GIUSEPPE (sympathetically). Not the least in the world, excellency: is there? (Napoleon again looks at his watch, evidently growing anxious.) Ah, one can see that you are a great man, General: you know how to wait. If it were a corporal now, or a sub-lieutenant, at the end of three minutes he would be swearing, fuming, threatening, pulling the house about our ears. NAPOLEON. Giuseppe: your flatteries are insufferable. Go and talk outside. (He sits down again at the table, with his jaws in his hands, and his elbows propped on the map, poring over it with a troubled expression.) GIUSEPPE. Willingly, your excellency. You shall not be disturbed. (He takes up the tray and prepares to withdraw.) NAPOLEON. The moment he comes back, send him to me. GIUSEPPE. Instantaneously, your excellency. A LADY'S VOICE (calling from some distant part of the inn). Giusep-pe! (The voice is very musical, and the two final notes make an ascending interval.) NAPOLEON (startled). What's that? What's that? GIUSEPPE (resting the end of his tray on the table and leaning over to speak the more confidentially). The lady, excellency. NAPOLEON (absently). Yes. What lady? Whose lady? GIUSEPPE. The strange lady, excellency. NAPOLEON. What strange lady? GIUSEPPE (with a shrug). Who knows? She arrived here half an hour before you in a hired carriage belonging to the Golden Eagle at Borghetto. Actually by herself, excellency. No servants. A dressing bag and a trunk: that is all. The postillion says she left a horse--a charger, with military trappings, at the Golden Eagle. NAPOLEON. A woman with a charger! That's extraordinary. THE LADY'S VOICE (the two final notes now making a peremptory descending interval). Giuseppe! NAPOLEON (rising to listen). That's an interesting voice. GIUSEPPE. She is an interesting lady, excellency. (Calling.) Coming, lady, coming. (He makes for the inner door.) NAPOLEON (arresting him with a strong hand on his shoulder). Stop. Let her come. VOICE. Giuseppe!! (Impatiently.) GIUSEPPE (pleadingly). Let me go, excellency. It is my point of honor as an innkeeper to come when I am called. I appeal to you as a soldier. A MAN's VOICE (outside, at the inn door, shouting). Here, someone. Hello! Landlord. Where are you? (Somebody raps vigorously with a whip handle on a bench in the passage.) NAPOLEON (suddenly becoming the commanding officer again and throwing Giuseppe off). There he is at last. (Pointing to the inner door.) Go. Attend to your business: the lady is calling you. (He goes to the fireplace and stands with his back to it with a determined military air.) GIUSEPPE (with bated breath, snatching up his tray). Certainly, excellency. (He hurries out by the inner door.)