t endure, he was believed even then to be
negotiating with the rich former dictator. In his scowl Jacqueline
discovered what she sought. He wanted, in brief, to negotiate with
Napoleon also, and he wanted to negotiate through her. Napoleon could
bid higher than Santa Anna. She saw, moreover, what was worrying the
traitor. If Napoleon did not mean to bid, why then was she staying in
Mexico?

Marquez glanced fretfully at Ney and Berthe. If he might be honored in
the privilege of calling to pay his respects?----

But Jacqueline regretted that she was to be too much occupied in
preparations for her own early departure. And that very evening she sent
a note to Maximilian, frankly warning him against the Leopard. But she
warned His Majesty farther, that if he did not heed, that when it should
be too late to save him in any case, and Marquez still had something to
sell, that then she would advise her own emperor, should her own emperor
wish to buy. Hoping, though, for the best, she sent by Ney a message to
Bazaine at the head of the column, suggesting that he delay embarkation
as long as possible. She had in mind Maximilian awakened to the
faithlessness of his chief support and wishing to overtake the French
troops.

For which it appears that Jacqueline still wielded a free lance,
belonging to her own country alone and owning no master other than her
own conscience.

As Bazaine at the army's head rode through the Zocalo, he looked up to
find the palatial shutters closed. The Mexican Empire was sulking like a
spiteful child. The marshal wearily shrugged his shoulders, and thought
on the ingratitude of princes. But the silence of the Palace was only a
pose, mean and despicable. Maximilian himself was peeping through the
shutters down upon the gallant, moving sea of color. It was a stream of
gleaming bayonets, of champing horses, of lumbering artillery. His eyes
would single out and cling to this or that figure till it was lost in
the street beyond, and then he would try to realize that it was lost to
him forever. For the street beyond lay toward the coast, where many
ships awaited. The archducal petulance gave way to vague melancholy.

Finally he looked upon the last swinging foot, then at the dust
settling. Below, in the Zocalo, what had been a fringe of mourning
around the troops, became a scurrying of human creatures. They were his
subjects. Not a French uniform remained, but the prince sighed heavily
as he turned from