having what Olga Loschek could never again possess, youth.

And now he would marry her, and Olga Loschek, his tool and spy, was in
danger of her life.

That day, toward evening, the huge man presented himself. He brought no
letter, but an oral message. "Permission is given, madame," he said. "I
myself shall accompany you."

CHAPTER XXIII. NIKKY MAKES A PROMISE

The Chancellor lived alone, in his little house near the Palace, a
house that looked strangely like him, overhanging eyebrows and all, with
windows that were like his eyes, clear and concealing many secrets. A
grim, gray little old house, which concealed behind it a walled garden
full of unexpected charm. And that, too, was like the Chancellor.

In his study on the ground floor, overlooking the garden, the Chancellor
spent his leisure hours. Here, on the broad, desk-like arm of his chair,
where so many state documents had lain for signature, most of his meals
were served. Here, free from the ghosts that haunted the upper rooms, he
dreamed his dream of a greater kingdom.

Mathilde kept his house for him, mended and pressed his uniforms, washed
and starched his linen, quarreled with the orderly who attended him, and
drove him to bed at night.

"It is midnight," she would say firmly--or one o'clock, or even later,
for the Chancellor was old, and needed little sleep. "Give me the book."
Because, if she did not take it, he would carry it off to bed, and
reading in bed is bad for the eyes.

"Just a moment, Mathilde," he would say, and finish a paragraph.
Sometimes he went on reading, and forgot about her, to look up, a
half-hour later, perhaps, and find her still standing there, immobile,
firm.

Then he would sigh, and close the book.

At his elbow every evening Mathilde placed a glass of milk. If he had
forgotten it, now he sipped it slowly, and the two talked--of homely
things, mostly, the garden, or moths in the closed rooms which had lost,
one by one, their beloved occupants, or of a loose tile on the roof. But
now and then their conversation was more serious.

Mathilde, haunting the market with its gayly striped booths, its rabbits
hung in pairs by the ears, its strings of dried vegetables, its lace
bazaars Mathilde was in touch with the people. It was Mathilde, and not
one of his agents, who had brought word of the approaching revolt of the
coppersmiths' guild, and enabled him to check it almost before it began.
A stoic, this Mathilde, with h