of empire can dance, so long as Napoleon holds the
strings. Was the princely homage a make-believe, too?"

"But--but, if I should convince you, mademoiselle, that the majesty
which only asks to kneel is genuine?"

Her eyelids narrowed, and she looked at him with the oddest smile.

"You know--sire--that I only ask to be convinced. Where will Your
Imperial Highness begin?"

"Know then that the American peasant named Lincoln, who would not
recognize a Hapsburg, is dead. He has been assassinated. He will no
longer encourage our rebels in Mexico."

"That poor gentleman whom you call a peasant," she returned with galling
frankness, "was greater than any Hapsburg. He was fifty million people,
and one million are still under arms. Your rebels know it. They still
cry, 'Viva la Intervencion del Norte!' But go on, _sire_."

He chafed under her mockery in the title. But sitting there, goading an
imaginary shark, she was no less inciting than when he had ventured his
caress.

"They are of no consequence," he burst forth, "neither the Americans,
nor the dissidents. Your own countrymen, mademoiselle, will, and must,
assure my empire."

"H'm'n," she ejaculated, with a quick shrug. "Even the marshal, greatly
against his will, has had to inform Your Majesty that we will shortly
withdraw."

"Then I shall depend on my subjects alone!"

She contented herself with repeating, "Viva la Intervencion del Norte!"
That too, was ample comment as to the loyalty of his subjects. The
Emperor paused in his walk. "Alas," he sighed wearily, "a Hapsburg
sacrifices himself to regenerate a people, and--they do not appreciate
it."

Jacqueline bent her head to hide a smile. She dreamily made rings in the
water, and seemed to fall into his mood of poetic melancholy. "A
comedietta of an empire," she mused sympathetically, "a harlequinade,
nothing more. Grands dieux, I do not wonder that Your Highness finds it
unworthy!"

There is no such incense to a man as when he imagines himself understood
by a pretty woman.

Yet the temptress now found herself the harder to master. It was the
thought of what she must yet do. But she gave her head an impatient
toss, and the tears that had come were gone. The lines of her mouth
tightened, and the dangerous glint shone in her eyes. "So," she added,
almost in a whisper, "you did not mean it, sire, when you offered only a
play-empire--to me."

She knew that he started violently, and was looking down at her. Bu