"No, indeed," she replied, "I have no fever, and have no sympathy with destroyers. Oh, if I wished for fame, I should try to gain it by gathering round me the blessings of all who saw me! Yes, father," she went on, paying no regard to the signs and winks of the agonized Count Gyllenborg, "I would rather that countless thousands should live to bless me, than that they should die in heaping curses on my name! Men-killers--though you dignify them with the name of heroes--are atrocious. Let us speak of them, my lord, no more, unless to pray heaven to rid the earth of such monsters." A feather of the smallest of birds would have knocked down the Prime Minister of Sweden; and Count Ericson appeared, from his stupefied look, to have gone through the process already--the difficulty was to lift him up again. "Come, Count," cried the Minister, filling up Ericson's glass with champagne, "to Alexander's glory!" "With all my heart," cried Ericson, moistening his rage with the delicious sparkler. "Come, fair savage," he added, addressing Christina, and touching her glass with such force that it fell in a thousand pieces on the table--"to Alexander's glory!" "I have no wish to drink to such a toast," replied Christina, more offended than ever; "I can't endure those scourges of human kind who hide the skin of the tiger beneath the royal robe." "The girl is mad!" exclaimed the astonished father, who seemed to begin to be slightly alarmed at the flashes of indignation that burst from Count Ericson's wild-looking eyes. "Don't mind what such a silly thing says; she does it only to show her cleverness. What does she know of war or warriors? She cares for nothing yet but her puppy-dog. She pats it all day, and lets it bite her pretty little hand. Such a hand it is to refuse a pledge to Alexander!" The politician was on the right track; for such a pretty hand was not in Sweden--nor probably in Denmark either--and the cunning old minister took it between his finger and thumb, and placed it almost on the lip of the irate young worshipper of glory; if it did not actually touch the lip it went very near it, and distinctly moved one or two of the most prominent tufts of the stout yellow mustache. "The little goose," pursued the respectable sire, "to pretend to have an opinion on any subject except the colour of a riband. Upon my honour, I believe she presumes to be a critic of warriors, because she plays a good game of chess. It is one of her accomplishments, Count; and if you will take a little of the conceit out of her, you will confer an infinite obligation on both of us."