Ivan gracefully referred the choice to the ladies, and Clémence pleaded for Stéphanie. “She has been so good lately, poor child,” she said. “And this will be a pleasure she will remember all her life.” “By all means. Let us have her father too,” suggested Emile. “For I hear that this wonderful Madame de Krudener is to be there; and as she is the only person who has ever succeeded in taming mademoiselle, perhaps a little arrangement with M. de Sartines--” “Hold thy peace, Emile,” said Madame de Salgues. “I will have no jests levelled in my presence at religious persons, be they whom they may; and I suppose this enigmatical old lady is some kind of irregular nun, or at least a Carmelite. I cannot pretend to say what she is:--but, my dear grandson, you must permit me to observe that your tone of late has been very offensive to me. It is entirely that of the Empire, not that in which you have been educated. Your manners, too, have quite deteriorated. They are becoming absolutely bourgeoise.” “Pardon, madame,” returned Emile with a bow. “I am sorry they do not please you. But you must acknowledge they are not likely to be mended by the life I am leading,” he added a little bitterly. “Idleness is the mother of mischief.” Madame de Salgues relinquished the useless altercation with a sigh; and Ivan for the second time sought a private interview with Emile, following him into the little room where he was wont to indulge his habit of smoking at a safe distance from his grandmother. Ivan showed him a piece of paper. “I shall not insult you by asking whether you know anything about this,” he said. It was the copy of a letter addressed to the Czar by a person who signed himself “Captain of Regicides,” threatening him with instant death if he would not immediately proclaim Napoleon II. “I should like to hear you do it!” cried Emile indignantly, as he flung the paper on the ground, and set his heel upon it. “I should like better still to find out the author of that precious document, and to treat him _so_,” he added, grinding it beneath his foot. “Such scoundrels bring the good cause into disrepute. But the Emperor Alexander has too much courage and good sense to regard them.” “True; yet others may be forced to regard them for him. The threat has not been an empty one, Emile. They have tried to poison him.” “_Never!_” cried Emile, starting and changing colour. “And nearly succeeded,” Ivan continued sadly. “All our joy in the present, all our happy plans for the future, might to-day have been turned into mourning. And not ours only--” “But how was it?” Emile interrupted. “It occurred to his cook, contrary to his usual practice, to taste the wine laid ready for his master’s use at dinner. The poor fellow’s life has been saved with the utmost difficulty.”