He shortly afterwards withdrew, and Carl Pérousse, satisfied that he had at any rate taken precautions to make known the existence of a spy in the city, if not to secure his arrest, turned to the crowding business on his hands with a sense of ease and refreshment. He might not have felt quite so self-assured and complacent, had he seen the worthy Bernhoff smiling broadly to himself as he strolled along the street, with the air of one enjoying a joke, the while he murmured,-- “Pasquin Leroy,--engaged in taking plans of the military defences--is he? Ah!--a very dangerous amusement to indulge in! Engaged in taking plans!--Ah!--Yes!--Very good,--very good; excellent! Do I know the name? Yes! I fancy I might have heard it! Oh, yes, very good indeed--excellent! And this spy is probably still in the city? Yes!--Probably! Yes--I should imagine it quite likely!” Still smiling, and apparently in the best of humours with himself and the world at large, the General continued his easy stroll by the sea-fronted ways of the city, along the many picturesque terraces, and up flights of marble steps built somewhat in the fashion of the prettiest corners of Monaco, till he reached the chief promenade and resort of fashion, which being a broad avenue running immediately under and in front of the King’s palace facing the sea, was in the late sunshine of the afternoon crowded with carriages and pedestrians. Here he took his place with the rest, saluting a fellow officer here, or a friend there,--and stood bareheaded with the rest of the crowd, when a light gracefully-shaped landau, drawn by four greys, and escorted by postillions in the Royal liveries, passed like a triumphal car, enshrining the cold, changeless and statuesque beauty of the Queen, upon whom the public were never weary of gazing. She was a curiosity to them--a living miracle in her unwithering loveliness; for, apparently unmoved by emotion herself, she roused all sorts of emotions in others. Bernhoff had seen her a thousand times, but never without a sense of new dazzlement. “Always the same Sphinx!” he thought now, with a slight frown shading the bluff good-nature of his usual expression; “She is a woman who will face Death as she faces Time,--with that cold smile of hers which expresses nothing but scorn of all life’s little business!” He proceeded meditatively on his way to the palace itself, where, on demand, he was at once admitted to the private apartments of the King. CHAPTER XVIII ROYAL LOVERS