"H'm'n," she ejaculated, with a quick shrug. "Even the marshal, greatly against his will, has had to inform Your Majesty that we will shortly withdraw." "Then I shall depend on my subjects alone!" She contented herself with repeating, "Viva la Intervencion del Norte!" That too, was ample comment as to the loyalty of his subjects. The Emperor paused in his walk. "Alas," he sighed wearily, "a Hapsburg sacrifices himself to regenerate a people, and--they do not appreciate it." Jacqueline bent her head to hide a smile. She dreamily made rings in the water, and seemed to fall into his mood of poetic melancholy. "A comedietta of an empire," she mused sympathetically, "a harlequinade, nothing more. Grands dieux, I do not wonder that Your Highness finds it unworthy!" There is no such incense to a man as when he imagines himself understood by a pretty woman. Yet the temptress now found herself the harder to master. It was the thought of what she must yet do. But she gave her head an impatient toss, and the tears that had come were gone. The lines of her mouth tightened, and the dangerous glint shone in her eyes. "So," she added, almost in a whisper, "you did not mean it, sire, when you offered only a play-empire--to me." She knew that he started violently, and was looking down at her. But she kept her gaze averted, that he might not see the hard expression there that was merciless for them both. He did see, though, the long lashes, and the warm pink of her forearm, so tantalizing for shark or man. "These imperial gardens, they are beautiful," she went on softly, "but, helas, they are not the Schoenbrunn. Nor is Chapultepec more than a feeble miniature of the Hofburg. Oh, the wretched farce! The wretched farce, sire, in your pretension to--to honor me! A wooer from the throne, indeed? A straw throne--no, no, I do not like it!" Then she let him see her eyes. Half raised, half veiled; they held the daring suggestion hidden in her words. "And if," he cried, "and if we _were_ in the Schoenbrunn----" "Yes, yes," and she clapped her hands with delight, "yes, where the heroic figures on the crest of the hill are silhouetted against the sky, where----" "Never mind the heroic figures! But where I shall be really an emperor, _the_ Emperor over Austria, over Hungary. Then, what then? Jeanne--Jacqueline, tell me!" She had brought him to it. Yet her face clouded pitifully, as that day in the small boat, when she told Ney that a woman might only give. Such a woman too, would be lost for the reason that she would _not_ hesitate. Here was the errand of the Sphinx, and achievement at her hand. Dainty flower of France, yes! But in truth, what was she? "And then?" she repeated, and the maddening promise in her voice thrilled him. "Why, sire, I suppose that I could not help but listen to you. Yet first," she hastened to add with subtle emphasis, "first, you would have to give up your play kingdom here."