, I shall never see you again, sir. Alas, it's the more
pity. Such as you are rare, even in--in my world."

Driscoll watched her blankly as she left him, her head poised high, her
step as slow as dignity itself. His own face was cruelly drawn, with the
first sickened ghastliness still on him. He stumbled to a bench, and sat
down. But there was nothing to think about, nothing he could think
about, just then. Yet his brain was full to throbbing, and he had no
consciousness of where he was, nor of the passage of time.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT HESITATE

"The soul of man is infinite in what it covets."--_Ben Jonson._

Stealthily Eloin drew aside the bushes, and peered through. The tiny
pond with its crystal surface sunk deep in foliage, its flowering island
in the centre, looked not unlike a mirror on a dining table luxuriantly
wreathed by garlands. The Belgian stared greedily. He did not see quite
what Driscoll had seen, yet he saw enough to draw his brow to a
narrowing fold of keenest interest. Jacqueline was seated on the raised
edge of the basin, pensively dipping a hand into the water. Her plump
wrist showed rosy, like coral, and glancing sideways now and again at a
poor agitated prince striding up and down, she looked as she did that
day in the small boat, while tempting a shark. As she leaned over, the
line of her waist and neck was stately and beautiful; and there were the
maddening baby tendrils of soft, glowing copper. Maximilian had
evidently found her there, in a reverie perhaps, and was at sight of her
lured to some act bold and desirous; for just as evidently, if his
flushed face and the way he bit his lip were tokens, he had that moment
been repelled. Eloin watched them avidly, the tall archduke pacing up
and down, the demure lady seated on the basin's edge.

"It was but the lowly homage of a prince," Maximilian cried out
peevishly. Such was his apology.

"Homage of a play-king," she corrected him with exasperating sweetness.

He turned on her angrily. "Why do you say that--a play-king?"

"Whose embassies," she proceeded calmly, "cringe for recognition. Like
beggars they prowl about that White House at Washington, yet never cross
the threshold."

Maximilian was too amazed for denial. "How do you know?" he exclaimed.

"While at the same time," she went on, "the same neighbor receives the
minister of the Mexican republic, and sends one in turn. But no matter.
The marionettes