be a good thing for him if he is influenced that 
 way, for if he is not he will not reign long, as 
 you will see. As for taking advantage of his 
 falling in love with you what insult is there in 
 that? It will not do him any harm to fall 
 in love with you and I am foolish enough to 
 trust you because I believe in your love for me. 
 Is that an insult too, Liane?" 
 
 His voice had sunk to the deep, caressing tone 
 she knew so well, and she half-believed him. 
 Very slowly she sat down again, uneasy, hurt, 
 but also a little ashamed. 
 
 " Forgive me, Vladimir I shouldn't have 
 said that. But don't ask me to have anything 
 to do with the king. I will refuse to receive 
 him if he comes again." 
 
 "You will not do anything of the sort, my 
 angel," Vladimir said, with bland decision. 
 " Don't you understand that if I can influence 
 the king in any way it will mean my career? 
 You will be good enough to receive the king and 
 to make yourself agreeable to him. And do 
 not talk sentimental nonsense about being in- 
 sulted. Do you wish me to do Kasimir the 
 honor of pretending to be jealous of him? I 
 will do anything to please you, but I really 
 cannot consent to play such a ridiculous r6le as 
 that, even for you." 
 
 Her mood changed suddenly. She looked 
 up at him with a strange smile on her face. 
 
 " Isn't that rather an odd thing to say to me,
 
 THE BINDWEED 139 
 
 Vladimir? You are not jealous even of a 
 king! There are men who would be jealous of 
 much less. What if I take your advice and 
 gain all the influence I can over him and use it 
 not for you, not for Russia, but for myself? 
 Do you think I couldn't do it that I am not 
 clever enough? Oh, I could do it if I liked I 
 could make that poor boy do anything I wished. 
 But if I did, I should hate myself and I should 
 expect you to hate me too." 
 
 Her eyes were shining, and there was a dan- 
 gerous note in her voice. 
 
 He watched her curiously. For the first time 
 it struck him that he did not altogether under- 
 stand her. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 She left her seat and began to pace up and 
 down the room, restlessly, feverishly, as though 
 moved by some power outside herself. 
 
 " Ah, it is you who don't understand now! If 
 I didn't love you as I do, it would be all so easy. 
 I could make the king do as I liked I could 
 rule Salitza I, who only a few months ago was 
 selling hats in the ' Paradis des Dames!' Do 
 you think I don't care for power I who have 
 never had any, all my life? All women are 
 tyrants unless fate has made them slaves. It 
 has made me a slave first to poverty and cir- 
 cumstance, and then to you. If I didn't care 
 for you, I would do as you say. I would make 
 the king love me I would " 
 
 She broke off suddenly, shuddering, and knelt 
 down beside his chair and hid her face against
 
 140 THE BINDWEED 
 
 him. He put his arm around her as she knelt 
 there, and patted her hair with soothing fingers. 
 
 " What is the matter, my angel? What is the 
 matter with you today?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know I don't know! Vladi- 
 mir, don't ask me to see the king again don't 
 drag me into this horrible plot. Poor boy, he 
 was kind to my little Mikhail I don't want to 
 
 hurt him. And and " she looked up, half 
 
 sobbing in the earnestness of her appeal " I 
 am not like other people, Vladimir when any- 
 one cares for me too much it is like a fate a 
 curse. I felt that when Fritz shot himself I 
 have felt it ever since. Don't tell me it isn't true 
 there are people in the world who are fatal to 
 others, like poisonous plants. I am one of them 
 ah, don't make me hurt the boy who was kind 
 to Mikhail!" 
 
 Vladimir Ourof sat very still, touching her 
 hair. He remembered the day he had seen 
 her first and heard the fat Frenchwoman call 
 her by name. 
 
 "The Bindweed!" he murmured to himself, 
 under his breath. 
 
 "And is there a curse on me?" he said pres- 
 ently. " Do I love you more than is prudent 
 will the fate come on me too, foolish child? Am 
 I to moderate my regard for you to a discreet, 
 tepid, uninteresting degree, in order to avoid 
 misfortune?" 
 
 " You are laughing at me," she said sadly. 
 
 " No, I don't know that I am, my angel. It is 
 a very pretty and poetical idea, and I am not
 
 THE BINDWEED 141 
 
 sure that it isn't really true, as well. There ^are 
 certainly people who are fatal to others they 
 have existed since the beginning of time. You 
 have only to read the history of any country at- 
 tentively to see that. And perhaps your idea is 
 truer of women than of men, when one comes to 
 think of it. There have always been women 
 who have dragged down men and nations too 
 who have clung to them like the graceful, 
 swaying creeper from which you take your name, 
 and wound them round with white flowers and 
 wreaths of tender green and have grown so 
 strong in the end that they have strangled the 
 life out of everything they clung to. That is 
 true, at any rate there is nothing strange in it, 
 nothing new. Are you going to strangle me?" 
 
 She looked up with somber, passionate eyes 
 the utter sincerity of which silenced him. 
 
 " I would kill myself first," she said simply. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " Ah, you think so they all think so! No 
 no perhaps I was only laughing at you all the 
 time. We will not think of these unpleasant 
 things. But why are you more frightened about 
 the king than you seem to be about me?" 
 
 For a moment she was silent. 
 
 " I shall not hurt you," she said at last, very 
 low, " because you don't love me enough to be 
 hurt." 
 
 Vladimir made a quick movement of protest. 
 
 "You are unjust and unkind. That isn't 
 true." 
 
 She smiled sadly at his indignation and* he
 
 142 THE BINDWEED 
 
 shrank a little from the look she gave him he, 
 Vladimir Ourof, who had never been afraid of 
 anything in the world. 
 
 "Ah, but it is true," she said. "Don't be 
 angry, Vladimir. Sometimes I am glad of it, 
 because I know that you will never come to 
 harm through me. Sometimes " 
 
 "Well?" he said curiously, as she broke off. 
 
 " Sometimes I think that if I didn't love you 
 as I do, I should hate you more than anyone in 
 the world!" 
 
 He caught her wrists suddenly and drew her 
 nearer to him, looking at her with an odd, sin- 
 ister gleam in his eyes. 
 
 " If you hated me, I would kill you," he said, 
 in an altered voice. Then, almost as suddenly 
 as he had seized them, he released her wrists, 
 and laughed. 
 
 " We are both a little mad today, I think, my 
 angel," he said, in his ordinary tone. "The 
 coup d'etat has got into our heads!"
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ETLE Anna Roumanine, propped up 
 with cushions on the rose-silk couch, 
 pale and languid and less artistically 
 made up than usual, had received a visit from 
 Madame Natalia Morisof, who came to condole 
 with cruelty and remained to torture with sym- 
 pathy. Half of her conversation had been of 
 Ourof, Liane and her suffering hostess; the 
 other half, of Ourof, Liane and the king. All 
 of it was barbed and bitter, but it left its victim 
 thinking as well as suffering. 
 
 The result of her cogitations was a clumsily 
 worded little anonymous note, in a very badly 
 disguised hand, and smelling vilely of musk, 
 which was brought to Vladimir Ourof two 
 nights later, as he sat on one of the green iron 
 balconies in the Boulevard Valitzine, at the side 
 of Liane Goldenburg. He read the poor, 
 futile, stupid little composition with a smile of 
 contempt, and tossed it into Liane's lap. 
 
 " There are some poor fools in the world," he 
 remarked, as he lighted himself a fresh cigarette. 
 "My angel, would you like to see that there 
 exists someone who envies you my not partic- 
 ularly valuable devotion? Read that precious 
 letter, and realize, if you can, how low a woman 
 can sink when she likes." 
 
 143
 
 144 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Liane obeyed. Perhaps the letter did not 
 strike her in precisely the light he intended, for 
 she handed it back in silence. 
 
 " I suppose you know who wrote it? " she said 
 presently. 
 
 " I can guess," Vladimir answered, lazily 
 watching the smoke of his cigarette as it rose 
 slowly into the quiet night air. " Yes I imag- 
 ine I can guess. It is Anna Roumanine do 
 you remember selling her a hat that day I first 
 saw you at the ' Paradis des Dames? ' It was a 
 lilac hat, and she looked like a resuscitated 
 corpse in it. And she was furious because I 
 kissed you what a scene I had with her going 
 home! I wonder why these tiresome women 
 exist? " 
 
 Liane sat very still, looking out into the night. 
 
 "And yet you did not always think her tire- 
 some," she said, with a touch of reproach. 
 
 Vladimir glanced at her from under his eye- 
 lashes, and laughed. 
 
 " Don't you know that there is nothing in the 
 world so tiresome as the woman one has once 
 thought charming when one is tired of her?" 
 
 She made a quick movement of protest. 
 
 "Ah, Vladimir, don't say things like that! 
 Some day you will be tired of me too." 
 
 "Never! It is much more likely you who 
 will tire of me, as madame I'ambassadrice is 
 kind enough to tell me here. I will keep this 
 pretty little token of her affection it may be 
 useful to me." 
 
 He took out a small leather pocket-book, and
 
 THE BINDWEED 145 
 
 laid it on his knee as he folded up the musk- 
 scented note. The pocket-book, insecurely 
 balanced, fell to the ground at Liane's feet and 
 she bent and picked it up. Something fell out 
 of it into her lap a little steel chain, on the end 
 of which was a cheap miniature-frame contain- 
 ing a faded photograph. 
 
 She was in the darkness, away from the ray of 
 light which fell on Ourof from the window of 
 the room behind. For a moment she sat motion- 
 less, holding the miniature close to her eyes. 
 Even in the gloom she knew it again. 
 
 "Where where did you get this?" she asked 
 very slowly. 
 
 Vladimir glanced at the chain in her hand. 
 
 "Oh that? I don't know who it is. I got 
 it somehow or other I forget." 
 
 " You have not forgotten," she said in a dry 
 voice. " Tell me how you got it." 
 
 Vladimir looked at her curiously for a second. 
 He could not see her face clearly, but the 
 peculiarity of her tone struck him. Was it 
 possible that she was jealous of this unknown 
 woman in the miniature? Perhaps he had said 
 too much about Anna Roumanine. He felt a 
 pang of compassion and regret he had not 
 meant to hurt her. 
 
 " I will tell you how I got it, Liane. Only 
 remember it is putting my life in your hands." 
 
 " You needn't be afraid," she said quietly. " I 
 shall never betray you. Only tell me tell me 
 at once!" 
 
 He told her told her of that day in the forest
 
 146 THE BINDWEED 
 
 when he had taken the miniature from the neck 
 of the boy he had shot the boy who had twice 
 tried to murder him in revenge for his father's 
 death, but whom he would not help to identify 
 after the first attempt because it would have re- 
 vealed to the police a fact which he had hitherto 
 hidden so successfully that the Sixth Regiment 
 had been led to the palace that night of the rev- 
 olution, not by one of its own officers, but by 
 himself in Major Janno's uniform. He told it 
 all lightly, carelessly, laughing at the mad freak 
 of putting on his sick friend's uniform in order 
 to lead a revolution in his place. He told her 
 of the old man who had fired at him in the 
 Boulevard Valitzine, and how he had shot him 
 down and gone on, shouting " Death to Mikhail 
 of Paris! " in his assumed character of a frenzied 
 revolutionary. 
 
 " I suppose that was the boy's father," he said. 
 " I didn't ask him, but I have always thought 
 so. It is funny, but I have thought of that boy 
 often since he reminded me of someone and I 
 could never make out who it was. He had the 
 most beautiful eyes I have ever seen, except 
 yours." 
 
 She sat and listened quietly to the end. Vlad- 
 imir went on speaking she did not hear what 
 he said. She was cold and sick and numb she 
 sat there like a statue and let him talk. Pres- 
 ently she rose and passed behind his chair into 
 the room. She could not have spoken to him 
 she could not have touched him, even to kill him. 
 She was conscious of but one idea, one wild,
 
 THE BINDWEED 147 
 
 overmastering desire to escape, not to hear his 
 voice, not to see the tall figure in the long chair 
 at her side with the one broad ray of light falling 
 on its fair head to get away, to fly as though 
 from a pestilence, and never to see him again. 
 
 Vladimir suspected nothing. She often had 
 fits of silence and depression, and he was used 
 to them. He simply supposed that she was tired 
 of sitting in the dark had perhaps remembered 
 something she wanted to do before it was too 
 late. He sat on, and smoked his cigarette peace- 
 fully to the end. 
 
 It was quite half an hour before he left the 
 balcony. When he entered the room behind he 
 was little surprised to find it empty. She was 
 tired, no doubt he remembered that she had 
 complained of a headache earlier in the evening. 
 Probably it had grown worse, and she had gone 
 to take off her dress, and lie down for a brief 
 rest. 
 
 The little, brilliantly lighted flat seemed sud- 
 denly to have grown very still and empty as he 
 went down the tiny corridor to the door of the 
 bedroom at the end. He turned the handle 
 the door was locked. 
 
 He stood there for a moment, with the handle 
 of the door between his fingers. For the first 
 time he began to feel vaguely uneasy he could 
 hear no sound of movement or life beyond that 
 locked door. Then he called himself a fool, 
 and rapped gently on the white panels. " Liane 
 are you ill?" he asked, raising his voice a 
 little. There was no answer, and he knocked
 
 148 THE BINDWEED 
 
 again, more loudly. "Liane! Let me in." 
 There was no answer. 
 
 For a minute or two longer he stood there. 
 The silence of the white-painted, lighted corri- 
 dor began to seem heavy and ominous. For the 
 first time in his life he felt afraid, though he 
 could not have said what he feared. 
 
 Then he put his shoulder against the white- 
 painted door and burst into the room. 
 
 It was empty! 
 
 He stood by the splintered door, staring 
 around with bewildered eyes. On a chair near 
 him lay the dress she had worn that evening he 
 noticed that the lace around the shoulders was 
 torn, as though she had taken it off in haste. The 
 thin, filmy stuff trailed limply and forlornly on 
 the floor. 
 
 Then his eye caught a sparkle of something 
 bright on the dressing-table. He crossed the 
 room quickly. There, heaped together in a 
 little pile of living fire and color, lay her rings, 
 her bracelets, the pearls she had worn in her hair 
 and at her throat all the jewels he had given 
 her. A horrible fear clutched at his heart. He 
 put out his hand, half mechanically, and touched 
 the glittering stones. What had she done 
 what did it mean? 
 
 A folded sheet of paper lay beside the jewels 
 under a ring he remembered giving her the 
 day they had arrived in Paris. He took it up, 
 unfolded it and saw the words written on it in 
 a hand so shaking and uneven that he could 
 hardly make it out. Then he read :
 
 THE BINDWEED 149 
 
 " Good-bye. I am leaving you forever if I have any 
 wish left if I could say any prayer it is, that never, as 
 long as I live, may I see you or hear of you again. Don't 
 be afraid I will not betray the story you told me. I am 
 too utterly broken-hearted to ask for vengeance, even against 
 you. It was my mother's miniature that you found on the 
 boy you murdered the boy was my brother the old man 
 was my father. I am punished as I deserve." 
 
 For a long, long time Vladimir Ourof stood 
 there with that accusing sheet of paper in his 
 hand. It had come at last, his day of reckoning 
 come through a little, common, faded photo- 
 graph in a cheap miniature-frame, hung on a 
 steel chain. 
 
 Suddenly a kind of horror seized upon him. 
 For an instant his iron nerve deserted him and 
 he hid his face in his hands, as though to shut 
 out some accusing vision the vision of a little 
 hut in the winter forest and a slight figure lying 
 dead at his feet. " My God ! The boy's eyes 
 were like hers like hers! " he said and so say- 
 ing, turned and rushed away out of the silent, 
 empty flat as though pursued by all the furies.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE king glanced at the little silver clock 
 on the mantelpiece beside him and 
 paused in the midle of a sentence which 
 he was dictating to his secretary, a pale young 
 man with eye-glasses and a pronounced stoop. 
 It was past mid-day. The secretary's fountain- 
 pen ceased in its smooth progress across the 
 paper and the secretary himself looked up for 
 further instructions. 
 
 "'In the interests of peace and ' Yes, 
 
 sir?" 
 
 " ' Peace and civilization,' " ended Kasimir, 
 flicking a speck of dust from his sleeve. 
 " That will do for this morning, I think. I will 
 send for you this afternoon, about five, to finish 
 this." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 The pale secretary put away his pen and de- 
 parted. Kasimir passed quickly into the ante- 
 room, where he found Nikolaievitch yawning 
 over the Khristovitz Courier. 
 
 " I am going out, Nikolaievitch. If the 
 queen wants me, say that I am engaged." He 
 paused for a moment. " Does she ever ask for 
 me at this time?" 
 
 " Her majesty asked for you yesterday, sir. 
 I explained to her that you were engaged." 
 
 150
 
 THE BINDWEED 151 
 
 " That's right. I shall be back soon." 
 
 Nikolaievitch hesitated. 
 
 " Do you think it quite safe to go about like 
 this, sir? Would it not be better to take one of 
 the detectives?" 
 
 " I am not afraid. I detest going about with 
 a lot of police at my heels, as though I were a 
 dangerous criminal," Kasimir answered, smil- 
 ing a little. " Don't worry about me, Nikolaie- 
 vitch I shall be all right." 
 
 He ran down a back staircase which led to 
 one of the smaller entrances of the palace. Once 
 in the street he was safe from observation the 
 plain blue uniform of the Guards was an excel- 
 lent disguise for one whose public appearances 
 were usually made in gorgeous robes of state. 
 It would be impossible to describe the charm 
 which these incognito expeditions had for him. 
 Oh, the relief of escaping, even for half an hour, 
 from all the stupid, needless ceremony with 
 which he was eternally surrounded 1 Nature 
 had never meant him for a king. He hated the 
 useless pomp of his position he shrank, with a 
 kind of physical loathing, from the display 
 which was expected of him, the publicity which 
 hardly left him an hour unspied upon or an ac- 
 tion unobserved. He knew perfectly well that 
 his visits to the tall house on the Boulevard Va- 
 litzine would not be a secret long, and in his own 
 heart he knew that his effort to dissociate the 
 personality of Captain Mikhailovitch from that 
 of Kasimir I of Salitza would not long remain 
 successful. Perhaps that very conviction added
 
 152 THE BINDWEED 
 
 to the pleasure of these moments which he ad- 
 mitted to himself were numbered. He enjoyed 
 the present all the more recklessly because he 
 knew that it would so soon be relegated to the 
 past. 
 
 He asked himself no questions with regard to 
 Liane Goldenburg. Perhaps he did not dare to 
 ask any. It was enough that the half hour he 
 could manage to spend with her was the pleas- 
 antest in all of a not particularly pleasant day. 
 He did not ask himself whither the affair would 
 lead him in the end. He did not want to know. 
 The queen would be quite certain to find out and 
 put a stop to it before considerations of that kind 
 became necessary. 
 
 So today he went light-heartedly down the 
 Boulevard Valitzine to the tall house with the 
 green balconies. When he reached the door of 
 the flat on the second floor he had to ring more 
 than once before it was suddenly thrown open 
 to him. 
 
 The girl who at last opened it had pale cheeks 
 and red eyes. He looked at her in astonish- 
 ment. It was easy to see that something had 
 gone wrong. 
 
 "Is Madame Goldenburg ill?" he asked 
 quickly. 
 
 The girl was from the country and very young 
 and simple. Liane's kindness and beauty had 
 won her heart and she had not the slightest idea 
 that the plain young officer in the unimposing 
 uniform who came so often to see her mistress 
 was the king. Therefore, instead of replying to
 
 THE BINDWEED 153 
 
 his question, she put her apron to her eyes and 
 burst into tears. 
 
 Kasimir pushed her gently into the little en- 
 trance-hall, and shut the door behind them. 
 
 " Don't be afraid," he said, kindly enough. 
 "Tell me what has happened. Here sit 
 down, and don't cry like that. Where is your 
 mistress?" 
 
 With some difficulty he made out her story. 
 She had not called anyone in the house because 
 madame did not like to have her affairs talked 
 about. She thought perhaps madame might 
 come back next morning, or Captain Ourof 
 might come in. But no one had been near the 
 place, and she did not know what to do. No 
 she had not told the police she did not like to 
 leave the flat with all madame's jewels lying 
 about. 
 
 " But have you found nothing to explain why 
 Madame Goldenburg should have left so sud- 
 denly? " Kasimir asked, completely puzzled by 
 the situation. 
 
 The girl stopped crying, and looked at him 
 doubtfully. Yes she had found one thing. 
 When she went to brush out the balcony in the 
 morning she had found a letter lying under one 
 of the chairs she thought someone must have 
 dropped it. She did not read it until she found 
 madame did not come home. She did not 
 understand the letter at all she thought some- 
 one had written it to vex madame. Would it 
 be wrong to show it to him? Perhaps he might 
 be able to understand it and tell her what to do.
 
 154 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Kasimir hesitated for a moment. Then his 
 anxiety mastered every other consideration. 
 
 " Show me the letter," he said. 
 
 She led him into the room which gave upon 
 the balcony where Ourof and Liane had sat the 
 night before, and put Anna Roumanine's little 
 spiteful, scented note into his hand. He read it 
 at a glance, and, though he understood its mean- 
 ing better than the servant had done, he still did 
 not understand all. From the wording, it 
 might have been addressed to Liane herself, and 
 he not unnaturally assumed that this had been 
 the case. It plainly hinted that she was carry- 
 ing on a compromising flirtation with a certain 
 " S. M." 
 
 Suddenly he dropped the letter on the table, 
 much as he would have dropped a snake if one 
 had been put into his hand. 
 
 "S. M." stood for " Sa Majeste"m other 
 words, himself. He understood everything 
 now. 
 
 He stood there staring down at the wicked 
 little sheet of paper with a sense of unendurable 
 outrage. Oh, could they never leave anything 
 of his alone was some evil construction to be 
 placed upon his most innocent actions, some 
 false meaning to be read into everything he did 
 or said or thought? Was it then impossible for 
 him to indulge himself to the extent of a few 
 moments out of the day spent in the society of so 
 unimportant a person as Madame Goldenburg, 
 without making her at once a target for the 
 vilest sort of scandal? Was his friendship a
 
 THE BINDWEED 155 
 
 dishonor to any woman to whom it was offered, 
 as he knew too well it was a means of self- 
 advancement to every man? Was this what it 
 meant to be a king? 
 
 Of course she had gone he would have gone 
 himself, he thought, in a like case. Of course, 
 wounded beyond endurance, indignant beyond 
 words, she had shaken the dust of Khristovitz 
 from her feet at a moment's notice. 
 
 He turned his back on the little servant, who 
 was crying softly, and went to the window and 
 looked down sadly into the Boulevard Valitzine 
 which had looked so bright to him a short half 
 hour ago. It was all over, his pleasant dream 
 of freedom. There had been only one person in 
 his world who had understood him, to whom he 
 had been able to talk without restraint or fear of 
 misunderstanding, or no, it had been some- 
 thing more than that. There was something in 
 that vile little musk-scented note, after all. He 
 had blinded himself to the truth as long as he 
 could. 
 
 He had not admitted the possibility of loving 
 Liane Goldenburg, because he knew that it was 
 forbidden him to love any woman whom at the 
 same time he wished to respect. Love was as 
 impossible a luxury to a king as every other 
 human and natural impulse seemed to be. Pres- 
 ently he would be dragged into some dreary 
 convenient marriage, contracted for reasons of 
 state without the smallest consideration for the 
 feelings of the persons concerned and senti- 
 mental European journals would print gushing
 
 156 THE BINDWEED 
 
 paragraphs about it and christen it "A Royal 
 Romance," as he had known them to do in the 
 case of similar alliances, the results of which 
 had not infrequently scandalized whole con- 
 tinents. What a tragic farce it was! And 
 now, the one thing which for him had begun to 
 redeem it was torn from him by scandal and 
 spite. Liane Goldenburg was gone he would 
 never see her again. 
 
 For a moment or two he stood there, silent, 
 despondent, resigned. Then the tides of revolt 
 rose furiously within him. No he would not, 
 could not, submit! Why should his whole life, 
 his whole happiness, be sacrificed to this Jug- 
 gernaut of royalty? 
 
 He turned to the little servant. 
 
 " You have done quite right," he said quickly. 
 " Stay here until until someone comes. Don't 
 be afraid don't tell anyone that your mistress 
 is not at home." 
 
 In five minutes he was back at the palace. 
 He called Nikolaievitch out of the anteroom 
 into his study. 
 
 " Nikolaievitch, I must leave Khristovitz for 
 a few hours perhaps I shall not be able to get 
 back until tomorrow morning. You must not 
 let anyone know that I am away. Say that I am 
 tired have a headache anything. Keep 
 everyone out of my rooms. Can you do it? " 
 
 " I will try, sir. Of course it will be per- 
 fectly easy to keep everyone out except the 
 queen." 
 
 "Ah the queen!" He paused for a mo-
 
 THE BINDWEED 157 
 
 ment and reflected. " We must risk the queen. 
 If nothing else will do, I suppose you must tell 
 her that I am not here. Manage as well as you 
 can." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " I can't stop," Kasimir said simply. "There 
 is a train to Britz in twenty minutes I shall 
 have to catch that." 
 
 He was gone before the astonished Nikolaie- 
 vitch could protest. What on earth was the 
 king going to do at Britz, the nearest frontier 
 town? Was there a revolution in the air and had 
 he adopted his father's simple and successful 
 method of escaping from its possible conse- 
 quences? 
 
 But the king, on his way to the station, was 
 quite reckless as to the impression which his sud- 
 den departure from Khristovitz might leave in 
 the mind of Nikolaievitch or anyone else, for 
 that matter. 
 
 He did not leave his capital unobserved, how- 
 ever. Prince Roumanine, standing smoking his 
 eternal cigarette at a window in the Russian 
 embassy, saw the slight figure hurrying past, 
 and rubbed his beard thoughtfully. Then he 
 went to a speaking-tube on the wall, and called 
 a single name down it. 
 
 Hardly a second had passed before a man had 
 entered noiselessly, without knocking, and stood 
 at the ambassador's side a thin man, with a 
 face that seemed made of india-rubber, so color- 
 less and expressionless was it, and small, beady 
 eyes set deep under heavy eyebrows. Rou-
 
 158 THE BINDWEED 
 
 manine nodded at him, and took his cigarette 
 from his lips. 
 
 " The king has just gone by on foot, alone, in 
 the uniform of an officer of the Guard. He 
 was going towards the station. Follow him. 
 Report yourself directly you return." 
 
 The cleverest spy in Europe bowed in silence 
 and took his india-rubber countenance rapidly 
 from the room. Roumanine returned to his 
 cigarette. 
 
 " I wonder if anything is the matter? " he said 
 to himself. " I haven't seen Ourof today. I 
 will send for him." 
 
 In five minutes Vladimir Ourof was with 
 him. The astute old diplomatist glanced at 
 him curiously as he entered, and then dropped 
 his blinking gaze discreetly to the floor before 
 he greeted his visitor. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Ourof. You don't look 
 very well," he said softly. 
 
 " It is nothing, excellency a mere headache." 
 Roumanine settled himself more easily in his 
 chair and pushed his cigarette-case across the 
 table. 
 
 " Madame Goldenburg left her flat in the 
 Boulevard Valitzine last night," he remarked, 
 in much the same uninterested tone that he 
 would have used to say it was a fine day. 
 
 Vladimir bit his lip and bent his fair head 
 very low over the cigarette-case. 
 
 " Yes, excellency." 
 
 " You didn't report it to me, my dear Ourof. 
 That was a mistake. We should never allow
 
 THE BINDWEED 159 
 
 our personal feelings to get the better of us in 
 matters of diplomacy. Why did she go?" 
 
 Vladimir's face, bent over his cigarette, was 
 livid. 
 
 "Is it absolutely necessary that your excel- 
 lency should have the the details?" 
 
 Roumanine sank back luxuriously among his 
 cushions and blinked at space. 
 
 "Absolutely, I am afraid. Go on, Ourof." 
 
 He listened in silence to the attache's story. 
 
 " And did you try to find her? " he said, when 
 it ended. 
 
 " No, excellency." 
 
 "Ah I Well, it is a good thing that my 
 agents were not so scrupulous," Roumanine said, 
 with a sneer which he hardly attempted to dis- 
 guise. " She went to the ' Paradis des Dames.' 
 An hour ago she left for Britz. I am afraid you 
 have managed this affair rather badly, my 
 friend." 
 
 Vladimir was silent. 
 
 " Ten minutes ago the king went by on foot, 
 incognito. He seemed in a hurry and I imagine 
 he was on his way to the station." Roumanine 
 glanced at the clock. " There is a train to Britz 
 that starts about now." 
 
 Vladimir sprang to his feet, but the ambassa- 
 dor waved him blandly back to his seat with a 
 claw-like hand. 
 
 " Sit? down I have not done with you yet. I 
 repeat, you have muddled this business. Of 
 course she will hate us all madly for the rest of 
 her life women are always so unreasonable."
 
 160 THE BINDWEED 
 
 "But the king ?" Vladimir stammered 
 
 in a strangled voice. 
 
 " He has gone to find her since you did not 
 take the trouble to do so. I should say he would 
 most probably succeed. It is just the sort of 
 thing he would be sure to do. That was a very 
 clever move of hers." 
 
 " Clever, excellency? " 
 
 "Yes. You don't seem to understand it, my 
 dear Ourof. Of course she meant him to follow 
 her. She judged him perfectly. With some 
 men, a woman's best game is to run away. He 
 probably didn't know he cared a kopeck for her 
 before. Now he knows." 
 
 Vladimir rose once more from his chair. 
 
 "Will you excuse me, excellency?" 
 
 Roumanine glanced at him viciously from 
 behind his light eye-lashes. In spite of his 
 theory that personal feelings should never be 
 allowed any influence in matters of diplomacy, 
 he was taking his revenge upon the handsome 
 attache and he meant to enjoy it to the full. It 
 had not suited him to observe his wife's infatua- 
 tion for Vladimir Ourof or to resent it by any 
 overt act, but he was human enough to seize his 
 vengeance when he could do so without incon- 
 veniencing himself. 
 
 "You seem in a hurry, Ourof. You will not 
 catch the train to Britz. Besides is it any 
 good? Do you imagine the Goldenburg will 
 prefer the man who has shot her father and 
 brother to the king? I believe reigning sover- 
 eigns are not often rejected, even in much higher
 
 THE BINDWEED 161 
 
 quarters. There is a royal hunting-lodge va- 
 cant at Mirsk, since the abdication of Mikhail 
 of Paris. No doubt it will do admirably for the 
 Goldenburg." 
 
 Vladimir was trembling with passion and his 
 face was white. 
 
 "Your excellency does not seem to be very 
 well informed as to the character of Madame 
 Goldenburg. I hope you do not intend to draw 
 any comparison between her and the ladies of 
 the late king's court?" 
 
 Roumanine saw that he had gone a little too 
 far. 
 
 " My dear Ourof, I have other things to 
 occupy me. Your charming friend is no doubt 
 an angel of disinterestedness and devotion. But 
 meanwhile there is another question to be con- 
 sidered. It is hardly likely, I imagine, that you 
 will be able to influence the king in our favor 
 now through Madame Goldenburg, at any 
 rate. We may as well look out for someone 
 else." 
 
 "Why not marry him to a Russian princess?" 
 
 Roumanine's thin eyebrows rose in an expres- 
 sive curve. 
 
 " Oh, of course in due time. But marriage 
 isn't influence, my very dear Ourof. However, 
 we must wait and see what turn events will take 
 before we make any more plans, or perhaps they 
 too will go astray. There is always Zanovitch 
 to fall back upon. I have an idea that this young 
 man will require strong measures before we have 
 done with him."
 
 162 THE BINDWEED 
 
 "Strong measures?" Vladimir said question- 
 ingly. 
 
 Roumanine smiled. 
 
 "The sort of strong measures you took when 
 you put on Major Janno's uniform. You must 
 take care that that story doesn't get about, Ourof. 
 Our part in these lamentable internal disturb- 
 ances which are always taking place in these 
 countries is one of pacification you must al- 
 ways remember that. We deplore these insur- 
 rections most deeply we have nothing to gain 
 by them in most cases. Here, of course, it is in 
 the highest degree probable that any rising 
 against the existing dynasty would be set down 
 to us by the other powers, who, not having suf- 
 ficient brains to pursue any definite policy of 
 their own, are always suspicious of the motives 
 of anyone who has."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 RDUMANINE was right when he said 
 that Liane Goldenburg, after leaving her 
 flat in the Boulevard Valitzine, had gone 
 to the " Paradis des Dames." Almost uncon- 
 sciously, in that agony of horror and remorse 
 which had seized her upon hearing Vladimir's 
 story, her feet had borne her upon their accus- 
 tomed path to the big shop in the Boulevard 
 Mikhail II as to the one haven of refuge left her 
 in the world. Good madame exclaimed at the 
 sight of her white face, her pitiful eyes: 
 
 "My cabbage, what is the matter with thee? 
 Come in here, in my own little room. Thou 
 art white as a ghost." 
 
 Liane followed her mechanically into the 
 little private room. 
 
 "Will you let me stay here for tonight, dear 
 madame? I can't tell you what is the matter 
 I am in terrible trouble, I must leave this place 
 tomorrow. Tonight I have nowhere to go I 
 have no money nothing. Will you lend me 
 enough to get me over the frontier into Austria? 
 I will pay it back as soon as I can." 
 
 The good woman took her in her arms. 
 
 "Will I? My poor little one, thou art wel- 
 come to all I have! But why go to Austria 
 hast thou not a home always ready for thee here? 
 
 163
 
 164 THE BINDWEED 
 
 I will ask no questions, my darling thou know- 
 est I am not one of those whose noses are ever in 
 the affairs of their neighbors. Stay with me, 
 and help me none of these stupid girls can 
 make a bow as thou canst." 
 
 " I can't stay," Liane. said^ trembling at the 
 thought of being pursued by Vladimir. "I 
 would leave Khristovitz tonight if I could." 
 
 Madame pressed her no more. All that night 
 the girl lay awake, staring with dry eyes into the 
 darkness, seeing always that little hut in the 
 forest and Vladimir holding the pistol to Pavlo's 
 head or that other scene in the Boulevard 
 Valitzine with her father lying dead by the Rus- 
 sian's shot. And she had loved this man this 
 cruel murderer she had left poor Fritz for 
 him ! The horror of it all was almost more than 
 she could endure. 
 
 In the morning madame persuaded her to rest 
 for a few hours longer before leaving for Britz. 
 It was mid-day before she left the Boulevard 
 Mikhail II. On second thoughts delay had 
 seemed safer. If the attache wanted to stop her 
 journey, he would be more likely to watch the 
 earlier trains. 
 
 But, after all, it was not Vladimir Ourof who 
 followed her, but the king, whom she had for- 
 gotten altogether in the shock of her discovery 
 that Vladimir was the murderer of her father 
 and brother. It was the king who saw her get 
 into the train, and himself selected another car- 
 riage in which he followed her quietly to Britz. 
 
 At Britz, as she stood, forlorn and helpless, on
 
 THE BINDWEED 165 
 
 the platform, it was the king who came up to 
 her, with an odd look of resolution on his face. 
 
 She gave a little cry and shrank back. 
 
 "You need not be afraid, madame," he said. 
 " I have followed you here because I must speak 
 to you before you leave Salitza. There is a 
 very good hotel just outside the station, where 
 we shall not be interrupted. Will you come?" 
 
 She was too astonished to protest. In silence 
 she followed him out of the miserable little 
 frontier station and across a badly kept road to 
 the hotel beyond. He had a moment's conver- 
 sation with a waiter, who finally showed them 
 into a large empty salon and left them there. 
 
 It was the moment Kasimir had been prepar- 
 ing himself to meet ever since he left Khristo- 
 vitz; but now that it had come he was silent. 
 The painful nervousness which had affected him 
 all his life mastered him completely for a 
 second or two. Mutely and awkwardly he set 
 a chair for Liane, who by a gesture refused it. 
 They stood facing each other in the middle of 
 the room in a silence which would have been 
 ridiculous if it had not been almost tragic. 
 
 Kasimir spoke at last hesitatingly, haltingly, 
 in a voice changed almost beyond recognition 
 by mingled timidity and earnestness. 
 
 " I know why you are here," he said. " The 
 girl gave me that that vile letter. I under- 
 stand. Of course you went away I should 
 have done the same thing myself. It has always 
 been the fate that has pursued me, this I might 
 have expected it. They will leave me nothing
 
 1 66 THE BINDWEED 
 
 nothing that I care for. And there are so 
 few things I do care for I have learned not to 
 care, in most cases. But now " 
 
 For the first time since they had entered the 
 room he lifted his head, and fixed upon her a 
 look so wistful, so passionate, so full of tragedy 
 and tenderness that she made a little startled 
 movement as though to seek safety in flight. 
 
 He saw the movement and it unlocked his 
 halting speech. Almost with a cry of despair he 
 held out his hands to her, as though in appeal 
 against the letter which had libeled him the 
 whole world which failed to understand him 
 even against herself, who had misjudged him 
 and fled from him. 
 
 "No no!" he said passionately. "Not that 
 I'm not such a scoundrel as that! You think 
 I have trapped you here God knows, it isn't so! 
 I have followed you because I could do nothing 
 else. Could I have let you go without a word? 
 I let other people think the worst of me I can't 
 fight against everyone. But I can't let you go 
 away thinking that what that letter said was 
 true. I came to your house as Mikhailovitch 
 never as the king. I told you so the first time 
 I came at all. I meant it honestly I swear I 
 did. I never meant to bring all this upon you, 
 though I might have known ' A hunting-lodge 
 at Mirsk!'" he said, unconsciously quoting 
 Anna Roumanine's letter. "You thought I 
 meant that !" 
 
 " I never thought it," she said gently. 
 
 " But you left Khristovitz without a word to
 
 THE BINDWEED id/- 
 
 me. You wouldn't even wait to say good-bye 
 to me. Listen I am going to tell you the whole 
 truth. That letter is true, after all, though not 
 in the way it was meant." 
 
 He paused for an instant, hesitating, and 
 deadly pale. 
 
 "How am I to tell you?" he went on in a 
 voice so low that she could hardly hear what he 
 was saying. " You will think it an insult, after 
 what has happened you will say I had no right 
 to come here after you. Oh, I don't care what 
 you think you must believe me! Until I read 
 that letter, I wouldn't let myself know I tried 
 not to know, because that would have ended it 
 all. I have never cared for anything or anyone 
 very much I didn't think I cared then until 
 I read that letter. Then I knew that it was true 
 that I loved you as I have never loved any- 
 thing all my life." 
 
 Again she made a hurried movement of pro- 
 test and dismay. 
 
 "Your majesty will let me go?" she safd. 
 "You should not have come here you should 
 not have told me this." 
 
 " No," he said simply, " I shouldn't have told 
 you as the king. But I am not speaking to you 
 as the king it is you who have made that mis- 
 take. I am speaking to you as Kasimir Mik- 
 hailovitch." 
 
 " It is the same thing you know it is the 
 same," she said, distressed beyond words by his 
 earnestness, afraid of wounding him, unable not 
 to pity him. " You must let me go at once."
 
 1 68 THE BINDWEED 
 
 A sudden vision of desolation rose before him. 
 The palace the old, dreary life the hopeless- 
 ness, the helplessness of it all. The political 
 marriage in the future, and, for the past, the 
 memory of Liane Goldenburg. 
 
 He made a step towards her and caught her 
 hands. 
 
 "No I won't let you go," he said passion- 
 ately. " You are the one thing that I have ever 
 cared for if I lose you I don't care to go on 
 living. Don't you understand how empty my 
 life is won't you try to understand, and pity 
 me a little, if you can do nothing else? I have 
 been a puppet always. I have always been cut 
 off and alone. And now you could give me 
 everything. Are you going to refuse to send 
 me back to Khristovitz alone, without you, with- 
 out anything on earth to care for or hope for? 
 Are you going to be so cruel, so heartless? " 
 
 For a moment she stood helpless with aston- 
 ishment. She tried to release herself, but it was 
 useless. With a kind of terror she looked at 
 Kasimir's tense face and entreating eyes. 
 
 " Your majesty Captain Mikhailovitch 
 am I to think that the letter was true, that, after 
 all, you only meant the hunting-lodge at 
 Mirsk?" 
 
 He dropped her hand as though she had 
 struck him, and drew back with a sudden dignity 
 and simplicity which sat very well on him. 
 
 " I am asking you to marry me, madame," he 
 said. 
 
 She was silent from sheer amazement.
 
 THE BINDWEED 169 
 
 "It is impossible," she said at last. "You 
 could not do it." 
 
 "Not as the king perhaps. As Mikhailo- 
 vitch I may marry anyone I please. But, if you 
 wish it, I will marry you as the king in spite 
 of everyone in Salitza." 
 
 "No, no," she answered, touched by his will- 
 ingness to sacrifice everything for her. " It 
 would be asking too much it would cost you 
 too much." 
 
 "Then will you marry me as Mikhailo- 
 vitch?" he said quickly. 
 
 She hesitated. She remembered that conver- 
 sation which she had had with Vladimir Ourof, 
 she remembered saying that she could rule Sa- 
 litza, if she chose. Should she choose? Or 
 should she go out of the country, penniless, a 
 fugitive, without a friend or a refuge in the 
 world? 
 
 She looked up irresolutely and met Kasimir's 
 eyes fixed upon her with the wistful expression 
 she had seen in them long ago when he had 
 thrown the bonbons to Mikhail. It was not 
 ambition, after all, which decided her, but pity 
 pity for this boy whom unkind fate had made 
 a king. 
 
 "You have not refused," he said. "You are 
 not going to refuse?" 
 
 " Your majesty " 
 
 " Not that," he interrupted quickly. 
 
 " Captain Mikhailovitch " 
 
 He stopped her with a look. 
 
 "Not that please!"
 
 170 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Her velvet eyes softened and she held out her 
 hand. 
 
 " Kasimir " 
 
 He took her hand and kissed it. The wistful 
 look died out of his face, and he smiled at her 
 with infinite tenderness and contentment. 
 
 " Don't tell me to go back to Khristovitz alone 
 anything but that! If you knew how terribly 
 lonely I have been all my life you won't leave 
 me, Liane?" 
 
 The tears came suddenly into her eyes the 
 pathos of his appeal touched her as nothing else 
 could have done. 
 
 "You shall never be lonely again," she said, 
 almost as she would have said it to little Mikhail 
 in the days when he had been afraid of being 
 left alone in the dark. 
 
 Next morning, as Roumanine sat by the win- 
 dow of his pleasant study overlooking the Boule- 
 vard Valitzine, the man with the india-rubber 
 face and the beady, unexpressive eyes came in 
 softly, without knocking, and stood at his 
 elbow. 
 
 Roumanine nodded curtly. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I have come to report myself, excellency. 
 I obeyed your orders. The king followed 
 Madame Goldenburg to Britz. They went to 
 the Grand Hotel. At ten o'clock last night they 
 were married." 
 
 Roumanine dropped the match with which he 
 was preparing to light a fresh cigarette. It fell
 
 THE BINDWEED 171 
 
 on the rug at his feet, lighted as it was, and 
 began to burn a little round hole. The as- 
 tonished ambassador took no notice, but sat star- 
 ing at his agent with a petrified air. 
 
 "Married!" 
 
 The india-rubber countenance of the spy 
 never changed. It was his business in life to 
 observe events, not to take an interest in them. 
 His beady eyes roamed round the room, and 
 then fell on the burning match at Roumanine's 
 feet. 
 
 " Yes, excellency married. Permit me " 
 
 He put his foot on the match. A singeing rug 
 was as interesting to him as the morganatic mar- 
 riage of a reigning sovereign. 
 
 "You are sure you made no mistake?" 
 
 " I never make mistakes, excellency," said the 
 spy simply. 
 
 It was true Roumanine had never known 
 him to make a mistake, this automatic human 
 watching-machine. In Salitza his appearance 
 had earned for him the unenviable title of " the 
 Death's Head." 
 
 "Where is the king now?" 
 
 " He returned to Khristovitz this morning, 
 excellency. Madame Goldenburg has gone on 
 to Mirsk." 
 
 A very evil smile curled the thin edges of 
 Roumanine's mouth. 
 
 " Ourof will like to hear that," he said to him- 
 self. " I think I will keep the marriage to 
 myself for the moment very well. Now go to 
 Mirsk and see what happens there,"
 
 172 THE BINDWEED 
 
 "Yes, excellency," said the Death's Head 
 Submissively. 
 
 " Find out where Madame Goldenburg goes 
 what she does how often the king sees her. 
 .She has a maid?" 
 
 " At Britz she was alone, excellency." 
 
 " Ah it will be different now. He will give 
 her an establishment of some sort she will take 
 good care of that," said the ambassador, whose 
 dealings with women had not inclined him to 
 take a high view of their disinterestedness. 
 "There will be a maid. You can manage a 
 maid, I suppose?" he added, glancing sardoni- 
 cally at the unattractive countenance of the 
 Death's Head. 
 
 " Yes, excellency." 
 
 "Well the particular form of ugliness that 
 women won't take to has not yet been invented," 
 said Roumanine with his acid smile. " Men 
 generally have the sense to look out for beauty 
 of some sort it is about all they ever get from a 
 woman, so they have the right to demand it. 
 That is all, I think. You may go." 
 
 The spy went out, noiselessly, as he had come. 
 Roumanine lighted his neglected cigarette, and 
 settled himself comfortably in his chair. He 
 had hardly done so when the door opened once 
 more, and the princess entered. 
 
 Roumanine laid down his cigarette resign- 
 edly, wondering what on earth his wife wanted. 
 
 The little ambassadrice looked flushed and 
 excited. 
 
 "Ivan is it true that the that Madame
 
 THE BINDWEED 173 
 
 Goldenburg has left her flat in the Boulevard 
 Valitzine?" 
 
 Roumanine eyed her coldly. 
 
 " Madame Goldenburg? May I ask what 
 you know about Madame Goldenburg, Anna?" 
 
 Anna's little gilded and elaborately dressed 
 head went into the air. 
 
 " Pray don't be absurd, Ivan. You always 
 think nobody knows anything except yourself 
 is it>rue that she is gone?" 
 
 " Madame Goldenburg has left her flat, if 
 that is what you are so anxious to know." 
 
 "And where has she gone? Tell me, Ivan 
 there's a dear. Do tell me. They say it's the 
 king now. Is it?" 
 
 Roumanine looked at his wife with a thought- 
 ful air. So she had heard about the king, too. 
 Was it possible ? Ah he understood. 
 
 "You are very anxious to hear that your 
 friend Captain Ourof is free from the toils of 
 Madame Goldenburg," he said in an unemo- 
 tional voice. 
 
 The poor little princess glanced timidly at his 
 face the gray, wrinkled, inexpressive face 
 which she could never read, and which filled 
 her at times with an almost hysterical terror and 
 suspicion. 
 
 " Ourof?" she stammered. 
 
 " Yes Ourof. You say that I think I know 
 everything. What if I know even more than 
 you imagine?" 
 
 There was an instant of dreadful silence. 
 Anna fidgeted with the gold bangles at her
 
 174 THE BINDWEED 
 
 wrists; Roumanine put out a cold hand towards 
 his cigarette. 
 
 " It is very touching, this interest you take in 
 Madame Goldenburg," he said. " Do you sup- 
 pose it blinds me? Do you suppose I don't 
 know why you are interested in her? You think 
 the pretty attache will ask you to mend his 
 broken heart eh? A brilliant idea, certainly! 
 Perhaps he will." 
 
 "Ivan !" she murmured faintly. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Oh, don't imagine that I mind. I have 
 never interfered with your methods of amusing 
 yourself. I am not that sort of man at all. I 
 shall never give you the satisfaction of seeing 
 me go out to be shot by ce bel Ourof. Shot 
 for you ! That would be a good joke, my pretty 
 Anna, wouldn't it? " 
 
 She stood shivering beneath the lash of his 
 imperturbable sarcasm. He continued in his 
 cool, level voice, which he never lifted above 
 its usual expressionless tone. 
 
 " But pray don't imagine that I am a fool. I 
 have seen what has been going on for years. 
 And now M. 1'Attache has deserted you for the 
 Goldenburg? Well I congratulate him on his 
 good taste." 
 
 She gave a little miserable cry of indignation. 
 Roumanine threw his extinguished cigarette out 
 of the window and turned upon her a look of 
 cold hatred and contempt. 
 
 "Yes he has good taste, your handsome 
 Ourof. Do you suppose you are going to con-
 
 THE BINDWEED 175 
 
 sole him for the loss of the Goldenburg? He 
 came here yesterday I made him tell me the 
 story of her flight. I didn't think he had it in 
 him to feel so much about anything. Of course 
 it was you who wrote that blundering letter 
 it is just the sort of absolutely unnecessary stu- 
 pidity that you would commit. Well you 
 have driven the Goldenburg into the king's 
 arms, and Vladimir Ourof will hate you for the 
 rest of his life. I hope you are satisfied." 
 
 The little ambassadrice turned and went has- 
 tily from the room. Her husband resumed his 
 chair, his cigarette, and his habitual calm. 
 
 " She won't write any more anonymous letters, 
 I think," he said. " If it hadn't been for that, 
 I would not have said anything. But to in- 
 terfere like this to spoil all my plans with her 
 sickly sentimental infatuation for that intoler- 
 able Ourof ! No that I really could not 
 
 pass over in silence. The impertinence of these 
 women! They have no brains themselves they 
 are only fit to frivol about among hats and 
 clothes and they must interfere in matters of 
 this kind and upset all one's arrangements for 
 the sake of some long-legged, empty-headed 
 adventurer like Ourof! I am half inclined to 
 resign and retire to Paris." 
 
 He sat for a long time looking out of the win- 
 dow in silence. 
 
 "We must see what she does," he said at last, 
 referring to Liane Goldenburg. " Perhaps she 
 will behave like any other woman and be satis- 
 fied with diamonds. Perhaps she will not."
 
 176 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Again he sat silent for a little while. 
 
 " If she does not content herself with dia- 
 monds," he said, "she will have to go. Yes 
 if she interferes and influences that hot-headed 
 boy against us she will have to go."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHEN Vladimir Ourof went out of 
 Roumanine's study, on the day Liane 
 left Khristovitz for Britz, it was in a 
 mood which seemed to call for action of some 
 kind the more desperate, the better. He had 
 for a moment a wild idea of going to Britz him- 
 self and confronting the king, but a little reflec- 
 tion soon showed him the futility of doing any- 
 thing of that kind. After all, Liane was gone 
 and nothing that he could do would bring her 
 back to him. A thousand times he cursed him- 
 self for his folly in telling her the story of the 
 miniature. It was his own stupidity which had 
 undone him and Anna Roumanine's letter. 
 It was almost a pleasure to think of someone 
 besides himself to revile. 
 
 Yes it was Anna Roumanine, after all, who 
 had brought the catastrophe about. He looked 
 in his pocket-book for her letter and was aston- 
 ished to find that it was not there. He went to 
 the flat in the Boulevard Valitzine and fright- 
 ened the poor little servant nearly out of her 
 wits by his inquiries. She had the sense to 
 deny all knowledge of the letter, though she ad- 
 mitted that Captain Mikhailovitch had called 
 to see madame and had seemed much disturbed 
 at finding her gone. This was all exactly what 
 
 177
 
 178 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Vladimir had expected to hear and he had to 
 be satisfied. The letter was gone. After all, 
 it was not important. He could deal with 
 Anna Roumanine without it, when the time 
 came. 
 
 Then he sat down to reflect, and his reflec- 
 tions were anything but pleasant. He had lost 
 Liane; he had muddled his ambassador's plans, 
 thereby interfering very considerably with his 
 own chances of success in the tortuous paths 
 which he had chosen; and he was desperately 
 in want of money. He was literally at the end 
 of his resources. 
 
 Of all this Roumanine was as well aware as 
 he was; but he wanted the man whom he in- 
 tended to use as a tool to realize his condition 
 thoroughly before he had need of his services. 
 The astute diplomatist was the last person in 
 the world to lose anything by being in a hurry. 
 He knew that the scheme he had in view would 
 hardly be one of which even Vladimir Ourof 
 would approve in cold blood; and besides, it 
 might never become necessary. At the same 
 time, a desperate man badly in want of money, 
 is, if he possesses any sense at all, a more valua- 
 ble tool than half a dozen ordinary agents. 
 
 So he waited for a few days before he sent for 
 Ourof again. He was well informed as to the 
 attache's movements. There were other spies 
 besides the Death's Head in Khristovitz, and 
 one of the secrets of Roumanine's success in his 
 career was that he set almost as many spies to 
 watch his agents as he did to report the doings
 
 THE BINDWEED 179 
 
 of his enemies. It is possible that even the 
 Death's Head himself had a pair of invisible 
 eyes watching his operations at Mirsk. 
 
 But at Mirsk, at least, there was peace. The 
 few people who lived there were not at all in- 
 terested in the fact that the low white villa on 
 the hill, next to the royal hunting lodge, had 
 again found an occupant. They were still less 
 interested being bucolically and agricultur- 
 ally minded in the occupant herself. The 
 low white villa stood away from every other 
 house except the hunting lodge wherein Mik- 
 hail of Paris had entertained the ladies of his 
 court. 
 
 Perhaps Kasimir was the only one of all the 
 actors in this drama which was being played in 
 Khristovitz whose mind was at rest. For a 
 little while, at least, the black shadow of the 
 palace seemed to have fallen from about him 
 for a little while he was to taste the happiness 
 for which he had longed so often and so sorely 
 all his life. It was true that his days were 
 spent in Khristovitz, struggling with political 
 intrigues, with popular discontent, with the 
 frank disapproval of a hostile cabinet and a 
 premier who was almost as much afraid of 
 action as of inaction. It was true that his dif- 
 ferences with the queen became every day more 
 frequent. Perhaps his mother's persistent mis- 
 comprehension was Kasimir's worst trial at that 
 time. But, when the daily labor of either right- 
 ing with or ignoring all these unfavorable opin- 
 ions was over, what a relief it was to step into
 
 i8o THE BINDWEED 
 
 the white electric launch, and go gliding up the 
 still river under the shadow of pines and rocks 
 to the quiet landing stage of Liane's villa at 
 Mirsk! For a few hours, at least, he was free 
 to forget all the disagreeable incidents of his 
 life in an atmosphere of peace. The eager boy 
 who sprang out of the launch was a very dif- 
 ferent person from the cold, nervous king who 
 drove now and then through the streets of his 
 capital, responding to perfunctory cheers with 
 equally perfunctory bows. Here he could be 
 himself, without the mask of ceremony or of 
 shyness which disfigured his whole nature in 
 Khristovitz. 
 
 Even Liane Goldenburg, who had married 
 him out of pity or ambition forgot that fact 
 at times. It was impossible not to be touched 
 by his devotion, by the gaiety with which he 
 escaped from state affairs and came to her as to 
 a refuge from that other life which he led apart 
 from hers. It was impossible not to sympa- 
 thize with him in his struggle with everyone 
 about him. It was impossible not to love him, 
 with the half-protective affection she would 
 have given to a child. His absolute adoration 
 of her touched a chord in her nature which 
 Vladimir's passion had never reached. There 
 was something oddly pathetic in the way in 
 which he seemed to cling to her and depend 
 upon her he who had always borne the repu- 
 tation of being so suspicious of those about him, 
 so reticent and uncommunicative, so devoid of 
 every natural feeling. How terribly he had
 
 THE BINDWEED 181 
 
 been misjudged! she thought. He had almost 
 every quality which his caviling subjects denied 
 him, and hardly one which they credited him 
 with possessing. She hardly realized as yet 
 that there was, after all, some excuse for their 
 mistake, for they only knew him as the king, and 
 as the king he did not shine. He had not the 
 gift of leading men, though he had enough 
 spirit to oppose them; and his nature was too 
 sensitive to bear opposition well. He had never 
 been intended for a hero, and a life of semi- 
 publicity had only emphasized that fact more 
 cruelly than nature had done already. 
 
 But at Mirsk it was easy to forget all this. 
 He almost forgot it himself. His delight in 
 the little white villa amused Liane. He was 
 never tired of suggesting alterations and im- 
 provements. 
 
 " Do you turn the palace upside down like 
 this?" she asked one night after he had vigor- 
 ously carried out some scheme of improvement 
 in the arrangement of one of the rooms with his 
 own hands. 
 
 He pushed a chair into place, and laughed. 
 
 "The palace! I should as soon think of in- 
 terfering with the architecture of the cathedral. 
 No the palace is not my business." 
 
 "Yet you are in love with this little place," 
 Liane said, smiling. "I shall soon be jealous 
 of the furniture I am not sure that I am not 
 quite jealous of the gardens already. You are 
 in as much of a hurry to see the last rose that is 
 out as you are to see me ! "
 
 1 82 THE BINDWEED 
 
 "You don't understand," he said simply. " I 
 have half a dozen palaces, but I have never had 
 a home until now. That is why I love this little 
 place so." 
 
 "And the gardens?" she said, touched by his 
 answer, but still laughing at his energy. " Do 
 you know what time it was when you dragged 
 me out there this morning in a dressing-gown 
 to see that new rose? Six o'clock, Kasimir! 
 not a minute more! Are there no roses at the 
 palace?" 
 
 "Yes, but you are not there, so they don't 
 grow like these," he said gaily. 
 
 "Do you make pretty speeches like that at 
 the palace?" she asked. 
 
 "To Nikolaievitch or my mother's ladies- 
 in-waiting? Oh, I don't get much practice at 
 that sort of thing at the palace," Kasimir said 
 with a sigh. " If you knew how delightful 
 these little rooms are after those great, gloomy, 
 glacial state apartments!" 
 
 "Don't think of them," she said gently. 
 " You can be happy here." 
 
 "I should be perfectly happy if you would 
 let me acknowledge our marriage," he said. 
 " I can't bear " 
 
 "What is the matter?" she asked, as he broke 
 off. 
 
 "You have never lived in a court I was 
 born in one. You don't know how impossible 
 it is to keep anything secret. My visits to the 
 hunting lodge will not escape notice long and 
 then someone will find out that I don't go to
 
 THE BINDWEED 183 
 
 the hunting lodge at all. Then you know the 
 sort of things that will be said about you. Liane 
 I can't bear that they should be said!" 
 
 "But we know they are not true," she an- 
 swered. "What does it matter what people 
 say? Let us be happy, Kasimir, and forget 
 that Khristovitz exists." 
 
 It was always the attitude which she took 
 when the question of acknowledging the mar- 
 riage was spoken of. She would not agree to 
 his idea of making it at least an open secret. She 
 had always the fear of Vladimir Ourof in her 
 mind the fear lest he should break into the 
 pleasant peace of the little white villa on the hill 
 and ruin everything, both for Kasimir and her- 
 self. 
 
 Indeed it was of Kasimir rather than herself 
 that she thought it was for him that she feared. 
 The terror with which Vladimir had inspired 
 her on the occasion of their first meeting had 
 returned in full force. By a miracle, as it 
 seemed to her, she had escaped from the dis- 
 aster in which he had involved her whole 
 existence. But even while she admitted the 
 miracle she doubted its power to protect her 
 permanently from the man whom she had such 
 good cause to dread. 
 
 But Kasimir had been right when he said that 
 his visits to the hunting lodge could not escape 
 notice long. The queen, jealous of anyone else 
 acquiring over her son that influence which she 
 had never been able to acquire herself, managed 
 to be very well informed as to his movements.
 
 1 84 THE BINDWEED 
 
 His sudden fondness for Mirsk aroused her sus- 
 picions. One day, about three weeks after his 
 marriage, she came to him pale with the anger 
 she tried to suppress. 
 
 " What is this last story I hear of you, Kasi- 
 mir? Why do you spend so much time at 
 Mirsk?" 
 
 Her tone stung him, but he answered quietly 
 enough. 
 
 " Mirsk is pleasant in this hot weather. Is 
 there any reason why I shouldn't go there? My 
 father " 
 
 He stopped, with a touch of confusion. It 
 was about the worst thing he could have said, 
 for the queen had been only too painfully aware 
 of Mikhail's partiality for Mirsk. She turned 
 a shade paler than before. 
 
 " Pray don't think it necessary to try to de- 
 ceive me, Kasimir. I know that Madame Gold- 
 enburg has a villa at Mirsk." 
 
 Kasimir prepared for the inevitable battle. 
 
 " Madame Goldenburg has a villa at Mirsk," 
 he said quietly, " and I have a hunting lodge. 
 May I ask you to say quite frankly what you 
 mean?" 
 
 " I mean that you are always at Madame 
 Goldenburg's villa. Can you deny it? " 
 
 " I haven't the smallest intention of denying 
 it. But how do you know so much about my 
 movements at Mirsk? Is it possible that you 
 have set spies upon me there? " 
 
 She colored uncomfortably. 
 
 " You are never frank with me, Kasimir, and
 
 THE BINDWEED 185 
 
 I thought it my duty to try and save you from 
 this woman." 
 
 "You may spare yourself the trouble," the 
 king replied coldly. " I don't require any pro- 
 tection from Madame Goldenburg." 
 
 " You must give her up at once." 
 
 Kasimir was silent for a moment. It was not 
 easy to decide what to do. 
 
 " We will not discuss the question," he said at 
 last. " I don't admit your right to spy upon me 
 and criticise my conduct in this way, but if 
 it is any consolation to you I will give you my 
 word of honor that my relations with Madame 
 Goldenburg are perfectly innocent." 
 
 She stared at him for a moment. This was 
 worse than anything he had ever done. Even 
 Mikhail of Paris, she thought, would have had 
 more sense than to tell her such a shameless, 
 stupid lie. 
 
 " Do you expect me to believe that?" she said 
 furiously, startled and shocked out of her usual 
 self-composure. 
 
 Curiously enough, it was exactly what he had 
 expected. The shock of rinding that she would 
 not believe him gave him one of the most un- 
 pleasant moments of his life. 
 
 " I have given you my word of honor," he 
 said. " In your place, I hope I should have 
 believed the word of my own son against the 
 testimony of fifty spies. I have never lied to you 
 before, and I am telling the truth now. As you 
 don't believe me, I am forced to prove what I 
 say. Madame Goldenburg is my wife."
 
 1 86 THE BINDWEED 
 
 She gave a little cry of horror and astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Kasimir! This is utter madness ! " 
 
 He watched her coolly. He was very angry 
 so angry that he had ceased to be afraid of 
 her. 
 
 " Am I to understand," he asked with a touch 
 of bitter sarcasm, "that in spite of the high 
 moral tone you were preparing to take with me 
 you would have preferred to find that Madame 
 Goldenburg was not my wife? I should be 
 sorry to come to such a conclusion." 
 
 "But the marriage isn't legal?" 
 
 Almost for the first time in their constant 
 misunderstandings he lost his temper com- 
 pletely. 
 
 " Are you trying to insult me? " he said hotly. 
 "Do you think I am such a scoundrel that I 
 would entrap a woman into a false marriage?" 
 
 She saw that she had made a mistake. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Kasimir of course I 
 didn't mean that. But it is only a morganatic 
 marriage. It will not make any difference no- 
 body could object to it seriously. I have wanted 
 to speak to you about your marriage for some 
 time. You ought to marry soon." 
 . "What do you mean?" he said, almost be- 
 wildered by this sudden change in her attitude. 
 
 "What I say. There is the succession to be 
 considered I suppose you have realized that if 
 you die without children Zanovitch is the heir 
 to the throne? And an alliance by marriage 
 with Austria or Russia would be to your inter-
 
 THE BINDWEED 187 
 
 est. Salitza is not a country that can stand 
 alone." 
 
 Kasimir stood looking at her with something 
 like despair. The net was closing around him 
 again. The political marriage, always one of 
 the terrors of his life, was to be forced upon him 
 now as a duty which he owed his country, in dire 
 peril of falling into the hands of the hated 
 Zanovitch dynasty once more. Of the sort of 
 family feud which had existed for centuries 
 between his own house and that of the so-called 
 pretender he was only too well aware. That 
 dismal tale of stabbings and poisonings had been 
 poured into his ears as a child and had filled 
 him with vague fears even at that early age. 
 Zanovitch had been the bogey of his childhood 
 and the nightmare of his youth. The mild musi- 
 cal amateur was to him the descendant of mur- 
 derers of countless members of his family 
 from olden times almost to the present day. 
 Apart from all other considerations, it was not 
 a pleasant thought that the labors of a life spent 
 in the ungrateful task of ruling Salitza should 
 in the end only benefit the traditional enemy 
 of his house. If he refused to marry some Rus- 
 sian or Austrian princess of whom the queen 
 and his ministers might approve it simply meant 
 that he was handing back to Zanovitch those 
 very possessions which his father and his grand- 
 father had spared no effort to gain and retain. 
 It was decidedly unpleasant to imagine Zano- 
 vitch succeeding him. Something of the old 
 feud rankled in his mind still he would have
 
 1 88 THE BINDWEED 
 
 felt far less repugnance to the idea of a foreigner 
 and a stranger ruling in his place. 
 
 It is probable that the queen had counted 
 upon the existence of this feeling. She had 
 never loved her son nor held his affection, yet 
 she hated Liane Goldenburg for taking from 
 her what she had never possessed she re- 
 solved to punish her to the utmost for having 
 dared to ensnare the king in her toils. But for 
 the moment she did not accomplish much, be- 
 yond planting in the king's mind a vague sense 
 of uneasiness. He would not admit to her the 
 necessity of the political marriage, whatever he 
 might do to himself. 
 
 " There is no need to talk about this now," he 
 said, thought not without a certain hesitation 
 which she was quick to perceive. " I don't in- 
 tend to die just yet, if I can help it, and when I 
 do, it will not matter much to me who succeeds. 
 Zanovitch, from all one hears, is a harmless sort 
 of man and almost as unfit to be a king as I am. 
 It is quite in accord with the eternal irony of 
 things that he should become king of Salitza." 
 
 "You are trying to talk as your father used 
 to do," the queen said impatiently. " Take care, 
 Kasimir. With nations, as well as with indi- 
 viduals, it is possible to go too far. Your father 
 went too far, and you know what happened. 
 You don't want to be obliged to abdicate and 
 retire to Paris, I suppose." 
 
 Kasimir was getting a little reckless. 
 
 " Paris is not a bad place to retire to, by all 
 accounts," he said. "Don't you think your
 
 THE BINDWEED 189 
 
 views are a shade too pessimistic? My mar- 
 riage with Madame Goldenburg doesn't seem 
 to me to be of any importance to anyone except 
 myself and her." 
 
 One last little dart of spite the queen could 
 not refrain from using. 
 
 "You know all about Madame Goldenburg, 
 no doubt," she said calmly. " I believe you met 
 her first at the Cafe Valitzine, in the company 
 of Captain Ourof, the Russian attache. From 
 what I have heard of him, I should say he was 
 rather a curious sort of acquaintance for a young 
 and beautiful woman, as I believe Madame 
 Goldenburg is, living by herself, with friends 
 or relations." 
 
 Kasimir looked at her quickly. The dart had 
 gone home, but it did not do its work. Its im- 
 mediate effect was to widen the breach between 
 them rather than to arouse his suspicions of 
 Liane. 
 
 " I beg that you will make no more remarks 
 of that kind to me, madame," he said.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IT was not through Roumanine that Vlad- 
 imir heard of Liane Goldenburg's marriage. 
 One night at a ball at the palace he had the 
 qualified happiness of dancing with Natalia 
 Morisof. Little Anna Roumanine was present 
 and it must be admitted that her friend was 
 rather unusually gracious to the handsome 
 attache in consequence. 
 
 "You have heard the last piece of news?" she 
 said. "No? Why, I always thought you knew 
 everything! That beautiful Madame Golden- 
 burg " she felt him wince at the name and 
 
 noted the fact with malicious satisfaction " is 
 actually married to Sa Majeste. Extraordinary, 
 isn't it? Fedor says that the queen is furious 
 and is trying all she can to marry him off at once 
 to one of our princesses. Hasn't Roumanine 
 told you that? Dear me, I thought he was so 
 fond of you." 
 
 " Diplomacy is a game in which confidences 
 are sometimes dangerous, madame," Vladimir 
 answered, conscious of the scrutiny of Natalia's 
 keen eyes. " His excellency dosen't tell me 
 everything, as you are kind enough to suppose." 
 He asked no questions about the marriage, 
 somewhat to her disgust, and for the rest of their 
 dance he was singularly silent. He escaped 
 
 190
 
 THE BINDWEED 191 
 
 from the ball-room as soon as he could, and 
 found Roumanine, as luck would have it, alone, 
 on a balcony overlooking the illuminated palace 
 gardens. 
 
 Vladimir came up to him with an ominous 
 quietness. 
 
 " So Madame Goldenburg has married the 
 king," he said, looking at him closely. "You 
 did not tell me that the other day, excellency." 
 
 Roumanine smoothed his beard reflectively. 
 
 " No I did not tell you. I wished to prevent 
 you from doing anything imprudent, my dear 
 Ourof." 
 
 "' Some day I will take an opportunity of 
 repaying in full your excellency's kind consid- 
 eration for my feelings," Vladimir said, with the 
 most perfect air of unconcern. "The queen is 
 trying to bring about a Russian marriage, I 
 hear?" he added in the same tone. 
 
 Roumanine smiled. 
 
 " I see that you have been dancing with 
 Madame Morisof. Yes, it is quite true." 
 
 Vladimir lounged away. He returned to the 
 ball-room and went straight to the little am- 
 bassadrice. She stopped talking when she 
 caught sight of the attache's tall figure coming 
 towards her and turned pale under her paint. 
 
 " Madame will give me the honor of a 
 dance?" Vladimir said in his most formal 
 manner. He had never spoken to her except 
 when speech became absolutely necessary since 
 the night he left Khristovitz with Liane Gold- 
 enburg.
 
 192 THE BINDWEED 
 
 The little ambassadrice hesitated. Morisof 
 was looking on. Finally she murmured some- 
 thing inaudible and let him lead her away as he 
 wished. 
 
 " It is detestably hot in these rooms," he said. 
 " Possibly you would prefer the gardens." 
 
 "Yes," Anna Roumanine answered faintly. 
 
 In the gardens it was possible to find a place 
 where one could talk in peace. Vladimir led 
 the frightened princess in silence under the trees 
 to a seat where he had often sat paying her pretty 
 compliments in the days when her affection had 
 been as necessary to him as her rubles were now. 
 
 Perhaps she remembered this as well as he 
 did, for she stopped suddenly and took her hand 
 from his arm. 
 
 " What do you want? " she asked in a shaking 
 voice. "Why have you brought me here?" 
 
 " Because I never get a chance of speaking to 
 you now," Vladimir said, in his musical, melan- 
 choly way. " Because you are angry with me, 
 my angel I beg your pardon I should not 
 have called you that. For the moment I forgot. 
 How that dress suits you how beautiful you 
 look tonight!" 
 
 The little ambassadrice began to cry softly, 
 regardless of her complexion. 
 
 "Oh, Vladimir, why have you been so cruel? 
 I am so wretched you don't know what I have 
 suffered!" 
 
 Vladimir sat down beside her very gently on 
 the narrow seat. 
 
 "And haven't I suffered too, my angel? Do
 
 THE BINDWEED 193 
 
 you think I have not paid for my folly and 
 treachery?" 
 
 " How could you do it? " Anna sobbed. " Oh, 
 that horrible woman if I could have killed her 
 for taking you away from me! " 
 
 The attache put his arm around her cau- 
 tiously. She did not appear to resent the action. 
 
 " Don't speak of her," he said in her ear. 
 " Has she not punished me enough as it is? Are 
 you going to help her, Anna?" 
 
 The little ambassadrice's foolish, tender heart 
 was melted at once. 
 
 "But you don't care for me," she said, in a 
 very small voice. "You said so, Vladimir 
 you were tired of me tired to death!" 
 
 " I was in a vile temper, my angel and I was 
 completely infatuated with her. I own it I 
 throw myself on your mercy. I obeyed a mad 
 impulse I abandoned you for her I have 
 never had a happy moment since. You talk 
 about having suffered you! Do you think I 
 didn't repent, long before she left me? When 
 she went I had one consolation. I said to my- 
 self * Anna will forgive me now.' " 
 
 " I don't know that I can," Anna replied, 
 summoning her dignity in spite of her desire to 
 throw herself into his arms and forgive him. 
 " It would never be the same thing again, Vlad- 
 imir you must see that for yourself. How am 
 I to be sure that you will not fall in love with 
 some other horrible creature like the Golden- 
 burg? Natalia Morisof told me a lot of things 
 about you when she knew we had quarreled.
 
 194 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Only yesterday she told me that you were seen 
 with that girl who is singing at the opera Eva 
 Carillon." 
 
 " Natalia Morisof is a cat, my angel. She is 
 jealous of you. But I will be quite frank. I will 
 confess all my sins and you shall give me absolu- 
 tion. It is quite true about Eva Carillon. Will 
 you forgive me that, too? I was desperate 
 because you would not have anything to say to 
 me I didn't dare come to you then ; and I was 
 savage about the Goldenburg. I had to amuse 
 myself somehow if I had sat down and thought 
 about it all I should have gone mad." 
 
 "But you don't care about that girl?" Anna 
 Roumanine asked jealously. 
 
 " My angel, I have never cared for anyone but 
 you, if you would only believe me. The Gold- 
 enburg Eva Carillon all that is nothing." 
 
 " But you will never see the Goldenburg or 
 Eva Carillon again?" the little ambassadrice 
 stipulated, hauling down her flag with a faint 
 appearance of reluctance. 
 
 " I will not promise not to go to the opera, my 
 angel ; but of course I will never speak to Eva 
 again. As for the Goldenburg, she is safe at 
 Mirsk. Do not be paltry and suspicious, Anna. 
 It is so unlike you." 
 
 She surrendered at last, but not without a cer- 
 tain pathetic consciousness of her own weakness 
 and a touch of truer insight into the character of 
 her handsome attache than she had ever betrayed 
 before. 
 
 " I'm not paltry or suspicious," she said, rather
 
 THE BINDWEED 195 
 
 sadly. " I forgive you, Vladimir, but it isn't be- 
 cause I think you are really speaking the truth 
 or mean to be any different, but because I can't 
 do without you. I wish I had more spirit, but 
 it's no use. I have wanted you so I have been 
 so miserable! Oh, Vladimir, be good to me I 
 love you a thousand times more than the Gold- 
 enburg or Eva Carillon." 
 
 Poor little Anna! How little she suspected 
 the hatred that lay behind those smooth protesta- 
 tions of devotion! She let him take her in his 
 arms and kiss her she could not see the sinister 
 gleam in his eyes as they rested on her white 
 throat with its collar of diamonds. If he could 
 only take that jeweled throat between his hands 
 and choke the life out of this detestable little 
 fool who had robbed him of Liane Goldenburg! 
 And instead of that, he was forced to make love 
 to her for the sake of her money! 
 
 But he was too cunning to broach the subject 
 of a loan then. Next morning he appeared in 
 her pink and gold boudoir with a worried and 
 suppliant air. 
 
 " My angel, I hate to ask you you who are 
 always so generous but I am in difficulties 
 again." 
 
 She looked at him gravely for a moment. It 
 is possible that the thought crossed her .mind 
 that it was for this he had sought a reconcilia- 
 tion ; but she said nothing. Instead, she fetched 
 the diamond collar she had worn the night 
 before and put it into his hand. 
 
 " I have no money left this quarter," she said,
 
 196 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " but I will give you that. It is my own not 
 Ivan's. Take it." 
 
 He took it, but not without an infinitesimal 
 stab of shame for which he only hated her the 
 more. Perhaps for that reason, with a fiendish 
 refinement of cruelty, he did not use the collar 
 to pay his debts, but presented it to Eva Carillon 
 and sat in his ambassad rice's box at the opera 
 that night, watching it sparkle round the singer's 
 pretty throat with a strong sense of savage 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " She has a collar like mine," the little 
 princess said, laying down her glasses and look- 
 ing at Ourof's face. 
 
 " You are not wearing it tonight," Roumanine 
 said, seeing the look. 
 
 Anna flushed and paled nervously, and turned 
 her eyes from Vladimir to the stage, where Eva 
 Carillon was standing smiling and singing like 
 an angel in the full glare of the footlights. 
 Roumanine smoothed his beard. He possessed in 
 the highest degree the art of putting two and two 
 together. 
 
 " She has given the collar to Ourof, the little 
 fool ! " he said to himself. " And he has handed 
 it on to the Carillon. Well she can sing, at 
 any rate." 
 
 "The voice of a nightingale, is it not?" he 
 remarked aloud to his wife. " She is charm- 
 ingly pretty, this little Carillon don't you find 
 her so, Anna? How that collar flashes as she 
 sings ! it is certainly very like yours. You must 
 bring yours out when we go home or I shall
 
 THE BINDWEED 197 
 
 really imagine someone has stolen it and sent it 
 to la belle Eva." 
 
 " I have sent mine to be mended," Anna said 
 hastily. " I broke the clasp last night." 
 
 She knew well enough that Roumanine 
 guessed the fate of the collar and her small 
 features grew hard and haggard beneath their 
 paint. Roumanine smoothed his beard more 
 carefully than ever and applauded Eva Carillon 
 with enthusiasm on every possible occasion. 
 
 " Even the king is delighted with her," he 
 said, glancing at the royal box. " He does not 
 look bored, as he usually does at the opera. 
 Why, who is the lady at the back of the box? 
 She has kept in the background until now." 
 
 It was true the tall figure of a woman dressed 
 in white had appeared once or twice at the back 
 of the royal box, where the king was seated with 
 Captain Nikolaievitch. Even as Roumanine 
 spoke, he saw Kasimir say something to her and 
 saw her come forward and sit down opposite 
 him. Anna Roumanine gave a little cry, and 
 Vladimir Ourof, after one rapid glance, turned 
 his face resolutely towards the stage. 
 
 " It is Madame Goldenburg," Roumanine 
 said, addressing the two silent people beside him. 
 " Look, Anna you are interested in her, I be- 
 lieve. She is certainly very beautiful." 
 
 "I don't care for these black beauties," the 
 little ambassadrice said pettishly. " She is too 
 tall and too big. Captain Ourof, will you please 
 give me my fan? I have dropped it by that 
 chair."
 
 198 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Vladimir gave her the fan in silence. She 
 turned her back on Roumanine and began to 
 talk to Ourof with somewhat forced and fever- 
 ish gaiety. He hardly heard what she said, or 
 knew what answer he made to her. It was the 
 first time he had seen Liane since the night she 
 had left him, and the sight of her almost drove 
 him mad. When the last act of the opera came, 
 he could bear it no longer. He excused him- 
 self, and went out into the street, and waited for 
 the king to leave the opera-house after the per- 
 formance. 
 
 It seemed a century before he came. At last 
 the guard of honor stiffened themselves up to 
 salute him, and the tall attache, looking over 
 their heads, saw him come out rapidly, with 
 Liane's hand on his arm. He put her into the 
 carriage which was waiting and sprang in after 
 her. The guard saluted once more and the car- 
 riage rolled away down the Boulevard Valitzine 
 towards Mirsk. 
 
 That night, though perhaps no one in the 
 opera-house suspected it, was the turning point 
 in the king's career. In spite of Roumanine's 
 declaration that he was delighted with Eva 
 Carillon, there was very little pleasure in Kas- 
 imir's mind as he sat there listening to the music 
 and applauding mechanically. The hardest 
 thing he had ever had to do was before him, and 
 he knew it. He was very silent as the carriage 
 rolled along the dark roads towards Mirsk. 
 When they reached the little villa on the hill
 
 THE BINDWEED 199 
 
 Liane saw from his face that something was 
 wrong. 
 
 "You are tired, Kasimir," she said, when they 
 were alone in the long room looking upon the 
 garden where supper had been laid for them. 
 
 He sat down wearily, poured himself out a 
 glass of water and drank it before he answered. 
 
 " No I am not tired," he said at last. " It is 
 worse than that. I have to tell you something. 
 I have received what is practically a command 
 to marry a Russian princess." 
 
 For a moment Liane stood motionless by the 
 lighted supper-table, staring at him almost in- 
 credulously. Then she came to his side, and 
 put her hand on his shoulder. The grip of those 
 slight fingers hurt him oddly. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" she asked, in a 
 voice that had suddenly become hard. 
 
 He looked down at the cloth and would not 
 meet her eyes. 
 
 " What am I to do? If I die without an heir, 
 Zanovitch will come to the throne. The people 
 have a right to demand that I shall do the only 
 thing in my power to protect them from becom- 
 ing the subjects of a house they detest. Then, if 
 I do not accept this Russian alliance, Russia will 
 of course be offended and we all know what 
 that means. Alexander of Bulgaria offended 
 Russia you remember what happened to him. 
 Oh, these miserable little kingdoms, ruled by 
 kings who are not strong enough to stand alone! 
 If I were only strong enough to resist, I would 
 resist until not a man was left to fight for me or
 
 200 THE BINDWEED 
 
 a single round of ammunition was left in Sa- 
 litza! But what can I do?" 
 
 She did not answer at once. It was the 
 moment which was to decide her fate, for better 
 or for worse. Should she let him marry a Rus- 
 sian should she sit down contented for the rest 
 of her life with the second place the lot of the 
 morganatic wife, subservient in all things to the 
 royal consort? Should she be satisfied for ever 
 with the villa at Mirsk, while another woman 
 reigned in the palace at Khristovitz? Should 
 she see another woman's children honored and 
 acknowledged as heirs to the throne, while hers, 
 if she had any, would not even have the right to 
 bear their father's name? 
 
 "What shall I do?" the king said again 
 helplessly. 
 
 "You will refuse!" 
 
 He looked up at the sound of command in her 
 voice. Her face was very pale, her eyes were 
 blazing with excitement with anger, though it 
 was not with him that she was angry. It was 
 the last thing left to her her power over Kas- 
 imir of Salitza. She was going to fight for it 
 to the end. 
 
 "You will refuse," she said, "or never see 
 me again. Choose which it shall be." 
 
 Kasimir was almost frightened by her passion. 
 He had imagined that she would detest the idea 
 of his making a political marriage as much as 
 he did, but he had thought she would understand 
 his reasons too well to resent it. It had never 
 entered his head that she, who had tried her
 
 THE BINDWEED 201 
 
 hardest to prevent him from even acknowledg- 
 ing their marriage, should resist him in this. 
 
 "What are you saying?" he asked. "There 
 is no need for you to be angry. The whole 
 thing is a horrible necessity and no choice of 
 mine. You know that I love you that I loathe 
 the very idea of this marriage that I shall never, 
 look upon anyone but you as my wife. But if I 
 refuse " 
 
 " I give you your choice," she interrupted 
 passionately. " If you consent to this marriage 
 I will never see you again you shall go out of 
 this house now tonight at once. I never 
 asked you to acknowledge me I refused when 
 you said you would marry me as the king in spite 
 of all Salitza. But this this is impossible it 
 is a hideous farce. If I am your wife, you can- 
 not marry any other woman while I am alive. 
 If you can marry this Russian princess, then I 
 am not your wife at all." 
 
 He sat silent, struggling with himself. He 
 knew what it meant better than she did he 
 gauged more truly the temper of the enemy he 
 had to fight. 
 
 Liane " 
 
 " No no don't speak to me. Decide your- 
 self, without asking me. I will never consent to 
 it that is all I shall ever say. You tell me that 
 you love me it is for you to decide whether you 
 are going to desert me now." 
 
 She turned away and went to the window 
 looking out upon the moonlit gardens. Kasimir 
 did not speak. She cast a questioning glance at
 
 202 THE BINDWEED 
 
 him over her shoulder, and went out upon the 
 little terrace and sat down upon the low 
 balustrade of stone which ran along it. The air 
 came cool and damp from the river, but she did 
 not feel it. She was listening for Kasimir's 
 step behind her for Kasimir's voice to tell her 
 whether she had lost or won a crown. 
 
 For a long time she waited in vain. The king 
 sat where she had left him, looking after her 
 with a haggard face. 
 
 How often he had cursed the fate which had 
 made him what he was! If he could abdicate 
 and be simply Kasimir Mikhailovitch, how 
 happy he might be! But there was Zanovitch 
 to be considered Zanovitch, whose fathers had 
 murdered his, whose pretensions to the throne 
 had always been a menace to his house. It 
 would be the act of a coward to give up his 
 rights to the man whom he disliked most in the 
 world. 
 
 He sat there, looking around the pretty room 
 with its flowers and pictures and scattered books 
 on the little tables. It was the only place in 
 which he had ever been happy. As he sat there, 
 the old loneliness and sadness came back to him. 
 He shivered as though he felt the cool air steal- 
 ing in from the river. 
 
 There was only one thing which made life 
 worth living for him. He could not give it up. 
 There were no doubt men who would have been 
 strong enough to do even that, rather than risk 
 their own success. He had never wanted suc- 
 cess, but only happiness. He did not know that
 
 THE BINDWEED 203 
 
 he had wanted the hardest thing in the world to 
 find, the most difficult to keep. 
 
 Very slowly he went out upon the terrace and 
 stood by Liane's side. " There is no choice for 
 me," he said, rather sadly. "You knew that, 
 Liane. How could I give you up you who 
 are everything to me? I will refuse this Russian 
 marriage and make you queen." 
 
 She looked up with a startled cry of triumph 
 and relief and met the sadness in his eyes. With 
 a sudden passing feeling of compunction and 
 tenderness she repented of her victory. 
 
 " Kasimir, I have asked too much and you 
 are too generous! " she said. 
 
 "You have asked for your rights," he an- 
 swered simply, " and you shall have them. I 
 never knew you wished for them before. It 
 seems strange to me that anyone should want to 
 be a queen I have so often wished that I had 
 been born a subject rather than a king. But you 
 are in the right, after all I see that. Only 
 don't say that I am selfish and superstitious, 
 Liane somehow I felt that while you were 
 here, outside the life I lead as the king, it was 
 possible for me to escape from Khristovitz. 
 Now that is over. You have chosen Khristo- 
 vitz. My place of refuge is gone." 
 
 She did not answer him, for to answer would 
 have been to renounce her triumph. For a few 
 moments they lingered on the terrace. 
 
 "It is cold and very late," he said at last. 
 " Let us go in." 
 
 As she stepped into the lighted room he bent
 
 204 THE BINDWEED 
 
 to disentangle a long trailing piece of creeper 
 from about his feet. 
 
 " What is that? " she asked, with a sudden un- 
 accountable chill. 
 
 He held up a spray of white, half-shut blos- 
 soms. Something seemed to seize her by the 
 throat and choke her. The room whirled round 
 her and she heard Vladimir Ourof's voice, deep 
 and sweet and soft, speaking again the words 
 which had frightened her long ago. "There 
 have always been women who have dragged men 
 down who have clung to them like the grace- 
 ful, swaying creeper from which you take your 
 name and wound them round with white flowers 
 and wreaths of tender green and have grown 
 so strong in the end that they have strangled the 
 life out of everything they clung to." 
 
 She cast the white spray of convolvulus from 
 her with a gesture that was almost violent, and 
 went hurriedly from the room.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 GASIMIR kept his word. A few days 
 later he opened parliament in state, and 
 acknowledged his marriage with Liane 
 Goldenburg in the speech from the throne. 
 
 It would be impossible to describe the sensa- 
 tion caused by his announcement. The escapades 
 of Mikhail of Paris paled for ever in compari- 
 son with this. 
 
 That night, in a stormy scene in the very coun- 
 cil chamber wherein Schamiratz had been 
 deposed, the entire cabinet tendered its resig- 
 nation. Almost with tears the unhappy premier 
 pointed out to his unmoved sovereign the mad- 
 ness of rejecting the proposed Russian marriage. 
 Kasimir listened patiently, but with no sign of 
 surrender. 
 
 " I have told myself all that you can possibly 
 tell me," he said. " My decision is unalterable." 
 
 " Then I also must resign, sir," the premier 
 answered in despair. " I am not competent to 
 deal with a crisis like this." 
 
 " You have never been competent to deal with 
 the simplest matters, far less with a crisis of any 
 kind," the king said, giving way to a momentary 
 impulse of irritation. He regretted the words 
 almost before they were spoken. " I should not 
 have said that no doubt you have done your 
 
 205
 
 206 THE BINDWEED 
 
 best. I thank you for your services, and accept 
 your resignation." 
 
 He had made one more enemy he who had 
 such sore need of friends. He knew it and the 
 knowledge added to his distress of mind. But 
 outwardly he showed nothing he had never 
 seemed more cold, more unapproachable. 
 
 Then came a fresh difficulty. No one could 
 be found to accept office. Royal carriages drove 
 to house after house on the Boulevard Valitzine 
 inhabited by every man whom it would have 
 been possible to press into this ungrateful 
 service. All was in vain. At last, in utter de- 
 spair, Kasimir sent for Colonel Gliska. 
 
 It was then three o'clock in the morning. 
 Gliska was shocked by his master's haggard face 
 and hollow eyes. Out of pure loyalty and com- 
 passion he accepted the vacant premiership and 
 consented to try to form a ministry. Then he, 
 too, endeavored to dissuade the king from refus- 
 ing the Russian marriage. 
 
 " If it were the poorest peasant girl in Salitza 
 whom your majesty wished to make your queen," 
 he said, " I would tell you to follow the dictates 
 of your own heart and conscience and think of 
 nothing else I would predict happiness to you 
 and prosperity to Salitza, in spite of every voice 
 to the contrary. But Madame Goldenburg's 
 elevation to the throne will be taken as an insult 
 by every human being in the country." 
 
 " Madame Goldenburg is my wife. I cannot 
 hear anything against her." 
 
 "As a man, perhaps you could not, sir; as a
 
 THE BINDWEED 207 
 
 king proposing to give your people a queen, you 
 must listen to what I have to say. Madame 
 Goldenburg's first husband shot himself because 
 she left him for Ourof, the Russian attache. Is 
 it possible that you are ignorant of that? The 
 flat in the Boulevard Valitzine was Ourof's. It 
 was with Ourof, I understand, that you met her 
 for the first time. Sir, I entreat you to listen to 
 me I implore you not to proclaim Madame 
 Goldenburg queen." 
 
 Kasimir sat very still at the head of the table, 
 in the great chair with the arms of Salitza on its 
 back. 
 
 " It is all a vile lie," he said at last, in a 
 changed voice. 
 
 Gliska's honest face flushed. 
 
 " Your majesty is the only man in the world 
 from whom I would take such a speech. It is 
 no lie, but the truth. She left Ourof because 
 she thought she could trap your majesty into a 
 marriage. She succeeded. Now she wishes to 
 become queen. Sir, you owe it to your people 
 not to give them a queen of whom they must 
 always be ashamed. If Madame Goldenburg 
 is necessary to your happiness, keep her but 
 keep her at Mirsk. Or, if you are a brave man, 
 shake off this terrible infatuation divorce her 
 accept the Russian marriage and begin life 
 again. It is not too late for that. The whole 
 nation will applaud you for the sacrifice." 
 
 Kasimir's head was bent. He did not look 
 up when he spoke. 
 
 " The whole nation will applaud me for be-
 
 208 THE BINDWEED 
 
 having like a cad and a coward," he said slowly. 
 " Do you think such applause is worth buying 
 at such a price? Even if what you tell me 
 were true " 
 
 " It is true, sir," Gliska urged, as he relapsed 
 into silence once more. " It is true in your 
 own heart you acknowledge it. Did you never 
 ask yourself what Madame Goldenburg's friend- 
 ship to Ourof meant?" 
 
 " I never asked myself any question about 
 her," the king said simply. " I ask no questions 
 now. I loved her that is all." 
 
 There was a long silence in the empty council 
 chamber. Gliska did not speak. The king sat 
 motionless, a limp, tired figure in his great chair, 
 with the ghastly radiance of the electric lamps 
 falling on his bent head. 
 
 "You have been deceived," Kasimir said at 
 last. " It is a lie." Suddenly he looked up and 
 fixed agonized, appealing eyes on Gliska's face. 
 " Gliska tell me it is a lie ! " he said, almost in 
 a whisper. 
 
 For a moment the two men faced each other 
 as though in a silent conflict. Then the king's 
 eyes wavered and fell. He covered his face 
 with his hands. 
 
 Presently the king recovered himself. He 
 rose very slowly from the great chair. His 
 features looked set and hard ; his voice was clear 
 and steady. 
 
 " I shall proclaim Madame Goldenburg queen 
 tomorrow," he said. " She will be crowned with 
 me as soon as the coronation can take place."
 
 THE BINDWEED 209 
 
 It was his answer to Gliska's story the only 
 answer he could make. The colonel of the 
 Sixth understood, and pitied him even more pro- 
 foundly than before. 
 
 But of pity Kasimir was to find little in that 
 worst and hardest moment of his troubled reign. 
 His interview with the queen was one which 
 severed for ever any natural tie between them. 
 All her long pent distrust of him burst forth with 
 redoubled strength. Next day she left for Paris 
 without even bidding him farewell. 
 
 The same day Liane came from Mirsk in 
 state. Orders had been issued to the citizens to 
 decorate their houses, but not a flag was hung 
 out, not a cheer was raised as the string of royal 
 carriages drove rapidly and almost furtively up 
 the Boulevard Valitzine. Only the Russian 
 embassy was gay all day with colored bunting 
 and all night with glittering electric lamps. 
 
 "I thought we were offended by this mar- 
 riage," little Anna Roumanine remarked to the 
 ambassador, on learning that the embassy was to 
 decorate in honor of the new queen. 
 
 Roumanine smiled, but said nothing. When 
 Vladimir Ourof, an hour later, made much the 
 same remark, he condescended to explain. 
 
 "We have the honor of serving a most con- 
 ciliatory and enlightened government," he said. 
 " I ask you, my dear Ourof, would it be dignified 
 for us to sulk as though we resented this petty 
 little king's impertinence in rejecting an alli- 
 ance? Of course not! We deplore the attitude 
 of the people. A romantic marriage commands
 
 210 THE BINDWEED 
 
 our liveliest sympathy and admiration. Of all 
 things in the world, romantic marriages appeal 
 to us most at this moment. Our most gracious 
 imperial master has himself addressed an auto- 
 graph letter of congratulation to the king and 
 dispatched a diamond necklace to his beautiful 
 consort." 
 
 "No, excellency!" Vladimir said, startled, 
 for once, by the diplomatic methods of a govern- 
 ment whose diplomacy is at once the most 
 polished and least scrupulous known to the 
 world. 
 
 Roumanine smiled. 
 
 " A fact, I assure you! Only consider the ad- 
 vantages of our amiability, my friend. The 
 letter softens the king's heart towards us; the 
 necklace removes any little suspicion from her 
 mind which may have arisen from your late de- 
 plorable bungling of a royal love-affair. There 
 is great virtue in diamonds, where a woman is 
 concerned. Like charity, they may be said to 
 cover a multitude of sins." 
 
 "And then, excellency ?" 
 
 " Then there is a little question of boundary 
 rights going on one of these eternal little noth- 
 ings which are so important. The queen, who 
 is fond of diamonds, sides with us and we ap- 
 propriate another little slice of frontier and sta- 
 tion a few more men in a convenient position 
 and build a fort or two and extend our march 
 of progress a few miles farther on, as we are al- 
 ways doing. Of course the boundary treaty 
 will contain nothing about forts or men, but, by
 
 THE BINDWEED 211 
 
 the time Salitza wakes up to that, the forts will 
 be built, and no purpose will be served by pull- 
 ing them down again. 
 
 "Ah, those few more miles, those unostenta- 
 tious forts, those few men, properly placed 
 how useful they will be some day when we are 
 ready to strike! Believe me, Ourof, when that 
 time does come, it will be the forts we had no 
 right to build and the men we had no right to 
 place and the arsenals we made to employ our 
 troops during their enforced exile in out-of-the 
 way places, that will decide the fate of the em- 
 pire. It will be of no use then for those fools 
 of English to sit down and shut their eyes, and 
 soothe themselves to sleep with any idea that we 
 are going to evacuate valuable strategical posi- 
 tions which we have appropriated while they 
 were looking on, afraid to interfere or too stupid 
 to see what we were doing. It will be no use 
 to argue that we are not in certain places simply 
 because our international agreements don't per- 
 mit of our being there. It is the man on the 
 spot who decides the fortune of war; it will be 
 the nation which is on the spot that will dictate 
 terms to the others at the decisive moment when 
 the balance of power depends on a few hundred 
 men in the right place, rather than on thousands 
 too far away to be of use. 
 
 "That is our policy, Ourof the only policy 
 worthy of a great nation ; to go on, always on a 
 little farther, a little farther, placing a gun here 
 and a fort there, building an arsenal in a third 
 place and a dockyard in a fourth creeping on,
 
 212 THE BINDWEED 
 
 slowly and surely and cautiously, and never 
 going back or giving up what we have gained. 
 The other nations are so easily fooled! When 
 they get uneasy, it is always possible to soothe 
 them with some excuse to promise evacuation 
 which will never take place, restitution which 
 will never be made. They don't want to fight, 
 and they accept the excuse, and look the other 
 way while we creep on a little farther. They 
 all have their watchwords Freedom, where no 
 one is free, Equality where only millionaires are 
 equal. But the unspoken watchword of Russia 
 is written on every frontier in growing steel and 
 accumulating men and forts that spring up like 
 mushrooms in a night. We have no need to talk 
 about it. It is there. Some day we shall pro- 
 claim it, but then it will be too late for anyone 
 else to protest." 
 
 Roumanine's thin, high voice ceased. Vlad- 
 imir Ourof looked at him curiously with half- 
 shut eyes. 
 
 " But, excellency, if, in spite of the diamonds, 
 the the queen does not take our side?" 
 
 "Then you will go to Paris on leave and see 
 Zanovitch. But if it comes to that, there is only 
 one thing to be done. When Zanovitch comes 
 to the throne there must be no more pretenders 
 no more kings in exile. Kasimir in exile 
 would be a continual nuisance to us all; that 
 woman would never give him any peace until 
 he had won back for her the crown she had lost. 
 She would intrigue for a restoration, and she 
 would quite probably succeed in bringing it
 
 THE BINDWEED 213 
 
 about. No there must be no more pretenders 
 in Salitza." 
 Vladimir asked no more questions. 
 
 The coronation was hurried on, and it was 
 Vladimir's unpleasant duty to attend it. The 
 king had made his arrangements very carefully. 
 To command public enthusiasm was, he knew, 
 impossible; but he managed to secure public 
 respect, or at least the semblance of it. A route 
 lined with troops, to the exclusion of most of 
 his not too faithful subjects, prevented any ex- 
 plosion of hostility. The splendor of the dis- 
 play which always attends a great ceremony 
 drew a certain number of spectators more or less 
 interested, if not altogether approving. The 
 silence of the streets could be disguised by 
 music. It was all beautifully stage-managed, 
 and perhaps few of the lookers-on suspected 
 it or missed the warmth of popular welcome 
 which should have waited on such an event. 
 The ceremony in the cathedral was imposing 
 and dramatic in the highest degree, with 
 the white-haired Metropolitan archbishop and 
 the beautiful queen in her glittering robes 
 as the two chief personages. The king, always 
 an insignificant figure at the best of times, 
 seemed weighed down by his heavy coronation 
 robes of gold and purple. Splendor did not be- 
 come him. His pale face and stiff bearing im- 
 pressed no one. He was uneasy and nervous and 
 he made not the slightest attempt to appear 
 pleased.
 
 214 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Even Liane, in the midst of her triumph, 
 noticed his cold manner and wondered. She 
 did not guess the infinite pains he had taken to 
 protect her from insult or even worse. She did 
 not guess that he was strung up all through the 
 progress to the cathedral, all through the cere- 
 mony within it, to meet the attempt which 
 might be made upon her at any moment in spite 
 of all his precautions. 
 
 And all the time, though he would have 
 thrown himself between her and the knife of an 
 assassin without an instant's hesitation, that fatal 
 story of Gliska's telling rankled in his mind. 
 Nothing would ever induce him to admit, by a 
 word or a look or a single action of his life, that 
 it was anything but a lie; but in his own heart 
 he acknowledged that it was true. He under- 
 stood many things of which he had never 
 troubled himself to think much before. 
 
 But only one fact was uppermost in his mind. 
 She had married him to become a queen she 
 did not love him had never loved him from the 
 first. Every tender word she had ever spoken 
 to him had been a trick; every caress she had 
 ever given him had been a lie. In the very 
 middle of the coronation his eye roamed to 
 where Ourof stood. She had loved Ourof no 
 doubt she loved him still. Yet pride, and per- 
 haps a sort of fatalism, forbade him to acknowl- 
 edge his mistake. He had staked everything 
 on this woman who had deceived him his hap- 
 piness, his crown, perhaps even his life as well. 
 He would lose all in silence rather than a single
 
 THE BINDWEED 215 
 
 human being should know that he realized his 
 own folly. 
 
 But the bitterness of his disillusionment 
 and after all, he had not been tricked in the 
 way he suspected was known only to himself. 
 His beautiful dream had been a lie, and he had 
 to live with it day by day, knowing it for what 
 it was, and acting, acting all the time, that no 
 one might suppose he knew. Even to Liane he 
 had to act the part which was hardest in the 
 world to play, because it had until now been no 
 part, but a reality the part of the man who 
 loved her and believed in her love for him. He 
 did not act his part well. In the midst of the 
 preparations for the coronation, Liane found 
 time to miss the Kasimir of Mirsk the gay 
 Mikhailovitch with whom she had spent such 
 happy hours in the little white villa on the hill. 
 Even on the day of the coronation itself she saw 
 his altered manner, his sadness, the harassed 
 look in his eyes. 
 
 That night when the state banquet and ball 
 were over she sent away her attendants, and, 
 throwing a dark cloak over her ball-dress, made 
 her way, almost furtively, to Kasimir's study. 
 She opened the door and entered so softly that 
 he did not look up from the table at which he 
 sat with some papers before him which he was 
 not reading. 
 
 She was beside him before he was aware of 
 her presence. He looked up quickly. The 
 strain of the long, wearisome ceremonies 
 through which he had been passing all day made
 
 216 THE BINDWEED 
 
 him a little less able to command himself than 
 he usually was. 
 
 " What do you want? " he said harshly. 
 
 He had never used that tone to her before. 
 She stood looking at him in astonishment for 
 a moment. 
 
 " I wanted to see you," she said. " I haven't 
 seen you all day I never see you now, it seems 
 to me. You were not like this at Mirsk." 
 
 " I am sorry/' he said, more gently. " I have 
 been busy I didn't know you wanted me. Is 
 it anything particular now? I am very tired." 
 
 " Is it unnatural that I should want to see you 
 particularly tonight." 
 
 "To thank me?" he said, with sudden, irre- 
 pressible bitterness. "You may spare me that. 
 I hope I have repaid you for the dullness of 
 Mirsk." 
 
 "The dullness of Mirsk?" she repeated 
 slowly. 
 
 He began tracing irregular patterns on the 
 papers before him with a pen that shook pain- 
 fully. 
 
 " Yes. Do you think I don't know that Mirsk 
 was dull that I was a stupid companion for 
 you? I see now how bored you must have been 
 there, alone with me." 
 
 For a second she said nothing. Then with 
 a sudden impulse of pity and tenderness she 
 knelt down by his chair and took the pen out of 
 his cold fingers and held them. 
 
 " Kasimir, it isn't true I was never dull at 
 Mirsk. I was happy there and so were you.
 
 THE BINDWEED 217 
 
 What is the matter what have I done that you 
 are angry with me?" 
 
 He was silent, for he did not dare trust him- 
 self to speak. She went on, very gently. 
 
 " I didn't come to thank you at least not 
 for proclaiming me queen, but for those days 
 at Mirsk when we were so happy together. 
 Perhaps you were right it would have been 
 better if I had stayed there. Why are you so 
 different? Is it because you regret having ac- 
 knowledged me is that it?" 
 
 "No," he said curtly. 
 
 "Then what is it? Kasimir, you must tell 
 me I will know!" 
 
 Suddenly he pushed her from him roughly 
 and rose to his feet. 
 
 " You don't care for me," he said. " This was 
 what you cared for not me. It was only be- 
 cause you wanted to be queen of Salitza and 
 I thought you cared for me I thought " 
 
 He broke off, unable to continue unable to 
 face the bitterness of his own words. 
 
 Liane had grown very pale. 
 
 "Who has told you this lie?" she said 
 fiercely. 
 
 "Isn't it only too obvious? I have been a 
 fool that's all. I should have known myself 
 better by this time than to have made such a 
 mistake as to imagine that you could care any- 
 thing for me." 
 
 " It was no mistake." Her voice shook a lit- 
 tle. " Kasimir, I will tell you the truth. I was 
 too miserable when I married you to care about
 
 2i8 THE BINDWEED 
 
 you I can't tell you why, but I had reason 
 enough. But afterwards at Mirsk do you 
 think I didn't care for you then? Do you think 
 I don't care now? " 
 
 It was true, though perhaps she had never 
 known how true it was until then. Kasimir 
 stood looking at her for a moment longer. 
 There were tears in the velvet eyes that he loved. 
 He came back to her quickly and kissed her, 
 sadly and remorsefully. He knew that he had 
 done the very thing he had not meant to do. 
 
 "Forgive me, Liane," he said. "You see 
 what I am you are the only thing that I care 
 for in the world and yet I suspected you. That 
 is what it is to be a king! " 
 
 But he was not satisfied he suspected her 
 still, though he hated and despised himself for 
 doing so. Perhaps she had said the very same 
 thing to poor Fritz Goldenburg before she left 
 him forever with the Russian attache perhaps 
 she had clung to Vladimir Ourof just as tenderly 
 before she fled to Britz. 
 
 It was the inevitable doubt which would 
 never leave him again. A stronger nature 
 might have thrown it off; a nature less sensitive 
 might never have felt it at all. He was so con- 
 stituted that he could do neither one thing nor 
 the other. It was the very irony of fate that he 
 had risked everything for a woman with whom 
 he could not be happy, but whom he had not the 
 strength of mind to renounce.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IT is nearly two years since the coronation," 
 Anna Roumanine said. " Two years what 
 an age it seems! Vladimir, how long is it 
 going to last?" 
 
 " How long is what going to last, my angel?" 
 
 "Oh, you know perfectly well what I mean! 
 I am not really half so stupid as you think 
 and I know Ivan expects something to happen 
 soon. He had the Death's Head in his study for 
 an hour last night something always happens 
 when the Death's Head is about I hate the 
 sight of the man. Is it a conspiracy this time, 
 Vladimir?" 
 
 "Why do you ask me?" the attache said 
 evasively. " I am not a professional conspira- 
 tor what a lovely dress that is, and how well it 
 suits you!" 
 
 For once the little ambassadrice was not to be 
 turned from her purpose by flattery. 
 
 Anna pouted. 
 
 "You are quite detestable tonight. You know 
 this state of things can't go on she has offended 
 everybody. Such impertinence! And we all 
 know what she was by this time. Of course, 
 she was handsome when the king married her, 
 but she has gone off dreadfully of late." 
 
 Vladimir glanced at the little figure on the 
 
 219
 
 220 THE BINDWEED 
 
 rose-silk sofa the artistically painted and 
 powdered face, the delicately darkened eye- 
 brows, the eyes which owed none of their luster 
 to nature. 
 
 "She is beautiful still," he said, half to 
 himself. 
 
 Anna Roumanine moved pettishly among her 
 cushions. 
 
 " How can you say that, Vladimir? Of course 
 she makes up very well, and her dresses are 
 superb but that is all. I dare say the king is 
 tired of her by this time and will be quite ready 
 to divorce her and marry someone else. And 
 she is fearfully unpopular the whole army to a 
 man detests her and this little upstart of a 
 brother of hers who was a drummer in a frontier 
 regiment until the king gave him a lieutenant- 
 colonelcy in the Guards and now he is swag- 
 gering about the place and expecting men like 
 Nikolaievitch and Gliska to salute him first 
 because he is the queen's brother! People say 
 the king is going to proclaim him heir to the 
 throne, just to spite Zanovitch." 
 
 Vladimir started. 
 
 " He wouldn't dare do that. Do people say 
 so really, Anna?" 
 
 "Of course they do you see, I know more 
 than you think," she answered with an air of 
 importance that would have amused the 
 attache at any other time. "The queen is de- 
 voted to him and the king seems to be nearly 
 as bad. He is certainly the handsomest boy I 
 ever saw, and looks a great deal more like a
 
 THE BINDWEED 221 
 
 crown prince than a drummer, as far as that goes 
 but did you ever hear of such madness as pro- 
 claiming him heir to the throne ? " 
 
 Vladimir did not answer. 
 
 " It is the end," he said to himself. " She is 
 right, silly as she is something will have to 
 happen now." 
 
 " Here's Natalia what a nuisance of her to 
 come so early ! " Anna said, rising from her 
 sofa just as the door burst open and Natalia 
 Morisof, in a gorgeous dress and positively reek- 
 ing with violets, almost ran into the pink and 
 gold room. 
 
 " My dearest Anna, you can't think what has 
 happened! Oh, I am out of breath I dashed up 
 your stairs like a whirlwind. You remember 
 Stephanie Gliska's saying the other night that 
 she would never kiss the hand of a woman who 
 had sold her hats in the ' Paradis des Dames'? 
 Oh, of course she said some other things about 
 her, too, which I needn't repeat we have 
 heard them too often. Well, someone must 
 have told the queen, for she sent for Stephanie 
 this afternoon. Everyone you ever heard of 
 was in the great state drawing-room and 
 Stephanie couldn't think why she had been sent 
 for. Then the queen came in looking like a 
 thundercloud and held out her hand to Stephanie 
 without a word. Of course there was nothing 
 for poor Stephanie to do but kiss it and then 
 her majesty remarked, in a voice that everyone 
 could hear, ' Now, Madame Gliska, go and tell 
 your friends that you have kissed the hand of the
 
 222 THE BINDWEED 
 
 woman who once sold you hats in the ' Paradis 
 des Dames.' " 
 
 Anna Roumanine clapped her hands. 
 
 " Oh, how delicious! How mad Stephanie 
 must have been! But, my dear, how imprudent 
 of the queen! Gliska will never forgive her." 
 
 Natalia Morisof shrugged her shoulders until 
 they threatened to come entirely out of the very 
 low bodice she was wearing. Her shoulders 
 were her best point it was perhaps for that 
 reason she had acquired the habit of shrugging 
 them on every possible occasion. 
 
 "Gliska knows his wife's little ways as well 
 as we do I can imagine him chuckling quietly 
 behind her back. And do you know? I think 
 the queen was right. After all, she is the queen 
 and she has the right to be treated properly. 
 Stephanie is a little cad I am sure she has no 
 business to be throwing stones at other people 
 when we know all about that affair of hers with 
 oh, I forgot you were there, Captain Ourof !" 
 
 " Pray don't spoil your story on my account, 
 madame," Vladimir said, quite aware that she 
 had not forgotten his presence for the fraction 
 of a second. " I hope you don't imagine that I 
 have grown too old to enjoy listening to these 
 innocent little fairy-tales?" 
 
 Natalia laughed affectedly. She did not, 
 however, continue her story for the very good 
 reason that the attache himself had been the 
 other party implicated in Madame Gliska's 
 little affair. 
 
 "We have all grown too old for fairy-tales,
 
 THE BINDWEED 223 
 
 I'm afraid. That is where the king made his 
 mistake in a fairy-tale the king always marries 
 the beauty of low degree and they are happy 
 ever afterwards. In real life things don't seem 
 to turn out so conveniently. Do you know that 
 a plot to poison her was discovered last week? " 
 
 " Surely not, Natalia! Dear me I hope our 
 cook is to be trusted," the little ambassadrice 
 murmured uncomfortably. " I shall not enjoy 
 my dinner for a week after this." 
 
 " It is quite true they had the man shot at 
 once. That was the king's doing he was 
 furious, I believe. That looks as though he 
 cared for her still," Natalia added, with a mali- 
 cious glance at Ourof. " Do you suppose he 
 does, Captain Ourof? I always say you know 
 everything." 
 
 Ourof was very pale, even under the pink 
 lights which his ambassadrice found so becom- 
 ing to her complexion. 
 
 "You have too high an opinion of me, 
 madame," he said, rising. " I know nothing 
 about the king or the queen either. Will you 
 excuse me? I have to see his excellency for a 
 moment before the reception begins." 
 
 " He is unusually stupid tonight, your hand- 
 some Ourof," Natalia remarked to her friend as 
 the door closed upon the tall figure of the 
 attache. " My belief is that he cares for that 
 woman still. Did you notice how white he 
 looked when I said that they had tried to poison 
 her? Why in the world should he care what 
 happens to her? She treated him very badly,
 
 224 THE BINDWEED 
 
 by all accounts. Well, I expect she is going to 
 pay for that now and for a good many other 
 things as well. The army is furious with 
 her about this little wretch Mikhail Markovitch 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Markovitch, I should 
 have said. I danced with him last night he 
 dances divinely better than your charming 
 attache, my dear. Have you dragged him out 
 of the clutches of Eva Carrillon yet, my poor 
 Anna? I heard the other day oh, it is all over 
 with her, is it? Well of course you ought to 
 know I hope it's true. I went to the opera last 
 week and she was in splendid voice I noticed 
 that she wore that diamond collar of hers that 
 is so like one you used to wear." 
 
 " He gave her up ages ago. What a lot of 
 scandal people seem to tell you, Natalia! " Anna 
 said petulantly. " Tell me some more about the 
 queen and the divorce we shall have to go down 
 in a moment." 
 
 "They say that the king found some letters 
 I don't know who was supposed to have written 
 them. Some people say they were genuine 
 some say they were only a forgery. He tore 
 them up and gave her the pieces, without a 
 word! I believe that woman has some super- 
 natural influence over him would your husband 
 or mine do a thing like that? " 
 
 " He must believe in her very much." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, that's nonsense! It is only be- 
 cause he is foolish enough to be madly in love 
 with her still. But she's a failure after all there 
 is some consolation in that. If she had had a
 
 THE BINDWEED 225 
 
 child, no one would ever have been able to de- 
 throne her it is just that that the nation won't 
 forgive her. And now they say that she wants 
 to have her brother acknowledged as heir to the 
 throne! She must be quite mad if she thinks 
 they will stand it. But it is probably a fabrica- 
 tion of the Zanovitch party. Do you know 
 that they are intriguing to bring that man 
 back?" 
 
 " No," Anna said. She was less interested in 
 the pretender than in the queen. " It is time to 
 go down I hear a carriage. How do you like 
 my dress, Natalia?" 
 
 " It is quite perfect, my dear if it has the 
 ghost of a fault it is that perhaps it makes you 
 look a little stout, but that is all. Thin women 
 are the fashion this year," Natalia said she was 
 thin herself. " So absurd these fashions are 
 don't you think so?" 
 
 "I don't see what 'worse fault a dress could 
 very well have than to make one look fat," said 
 the poor little ambassadrice, with a touch of very 
 excusable ill-temper. "You always tell me 
 these things just when it is too late to put on any- 
 thing else." 
 
 "My dear! Would you have liked me to 
 have told you before Vladimir Ourof that you 
 were getting stout?" asked Natalia reproach- 
 fully as they went downstairs. 
 
 " Do you think he doesn't know it as well as 
 I do?" Anna retorted. 
 
 " He is a most remarkable young man," said 
 Natalia Morisof drily.
 
 226 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Perhaps she would have said in earnest what 
 she said in jest if she could have been present at 
 the interview between Ourof and his ambassador 
 which was even then proceeding in Roumanine's 
 study. 
 
 The ambassador looked up from his desk as 
 Vladimir entered. Ourof's face told him all he 
 wished to know. 
 
 " Come in, my friend I see you have heard 
 the news. But not all that madwoman has in- 
 spired the king to reject the boundary treaty. 
 They will not give up NiefT that decides the 
 matter." 
 
 "Yes, excellency," Vladimir said quietly, as 
 Roumanine paused. 
 
 " You must go to Paris tomorrow and see 
 Zanovitch. Be cautious but let him think we 
 will support him unless the other Powers ab- 
 solutely refuse to acknowledge him. Personally, 
 I don't imagine they will trouble about him, one 
 way or the other. We will manage his party 
 here better than he can do. He must stay in 
 Paris and play the flute a little more than usual 
 in order that no one may be able to say after- 
 wards that he had anything to do with what- 
 ever happens." 
 
 "What will happen, excellency?" 
 
 Roumanine looked his chosen assistant in 
 political crime carefully up and down with a 
 practiced eye. 
 
 "You, too, had better not know, Ourof," he 
 said at last. 
 
 " I must know," the attache answered briefly.
 
 THE BINDWEED 227 
 
 Roumanine did not speak. There was an in- 
 stant's silence and then Vladimir turned upon 
 him with white lips and gleaming eyes. 
 
 "I will know," he said, in a voice that had 
 suddenly grown hoarse and harsh. "You or 
 your agents tried to poison her the other day! 
 I am not a fool I know well enough who was at 
 the bottom of that! You have tried to ruin her 
 with the king to compromise her by a forged 
 letter to drive him into a divorce by any means 
 in your power and you have failed. Of course 
 you have failed! I have little enough cause to 
 like him, but I admire him for that. He will 
 ruin himself and his kingdom but he will never 
 give her up. I would do the same in his place 
 I tell you so quite frankly. And I will not 
 help you in this business unless you give me the 
 terms I ask." 
 
 Roumanine smoothed out a paper on the desk 
 before him before he made any reply. 
 
 " It is no question of what you will or will not 
 do," he said. "You will do what you are told. 
 Still, I should like to know the price you ask for 
 your valuable assistance. What is it?" 
 
 "The queen," Vladimir said. 
 
 Roumanine lifted his scanty eyebrows in a 
 little grimace of amusement and scorn. 
 
 " Take her by all means ! " he said. " Take 
 her out of the kingdom, and we shall all be much" 
 obliged to you. You don't by any chance want 
 the king, too, do you, my dear Ourof?" 
 
 " I will shoot him with my own hand, if you 
 like," Vladimir answered, with a savage light in
 
 228 THE BINDWEED 
 
 his eyes. "No I don't want him. Give 
 me the queen she shall never trouble you 
 again." 
 
 Roumanine took up a pen from his desk and 
 looked at it thoughtfully. 
 
 "You must understand that this has nothing 
 to do with me," he said. " Take the queen, if 
 you can, on your own responsibility. You must 
 be prepared for unpleasant consequences. It 
 may suit the government to make an example of 
 you if any suspicion seems to attach to us. You 
 may even be dismissed from the army virtuous 
 indignation is sometimes a very telling card to 
 play. I will have nothing to do with the affair. 
 On any night that you wish I will make arrange- 
 ments to get you and the queen safely over the 
 frontier into Austria it would not do for you 
 to try our side; that might point to complicity. 
 But that is all I can promise to do. Will that 
 suit you?" 
 
 "Yes. You will do nothing until I come 
 back from Paris?" 
 
 " Nothing we shall not be ready until then. 
 There is a good deal to be arranged before we 
 move, for it would be fatal to everything to 
 bungle the affair. But whatever you do, keep 
 Zanovitch quiet. He is to do nothing, to know 
 nothing, until all is over. Then, of course, he 
 can deplore the turn events have taken and ac- 
 cept the crown. It is an easy part to play, if he 
 only has sense enough to see it." 
 
 " I will make him see it, excellency." 
 
 "You will do a very useful thing, then, my
 
 THE BINDWEED 229 
 
 friend. It will not do for Zanovitch to appear 
 at all active just now. He had much better 
 stick to his flute. Now you had better go and 
 make yourself agreeable." 
 
 It is probable that Vladimir felt anything but 
 agreeable, but it was part of his trade to disguise 
 his feelings successfully. Natalia Morisof 
 pounced upon him the instant he entered the re- 
 ception rooms. 
 
 "Now, what conspiracies have you been 
 hatching, Captain Ourof? Oh, I have some- 
 thing to tell you. The Death's Head passed me 
 on the stairs as I came down. He makes me 
 shiver, that man! I always think something is 
 going to happen when I see him." 
 
 " Something is always happening somewhere 
 in the world, madame," the attache answered 
 calmly. " May I get you an ice?" 
 
 But even while he stood watching Natalia de- 
 molish her ice, the Death's Head had entered 
 Roumanine's study and reported himself. His 
 india-rubber face was as impassive as ever, but 
 there seemed to cling to him an indefinable at- 
 mosphere of ill-omen a shadow as of the 
 coming of fate. 
 
 " This story of the heir to the throne is that 
 true? " Roumanine asked, looking up at the silent 
 figure before him. 
 
 "No, excellency but the pretender's party 
 think it is. I have spread the story everywhere 
 I could it is generally believed." 
 
 "Quite right it will rouse popular feeling. 
 The letters failed, unfortunately. There is no
 
 230 THE BINDWEED 
 
 possibility of a divorce that way. Is there any 
 break between the king and queen? " 
 
 " No, excellency. Since the letters were dis- 
 covered, they have been on better terms than 
 
 ever." 
 
 "Of all the mad fools 1" murmured 
 
 Roumanine contemptuously. " Does she ever 
 see Captain Ourof?" 
 
 " In private, excellency? Never." 
 
 " He imagines he has influence with her still, 
 I think. Watch him and see whether she re- 
 ceives him." 
 
 " Yes, excellency." 
 
 "And play the Mikhail Markovitch story for 
 all it is worth. It is so utterly preposterous that 
 you can easily make people believe it. Is there 
 anyone fresh in the conspiracy?" 
 
 " Colonel Nikolaievitch, excellency." 
 
 "The minister of war good, very good," 
 Roumanine said reflectively. 
 
 " That will do report yourself to me to- 
 morrow." 
 
 The Death's Head glided noiselessly from the 
 room. Roumanine rose from his chair with an 
 air of satisfaction. 
 
 " It is all going on admirably," he said to him- 
 self. " But I hope Ourof won't succeed with the 
 queen I detest that woman."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 VLADIMIR obeyed the ambassador's or- 
 ders, went to Paris next day and inter- 
 viewed Zanovitch. 
 
 It was a curious conversation which took place 
 in the pretender's charming flat, in a room all 
 flowers and autograph portraits of musical celeb- 
 rities, with an open grand piano and sheets of 
 music scattered about everywhere. In the midst 
 of this artistic confusion Zanovitch himself, with 
 his rather good features and picturesque shock 
 of grizzled hair, his air at once pompous and 
 timid, had much more the appearance of a dis- 
 tinguished composer than that of an aspirant to 
 the throne of Salitza. He received the Rus- 
 sian attache with a curious mixture of caution 
 and effusion. It was easy to see that he was 
 half afraid of the idea of a restoration, as entail- 
 ing upon him some danger and a good deal of 
 difficulty. When Vladimir, not without a secret 
 sensation of contempt, explained the role he was 
 to play, his evident relief had an element of 
 comedy. Kasimir had been right when he said 
 that Zanovitch was almost as unfit to be a king 
 as he was himself. Even Vladimir Ourof felt 
 the superiority of the unpopular king to this 
 showy, incompetent personage who hummed a 
 
 231
 
 232 THE BINDWEED 
 
 sentimental air one moment and put on a kind of 
 uncertain would-be diginity the next. 
 
 In one respect, at least, the interview was en- 
 tirely satisfactory. Roumanine need not have 
 feared that the pretender would have any desire 
 to take an active part in his own restoration. He 
 was plainly only too happy to keep out of every- 
 thing and practice his flute in peace until the 
 great moment arrived. He was palpably the 
 born amateur, in more important things than 
 music the self-conscious dabbler, incapable of 
 forgetting his own unimpressive personality and 
 professing a vast enthusiasm and devotion 
 when, as a matter of fact, his real sentiments 
 were only tepid. There was probably as much 
 pose in his flute-playing as there was in his 
 assumption of the rightful sovereign con- 
 demned to tedious exile from his native land. 
 He was incapable of sincerity, because he had 
 not enough capacity for feeling of any kind 
 even to realize what it was to be sincere. 
 
 Of the means of which his restoration was to 
 be brought about he was almost pathetically 
 anxious to know nothing. 
 
 "Terrible things have been done in the past 
 in my unhappy country terrible things, my 
 dear Captain Ourof ! " he said, assuming a plain- 
 tive air, and performing a five-finger exercise on 
 the arm of his chair with his long, delicate 
 fingers. 
 
 "Your great-uncle shot the present king's 
 grandfather, I think?" the attache could not 
 resist saying.
 
 THE BINDWEED 233 
 
 Zanovitch looked uncomfortable. 
 
 "Yes yes these deeds of blood are in- 
 finitely repugnant to me," he replied hurriedly. 
 " Pray don't give me any details of your arrange- 
 ments my nerves are so easily upset." 
 
 Vladimir had a swift moment of admiration 
 for the man who had at least risked his own life 
 boldly to take that of his enemy. His degen- 
 erate descendant was of a very different temper. 
 
 " As I am ignorant myself as to the arrange- 
 ments you mention, I can't trouble you with de- 
 tails," he said. 
 
 There their conversation ended. He left the 
 pretender resuming his practice and preparing to 
 wipe his immaculately polished flute with a silk 
 handkerchief exquisitely embroidered with the 
 royal arms of Salitza the gift, probably, of 
 some feminine enthusiast desirous of flattering 
 the amateur pretender's vanity. 
 
 Vladimir found himself in the street with 
 a sensation of positive relief. He himself, as 
 he had told Roumanine, would have shot the 
 king without an instant's hesitation if the occa- 
 sion had offered. But he felt that he would 
 not have been able to stay quietly in Paris while 
 other men risked their lives for him, as Zano- 
 vitch was so evidently willing and even eager 
 to do. 
 
 " He is a fool and a coward," he told Rou- 
 manine when describing the conversation on his 
 return to Khristovitz. 
 
 Roumanine smiled. 
 
 "That is exactly the sort of person we want
 
 234 THE BINDWEED 
 
 on the throne," he said. " Kasimir isn't a cow- 
 ard, and, if he is a fool, he is a fool who tries 
 to think the worst kind of all, my friend. 
 Well there are a few more arrangements to 
 be made. Then " 
 
 " You will warn me first," Vladimir said. " I 
 have arrangements to make, too." 
 
 He tried his hardest to get near the queen 
 during those few days to speak to her, even 
 for a moment. He did not succeed. But his 
 efforts, diplomatic as they were, attracted the 
 king's attention. 
 
 Perhaps the two years that had elapsed since 
 the coronation had been the most wretched of 
 Kasimir's life. Since the frustrated attempt to 
 poison the queen and his discovery of the forged 
 letters his misery had reached an acute form. 
 It is true that he had torn the letters up, without 
 a word, as the Death's Head had told Rou- 
 manine ; but it was not altogether because he be- 
 lieved her innocent. He had been brought up 
 in such an atmosphere of hatred and suspicion 
 that it was only too fatally easy for him to learn 
 to suspect even the woman whom he still loved 
 better than anything in the world. The episode 
 of the letters had made his position almost in- 
 tolerable. His pride forbade him from level- 
 ing a direct accusation against her; her pride 
 forbade her from uttering a word in her own 
 defense. She understood his attitude only too 
 well ; what she did not understand was the tor- 
 ture which it inflicted on him. 
 
 Hour by hour, almost, she waited to hear that
 
 THE BINDWEED 235 
 
 he had consented to a divorce ; and with the ten- 
 acity of despair she clung to the splendor which 
 had only brought her misery. In spite of all 
 her enemies she had still one weapon left the 
 beauty to which she owed her hard-won royalty; 
 but even that seemed slipping away from her at 
 times. The suspense in which she lived, the 
 hourly dread either of assassination or disgrace 
 had worn and aged her before her time and 
 written lines in her face and dimmed the beauty 
 of her velvet eyes. With all the strength left 
 to her she set herself to hide from the world 
 what she could not hide from herself. She 
 made up very well, as Anna Roumanine had said 
 she dressed superbly. Art and Paris combined 
 to help her in this last struggle against fate. She 
 knew that spiteful eyes were watching her on 
 all sides, waiting to hail with joy the hour of 
 her downfall the knowledge nerved her to 
 supreme efforts. 
 
 And, of all who watched this strange 'drama 
 of Khristovitz no one realized the tragedy of it 
 no one could find any pity for this woman 
 who was fighting the hatred of a whole nation 
 with the frail aid of a vanishing beauty a 
 charm the very hours of which were numbered. 
 Perhaps it was the spirit which had sent old 
 Stepan Markovitch to his death which upheld 
 Liane now. She held still the love of the man 
 who had ceased to believe in her it was her 
 last poor defense against ruin and disgrace. 
 She would fight for it as long as it was possible 
 to fight at all. With despairing courage and
 
 236 THE BINDWEED 
 
 resolution she faced the truth. She knew it. 
 When her beauty was gone when she could 
 hold the king no more he would divorce her 
 and marry another woman, if only to settle the 
 vexed question of the succession. He did not 
 trust her it was only her beauty which had 
 saved her from that fate until now; when that 
 too deserted her, the hour of her fall would be 
 at hand. 
 
 It was nearly a week after Vladimir's return 
 from Paris that, on arriving late one afternoon 
 at the embassy, he found the little ambassadrice 
 in some excitement and more than anxious to 
 explain the cause thereof. 
 
 " Ivan has gone to Petersburg," she said. 
 " He started half an hour ago, in a tremendous 
 hurry. Vladimir, there is a plot against that 
 woman I have found out a lot about it. Young 
 Ivanovitch was here today you know how silly 
 he is. He showed me a key, and laughed and 
 asked me if I wouldn't like to know what he 
 was going to do with it. Then I think he got 
 frightened and thought he had said too much 
 and put it away in a great hurry but not be- 
 fore I had seen that it was one of the keys of the 
 small garden entrances to the palace. I have 
 one myself you know the last queen Kasi- 
 mir's mother was rather fond of me, and once 
 when I was ill she gave me a private key to the 
 gardens that I might go and sit there whenever 
 I liked. I know the keys quite well they all 
 have the royal arms on them. Dmitri Ivano-
 
 THE BINDWEED 237 
 
 vitch certainly had one of them what do you 
 think he is going to do with it? " 
 
 Vladimir saw it all in a flash of horror-struck 
 comprehension. Roumanine had fooled him at 
 the last the revolution was fixed for that night 
 and the wily ambassador had left for Peters- 
 burg without warning him as he had promised 
 to do, in order to be out of the way when the 
 crash came! The attack on the palace would 
 take place in a few hours' time and he had 
 made no arrangements for the queen's escape! 
 He had no means of warning her or of getting 
 her across the frontier. Roumanine did not mean 
 her to escape he had only consented to the 
 terms the attache demanded to keep him from 
 betraying the plot as he might otherwise have 
 done. Should be betray it now, or he turned 
 suddenly to Anna Roumanine. 
 
 "That key the queen gave you you have it 
 still?" 
 
 "Yes I never used it, but I never gave it 
 back. I don't think anyone except the queen 
 knew I had it." 
 
 " Give it to me," Vladimir said quickly. 
 "There is time still. Give me the key di- 
 rectly." 
 
 Anna sprang up from the sofa. 
 
 "What do you want it for?" she asked sus- 
 piciously. 
 
 For an instant Vladimir hesitated. What 
 could he say, except the truth? There was 
 nothing else to be done there was no possible 
 lie which could serve his purpose.
 
 238 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " I want it to save the queen," he said. 
 
 Anna gave a little savage cry of jealousy and 
 rage. 
 
 "To save her! You love her still you want 
 to save her!" the little ambassadrice cried. "I 
 thought so I knew it. You shall never have 
 it never never ! " 
 
 Vladimir stared at her he could hardly be- 
 lieve the evidence of his own senses. 
 
 "You don't understand," he said. "They 
 mean to murder her! Give me the key at once. 
 Anna there is no time for this sort of thing 
 now! I must have the key without an instant's 
 delay." 
 
 Anna Roumanine's small features were set as 
 though in a mask of passionate resolution. 
 
 "You shall never have it," she repeated. 
 "You have deceived me enough as it is. She 
 took you away from me once she shall never 
 have you again! Let them murder her she 
 deserves it she is a bad woman! I suppose 
 you are her lover still perhaps they were your 
 letters that they found the other day. Yes, 
 that's it that's it I can see it is from your 
 face!" She burst into hysterical laughter. 
 " Save her? I wish I could go to the palace to- 
 night and see her murdered!" 
 
 For a moment even Vladimir was silent, with 
 something very like horror. 
 
 "A bad woman!" he said at last, in a voice 
 that trembled with fury and disgust. "And 
 what are you that you dare to judge her you 
 who have deceived your husband for years
 
 THE BINDWEED 239 
 
 you who stand there condemning another woman 
 to a horrible death to gratify your own sense- 
 less jealousy and spite? Are you so immaculate 
 that you can afford to talk about the wickedness 
 of Liane Goldenburg? Give me the key," he 
 added in another tone. " For God's sake, give 
 it to me, Anna you don't understand you 
 can't. I only want to save her I will swear it, 
 if you like." 
 
 "You have sworn hundreds of lies to me! 
 You are going to save her and escape with her 
 I am sure of it," the little ambassadrice cried 
 wildly. Go and warn the king, if you like 
 you will get no help from me! Go and never 
 come near me again!" 
 
 Vladimir stood irresolute. Then with one 
 stride he reached the wrathful little figure in 
 its trailing white draperies, caught it in an iron 
 grasp and forced it down among the cushions 
 of the sofa. 
 
 " Give me the key," he said through his teeth, 
 "or I will strangle you! If I have sworn hun- 
 dreds of lies to you, I am swearing the truth 
 now if you do not give me the key I will kill 
 you!" 
 
 She struggled vainly against him. With one 
 hand he kept her down, with the other he held 
 her by the throat so that she could not scream. 
 It was a wonder that he did not really strangle 
 her by the sheer force of his anger. But he 
 restrained himself, for the possession of the key 
 meant Liane's life or death, and he knew it. 
 After a moment he loosened his hold a little.
 
 2 4 o THE BINDWEED 
 
 " Now will you tell me where the key is? " he 
 said. 
 
 Her strength was exhausted and she ceased to 
 struggle and made a sign of assent. He released 
 her throat it was purple with the marks of his 
 ringers, and a diamond chain which she was 
 wearing had cut into the flesh so that Vladi- 
 mir's hand was stained with blood. He did not 
 notice it. He shook the wretched little figure 
 as a terrier shakes a rat. 
 
 "Tell me, then!" 
 
 She pointed to a little desk lying on the table 
 behind the sofa. 
 
 Still keeping his hold upon her, he leaned 
 over and seized it. It was open he emptied 
 the contents into Anna's lap, and uttered an 
 inarticulate cry of rage and disappointment. 
 
 "You have been lying to me there is no 
 key here!" 
 
 She wrenched herself free for an instant. 
 
 "It was there I know it was!" she gasped 
 in deadly terror. "Ivan must have found it 
 and taken it " 
 
 " And given it to Dmitri Ivanovitch," Vladi- 
 mir said calmly. 
 
 He saw it all, and for a moment he decided 
 that he was too late. It was Anna's key, of 
 course, that Ivanovitch had foolishly shown her 
 that was why he had put it away in such a 
 hurry, afraid that she might recognize it. It 
 was too late. 
 
 He was silent and Anna Roumanine cowered 
 among the pink cushions and watched him.
 
 THE BINDWEED 241 
 
 Suddenly she saw his eyes fall on the stains of 
 blood upon his hand. A very cruel look came 
 into his face and he lifted his head and smiled 
 at her, with a smile that turned her cold. 
 
 She slipped from the sofa to his feet. 
 
 "Vladimir Vladimir don't kill me! I 
 told you the truth Ivan has taken the key. 
 Don't kill me don't kill me!" she shrieked, as 
 he dragged her from the floor. 
 
 Vladimir Ourof laughed softly. 
 
 " I am not going to kill you," he said. "You 
 may keep your miserable life. There's a better 
 way of punishing you than that. I am going 
 to kill your vanity you will never have cause 
 to be jealous of any woman again." 
 
 With terrified eyes she watched him take out 
 the hunting-knife he always wore. Still she did 
 not understand what he meant to do. She 
 crouched, almost paralyzed, among the tumbled 
 cushions, lifting to him a face pinched and 
 blanched with abject fear. 
 
 Suddenly he caught her by the shoulder 
 again and slashed her twice across the face with 
 the hunting-knife and flung her from him back- 
 wards to the farther end of the sofa! 
 
 "When Roumanine comes back," he said, 
 " show him your face and tell him who marked 
 it for you to brand you and him for ever for 
 what you both are! Tell him that with my 
 compliments. If at any future time I can afford 
 to give myself the great pleasure of meeting him 
 again and shooting him for the liar he is, I will 
 let him know where to find me."
 
 242 THE BINDWEED 
 
 The miserable little figure on the sofa lay 
 motionless. He went to the door without look- 
 ing back. A moment or two later he was hurry- 
 ing up the Boulevard Valitzine towards the 
 Boulevard Mikhail the Pious and the opera- 
 house. 
 
 There was one last chance of getting the key 
 from Dmitri Ivanovitch only one; and that, 
 too, depended on a woman's charity for another 
 woman. 
 
 It was the interval before the last act of the 
 opera when he slipped in by the artist's entrance 
 and made his way to Eva Carillon's dressing- 
 room. A shrill, sweet voice bade him enter. 
 Eva was alone, putting on some powder before 
 the glass. She dropped the powder-puff when 
 she caught sight of his white face in the mirror. 
 
 "Ah, mon dieu! my friend, what has hap- 
 pened? What a face! Tell me quickly ah, 
 how cruel I am! You are ill and I begin to 
 chatter like a dozen magpies! Sit down here 
 take this! You frighten me you, who have 
 nerves of iron, to look like that! " 
 
 She pushed him into a chair and held brandy 
 to his lips. He drank the brandy eagerly. It 
 pulled him together he caught Eva Carillon's 
 hand as she stood beside him. 
 
 " Eva," he said hoarsely, " I have heard you 
 say you would sell your soul if anyone offered 
 you enough for it. See here if you will help 
 me tonight, you shall be paid for it I swear 
 I will pay you whatever you ask afterwards, if 
 I sell myself to do it. It isn't much that I want
 
 THE BINDWEED 243 
 
 Eva, it isn't much! Get Dmitri Ivanovitch 
 to give you the key to the palace gardens tonight! 
 Steal it from him only get it, somehovy I 
 don't care how you do it!" 
 
 Eva laughed musically and picked up the 
 powder-puff. 
 
 "Dmitri Ivanovitch! Now, who has been 
 talking scandal to you? And what do you want 
 with the key of the palace gardens, my friend? 
 Is it a maid-of-honor this time? What will the 
 ambassadrice say!" 
 
 " Eva Eva I'm not joking! You can get 
 the key if you like." 
 
 " But I shall not like unless you tell me why 
 you want it." 
 
 There was nothing else to do, so he told her. 
 She stood by the dressing-table and listened and 
 put the powder-puff absently into the powder- 
 box and then took it out again. He could not 
 see her face. 
 
 "And you want to save her?" she said, when 
 he ended. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She swung round suddenly. Her face was 
 pale beneath its paint her eyes were shining 
 oddly. 
 
 " And you offered me money money to save 
 a woman's life!" she said, in a choked voice. 
 " Money to get you the key! Am I as bad as 
 that? Did you think I wouldn't help the queen 
 unless you paid me for it? I don't want your 
 pay I won't take it! I will make Dmitri give 
 me the key. He is coming to supper with me
 
 244 THE BINDWEED 
 
 after the opera I will drug the champagne 
 and steal the key and you shall put on his uni- 
 form you may get into the palace more easily 
 in that than in your own. And you will want a 
 passport for the queen, won't you? I will give 
 you mine it will help to get you over the fron- 
 tier." 
 
 " Eva, you are an angel I" Vladimir said 
 and he meant what he said, for once. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and caught up 
 the neglected powder-puff. 
 
 "There there that's enough. I'm not do- 
 ing it for you, but for the queen don't flatter 
 yourself, my friend! Of course, I know you're 
 in love with her you have never cared for any- 
 one else. Oh, I'm not jealous you haven't got 
 enough money for me to be jealous of you, you 
 know. But, even if you had and if I adored 
 you which I don't, of course! even then I 
 would do what I could. There's the last act be- 
 ginning and I'm not half dressed! Here help 
 me into this thing give me the powder again, 
 I believe you have made me cry with your hor- 
 rible plots and conspiracies oh, this detesta- 
 ble country! When shall I see Paris again? 
 There that's right I shall be as hoarse as a 
 crow and it will be all your fault! Come to my 
 room in three-quarters of an hour. And go 
 go at once don't let Dmitri see you here, or he 
 will suspect something." 
 
 She dashed away on to the stage, and Vladi- 
 mir left the opera-house and spent three inter- 
 minable quarters of an hour waiting about the
 
 THE BINDWEED 245 
 
 Boulevard Valitzine. Then he hurried to the 
 singer's rooms. As he went up the stairs, Eva's 
 head was thrust over the banisters. 
 
 " Come quickly it is all right." 
 
 Vladimir dashed up the last few steps and 
 into the room. His quick eye took in the lighted 
 supper-table, and the limp figure of Dmitri 
 Ivanovitch, in the uniform of the Sixth Regi- 
 ment, sprawling in an ungraceful attitude on 
 the floor. Eva was already on her knees beside 
 him, searching rapidly in his pockets for the 
 key. Suddenly she uttered a cry of triumph, 
 and held it above her head like a trophy of 
 war. 
 
 "Here it is! Quick! Off with his things 
 he is nearly as tall as you are. That's right 
 never mind about him, he won't know anything 
 until tomorrow and then he'll only think he got 
 rather more drunk than he usually does. I'll 
 watch outside the door." 
 
 She returned in time to fasten the last buckle 
 of the unconscious Dmitri's belt round Vladi- 
 mir Ourof's waist. Then she ran to a table at 
 the side of the room and came back with a hand- 
 ful of gold. 
 
 "You will want a lot of money take this. 
 No I want you to take it, Vladimir you must. 
 And send to me for some more if you want it 
 Dmitri is disgustingly rich and I can screw 
 anything out of him, he's such a fool. That's 
 right. Good-bye, Vladimir I suppose I shall 
 never see you again." 
 
 A little note of wistfulness crept into her shrill
 
 246 THE BINDWEED 
 
 voice, and Vladimir bent and kissed her, with 
 very real admiration in his heart. 
 
 " Good-bye, Eva I don't know how to thank 
 you. If I can save the queen " 
 
 She drew herself away from him rather hur- 
 riedly. 
 
 "Yes, yes save her don't mind about me. 
 Good-bye!" 
 
 When he had gone she went back into the 
 little room where Dmitri Ivanovitch lay sprawl- 
 ing beside the dismantled supper-table. She 
 shrugged her shoulders scornfully and stirred 
 the unconscious conspirator with the tip of her 
 pretty slipper. 
 
 " He was the only one of them all that I cared 
 a rap for," she said to herself, " and I have been 
 fool enough to send him off to another woman 
 while I stay here with this pig!"
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A the palace the day had passed quietly. 
 The king had been more than usually 
 occupied, and had hardly left his study 
 since breakfast, in spite of the heat. An hour 
 before dinner he had an interview of rather 
 a painful nature with Gliska. Once more the 
 premier, aware of the growing discontent of all 
 parties, the daily increasing disaffection of the 
 army, had begged his sovereign to do the only 
 thing which, in his opinion, could avert some 
 great disaster, and consent to a divorce. Once 
 more Kasimir had refused not, as he had done 
 until now, with the calmness of unalterable reso- 
 lution, but fiercely, as though driven almost be- 
 yond the limits of endurance by these repeated 
 attacks. 
 
 "I will never consent never!" he said. 
 "Nothing shall induce me to send away the 
 queen. Tell that to those who sent you! I am 
 not afraid of them I shall not run away, as my 
 father did. Tell them to do their worst. I 
 know who they are these men who will not 
 leave me the only thing I have ever cared for 
 I have their names, and I mean to punish them 
 to crush them so that they shall never dare to 
 oppose me again! Tell them that too, if you 
 
 247
 
 248 THE BINDWEED 
 
 like I suppose you are as much a traitor as 
 they are." 
 
 "Sir 1" 
 
 "Let me speak!" the king interrupted with a 
 sort of fury. " I know what I am accused of 
 wishing that Mikhail Markovitch should be 
 acknowledged heir to the throne. Well 
 and if I do wish it, is it so very strange? You 
 have all made up your minds you who know 
 such a deal about the business of others, though 
 you don't know how to be loyal to me you have 
 all decided that I am never to have an heir of 
 my own you have made that a lever against me 
 and a reason why I should divorce the queen. 
 Why should I sacrifice her to provide Salitza 
 with a crown prince? If you are all so very 
 anxious for one, choose Mikhail Markovitch. 
 He is as fit to be a king as I was more fit, per- 
 haps, for I ought never to have been one at all. 
 My reign has been a mistake from beginning 
 to end and yet I have tried to do right, though 
 I have never succeeded." 
 
 Gliska forced himself to make the only propo- 
 sition left to him. 
 
 " Then why not abdicate, sir? " 
 
 " In favor of Zanovitch, I suppose?" Kasimir 
 said bitterly. " I said you were a traitor, Gliska. 
 No I will never abdicate. I am not a coward 
 only a coward would hand over his inheri- 
 tance to the man whose fathers had murdered 
 his. I will not divorce the queen I tell you so 
 for the last time." 
 
 " Then I can only entreat your majesty to re-
 
 THE BINDWEED 249 
 
 lieve me of the premiership as soon as possible," 
 said Gliska sadly. 
 
 It hurt him horribly to do it he was a sol- 
 dier and a brave one, and resignation at this 
 moment seemed to him very like desertion of 
 his post in the time of danger. But it was 
 clearly the only thing left for him to do. He 
 could support the king no longer. He sympa- 
 thized sincerely with him as a private indi- 
 vidual he even felt that in his place he also 
 would have refused to divorce the queen but 
 the fact remained that a sovereign's private life 
 was the property of his people to be used for 
 their best interests. 
 
 For a moment the king had sat very still, 
 without moving or speaking. 
 
 "You too!" he said at last, in a very low 
 voice. "You too, Gliska! Yes I understand. 
 They say the rats always leave a sinking ship. 
 You are wise." 
 
 Gliska's disapproval was not proof against 
 this. For the first time in his life he broke 
 down completely. 
 
 " Sir I would die for you, but I must resign 
 it would not be honest to hold office ! " he cried 
 helplessly. "What can I say? Don't you un- 
 derstand that I must resign?" 
 
 "Yes I understand. I told you that I un- 
 derstood perfectly," the king said, almost 
 gently. "Why should a man have less sense 
 of self-preservation than a rat? You are right 
 to save yourself I know that you cannot save 
 me."
 
 250 THE BINDWEED 
 
 "But you can save yourself," Gliska urged. 
 "Only consent to a divorce " 
 
 Kasimir stopped him with a sort of dignity 
 which had come to him only once or twice in his 
 life. 
 
 " Not that again, please, Gliska," he said. " I 
 have never had a friend, but I have always felt 
 that, if things had been different, you might have 
 been a very real friend to me. I am parting 
 from you now don't say anything that might 
 make us part as enemies. I can understand your 
 point of view better than you can understand 
 mine, perhaps, and I know that you are giving 
 me honest advice, but I can't take it. If I could, 
 I should not be the kind of man whom it would 
 be worth your while to save." 
 
 Gliska looked at him in despair. 
 
 "And you are ruining yourself for what, 
 sir?" he asked. "Is it for a point of honor? 
 I could understand that." 
 
 Kasimir smiled sadly. 
 
 "No, it is not for a point of honor I'm 
 afraid I should not be capable of ruining myself 
 for that," he said. " I could never make you 
 understand. Your life has been a very full one, 
 Gliska you have had friends and children and 
 honors and a brilliant career. I was born in the 
 narrow circle which shuts in every throne. Per- 
 haps for me it was a little narrower than it is 
 for others perhaps I have found its narrow- 
 ness a little harder to bear. I hope so I should 
 not like to think that every king has always paid 
 for his rank as I have done. You know how I
 
 THE BINDWEED 251 
 
 was brought up the atmosphere of bitterness 
 and distrust which surrounded me the unnatu- 
 ral scenes of hatred into which I was always 
 being dragged, a frightened and unwilling spec- 
 tator, even when I was quite a child. To my 
 father and mother I was only a pawn in the 
 
 fame which each was playing against the other, 
 am not blaming them, but it was a bad train- 
 ing for any boy." 
 
 He paused. Gliska stood silent, unable to 
 contradict him, unable to offer him either con- 
 solation for the past or hope for the future. 
 
 "How can you understand?" the king went 
 on. "You have had so much in your life and 
 I have had only one thing only one, Gliska! 
 And you blame me because I cling to it you 
 tell me to part with it to save my crown. I 
 would not part with it to save my soul! " 
 
 There was a long silence in the small, dark 
 room over which the gloom of a coming storm 
 was beginning to brood. The intolerable heat 
 of the day had become breathless, stifling; even 
 as the king ceased speaking, a faint mutter of 
 distant thunder rolled far away among the hills. 
 
 " I do not understand," Gliska said huskily 
 at last; "but your majesty is the bravest man 
 I have ever known!" 
 
 The king shook his head. 
 
 "No, it isn't that you are right, you don't 
 understand, even now. It is because I am 
 afraid afraid of being left alone!" 
 
 Again he was silent. Presently he roused 
 himself from his reflections with a start.
 
 252 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " It is late and I am keeping you. Good- 
 night, Gliska. Thank you for all you have done 
 for me you at least have been honest. So few 
 people have been honest with me I am very 
 grateful to you. Goodnight good-bye ! " 
 
 He rose wearily from his seat and held out 
 his hand. Gliska held it in silence for a mo- 
 ment before he bent and lifted it to his lips. 
 
 " Goodnight, sir," he said, almost with a sob. 
 " May God protect your majesty! " 
 
 " Thank you," the king said simply. 
 
 Dinner was served on the terrace, and Mik- 
 hail Markovitch dined with the king and queen, 
 together with several officers of the Sixth Regi- 
 ment. Mikhail was in high spirits, but the king 
 and queen were both unusually silent. A band 
 was playing in the gardens and the soft sound of 
 the music came and went pleasantly on the hot 
 air. It was very still again the thunder had 
 died away. Once a few big drops of rain fell 
 on the flowers on the dinner-table. Mikhail 
 joked his sister about them, and prophesied 
 flight into the palace. 
 
 "There is going to be a bad storm," Liane 
 said, glancing mechanically at the heavy sky. 
 " I have felt it coming all day." 
 
 Kasimir looked at her quickly, but said 
 nothing. The storm did not come, however. 
 Dinner over, they walked still on the terrace, 
 listening to the band. The officers of the Sixth 
 hurried away as soon as they decently could 
 to Colonel Nikolaievitch's house on the Boule-
 
 THE BINDWEED 253 
 
 vard Valitzine to plan the last details of the 
 attack on the sovereign whose uniform they 
 wore, the host whose bread they had just eaten. 
 
 The King went back to his study; but for a 
 long time Liane sat with Mikhail on the terrace. 
 For some reason, Mikhail began to talk of their 
 life in the high house beyond the river of their 
 father and Pavlo and Ivan the Terrible whose 
 obsequies the young lieutenant-colonel had cele- 
 brated not many months before not, perhaps, 
 without a secret tear or two. She sat silent, lis- 
 tening to his careless talk. How real they all 
 seemed tonight, those far-away days! Then, as 
 she sat there, everything else faded gradually 
 away and only one scene of her past life re- 
 mained. She sat again on the balcony of the 
 tall house on the Boulevard Valitzine and Vlad- 
 imir Ourof sat beside her with a sheet of scented 
 note-paper in his hand, telling her, in his deep, 
 soft voice, the story of her father's and Pavlo's 
 death. She could hear his voice and see the 
 light falling on his fair head from the window 
 of the room behind. 
 
 She rose abruptly and said goodnight to Mik- 
 hail. She was tired the storm was coming on, 
 and the heat had given her a headache. 
 
 It was a relief to be alone at last in her own 
 room to send away everyone and brush out her 
 splendid coils of black hair herself, as she had 
 done in the little' room beyond the river when 
 she was only a work-girl at the " Paradis des 
 Dames." It was a relief, but, tired as she was, 
 she still could not make up her mind to go to
 
 254 THE BINDWEED 
 
 bed. The storm had affected her nerves per- 
 haps; she felt restless and strung up and inclined 
 to start at every sound. She made an effort to 
 conquer the feeling and lay down on the couch 
 at the foot of the bed opposite the open windows, 
 shut her eyes and tried to quiet herself. 
 
 But still the disquieting vision of Vladimir 
 Ourof pursued her. She could see his face and 
 hear his voice as plainly as though he had been 
 in the room. And always she saw him in two 
 ways sitting on the balcony with her, and rid- 
 ing up the Boulevard Valitzine in Major Janno's 
 uniform with its silver tassels gleaming in the 
 lamplight, while behind him Pavlo knelt in the 
 road by his dead father's side. 
 
 Always, always the vision came back, however 
 hard she tried to dispel it. A kind of horror 
 seized her. What did it mean? Why did the 
 memory of Vladimir haunt her so persistenly to- 
 night? She lay fighting with the thing that 
 haunted her, so absorbed in the struggle that she 
 heard nothing about her. Suddenly some warn- 
 ing impulse which she could not have defined 
 made her open her eyes and look up. 
 
 The vision had been reality after all. Vladi- 
 mir Ourof stood by the open window, in the uni- 
 form of the Sixth Regiment, as she had seen him 
 an instant ago. There were the silver tassels 
 which poor Pavlo had recognized on the night 
 of Stepan Markovitch's death. Was it really 
 Vladimir, or a dream? 
 
 Slowly she sat up and turned towards him, 
 never taking her eyes from his face.
 
 THE BINDWEED 255 
 
 "Vladimir?" she whispered questioningly. 
 
 At the sound of her voice he came forward 
 and knelt down by the couch, so close that she 
 could see the thick rain-drops lying like dia- 
 mond-dust on the dark blue cloth of his tunic. 
 Mechanically, in a sort of dream, she put out 
 her hand and touched his wet sleeve. 
 
 " It is raining," she said very quietly. "The 
 storm has come at last." 
 
 "Yes at last," he answered, in a voice as 
 quiet as her own. 
 
 For the moment he had forgotten her deadly 
 peril his frantic efforts to get the key of the 
 garden gate, his race through the dark gardens. 
 Only his great height and the fact that he was 
 in the humor to do absolute impossibilities had 
 enabled him to reach the high balcony of the 
 queen's room. He forgot that, too. Every- 
 thing else ceased to be of any importance before 
 the white figure leaning towards him, the beau- 
 tiful, pale face gazing at him with questioning 
 eyes, the hand that rested on his wet sleeve. He 
 was back in the flat on the Boulevard Valit- 
 zine in the days before Liane Goldenburg had 
 learned to hate him. 
 
 And Liane also forgot forgot that this man 
 kneeling beside her was the murderer of her 
 father and brother the one human being in the 
 world whom she had most cause to fear and de- 
 test. She sat very still. Then, suddenly, her 
 eyes fell again on the silver tassels. With a 
 stifled cry she sprang to her feet. 
 
 "Go go! What are you doing here?
 
 256 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Haven't you done me enough harm as it is 
 will nothing content you? Oh, go before the 
 king finds you here and we are both ruined! " 
 
 " I will go," Vladimir said quietly; "but you 
 must come with me. I have come to save you 
 to get you over the frontier. There is a plot to 
 kill you tonight come quickly, Liane even 
 now it may be too late." 
 
 She stared at him as though she hardly under- 
 stood what he meant. 
 
 "Andthe king?" she said. 
 
 "The king? What does the king matter to 
 us? Come quickly there is no time to spare." 
 
 She pointed to the open window. 
 
 " Go. Did you think I should leave him to 
 save myself? It is because he would not desert 
 me that they want to kill him do you think I 
 will desert him? If I can't save him, I can die 
 with him it is all I can do now." 
 
 "You are mad," Vladimir said desperately. 
 " You can't stay here to be butchered by Niko- 
 laievitch. Liane Liane come with me! We 
 will be happy again, as we were before you left 
 me. I have wanted you so have pity on me, if 
 you will have none on yourself. I have risked 
 everything to save you, but you must come at 
 once we must not stay here." 
 
 " I will not come," she answered. 
 
 "Then I will take you!" Vladimir cried. 
 
 He made a movement as though to seize her 
 and bear her away in spite of her resistance ; but 
 she sprang back with a gesture of warning and 
 dismay.
 
 THE BINDWEED 257 
 
 " It is the king ! Vladimir go ! We are lost. 
 Go do you want to ruin me utterly?" 
 
 It was too true steps were approaching along 
 the corridor without. 
 
 The attache understood that he had failed 
 and in the savage despair which seized him he 
 was conscious only of a blind, furious desire to 
 bring the worst upon the woman who had with- 
 stood him. 
 
 " It is too late," he said, with a cruel satis- 
 faction in his own power, "you are ruined 
 already." 
 
 Even as he spoke, the door opened and the 
 king came in. 
 
 His eye took in the scene at a glance the 
 tense figure of Vladimir Ourof the queen's 
 attitude of startled terror. Yes he understood 
 now the depression that had weighed upon him 
 all day. It was not the storm it was this! 
 
 He came quietly into the room and the door 
 closed noiselessly on its spring behind him. He 
 was very pale and his features had suddenly be- 
 come sharp and thin, as the features of a man 
 will do after a long illness. His whole figure 
 seemed to have shrunk together as though with 
 age as though his youth had been stripped 
 from him in that one terrible little moment after 
 he opened the door and saw Ourof standing be- 
 side the queen. 
 
 Involuntarily his hand went to his breast, to 
 the tiny revolver which he carried night and day 
 about him. Just for that second or two he felt 
 only the natural, human desire to kill, with his
 
 258 THE BINDWEED 
 
 own hand, the man who had dishonored him and 
 the woman who had deceived him. Already he 
 had half drawn the revolver frorrtits place. 
 
 Then it seemed to him that a savage cry of 
 joy rang in his ears in the midst of the silence 
 which had fallen upon the room. He heard 
 the horrible chorus of vilification that would 
 rise from every town, from every village, from 
 every solitary hut upon the mountains, when it 
 became known that the king had shot Vladimir 
 Ourof in the queen's bedroom at midnight. He 
 heard the torrent of savage abuse which would 
 be heaped upon the woman for whom he had 
 risked his life and his throne. And it was he 
 himself who was about to strike the first note 
 in this outburst of hatred and scorn! 
 
 Very slowly he put back the revolver and 
 walked to the door and opened it and turned to 
 Ourof. 
 
 "Go!" he said, speaking with almost un- 
 natural clearness and composure. " Go, Cap- 
 tain Ourof, and tell those who planned this 
 this unspeakable villainy that, clever as it was, 
 it has failed. My faith in the queen is not to 
 be destroyed by a trick like this. Go! " 
 
 For a moment Vladimir stood motionless. 
 The king waited still, holding open the door. 
 
 "Will you go, or shall I call the guard?" he 
 said, in the same quiet tone. 
 
 Vladimir crossed the room in silence and 
 passed through the doorway without a word. 
 
 The king stood and watched his tall figure 
 disappear down the lighted corridor. Even
 
 THE BINDWEED 259 
 
 after it had quite disappeared after the last 
 sound of steps had died away he stood there, 
 immovable as a statue, with one hand holding 
 open the door. 
 
 Then at last he turned. The door swung from 
 his hand and shut itself. The calm with which 
 he had dismissed Ourof had vanished. Dumb, 
 trembling, shaken by a passion of shame and 
 despair, he looked at Liane. 
 
 With a cry she sprang forward. 
 
 " Kasimir it isn't true it isn't true I" 
 
 He shrank back, holding out his hands as 
 though to keep her away from him. 
 
 "Don't touch me!" he said. "Don't touch 
 me! How could you do this? Even if it was 
 only the crown you cared for I gave it to you. 
 You had everything that I could give you. Only 
 today I parted with Gliska because he pressed 
 the divorce on me. And this is the end! " 
 
 "Kasimir !" 
 
 " No let me speak. It is the last time I will 
 ever speak to you alone the last time I shall 
 ever speak to you here. You needn't be afraid 
 you will be queen still, as you wished to be. I 
 will not take it away the empty honor to gain 
 which you fooled me and lied to me. But I 
 will never again enter your presence except in 
 public you shall be rid of me now. You loved 
 that man all the time even at Britz even at 
 Mirsk. I suppose everyone knew it except me 
 the whole nation was laughing at its miserable 
 fool of a king, who had made you queen you/ 
 Ah I have paid for my folly tonight!"
 
 26o THE BINDWEED 
 
 " Kasimir !"she cried again; but again 
 
 he stopped her. 
 
 " No don't lie to me I have had enough of 
 lies! I cared for no one in the world but you 
 you know that. Even now I love you too much 
 to disgrace you I would shoot myself and end 
 it all, but if I did that people would guess the 
 truth. It is for your sake that I consent to live 
 out an existence from which you have taken the 
 only thing that made it worth while to live at 
 all. Why do you look at me like that? You 
 are safe no one will ever know. You have 
 what you wanted you are queen of Salitza 
 still." 
 
 He turned and went to the door; but her ear, 
 quicker than his, had heard a sound in the still- 
 ness of the sleeping palace. She sprang across 
 the room to the door and drew the heavy bolts. 
 He watched her dully. He hardly understood 
 what she was doing he certainly did not under- 
 stand why she did it. 
 
 "There is a plot," she said breathlessly. 
 "Listen I can hear steps! They are coming 
 Kasimir, won't you believe me? Captain 
 Ourof came to warn me to get me across the 
 frontier. There is a plot against us Colonel 
 Nikolaievitch is in it." 
 
 " There is no plot," he said quietly. 
 
 " But it is true I can hear steps they are 
 coming now." 
 
 She stood by the door, trembling, listening to 
 that ominous sound which swelled gradually 
 behind it. Suddenly, as they stood there, both
 
 THE BINDWEED 261 
 
 uttered an exclamation of surprise which was 
 almost fear. The electric light had been 
 switched off in the palace and the room was in 
 darkness except for the faint glimmer of the 
 little night-lamp which burned on the table by 
 the bed. 
 
 The sound of people advancing stopped. 
 Only the heavy pouring of the rain could be 
 heard, and a growl of thunder, far off still, over 
 the hills beyond Mirsk. 
 
 In the gloom Kasimir could make out the 
 white face of the queen as she leaned against 
 the door, listening. 
 
 Suddenly it seemed as though a large body of 
 people burst into the corridor without. There 
 was a thunderous knocking at the door and some- 
 one tried to open it and failed. Then came a 
 voice 
 
 " The king! Where is the . kin S ? " 
 
 It was Nikolaievitch's voice. Liane shiv- 
 ered and looked at the motionless figure beside 
 her. 
 
 "What shall we do? Is there nowhere we 
 can hide?" 
 
 " Kasimir, we know that you are there! " came 
 Nikolaievitch's voice through the door. " Open 
 to us or it will be the worse for you ! " 
 
 The rough insult of his tone stung the king. 
 
 " I will not open the door," he called back. 
 "You are insolent rebels, all of you I I will see 
 no one tonight." 
 
 Outside in the corridor they heard a savage 
 laugh.
 
 262 THE BINDWEED 
 
 " You will see no one in the morning, then. 
 We are going to make you abdicate we have 
 had enough of you and the woman you have 
 made queen." 
 
 " I will not abdicate " 
 
 "Then divorce that woman divorce her 
 send her out to us and we will pronounce your 
 sentence of divorce!" and again someone 
 laughed. 
 
 The king pushed Liane suddenly from the 
 door. 
 
 " I will not divorce the queen and I refuse 
 to abdicate," he shouted. 
 
 "Then we will kill you. We have had 
 enough of you, Kasimir. We give you five min- 
 utes to decide. Then we will burst open the 
 door." 
 
 There was silence, outside and in. Liane 
 flung herself at the feet of the listening king. 
 
 " Open the door," she said. " It is the only 
 thing to do. Tell them you will divorce me 
 let them kill me, as they say. Perhaps they will 
 be satisfied with that." 
 
 He looked down at her with a smile of con- 
 tempt. 
 
 "You think I would do that to save my- 
 self?" 
 
 " Oh, let me go open the door open the 
 door! Tell them that you found me here with 
 Ourof 
 
 "To save my own life? You think I would 
 do that, Liane?" 
 
 She burst into tears.
 
 THE BINDWEED 263 
 
 " Let me go I am not worth dying for, Kasi- 
 mir you said so yourself just now when you 
 refused to believe me about Ourof." 
 
 He bent down and looked at her closely in the 
 dim light. 
 
 " Was I wrong then ? " he said gently. " Liane 
 they are going to kill us tell me the truth. 
 If I could die believing in you it wouldn't be 
 so hard. Answer me was I wrong just 
 now?" 
 
 For an instant she hesitated. Something told 
 her that, though he had refused to believe in her 
 innocence before, he would believe her now. 
 Then, from behind the bolted door, came a cry, 
 savage, imperative: 
 
 " Divorce the queen! Send her out to us and 
 we will give you your life!" 
 
 She covered her face with her hands and shiv- 
 ered from head to foot. It was the hardest 
 thing she had ever tried to do, but it might save 
 him. 
 
 "Was I wrong?" Kasimir said again, in a 
 tone sharp with suspense. 
 
 She took her hands from her face. 
 
 "No!" 
 
 There was a moment of silence. Then a roar 
 of thunder shook the palace to its foundations 
 and a glare of blinding lightning rilled the dark- 
 ness of the room. In that ghastly illumination 
 the king and Liane Goldenburg for a single in- 
 stant stood immovable, face to face, each looking 
 into the very soul of the other. 
 
 Neither had expected that sudden blaze of
 
 264 THE BINDWEED 
 
 light. The king, looking at Liane, understood 
 that she had lied to him to save him; and Liane, 
 with her eyes on his face, knew that her lie had 
 been told in vain. 
 
 Swiftly as it had come, the lightning vanished. 
 In the darkness that followed he caught her in 
 his arms. Words had never come easily to him 
 they did not come easily now. But he forgot 
 the end that waited for them beyond the bolted 
 door. 
 
 "Forgive me, Liane I was wrong! Thank 
 God, I was wrong!" 
 
 As he spoke there was another flash, another 
 explosion. A bomb had burst in the door. The 
 conspirators were in the room. There were 
 more than a dozen men besides Nikolaievitch 
 all were officers in the Sixth three or four of 
 them were those who had dined at the king's 
 table a few hours ago. 
 
 Nikolaievitch had a paper in his hand. The 
 others were all armed; some of them held 
 candles. It was a strange combination of the 
 terrible and the ridiculous these conspirators, 
 armed for regicide, looking for their victims 
 with a few flickering candles in the darkened 
 palace from which some servant more faithful 
 than the rest had turned off the electric light in 
 the vain hope that the darkness might hinder the 
 search for the king and queen. 
 
 Nikolaievitch thrust the paper into the king's 
 hand. 
 
 " Abdicate, or we kill you." 
 
 The first words upon which Kasimir's eyes
 
 THE BINDWEED 265 
 
 fell were full of abuse of the queen. With a 
 sudden impulse of ungovernable anger he drew 
 the revolver from his pocket and, before anyone 
 could prevent him, shot Nikolaievitch dead. 
 The minister of war fell in a limp heap at his 
 feet. 
 
 But almost before he touched the ground 
 a dozen revolver shots rang out and the king 
 fell back in Liane's arms, riddled with 
 bullets. 
 
 Twice three times came the hail of shot. 
 Liane flung herself before the king as he fell. 
 The conspirators drew their swords. She saw 
 the dull blue gleam of the steel as the last shot 
 struck her and she fell back dead upon the body 
 of the dead king. 
 
 There was a savage cry of triumph, of joy. 
 In a fury of vengeance they fell upon the man 
 who could feel their strokes no longer and the 
 woman for whose sake he had died. 
 
 In the darkness of that room hell was let loose ; 
 and outside, in the pouring rain, Vladimir 
 Ourof, in the uniform of an officer of the Sixth, 
 kept back the people who surged up and down 
 the Boulevard Valitzine, disturbed by the ex- 
 plosion in the palace and suspecting that some- 
 thing was happening. 
 
 And among the crowd, slowly but surely, a 
 cry grew, though no one could have told from 
 whose lips it had first come. 
 
 "Death to the Goldenburg to Kasimir! 
 Long live Zanovitch long live Stepan Zano- 
 vitchl Long live King Stepan!"
 
 266 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Vladimir Ourof heard the cry and smiled to 
 himself with white lips. 
 
 Already the restoration had begun already 
 upon the mild amateur flutist, sleeping peace- 
 fully, far away in Paris, had fallen the shadow 
 of the crown for which he longed.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE tragedy was over; farce, of a some- 
 what dismal kind, followed close upon 
 its heels. 
 
 Zanovitch arrived from Paris, elected to the 
 throne by the unanimous vote of a parliament 
 which hailed the late minister of war as the 
 savior of his country and accorded the thanks 
 of the nation to the gallant patriots who had 
 butchered their king and queen. The hoary 
 hypocrite who had crowned the dead sovereigns 
 announced to a somewhat skeptical world that 
 it was by the will of heaven that Kasimir and 
 Liane had died. Khristovitz was illuminated 
 to celebrate the murder of its king. 
 
 The king and queen had not fallen alone. A 
 long list of victims paid for their supposed loy- 
 alty on that fatal night. Gliska's resignation 
 did not save him; Kranitz, the minister for for- 
 eign affairs, was shot in the presence of his wife 
 and children. Such of the Palace Guards as 
 had resisted the entrance of the murderers had 
 all been killed. Rarely in the whole course of 
 history has a plot been more carefully planned, 
 more completely carried out. The master mind 
 of Roumanine had known how to secure success 
 to the men who, for all their imaginary freedom 
 267
 
 268 THE BINDWEED 
 
 of will, had in reality been no more than puppets 
 in his hands. 
 
 The arrival of Zanovitch, the elected king, 
 came as a kind of anti-climax to the tragedy of 
 Khristovitz. The spectacle of the mild mu- 
 sician, with his timidly pompous air, driving 
 through the streets of his capital on a pouring 
 wet day, under draggled flags and triumphal 
 arches that dripped all the colors of the rainbow 
 upon a not very large or enthusiastic crowd, 
 receiving addresses to which he did not know 
 how to reply and bouquets the possession of 
 which plainly filled him with embarrassment 
 was one which, to tell the truth, was less impres- 
 sive than comic. His very reception at the 
 railway station was shorn of due ceremony by the 
 conspicuous absence of most of the representa- 
 tives of the powers, they having received tele- 
 graphic instructions during the night to leave 
 the function severely alone. Russia and Austria 
 alone were represented. Roumanine had re- 
 turned in haste from Petersburg in order to be 
 present, and it was remarked that King Stepan's 
 warmest greeting was for him. Roumanine 
 himself would probably have wished Zano- 
 vitch's effusion less apparent to the public eye. 
 
 It was very likely on his advice that, by a 
 master-stroke of cunning which rather over- 
 reached itself in the end, Russia was the first to 
 congratulate the new king, in a telegram from 
 the czar which carefully omitted any mention of 
 the crime by which Stepan I had been enabled 
 to return to the land of his ancestors. The tele-
 
 THE BINDWEED 269 
 
 gram established Zanovitch's recognition as king 
 of Salitza, even though it aroused rather uncom- 
 plimentary comment in some quarters. But 
 that both Roumanine and his imperial master 
 could perhaps afford to disregard. The game 
 was played they had placed their pawn on the 
 throne. 
 
 By another master-stroke the great and under- 
 handed empire, or her representative, demanded 
 the punishment of the assassins who had served 
 her purpose so well. But the point was allowed 
 to drop, and it is a singular fact that almost im- 
 mediately afterwards every one of the regicides 
 was promoted. Zanovitch issued rather feeble 
 addresses to his " dear army," which had "cov- 
 ered itself with glory" presumably by its de- 
 cided, if sanguinary, method of placing him on 
 the throne. No one, at any rate, could at the 
 moment remember any particularly glorious 
 acts of the Salitzan army to which its affection- 
 ate king could have referred. Murder, in 
 Salitza, has frequently been confounded with 
 glory by a curious obliquity of mental vision 
 peculiar to that part of the world. 
 
 Perhaps the only redeeming touch of poetic 
 justice was Zanovitch's palpable discomfort 
 his ineptitude to play the role which he had 
 chosen, his inability to manage the wild subjects 
 who called him master but of whom he was 
 almost pathetically afraid. He was uneasy as 
 only a man can be who suddenly finds himself 
 in a position for which he is totally unfitted. 
 Zanovitch, after his long sojourn in Paris, was
 
 270 THE BINDWEED 
 
 far too deeply steeped in civilization to accom- 
 modate himself to the ways of a half savage 
 state. He began to fear the people whom he 
 soon felt himself incapable of ruling. Like a 
 timid rider on a restive horse, he made the mis- 
 take of giving in too esaily at first. Later on, 
 he would inevitably make the equally fatal mis- 
 take of refusing to give in at all. 
 
 But the most singular circumstance to be 
 observed was the utter callousness of the nations 
 before a crime which should have thrilled every 
 civilized country with horror. Perhaps this 
 callousness originated in the illuminated streets 
 of Khristovitz where excited crowds celebrated 
 with rejoicing the murder of their king. Poor 
 Kasimir had never known how to command pop- 
 ularity. The tragedy of his death touched his 
 subjects no more than the tragedy of his life had 
 done. 
 
 Many who had kept away from the palace 
 during the reign of Liane Goldenburg flocked to 
 the court of Stepan I. The first royal recep- 
 tion under the new regime was a brilliant affair. 
 Even Zanovitch's air of uneasiness could not rob 
 the affair of its splendor. The officers of the 
 Sixth were conspicuous everywhere; the his- 
 toric silver tassels of the " deliverers of Salitza" 
 caught the eye on every side. Even Dmitri 
 Ivanovitch, who had nearly caused the whole 
 enterprise to fail, was swaggering about with the 
 bearing of a full-blown patriotic hero in all the 
 glory of his recent promotion. Vladimir Ourof 
 met him with Natalia Morisof on his arm. The
 
 THE BINDWEED 271 
 
 attache would have passed without speaking, but 
 Natalia Morisof stopped her cavalier at once. 
 
 "So you are here, Captain Ourof? I didn't 
 know but I am so glad you were sensible 
 enough to come. Zanovitch does things well, 
 doesn't he? He seems quite a civilized person 
 and musical, too. So nice to have an artistic 
 king don't you think so? Poor Kasimir was 
 really such a bear nothing but the Goldenburg 
 always the Goldenburg! It makes a court 
 very dull when the king won't look at anyone 
 but his wife. What are you being rude enough 
 to laugh at, Captain Ivanovitch? Have I said 
 something shocking? Well, it does make it 
 dull, you know for other people. Dear, dear, 
 I do wish you wouldn't laugh like that I was 
 quite serious, I assure you." 
 
 "That's what made your remark so funny, 
 madame," Dmitri Ivanovitch chuckled. 
 
 " Oh, of course, I'm not saying it wasn't very 
 nice and right and all that but it was certainly 
 very dull. So absurd, to ruin himself for a 
 woman like that! She was beautiful, no doubt, 
 but there were other people in Khristovitz 
 only he never seemed to see them. Isn't it sad 
 about poor dear little Anna, Captain Ourof? 
 What haven't you heard? She fell down on 
 some glass a most extraordinary accident, it 
 seems to me, but I suppose she knows how it hap- 
 pened herself, though she can't explain it at all 
 well. Oh, she is most dreadfully cut her poor 
 face is all bandaged up and she cries and says 
 she will never be fit to be seen again. I dare
 
 272 THE BINDWEED 
 
 say she will, you know what with these new 
 enamels and things, one can hide almost any- 
 thing now and her complexion was well 
 wasn't it, now? Captain Ivanovitch, I can't 
 think what is the matter with you tonight 
 you're laughing at me again! Of course, I'm 
 most dreadfully sorry for poor Anna but when 
 a woman gets to her age I don't really think it 
 is quite necessary to make such a fuss about her 
 looks being damaged a little, do you? But she 
 was always rather vain, poor dear! And Rou- 
 manine is such an insensible, stony person. 
 When you ask after Anna, he looks at you with 
 the most extraordinary expression in those light 
 eyes of his I really believe that he's pleased 
 that poor Anna is hurt. I've been trying to get 
 Captain Ivanovitch to tell me about what hap- 
 pened at the palace the other night. He says he 
 wasn't there, but I don't believe it. It must be 
 so amusing to be mixed up in a real conspiracy. 
 That horrid little upstart Mikhail Markovitch 
 was wiped out too, wasn't he? They shot him 
 in the barrack square they made him put on 
 his uniform first and then they tore off his 
 epaulettes and broke his sword and shot him. It 
 seems rather a pity, but I suppose you can't 
 wonder at it everyone hated that woman so. 
 For my part, I rather admired her like anyone 
 who gets what he wants and sticks to it to the 
 end. I married Fedor because he asked me 
 every day for six months, until I was sick and 
 tired of being worried but I tell him no one 
 would imagine him capable of doing that now,
 
 THE BINDWEED 273 
 
 by the way he goes on ah, you never know what 
 kind of a brute a man is until after you have 
 married him, and then of course it's too late for 
 your knowledge to be any good to you." 
 
 She stopped, fairly out of breath. 
 
 " I've a bone to pick with you presently, 
 Ourof," Dmitri Ivanovitch remarked to the at- 
 tache. "You played me a pretty mean trick 
 the other night, you know. If it hadn't been 
 for you, I should have been at the palace I 
 don't know what business it was of yours to inter- 
 fere." 
 
 " If you're going to quarrel, I shall run away," 
 Natalia Morisof said gaily. " I always run 
 away when people quarrel. There's Rouma- 
 nine I'll go and ask him how Anna is and try 
 to get him to explain how she fell on that glass." 
 
 She went off to question the ambassador, and 
 Dmitri Ivanovitch and Vladimir were left 
 alone. 
 
 " You needn't tell me it was Eva," Ivanovitch 
 said, working himself gradually into a passion. 
 " I know who put her up to that game. It was 
 you you wanted to get into the palace. You 
 did get in too. I suppose you had an appoint- 
 ment with the Golden " 
 
 But the name was never finished. Without 
 an instant's hesitation Vladimir struck him 
 across the mouth and stopped it. 
 
 "That is a lie, and you know it," he said 
 quietly. 
 
 Dmitri Ivanovitch went scarlet with passion. 
 
 "You know what you have done?" he blus-
 
 274 THE BINDWEED 
 
 tered. " You have struck an officer of the Sixth, 
 you infernal Russian spy!" 
 
 " I shall be charmed to give you satisfaction," 
 Vladimir said. " I want a little excitement as 
 much as you seem to do. You can send your 
 seconds to me tonight Alexander Gliska will 
 act for me. Good evening, Captain Ivanovitch." 
 
 He turned and went out of the palace. It was 
 a relief to leave the walls which were stained 
 with the blood of the woman he had helped to 
 murder. It had been a relief to strike Dmitri 
 Ivanovitch. It would perhaps be a relief to 
 shoot him in an hour or two, as he meant to do. 
 
 It was already dawn when he left the palace. 
 He went to his rooms and wrote a note to Alex- 
 ander Gliska. Then he went to Eva Carillon's 
 flat. 
 
 He found it in confusion. Boxes stood in the 
 passages Eva herself, in a rather dirty dressing- 
 gown, was piling a large quantity of oddly as- 
 sorted articles into a huge trunk. She sprang 
 up when she saw him. 
 
 "Ah, you have come? That is well, for I 
 was going to send for you. Come in here 
 I have something to say." 
 
 She whisked into a bedroom littered from end 
 to end with dresses and hats and music. She 
 shut the door and turned upon him with a face 
 that had suddenly grown unfamiliar to him. 
 
 " I thought you would come I wanted you to 
 come," she said, panting a little as she spoke. 
 " But now that you are here, I don't know what 
 to say. It was different with Dmitri he is
 
 THE BINDWEED 275 
 
 only a fool and I always detested him but you 
 you!" 
 
 She stopped, choking. Vladimir drew back 
 a little. Eva, in her shabby dressing-gown, had 
 taken on the aspect of an avenging angel. 
 
 " You dared to come ! " she said. " That was 
 what I wished that I might tell you what I 
 think of you. But it isn't easy to do that. You 
 were outside the palace when they were mur- 
 dering her you never lifted a finger to save her 
 you opened the doors to them Oh, I know 
 I know! I understand more than you think I 
 know the game you have been playing you 
 and that cold-blooded devil Roumanine and 
 your hypocritical government that talks of peace 
 one moment and plans murder the next! It is 
 all your doing do you think you deceive any- 
 one? And you come here to me, with Liane 
 Goldenburg's blood on your hands you assas- 
 sin you contemptible spy!" 
 
 She turned from him and went to the jewel- 
 case which lay open on the table, took something 
 out and threw it on the ground at his feet. It 
 was Anna Roumanine's diamond collar. 
 
 " There are your diamonds," she said. " Take 
 them give them to someone who will wear 
 your jewels I won't. I am going back to 
 Paris I won't sing to murderers who illumi- 
 nate their streets to celebrate the death of their 
 king and queen." 
 
 Vladimir looked for a moment at her angry 
 face. Then he turned and went quietly out of 
 the room and out of the house.
 
 276 THE BINDWEED 
 
 Eva caught up an armful of things and went 
 back to her packing. 
 
 "Thank heaven, tonight I shall be in Paris!" 
 she remarked fervently. 
 
 It was perhaps an hour later, while she was 
 sitting on the top of a mountainous trunk in the 
 vain hope of inducing the lock to close under her 
 weight, that a maid came rushing up the stairs. 
 
 " Oh, madame, there has been a duel between 
 Captain Ourof and Captain Ivanovitch, and one 
 of them is killed!" 
 
 Eva slipped off the top of the trunk and stood 
 up, very stiff and straight. 
 
 "Is it Ivanovitch?" she asked rather famtly. 
 
 But Ivanovitch's was not the name she ex- 
 pected to hear nor did she hear it. 
 
 "No, madame it is Captain Ourof." 
 
 The Bindweed had claimed her last victim. 
 
 Eva listened to the maid's rather incoherent 
 story with a stony face. Ourof had not fired 
 his pistol was still loaded in every chamber 
 when they picked him up. Dmitri Ivanovitch, 
 by no means a good shot, had sent his bullet clean 
 through his heart. 
 
 " He did not mean to fire," Eva said to her- 
 self. 
 
 She went back to the bedroom where she had 
 parted with Vladimir an hour ago, and looked 
 upon its confusion with hard eyes. 
 
 " I am glad I did it," she said once or twice. 
 " I would do it again." 
 
 Her foot touched something, and she bent
 
 THE BINDWEED 277 
 
 down and picked up the diamond collar. She 
 looked at it for a moment. Then she went to the 
 glass and fastened it round her throat. 
 
 " He never meant to fire it was his way of 
 being sorry," she said. 
 
 The collar touched her bare throat with sud- 
 den cold. She looked at herself in the glass. 
 
 " I told him I wouldn't wear them," she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 She flung herself upon the bed in a passion of 
 tears. Presently, half ashamed, she sat up and 
 wiped her eyes furtively with a corner of the 
 sheet. Her hand went again to the diamond 
 collar and she shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " I may as well have it," she said. " These 
 things often come in useful." 
 
 THE END
 
 The Real New York 
 
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