ived here half an hour
before you in a hired carriage belonging to the Golden Eagle at
Borghetto. Actually by herself, excellency. No servants. A dressing bag
and a trunk: that is all. The postillion says she left a horse--a
charger, with military trappings, at the Golden Eagle.

NAPOLEON. A woman with a charger! That's extraordinary.

THE LADY'S VOICE (the two final notes now making a peremptory
descending interval). Giuseppe!

NAPOLEON (rising to listen). That's an interesting voice.

GIUSEPPE. She is an interesting lady, excellency. (Calling.) Coming,
lady, coming. (He makes for the inner door.)

NAPOLEON (arresting him with a strong hand on his shoulder). Stop. Let
her come.

VOICE. Giuseppe!! (Impatiently.)

GIUSEPPE (pleadingly). Let me go, excellency. It is my point of honor
as an innkeeper to come when I am called. I appeal to you as a soldier.

A MAN's VOICE (outside, at the inn door, shouting). Here, someone.
Hello! Landlord. Where are you? (Somebody raps vigorously with a whip
handle on a bench in the passage.)

NAPOLEON (suddenly becoming the commanding officer again and throwing
Giuseppe off). There he is at last. (Pointing to the inner door.) Go.
Attend to your business: the lady is calling you. (He goes to the
fireplace and stands with his back to it with a determined military
air.)

GIUSEPPE (with bated breath, snatching up his tray). Certainly,
excellency. (He hurries out by the inner door.)

THE MAN's VOICE (impatiently). Are you all asleep here? (The door
opposite the fireplace is kicked rudely open; and a dusty
sub-lieutenant bursts into the room. He is a chuckle-headed young man
of 24, with the fair, delicate, clear skin of a man of rank, and a
self-assurance on that ground which the French Revolution has failed to
shake in the smallest degree. He has a thick silly lip, an eager
credulous eye, an obstinate nose, and a loud confident voice. A young
man without fear, without reverence, without imagination, without
sense, hopelessly insusceptible to the Napoleonic or any other idea,
stupendously egotistical, eminently qualified to rush in where angels
fear to tread, yet of a vigorous babbling vitality which bustles him
into the thick of things. He is just now boiling with vexation,
attributable by a superficial observer to his impatience at not being
promptly attended to by the staff of the inn, but in which a more
discerning eye can perceive a certain moral depth, indicating a more
perm