“Said she to him, your long-shanks I adore.
Said he to her, your long-nose I deplore.”
Screaming with laughter he plunged forward to resume the dance, trod upon one of his trailing, exaggerated sleeves, tripped himself, and went sprawling on the tessellated floor, his laughter louder and more idiotic than ever. A dozen ran to lift him.
The Princess tapped Bellarion sharply on the arm with her fan of ostrich-plumes. Her face was like graven stone.
“Come,” she commanded, and passed out ahead of him.
On the terrace she signed to her ladies to fall behind whilst with her companion she moved beyond earshot along the marble balustrade, whose moonlit pallor was here and there splashed by the black tide of trailing plants.
“Now, sir,” she invited in a voice of ice, “will you explain this new identity and your presence here?”
He answered in calm, level tones: “My presence explains itself when I tell you that my identity is accepted by his highness the Regent. The son of Facino Cane is not to be denied the hospitality of the Court of Montferrat.”
“Then why did you lie to me when …”
“No, no. This is the lie. This false identity was as necessary to gain admission here as was the painter’s smock I wore yesterday: another lie.”
“You ask me to believe that you …” Indignation choked her. “My senses tell me what you are; an agent sent to work my ruin.”
“Your senses tell you either more or less, or else you would not now be here.”
And then it was as if the bonds of her self-control were suddenly snapped by the strain they sought to bear. “Oh, God!” she cried out. “I am near distraction. My brother …” She broke off on something akin to a sob.
Outwardly Bellarion remained calm. “Shall we take one thing at a time? Else we shall never be done. And I should not remain here too long with you.”
“Why not? You have the sanction of my dear uncle, who sends you.”
“Even so.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It is your uncle is my dupe, not you.”
“That is what I expected you to say.”
“You had best leave inference until you have heard me out. Inference, highness, as I have shown you once already, is not your strength.”
If she resented his words and the tone he took, she gave no expression to it. Standing rigidly against the marble balustrade, she looked away from him and down that moonlit garden with its inky shadows and tall yew hedges that were sharp black silhouettes against the faintly irradiated sky.
Briefly, swiftly, lucidly, Bellarion told her how her message had been received by the conspirators.
“You thought to checkmate them. But they perceived the move you have overlooked, whereby they checkmate you. This proves what already I have told you: that they serve none but themselves. You and your brother are but the instruments with which they go to work. There was only one way to frustrate them; one only way to serve and save you. That way I sought.”
She interrupted him there. “You sought? You sought?” Her voice held bewilderment, unbelief, and even some anger. “Why should you desire to save or serve me? If I could believe you, I must account you impertinent. You were a messenger, no more.”
“Was I no more when I disclosed to you the true aims of these men and the perils of your association with them?”
“Aye, you were more,” she said bitterly. “But what were you?”
“Your servant, madonna,” he answered simply.
“Ah, yes. I had forgotten. My servant. Sent by Providence, was it not?”
“You are bitter, lady,” said Bellarion.
“Am I?” She turned at last to look at him. But his face was no more than a faint white blur. “Perhaps I find you too sweet to be real.”
He sighed. “The rest of my tale will hardly change that opinion. Is it worth while continuing?” He spoke without any heat, a little wistfully.
“It should be entertaining if not convincing.”
“For your entertainment, then: what you could not do without destroying yourself was easily possible to me.” And he told her of his pretended petition, giving the Regent the names of those who plotted against his life.
He saw her clutch her breast, caught the gasp of dread and dismay that broke from her lips.
“You betrayed them!”
“Was it not what you announced that you would do if they did not abandon their plan of murder? I was your deputy, no more. When I presented myself as Facino Cane’s adopted son I was readily believed—because the Regent cared little whether it were true or not, since in me he perceived the very agent that he needed.”
“Ah, now at last we have something that does not strain belief.”
“Will it strain belief that the Regent was already fully informed of this conspiracy?”
“What!”
“Why else should he have trusted or believed me? Of his own knowledge he knew that what I told him was true.”
“He knew and he held his hand?” Again the question was made scornful by unbelief.
“Because he lacked evidence that you, and, through you, your brother, were parties to the plot. What to him are Barbaresco’s shabby crew? It is the Marquis Gian Giacomo who must be removed in such a manner as not to impair the Lord Regent’s credit. To gather evidence am I now sent.”
She tore an ostrich-plume from her fan in her momentary passion.
“You do not hesitate to confess how you betray each in turn; Barbaresco to the Regent; the Regent to me; and now, no doubt, me to the Regent.”
“As for the last, madonna, to betray you I need not now
