ed; to accept everything for that purpose, even the shame
which in the eyes of the world will end by sullying me. I had adopted a
watchword that sustained me, and encouraged me in my hours of trial:
'All for the crown!' And now you want to sell it--that crown that has
cost me such anguish and such tears; you want to barter it for gold, for
the lifeless mask of that Jewess, whom you had the indecency to bring
face to face with me to-day."

Crushed, bending low his head, he had hitherto listened without a word,
but the insult directed against the woman he loved roused him. Looking
fixedly at the queen, his face bearing the traces of her cutting words,
he said politely, but very firmly:--

"Well, no, you are mistaken. The woman you mention has had nothing to do
with the determination I have taken. What I am doing is done for you,
for me, for our common happiness. Tell me, are you not weary of this
life of privations and expedients? Do you think that I am ignorant of
what is going on here; that I do not suffer when I see you harassed by a
pack of tradespeople and duns? The other day when that man was shouting
in the yard I was coming in and heard him. Had it not been for Rosen I
would have crushed him under the wheels of my phaeton. And you--you were
watching his departure behind the curtains of your window. A nice
position for a Queen. We owe money to every one. There is a universal
outcry against us. Half the servants are unpaid. The tutor even has
received nothing for the last ten months. Madame de Silvis pays herself
by majestically wearing your old dresses. And there are days when my
councilor, the keeper of the royal seals, borrows from my valet the
wherewithal to buy snuff. You see I am well acquainted with the state of
things. And you do not know my debts yet. I am over head and ears in
debt. Everything is giving way around us. A pretty state of things,
indeed; you will see that diadem of yours sold one day at the corner of
a street with old knives and forks."

Little by little, gradually carried away by his own scoffing nature and
the jesting habits of his set, he dropped the moderate tone he commenced
with, and in his insolent little snuffling voice began to dwell upon the
ludicrous side of the situation, with jeers and mockery, borrowed no
doubt from Sephora, who never lost an opportunity of demolishing by her
sneering observations the few remaining scruples of her lover.

"You will accuse me of making phrases