"Better let him alone," Maximilian interposed wearily. "He recognizes in me a man, and--it's not unpleasant. But which," he added, "gives me leave to hope that as a man himself he will not cringe before the drum-head." "May I," said Driscoll quietly, "have one minute with you alone? It's not about myself, I promise you that. But for you, sir, it's of the very greatest importance." Instantly all stirred with curiosity, except Maximilian. All there were keenly affected by the stranger's mysterious business with the Emperor, except the Emperor himself. And each man's wits were straightway alert, according to the hates and ambitions of each. Even Miguel Lopez, dense of understanding, had his suspicions. Murguia's yellow features darkened malevolently. The hacienda priest whispered to M. Eloin, and M. Eloin, brushing the man of God aside as though he had been thinking of the very same thing himself, tried to get a word with Maximilian. But Jacqueline spoke first to the Emperor. She knew the susceptibility of the royal ear. Maximilian nodded at what she said, and Eloin bit his lip. Maximilian glanced at the American's clothes. Homespun did not correspond with pressing business of state, to his mind. "My good man," he said, caressing his beard, "it's not regular, you know. Another time, perhaps, when you can have yourself inscribed by Our Grand Chamberlain and when your application for an audience----" "But if these senores shoot me before then?" Maximilian shrugged his shoulders. In any case, the Ritual would suffer no outrage. "But I tell you," cried the exasperated Missourian, "this thing is serious. And it can't wait either, not if it's to help you any. I may be too late now. I don't know what's happened since I started down here three weeks ago. Richmond was in danger then. And the Army of Northern Virginia--General Lee----" "Have surrendered," calmly interposed the Emperor. Driscoll stiffened as he stood, his lips parted as his last word had left them. He wondered why these foreign, unsympathetic beings of Austria and France and Belgium and Germany and Mexico looked so blurred to him. He never imagined that there were tears in his eyes. "It is really true," continued Maximilian, addressing them all. "A courier brought me the news this morning. Yes, my friends, the North is free at last to attack our Empire. But," he added blandly, "let us not fear, not while we are sustained by the unconquered legions of France." "How he remembers us now!" thought Jacqueline. She thought too of him who had sent the legions. The entire fabric of Napoleon's dream of Mexican empire was builded on the dismemberment of the American Union. But, as the Southerners began so well by themselves, Napoleon had left them to do his work alone. He just failed of genius. "Oh, mon petit, _bien_ petit Napoleon," she cried in her soul, "how terribly you have miscalculated!"