“I should gain access to his chief tool, David Jost, by means of the Prime Minister’s signet,” said Lotys,--“If I could get the signet!--which I cannot! Nor can you! But if I could, I should persuade Jost to talk freely, and so betray himself. He and Carl Pérousse move the Premier and the King whichever way they please.” “Is that so--?” began Leroy, when he was answered by a dozen voices at once:-- “The King is a fool!” “The King is a slave!” “The King accepts everything that is set before him as being rightly and wisely ordained,--and never enquires into the justice of what is done!” “The King assumes to be the friend of the People, but if you ask him to do anything for the People, you only get the secretary’s usual answer--‘His Majesty regrets that it is impossible to take any action in the matter’!” “Wait!--wait!--” said Leroy, with a gesture which called for a moment’s silence; “The question is,--_Could_ the King do anything if he would?” “I will answer that!” said Lotys, her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving, and her whole figure instinct with pride and passion; “The King could do everything! The King could be a man if he chose, instead of a dummy! The King could cease to waste his time on fools and light women!--and though he is, and must be a constitutional Monarch, he could so rule all social matters as to make them the better,--not the worse for his influence! There is nothing to prevent the King from doing his most kingly duty!” Leroy looked at her for a moment in silence. “Madame, if the King heard your words he might perhaps regret his many follies!” he said courteously;--“But where Society is proved worse, instead of better for a king’s influence, is it not somewhat too late to remedy the evil? What of the Queen?” “The Queen is queen from necessity, not from choice!” said Lotys;--“She has never loved her husband. If she had loved him, perhaps he might,--through her,--have loved his people more!” There was a note of pathos in her voice that was singularly tender and touching. Anon, as if impatient with herself, she turned to Sergius Thord. “We must disperse!” she said abruptly; “Daybreak will be upon us before we know it, and we have done no business at all this evening. To enrol three new associates is a matter of fifteen minutes; the rest of our time has been wasted!” “Do not say so, Madame!” interposed Max Graub, “You have three new friends--three new ‘sons of your blood,’ as you so poetically call them,--though, truly, I for one am more fit to be your grandfather! And do you consider the time wasted that has been spent in improving and instructing your newly-born children?” Lotys turned upon him with a look of disdain. “You are a would-be jester;” she said coldly; “Old men love a jest, I know, but they should take care to make it at the right time, and in the right place. They should not play with edge-tools such as I am, though I suppose, being a German, you think little or nothing of women?”