A final telegram to an English gentleman at Vienna capped all, and was not to be misunderstood. It simply said, "I shall publish the story if they persevere." And that seemed to me an ugly threat to come from so pretty a sender, though of its meaning I had no more knowledge than the dead. Perhaps you will say that I was a poor sort to have been reading her telegrams at all; that it didn't concern me; and that I was paid to hold my tongue. Well, that is true enough, and Madame had little to complain of on such a score, I must say. To all and sundry who questioned me at the hotels, I just said she was the wife of a Hungarian nobleman, and that she travelled for her pleasure. When we arrived at Nice, and an impertinent policeman got me into a corner, so to speak, and tried to put me through the catechism, I simply said, "No speakee Frenchee--Mistress Americano," and at that he shook his head and wrote it down in a note-book about as large as a grocer's ledger. But I plainly perceived that something more than mere police curiosity accounted for all this cross-examination; and when Madame sent for me to her private sitting-room that night, I guessed immediately that something was up, and that I was about to learn the nature of it. I shall always remember the occasion, as beautiful a night of a Southern summer as a man could hap upon. Still and starry, the sea without a ripple; the ships like black shapes against an azure sky; the lights of the houses shining upon the moonlit gardens; the music of the bands; the gay talk of the merry people--oh, who would go northward ho! if Providence set him down on such a spot as this? And upon it all was the picture of Madame herself--of that lady of the gazelle's eyes and the milk-white skin, as she invited me into her sitting-room and asked me to sit down while she talked. You could not have matched her for beauty in Nice; I doubt if you could have done it nearer than Paris and the Ritz. Dressed in a lot of fluffy stuff, with a pink satin skirt, and arms bare to the shoulders and a chain of diamonds about her neck--dressed like this, and so sweet and gracious in her manner, talking to me just as though she had known me from infancy, and asking me, Lal Britten, to help her--why, you bet I said "Yes," and said it so plainly that even she could not mistake me. "Why, Britten," says she, "do you know what has happened to-day?" "Couldn't guess it if I tried, madame," said I. "Well, then, I must tell you: they won't let me go to Monte Carlo, Britten. They say the Emperor forbids it." "But, madame, is there any need to ask the old gentleman's permission? Aren't you an American citizen?" She laughed at my idea of it, and asked me if I would like a glass of port wine, which I did to oblige her; while she took another as though she liked it, which I have no reason to suppose she did not.