Thus quickly, then, could the world take up its affairs again after his
elimination!

"Mademoiselle," he cried suddenly, generously, "you are--superb! Dear
little Frenchwoman, you are, you are!"

"Poof!" said Jacqueline. "But don't you see, sire," she hurried on
eagerly, "that we will have to fight the Americans? Yes, yes, then they
can no longer say they _drove_ us out."

"Indeed they cannot. And I, among the first, and the most heartily, do
wish you a warlike answer from that firebrand of a Napoleon. But tell
me, why do you come to Queretaro? How did you come?"

"How? Easily. All the guerrilla bands--except one, which I escaped--are
concentrated either here or with Diaz."

"And Marquez let you come, you who are so important to him now?"

"As though he could help it, parbleu! My message to Napoleon was in my
own cipher, and after he had sent it by a scout to Vera Cruz, I informed
him that in it I had directed Napoleon to send his answer to me at
Queretaro. Otherwise Marquez would have kept me in prison rather than
let me go. But as it was, he assisted me through the Republican lines by
a secret way he has arranged for his own escape, if need be. So----"

"But why did you wish to come at all?"

"Ma foi, as if I knew! A matter of conscience, I suppose."

"Matters of conscience are usually riddles."

"Like this one? Bien, I am still trying to get Your Highness to leave
the country. But this time, sire, it is to save you."

"To save me?"

"Of course, on account of France."

"Oh, on account of France?"

"Why else? If--if anything happens to Maximilian, France will be blamed.
Oh why, why did you not escape this morning, while the road was open?"

For the first time during the interview the fire of high resolve leaped
into the prince's eyes. "But could I, in honor?" he demanded sternly.
"Think of the townspeople, abandoned to the Liberal fury. Their Emperor,
mademoiselle, means to face the end with them, here, in Queretaro."

The dignity of his catastrophe was already beginning to appeal to him,
to exalt him, even as the vision of a Hapsburg winning his empire had so
often done before.

"But," protested the girl, "if they capture Your Highness, if they--if
they hold you for trial?"

She stopped, for Maximilian was laughing, and laughing heartily. The
idea of hands laid on him, an Archduke of Austria--ha, he was grateful
to her. Its very absurdity had given him the first relaxation of a laugh
in months.