ut as he
came down the steps to the marshal's landau. The glacial Secretaries of
Ceremony flanked him on either side, and the statuesque Palatine Guards
saluted. She could not be mistaken, the corners of his mouth were
twitching. It was such an inimitable commentary on the Ritual that she
had much to do not to dart out and laugh with him in gleeful mischief.

Then, she noted his uniform. After the ornate regimentals of all Europe,
what a relief was the simple gray! There was the long coat, the belt,
the dragoon sabre, the unobtrusive insignia on the collar, and she
murmured her verdict advisedly. It was beautiful! Next she noted the
man--as though she had not in the first place. His easy frame still had
that charm of gaucherie, and the rollicking daredeviltry lurked
quiescent in the brown eyes, but enough to recall the rider of fury, her
chevalier de Missour-_i_, plunging through a wall and cloud of dust
on a big-boned yellow charger. And though now he was in this beautiful
simplicity of gray, she looked in vain for some hint of martial stride
or pompous chest.

She wondered for a moment why he had worn the uniform. It signified
nothing, since the Confederacy had fallen. Then she understood.
_He_ had not surrendered. Nor had those he represented. The gray,
for him, still had its reason, and was a power yet; the power to decide
an empire's fate. It was the grave dignity of a lost cause; striving,
before being doffed forever, to leave behind a new cause. Or, if
failing, to accept the lot of surrender. In either case, her chevalier
de Missour-_i_ was wearing the dear uniform for the last time. With
her keenness for intuition and sympathy, Jacqueline _knew_. She
knew what it must mean. And he looked so strong, so splendid! Her eyes
unexpectedly dimmed in tenderness for him.

Driscoll, being now a free man, established himself at a hotel near the
diligencia office in the busy Plateros street. He drilled through the
following day with tedious waiting for the day after, when he was to
have the promised reply. Used to men who knew their own minds, he hoped
for strength in this emperor fellow. Then, his mission successful, he
would be in the saddle by the next night, perhaps by noon, and hastening
toward the border with tidings of homes and more fighting for his
comrades of the Old Brigade. But the next morning, even as he was
mounting Demijohn to go to Chapultepec, a thin man in riding breeches
entered the hotel patio and ac