“If you do not, as the public report, approve of the financial schemes out of which your Ministers make their fortunes, to the utter ruin of the people in general,” she said slowly; “Dismiss Carl Pérousse from office! So may you perchance avert a great national disaster!” He permitted himself to smile indulgently. “Madame, you may ask much!--and however great your demands, I will do my utmost to meet and comply with them;--but like all your charming sex, you forget that a king can seldom or never interfere with a political situation! It would be very unwise policy on my part to dismiss M. Pérousse, seeing that he is already nominated as the next Premier.” “The next Premier!” Lotys echoed the words with a passionate scorn; “If that is so, I give you an honest warning! The people will revolt,--no force can hold them back or keep them in check! And if you should command your soldiery to fire on the populace, there must be bloodshed and crime!--on your head be the result! Oh, are you not, can you not be something higher than even a king?--an honest man? Will you not open the eyes of your mind to see the wickedness, falsehood and treachery of this vile Minister, who ministers only to his own ends?--who feigns incorruptibility in order to more easily corrupt others?--who assumes the defence of outlying states, merely to hide the depredations he is making on home power? Nay, if you will not, you are not worth a beggar’s blessing!--and I shall wonder to myself why God made of you so exact a copy of one whom I know to be a good man!” Her breath came and went quickly,--her cheeks were flushed, and great tears stood in her eyes. But he seemed altogether unmoved. “I’ faith, I shall wonder too!” he said very tranquilly; “Good men are scarce!--and to be the copy of one is excellent, though it may in some cases be misleading! Madame, I have heard you with patience, and--if you will permit me to say so--admiration! I honour your courage--your frankness--and--still more--your absolute independence. You speak of wrongs to the People. If such wrongs indeed exist----” “If!” interrupted Lotys with a whole world of meaning in the expression. “I say, if they indeed exist, I will, as far as I may,--endeavour to remedy them. I, personally, have no hesitation in declaring to you that I am not involved in the financial schemes to which you allude--though I know two or three of my fellow-sovereigns who are! But I do not care sufficiently for money to indulge in speculation. Nevertheless, let me tell you, speculation is good, and even necessary in matters affecting national finance, and I am confident--” here he smiled enigmatically, “that the country’s honour is safe in the hands of M. Pérousse!” At this she lifted her head proudly and looked at him, with eyes that expressed so magnificent a disdain, that had he been any other than the man he was, he might have quailed beneath the lightning flash of such utter contempt.