you to
something else.--Pardon, monsieur, a Frenchman does not jostle a
woman.--Thank you."

"But the jostling by a woman's tongue, mademoiselle.--Well, what is it?
Have mercy, be brief, since I am not even to breathe while my lady
talks."

"I was thinking, dear monsieur, of the feelings of an artist, to which
you are very, very blind."

"Feelings, artist? Name of a name, mademoiselle!"

"Precisely, Maximilian's feelings. You know how he abhors the sight of
blood. Ma foi, and I agree with him."

"Go it, Miss Jack-leen!" Driscoll abetted her. Never a word of their
French did he understand, but he knew that she had a power of speech.
Dupin evidently knew it better yet, for though he laughed, he did not
laugh easily.

"Never fear," he said, "His Majesty's delicate prejudices are safe. It
will be all underground before he comes, and no muss at all."

"But you forget," Jacqueline cried testily, "you forget the imagination
of a poet."

"And he will imagine----"

"Yes, because I shall tell him."

"Sacre----"

"And possibly he would brace his feelings to a second aesthetic horror as
a rebuke for the first. In a word, my colonel, there will be one more
body to follow--underground. Now is this quite clear, or--do you require
my promise on it?"

The savage old brow manifested the desire to make her a victim as well,
but in this extra blood-thirst she knew that Driscoll was safe. "I
understand, Mademoiselle la Marquise," he said, laying on heavily the
suave gallantry of a Frenchman. "Yes, I understand. Prince Max values
Your Ladyship's good taste so highly---- Pardi, I believe he would
certainly shoot me if you told him to."

"Exactly," Jacqueline coldly assented.

"And Monsieur l'Americain may congratulate himself on the influence of
mademoiselle, the arbiter elegantiarum--with His Majesty."

"As Monsieur le Tigre may congratulate himself that the American does
not understand this insult, sir."

Behind her rose a dry hysterical cackle of renewed hope. "The Little
Black Crow!" she exclaimed. "See, my colonel, he is not worth an
execution all to himself, so do we all go back to contemplate Prince
Max's loving ovation."

"The Emperor arrives!" she cried gayly, returning to the porch. With the
others she was once more behind the remote column, an end of the rebosa
hanging over her arm ready to be flung across her face. "But
what--Helas, I haven't my Ritual with me."--The Ritual classified every
movement, ever