He felt the point, and her demure dart struck home. But he saw what an ally she might make. Tremendous possibilities moved before him. His heart beat faster than it did yesterday when the old sergeant faced him. Here was beauty--he admired that; power--he wished for that. What might he not accomplish, no matter how wild his move, with this wonderful creature as his friend, his ally, his----He paused, for this house had a master as well as a mistress. “We will leave in the woman,” he said quietly, yet with a sort of trouble in his face. “In your idea?” was the negligent question. “Yes.” “Where is the woman?” insinuated the soft, bewildering voice. “Here!” he answered emotionally, and he believed it was the truth. She stood looking meditatively out of the window, not at him. “In Pontiac?” she asked presently, turning with a child-like surprise. “Ah, yes, yes! I know--one of the people; suitable for Pontiac; but is it wise? She is pretty--but is it wise?” She was adroitly suggesting Elise Malboir, whose little romance she had discovered. “She is the prettiest and wisest lady I ever knew, or ever hoped to know,” he said earnestly, laying his hand upon his heart. “How far will your idea take you?” she asked evasively, her small fingers tightening a gold hair-pin. “To Paris--to the Tuileries!” he answered, rising to his feet. “And you start--from Pontiac?” “What difference, Pontiac or Cannes, like the Great Master after Elba,” he said. “The principle is the same.” “The money?” “It will come,” he answered. “I have friends--and hopes.” She almost laughed. She was suddenly struck by the grotesqueness of the situation. But she saw how she had hurt him, and she said instantly: “Of course, with those one may go far. Sit down and tell me all your plans.” He was about to comply, when, glancing out of the window, she saw the old sergeant, now “General Lagroin,” and Parpon hastening up the walk. Parpon ambled comfortably beside the old man, who seemed ten years younger than he had done the day before. “Your army and cabinet, monseigneur!” she said with a pretty, mocking gesture of salutation. He glanced at her reprovingly. “My General and my Minister; as brave a soldier and as able a counsellor as ever prince had. Madame,” he added, “they only are farceurs who do not dare, and have not wisdom. My General has scars from Auerstadt, Austerlitz, and Waterloo; my Minister is feared--in Pontiac. Was he not the trusted friend of the Grand Seigneur, as he was called here, the father of your Monseiur De la Riviere? Has he yet erred in advising me? Have we yet failed? Madame,” he added, a little rhetorically, “as we have begun, so will we end, true to our principles, and--” “And gentlemen of the king,” she said provokingly, urging him on. “Pardon, gentlemen of the Empire, madame, as time and our lives will prove.... Madame, I thank you for your violets of Sunday last.”