ay so, Baroness," replied the Chancellor. "I
didn't see the young lady's face at all clearly yesterday; I was
stationed too far away; and dress makes a great difference. As for
what she did," went on the old man, whose coldness to women and
merciless justice to both sexes alike had earned him the nickname of
"Iron Heart," "as for what she did, if it had not been she who
intervened between the Emperor and death, it would have been the fate
of another to do so. It was a fortunate thing for the girl, we may
say, that it happened to be her arm which struck up the weapon."

"Or she wouldn't be here to-night, you mean," laughed the Baroness.
"Don't you think, then, that his Majesty is right to single her out
for so much honor?" Her eyes were on the dancers; yet that mysterious
skill which most women of the world have learned, taught her how not
to miss the slightest change of expression, if there were any, on the
Chancellor's square, lined face.

"His Majesty is always right," he replied diplomatically. "An
invitation to a ball; a dance or two; a few compliments; a call to pay
his respects; a gentleman could not be less gracious. And his Majesty
is one of the first gentlemen in Europe."

"He has had good training, what to do and what not to do." The
Baroness flung her little sop of flattery to Cerberus with a dainty
ghost of a bow for the man who had been as a second father to Leopold
since the late Emperor's death. "But--we're old friends, Chancellor,"
(she was not to blame that they had not been more in the days before
she became Baroness von Lyndal), "so tell me; can you look at the
girl's face and the Emperor's, and still say that everything will end
with an invitation, a dance, some compliments, and a call to pay
respects?"

Iron Heart frowned and sneered, wondering what he could have seen,
twenty-two years ago, to admire in this flighty woman. He would have
escaped from her now, if escape had been feasible; but he could not be
openly rude to the wife of the Grand Master of Ceremonies, at the
Emperor's ball. And besides, he was not unwilling, perhaps, to show
the lady that her sentimental and unsuitable innuendos were as the
buzzing of a fly about his ears.

"I'm close upon seventy, and no longer a fair judge of a woman's
attractions," he returned carelessly. "A look at her face conveys
nothing to me. But, were she Helen of Troy instead of Helen Mowbray,
the invitation, the dance, the compliments, and the call--wit