d. "You almost frightened me."

Alec's mother put in a gentle word. "If ever either of you is tempted to
regret the loss of a throne, you ought to devote half an hour to reading
the history of Kosnovia," she said. "You are happy, and that is what you
would never have been in the Balkans. A curse rests on that unlucky
land. Never a Delgrado or Obrenovitch has reigned a decade in peace and
security. It was a red letter day for Alec when you brought him away
from Delgratz, my dear," she continued, with a fond pressure of her hand
on Joan's brown hair. "None of us knew it at the time; but there are
events in life that, like certain short and sharp diseases, leave us all
the better when they have passed, though their severity may try us
cruelly at the time."

The Indian summer day was drawing to a close, and Bosko entered to close
the windows and pull down the blinds. The sight of him moved Alec to
speak in that sonorous Serbian tongue which was already foreign to his
own ears.

"Do you like America, Bosko?" he said.

The imperturbable one almost started; for it was long since he had heard
any words in his own language.

"_Oui, monsieur_," he said.

"And would you go back to Delgratz if you had the opportunity?"

"_Non, monsieur._" For a wonder, he broke into an explanation. "I can go
out here without expecting to be fired at from some hedge or ditch
around the next corner, monsieur. You did not know those rascals as I
knew them. They nearly got you once; but they tried a dozen times, and
would have succeeded too, if Stampoff had not been too sharp for them."

"Good gracious, Bosko!" said his master. "This is news, indeed. Why was
I not told?"

"There was no need, monsieur. Each time we discovered a plot we put
every man in jail who might be suspected of the least connection with
it. Moreover, had you heard of these things you would have interfered."

"Then, in the name of goodness, why didn't my protectors find out about
the attack made by the Seventh Regiment? Surely there were enough
concerned in that to supply at least one spy?"

Bosko hesitated. He glanced surreptitiously at Alec's mother. "Things
went wrong that day, monsieur," he said. "Information that ought to have
reached the General was withheld."

And Alec left it at that; for the man who might reasonably be suspected
of offsetting Stampoff's vigilance was dead, and no good purpose could
be served by adding one more to his mother's host of bitter me