He turned away. She let him get as far as the door. “Wait, wait!” she said suddenly, a warm light in her face, for her imagination had been touched. “Tell me, tell me the truth. Who are you? Are you really a Napoleon? I can be a constant ally, but, I charge you, speak the truth to me. Are you--” She stopped abruptly. “No, no; do not tell me,” she added quickly. “If you are not, you will be your own executioner. I will ask for no further proof than did Sergeant Lagroin. It is in a small way yet, but you are playing a terrible game. Do you realise what may happen?” “In the hour that you ask a last proof I will give it,” he said almost fiercely. “I go now to meet an enemy.” “If I should change that enemy into a friend--” she hinted. “Then I should have no need of stratagem or force.” “Force?” she asked suggestively. The drollery of it set her smiling. “In a week I shall have five hundred men.” “Dreamer!” she thought, and shook her head dubiously; but, glancing again at the ivory portrait, her mood changed. “Au revoir,” she said. “Come and tell me about the mockers. Success go with you--sire.” Yet she did not know whether she thought him sire or sinner, gentleman or comedian, as she watched him go down the hill with Lagroin and Parpon. But she had the portrait. How did he get it? No matter, it was hers now. Curious to know more of the episode in the village below, she ordered her carriage, and came driving slowly past the Louis Quinze at an exciting moment. A crowd had gathered, and boys, and even women, were laughing and singing in ridicule snatches of, “Vive Napoleon!” For, in derision of yesterday’s event, a small boy, tricked out with a paper cocked-hat and incongruous regimentals, with a hobby-horse between his legs, was marching up and down, preceded by another lad, who played a toy drum in derision of Lagroin. The children had been well rehearsed, for even as Valmond arrived upon the scene, Lagroin and Parpon on either side of him, the mock Valmond was bidding the drummer: “Play up the feet of the army!” The crowd parted on either side, silenced and awed by the look of potential purpose in the face of this yesterday’s hero. The old sergeant’s glance was full of fury, Parpon’s of a devilish sort of glee. Valmond approached the lads. “My children,” he said kindly, “you have not learned your lesson well enough. You shall be taught.” He took the paper caps from their heads. “I will give you better caps than these.” He took the hobby-horse, the drum, and the tin swords. “I will give you better things than these.” He put the caps on the ground, added the toys to the heap, and Parpon, stooping, lighted the paper. Scattering money among the crowd, and giving some silver to the lads, Valmond stood looking at the bonfire for a moment, and then, pointing to it dramatically, said: