n was regarding her with a
puzzled expression. Manlike, he referred it to himself, and suddenly, he
too started. Only once before had he addressed her thus familiarly,
which was during that memorable afternoon beside the artificial lake at
Cuernavaca. Here, therefore, must lie the association that caused her
agitation. Yet, since that afternoon, she had permitted no reference to
their interview, unless to raise her brows quizzically at his continued
presence in Mexico. But now, what of the self-betrayal into which he had
just surprised her? It could not but be connected with that other time
when he had murmured her name. There was, however, no conscious vanity
in the remarkable explanation. It was remorse. He thought of Charlotte,
his wife. And this other woman, had he wronged her also? For during the
past weeks of trouble he had forgotten that he had loved her, and she
had not forgotten. In two such facts, falling together, was the wrong,
and one that a woman scarcely ever forgives, as he had had reason to
know.

"I could not help supposing, mademoiselle," he ventured diffidently,
"that what you said at Cuernavaca was inspired by--by no feeling toward
myself. I could suppose nothing else in the light of your utter
indifference since then, and--and your aversion for my very presence."

Jacqueline laughed pleasantly. "In that Your Highness deceives himself.
I did then, as I do now, feel for Your Highness enough to wish him
safely out of Mexico."

"Charity, then?"

She did not protest.

"As I thought," he said. "There was no feeling in--in----"

Jacqueline raised her eyes and met his frankly.

"When a woman feels in the sense you mean, sire," she said, "then she
does not make an empire, even the Austrian Empire, a condition. If the
man in question has no more than his horse, his pistols, even his pipe,
then the woman----" But she stopped abruptly.

"With you," he granted honestly, "it was not a matter of personal
ambition either. But if neither of these, then what--_Now_ I see!"
he cried. "A state reason! A decoy, to tempt me out of Mexico! Yes, yes,
now I see!"

"It is good to know," said Jacqueline, not ungratefully, "that Your
Majesty at least, if no other, can see a high motive in my self
abasement."

"Now what can she mean by that?" he demanded of himself. "What other, in
particular, thinks hard of her that she should care?"

Eloin was the only other man who could have seen them, there at
Cuernavaca. N