s leaving for Paris the following
morning, he explained, and wished a brief conference.

Jusseret could, when occasion demanded, be not only calm and
self-sufficient, but also emotional. Now he was emotional.

"Rarely, indeed," he began, "do I permit personal indignation to excite
me. But this is so unspeakable that I wished to talk to you. You enjoy
the confidence of the Countess Astaride?"

"Only in a humble way," confessed young Lapas.

"But you are her friend? If she were wronged and had no other defender,
you would assume her cause?"

"With my life," protested the officer, fervently.

"This matter," said Jusseret dubiously, "might cost you your life.
Possibly I should not tell you. As a politician I can have nothing to do
with it, but as a man, I wish I were myself free to act."

"Who has offended the Countess?" demanded Lapas hotly.

"Offended, my young friend! This is not an offense. It is the gravest
indignity that can be shown a woman. It is an insult to which a man must
either blind himself--or punish with such means as can ignore personal
peril."

"For God's sake," insisted the other, "explain yourself."

"Louis Delgado," began Jusseret quietly, "accepted this woman's love:
enjoyed it to the full. He sat and dreamed over his absinthe futile
dreams of power. He was too weak to strike a blow--too weak to raise a
hand. Then she took up his cause; intrigued, enlisted our interests,
raised his supine and powerless ambitions to a throne. There he abandons
her at the foot of the stairs by which he mounted; and refuses her his
Crown. He talks now of a more Royal alliance." Jusseret spread his hands
in a gesture of disgust.

Lapas rose tensely from his chair. The veins on his temples stood out
corded and deep-lined.

"This cannot be true, sir," he argued. "There must be some error. You
wrong the King."

"Am I the man to wrong Louis?" questioned the Frenchman. "You have only
to wait and see for yourself. The matter rests with you. She and I have
put Louis on the throne. So much I did as the servant of my government.
What I say to you I say as a man, and I had rather behold all my work
undone than to stand by and see it bear such fruit. Adieu."

He rose slowly and took his departure. Outside, he smiled.

"I fancy," he told himself, "he will go to the Countess. I fancy she
will corroborate me--and then--!" He dismissed the matter with his
habitual shrug.

* * * * *

Tw