Her hysteric glee, changing to anxiety, now changed as quickly to something else. Her face went deathly white, the pretty jaws set hard, and there was the glint of resolution in the gray eyes. She seized a cloak and threw it about her. "Come," she said to the maid. "Madame is going----" "Yes, to _undo_ your mischief. Bazaine must send to overtake Ney, must command him _not_ to interfere with the execution. Bazaine will do this, when I see him." "But you will not find His Excellency to-night. Madame la Marechale ordered the carriage for them both, as I was leaving there." "Indeed? Then she knew you were coming here to me? Then she did not mention where they were going?" "No, madame." "Of course not. Oh, she is cunning, your Madame la Marechale!" Alas for Jacqueline! She might conquer herself, but add to herself a second woman against her, and she was beaten. She confessed defeat by throwing off the cloak. "Tuxtla is far, you think they will--will----" "Oh I think they will, madame!" "Say you _know_ they will! Say it, Berthe, say it!" "Oh, I hope so, madame. Monsieur the American is lucky." The American? Somehow the blood swept hotly into Jacqueline's cheeks. "Say they will _not_ save him, Berthe. Say no, no, no!" she commanded, and imperiously stamped her foot, but stamp as she would, her furious shame was there still, flaunting its glorious color. She was thinking of her letter, of her avowal to a doomed man. After that, _any_ man was under obligations to get himself shot. Only, this one was of a contrary fibre. In such an April mood, Jacqueline was capable of yet another caprice. "Berthe," she cried, even as the whim came, "one is tired after playing the goose, n'est-ce pas? Do you, then, rest--yes, yes, while I comb your hair." "Madame!" Berthe protested with what breath astonishment left her. "Do ye call me chief?" demanded the mistress. "Then, de grace, sit still! And why shouldn't I, parbleu? If it took our big French Revolution to throw me up an ancestor out of the common kettle, there has just now been another revolution here"--she pressed a hand against her breast--"to stir me back among the people again. Do you know, dear, that your hair is beautiful!" And so they were two girls, girl-like, passing the evening together. Of a sudden Jacqueline stopped, the braiding arrested by a most startling thought. "Grands dieux," she told herself slowly, for it had to be believed, however improbable, "until this very moment I've never once stopped to think of all the emotions I have been having this day. I've never once examined them, and such emotions--Oh, la, la, they're a collection, a veritable museum of creeps! And here I've hurried through that museum, till I've even forgotten my umbrella at the check stand!" CHAPTER XXVIII MIKE "Quand on est aime d'une belle femme, on se tire toujours d'affaire." --_Zoroaster, vide Voltaire_