The shabby fair woman turned round and stared, then laughed: the cashier and the clerk were confounded, and lost their presence of mind. To the shabby fair woman a man in plain clothes, obviously her servant, approached, and bowing low said, “If you please, madam, his Imperial Majesty is at the door.” And the lady who quarreled with a clerk for half a kreutzer went out of the hall, and mounted besides a gentleman who was driving himself; one of those gentlemen to whom all the world doff their hats, yet who, by a singular contradiction, are always guarded by policemen. The Massarene courier, who was always hovering near his mistress in the vain effort to preserve her from wrongdoing, took her aside. “It’s Mrs. Cecil Courcy, madam,” he murmured. “There’s nobody so chic as Mrs. Cecil Courcy. She’s hand and glove with all them royalties. Pinching and screwing--oh yes, that she _do_--but then you see, madam, she _can_ do it.” “You won’t tell your master, Gregson?” said Mrs. Massarene in an agony of penitence. Gregson winced at the word “master,” but he answered sincerely, “No, madam; I won’t tell Mr. Massarene. But if you think that because they’re high they’re large, you’re very much mistaken. Lord, ma’am, they’ll pocket the _marrons glacés_ at the _table d’hôte_ and take the matches away from their bedrooms, but then, you see, ma’am, them as are swagger can do them things. Mrs. Cecil Courcy might steal the spoons if she’d a mind to do it!” Mrs. Massarene gasped. A great name covering a multitude of small thefts appalled her simple mind. “You can’t mean it, Gregson?” she said with breathless amaze. “Indeed, madam, I do,” said the courier, “and that’s why, madam, I won’t ever go into service with gentlefolks. They’ve got such a lot to keep up, and so precious little to do it with, that they’re obliged to pinch and to screw and get three sixpences out of a shilling, as I tell you, madam.” Mrs. Massarene was sad and silent. It was painful to hear one’s own courier say that he would never take service with “gentlefolk.” One never likes to see oneself as others see us. The poignant horror of that moment as she had seen the imperial wheels flash and rotate through the flying dust was still fresh in her mind, and should have prevented her from ever trusting to her own judgment or forming that judgment from mere appearances. She could still hear the echo of the mocking voice of that prince whom Kenilworth had described as “dead broke” saying to her, as he had said more than once in England: “Not often do you make a mistake; ah no, not often, my very dear madam, not often; but when you do make one--_eh bien, vous la faites belle_!”