“Not of every woman, Majesty,” replied Lossenski in a low soothing tone, that was not without a trace of irony. “If I may say it without disrespect, your ancestress, the great Catherine, knew how to combine love and wisdom. When she wearied of a lover, or had no further use for a man, she never left him the power of revenging his dismissal.” “Yes, yes,” she replied. “I know that; but I did not weary of this man, this king among men, for whose love I would have sold my soul. I only wearied of my own attempts to win it. You know what I mean, Lossenski, and you can understand me, for you have confessed that he was well worthy of the sacrifice. “You know that when he seemed my lover he was only my slave--that I could not compel the man to love me, but only the passive machine that I had made of him, and you know, too, that the moment I had let him regain his freedom of will he would have loathed and cursed me, as no doubt he is doing now. “Why did I not kill him? How could I, when I loved him better than my own life, and all my dreams of empire? Why, I could not even kill the other one because he was Alan’s friend, and because he would have hated me still more for doing so. “But, after all,” she continued, speaking somewhat more calmly, “it is not setting them free that has done the mischief. It is the treason or the miracle that enabled them to capture the _Narwhal_. I would give a good deal to know how that was done. They cannot have done it themselves, for I had given them enough of the drug to deprive them of all will-power for at least twenty-four hours, and I told that traitor, Turgenieff, who must have betrayed the attack on Kerguelen, to give them more when he landed them on the island.” “But is your Majesty sure that they took the drug?” said Lossenski, interrupting her for the first time. “Did you give it with your own hand, or see them take it with your own eyes?” “No!” said Olga, with a start. “I did not. I sent it to them by my maid, Anna, but she swore that she put it in their wine, and when they had finished their last meal the decanter was empty.” “That was a grave mistake, Majesty,” said Lossenski, in a tone of respectful reproof, “and one which may yet cost you the empire of the world. It is such trifles as that which destroy the grandest schemes.” “I know! I know!” said Olga impatiently. “You may think me a fool and a weakling, but I could not bring myself to see or speak to Alan again after I had at last resolved to give up the hopeless task of winning him, and send him away.