Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/185

 insists on forcing his wishes through to the very utmost? That enforced labour measure?"

"So far as I know," moodily replied the king. "And aren't you afraid that——" she paused and looked at Provarsk, who declined to depart without direct orders.

"Afraid of what?" the king asked in a tone of irritation.

"Afraid there will be trouble," calmly interjected Provarsk. "That is what the Princess Eloise means. Afraid the people won't submit. And why should they? I wouldn't if I were one of them. You can give odds on that."

The secretary created a diversion by discreetly bowing himself backward to the office door and then through it, with the staid fervour of an automaton. The princess looked at her brother a polite request to order Provarsk from the room; but the king, through obstinacy, refused to heed it.

"You were about to say, Eloise?" he asked politely, as if the baron had not been present, and therefore had not impertinently added his voice to the conversation.

She had no time to answer; for at that moment there came from the distance a loud roar of many voices, and immediately after the sound of firearms in ragged volley. The effect on the king was as if some one had propelled him with a swift kick out to the balcony, where he gazed anxiously [181]