She held out her hand, and taking it reverently in his own, the Andalusian bowed low over it.  He did not kneel, for now he was the Ambassador in the presence of his Sovereign.  “With all the Saints for my witnesses,” he declared fervently, “I swear it to Your Majesty.”

There was gratitude in her eyes as they met the whole-heartedness of the pledge in his.  For a moment she seemed unable to speak, though there was no dimness of tear-mist in her pupils.  She stood very upright and silent, and her breathing was deep.  Then slowly her hands came up and loosened the flower at her breast.

“The King has decorated you, Sir Manuel,” she said.  “I don’t think Mr. Benton would care for knighthood—­and I could not confer it—­but sometime—­not now—­some day after you have both departed from Galavia, give him this.  Tell him it may have a message which I may not put in words.  If he can read the heart of a rose deeply enough, perhaps he can find it there.”

When Blanco had carefully folded the emblem of his embassy in paper and deposited it in his breast pocket, she gave him her hand again, and, turning, went out through the same door that she had entered.

Back in the town, Blanco had certain investigations to make.  He knew Von Ritz’s men had been too late to capture the Duke, and that the Countess Astaride had sailed by the steamer leaving for French and Italian ports.  Wherever these two conspirators should meet would become the next point to watch.

Blanco felt sure that Louis would be willing to drop back into the routine of his life in Paris, freshly stocked with pessimistic memories of how a crown had slipped through his fingers.  It would take driving to prevent him lagging into the inertia of sentimental brooding.  On the other hand, he knew that the Countess Astaride, having gone so far, would never again relinquish her ambitions.  He knew the temper of the Countess’s mind from various bits of gossip he had heard and now also from what he had seen.  He knew that, while she was entirely willing to participate in a murder plot to further her designs, she was not fired solely by a lust for power.  More deeply she was actuated by her wish to make Louis Delgado a man of potentiality because she loved Louis Delgado.

That love might evidence itself in savagery toward men who obstructed the road which her lover must travel to a crown, but it was a ferocity born of love for the Pretender.

Since this was true it was not probable that she would allow the matter to end where it stood.  Even if she were willing, it was more than certain that Jusseret had not entered into the undertaking without some sufficient end in view.  Having entered it, he would not relinquish it because the first attempt had been bungled.