On returning to the capital, Jacqueline did not once set foot in any Imperial palace, but she established her own salon of a grande dame, and there installed herself mid a simple elegance. What was left of the mortgaged chÂteau in the Bourbonnais went to pay for it. Jacqueline would accept not a louis out of Napoleon’s Black Chest. A French gentlewoman, she impoverished herself to work for France. And when, a little later, Napoleon dishonored his own name and that of France in his dealings with Maximilian, she thanked the instinct that had kept her free. Puddles muddied one’s skirt so! The valiant maid broke her sword. She would serve no longer. At least, she was quite certain that she would not.

Napoleon’s shame lay in this. Maximilian had accepted his harsh ultimatum regarding the Mexican customs, and in return for such humiliation he depended on the presence of the French troops for yet another year. But the United States threatened war, and Napoleon cringed. He would withdraw the troops immediately. He would abandon Maximilian, treaty or no treaty. Thus the quiet forces in the American Legation at Paris battled against the proud House of Orleans. The princess of that House failed. She could not save her husband’s throne, and her own. Her mind gave way. She became a raving maniac. So much for Charlotte’s mission.

336With the news Maximilian was a broken man. He seemed to remember his promise to rejoin her in Europe, for he set out coastward and left the marshal a letter that was virtually his abdication. Yet in the Hot Country he stopped for his health. An Austrian frigate waited for him. But behind him was his capital. Would he return? History will never know, perhaps, the soul-despairing network of intrigue and counter-intrigue that wound and tightened about the young sapling roots that would strike deep in an unnourishing soil and become a dynastic oak. The rabid clericals, who were Maximilian’s ministers at the time, thought their puppet gone, and in terror of an avenging Republic they resigned. But Bazaine, urged to it by Padre Fischer, prevailed upon them to remain, and Fischer gave his word that the puppet would not escape. So France lost another chance to take back the Mexican Empire, and thereby pave a way out of her shame. For while Maximilian recuperated, he reconsidered. Clerical generals assured him of armies, the ministers talked eloquently of treasure from the Church coffers. The fat padre manipulated generals and ministers and Emperor, He was supreme. None might come near the royal ear except at his pleasure.

It was at this time, about the first of the year, some six months after Charlotte had sailed to Europe, and only a few weeks before the French would do the same, that one evening Jacqueline’s footman brought her a plainly sealed envelope, without crest, without writing. She tore it open, and started as she looked at a simple autograph on the card inside.

“His–this gentleman, Tobie, you admitted him?”

The well-trained servant stood impassive. “What would madame have?” he replied. “The man walked in like a lord, keeping his face hid in a cloak. But if madame––”

“Was there a carriage?”

“No, madame, but I noticed a saddle horse at a little distance, held by a mounted soldier with a carbine. But if madame––”

337“He is in the drawing-room, then?”

“Oui, madame, and without removing his Mexican sombrero. But if madame desires that this citizen find himself–h’m–pressed to go––”

“Tobie! No, on the contrary, you will permit him to wait undisturbed, until I come.”

A few minutes later Jacqueline beheld a tall figure in elegant charro garb striding the length of her salon. As she entered, her guest threw off sombrero and Spanish cloak, and revealed the drawn and troubled features of the Emperor of Mexico.

“Your Majesty has returned to His capital!” she exclaimed. “Then it is true––”

“That I shall cling to my play-empire? But I do not know yet, mademoiselle, I do not know yet. If I did, I should not be here, here in your house for the first time, and against your wishes––”

“Will Your Highness be seated?”

Maximilian flung himself wearily into an armchair. The fire of the enthusiast had died out of his eyes, and the fire of fever had left them faded. They reminded one of the blue of old-fashioned china.

“But why––” she began.

“Why come to you, you mean? I don’t know; instinct, I suppose.”

“Isn’t that rather vague? Your Imperial Highness returns to the City, to his palace––”

“Not to his palace, mademoiselle, not while it would seem a mockery of my poor imperial state, but to an hacienda in the suburbs. If I enter my Mexican palace again, it will be because I have decided to remain an emperor.”

“And for the reason that you have not so decided, you do me the honor––”

“I do myself the service, mademoiselle. I can bear this torment of indecision no longer, and you can help me, for you, 338dear lady, see clearly where the vision of others is distorted. The enthusiasm of the others is unsafe. Yes,” he sighed, with a little superior air of resignation to all human foibles, “those on whose loyalty I can depend are indeed few, but I am thankful that among them are my ministers, and my faithful secretary, Father Augustin Fischer––”

“Then why, in heaven’s name, does Your Highness come to me?”

“Instinct, or–perhaps it’s mania. Something has forced me to learn what you would say.”

Jacqueline’s foot–a small digression, at most–was slippered in blue, and this she pillowed on a cushion of red. And on another cushion she settled her elbow; and the sleeve of the chemisette, or blouse, or whatever the high-necked filmy white garment was, fell away, revealing a rounded forearm clasped in a band of gold. And resting her chin on her thumb, she regarded the young prince thoughtfully. In her look there may have been a sedate twinkle of amusement, but all was gently, pityingly sympathetic.

“Let me know,” she said, “more of the doubts that trouble Your Highness.”

Unerringly she touched the right chord. Doubts, yes, doubts of a broken dreamer. Illusions shattered as bubbles. A dweller in an ideal shadow, believing that subjects needed only lofty phrases, Maximilian was finding himself tragically maladjusted to the modern day in which he lived. But as the words tumbled from his lips in the passionate relief of unburdening, it quickly appeared that his misgivings arose only because he had fallen short of Dark Age standards. He recalled bitterly how, unlike the illustrious among his ancestors, he had not stirred until others had won his crown for him. But destiny was kind. He had the chance for redemption. To hold his empire now depended on him alone. He would mount his horse, give to the light a true Hapsburg blade, 339and valiantly ride forth to conquer or perish, and in any hazard be worthy of his House.

Then, without abrupt change, he talked of Austria’s late woes. Had he but commanded his country’s ships at Lissa! Could he but have risked his life at Sadowa! And moreover, he was still needed over there. But in some quick recollection a moisture dimmed the blue eyes. He drew from his vaquero jacket a dispatch. It was from Franz Josef. If Maximilian returned to Austria, the message ran, then he must leave behind the title of Emperor–leave behind even the title!

“And will that hurt so much?” asked Jacqueline.

The Ritual again! For it a man withheld asylum from his brother.

“Is there no mother,” cried the exasperated girl, “to spank both your Majesties?”

“’Tis of Her Serene Highness––” Maximilian began with dignity.

“Highness? Yes, I forgot, but not high enough to chide majesty, though she be a mother.”

“Yet she has only just warned me of her deep displeasure if–No, her message shall wait. I wish to hear first what you think. Tell me, shall I go, or shall I stay? Tell me, tell me, and why!”

Feverishly the man craved one frank word. There was in his look the prayer of a desperate gambler who watches a card poised between the dealer’s fingers. Jacqueline had one answer only. But exactly how to express it, lest she be wrongly taken, made her pause.

“In the first place,” she began slowly, “there is only a single consideration involved, and in that lies the solution of Your Majesty’s doubts. I mean the consideration of honor. Now if Your Highness is–whipped off his throne–that is ignominy–But wait, wait, I am not through. I––”

“Almost my mother’s words!” he cried triumphantly. And 340with a hand that trembled, he got out the letter from that Archduchess Sophia who had given one son a crown and loved this other as her darling.

“‘Rather than suffer humiliation by a French policy’” he read from her letter, “‘stay, stay, though you be buried under the walls of Mexico!’”

“But––” Jacqueline interposed. She had been taken amiss after all.

“You too bid me stay,” he insisted. “But I might have known. I might have known. One who never errs said that this would be your counsel. The Padre is wonderful–wonderful!”

Father Fischer, of course! What else? How consummate was the snake in his cunning! He counted on honesty and nobility in another, though having none himself. He knew Jacqueline. He thought that, both good and frank, she must advise the Emperor as his mother had done. Accordingly, when Maximilian became afflicted with doubts, the priest allowed him to go to Jacqueline. She would be an accomplice despite herself. Only his judgment did not go quite far enough. Jacqueline had not spoken all her mind.

Imperiously she compelled Maximilian’s attention. “I said ignominy, yes,” she persisted, “but I would have added that honor–the modern and the decent–and the only courage, lies in facing this same ignominy. Listen. If the least of impure ambition enters in your decision to remain, then for each death in the civil war that must result, Your Highness may hold himself to account, and so be held by history. Now,” she went on, unmoved by the fact that he had winced, “the question remains with Your Highness–does aught besides honor hold you to stay?”

To himself he answered as she spoke, and guilt confessed mounted his brow.

“But there,” she said, “Father Fischer will interpret the 341will of the Almighty. Before Your Imperial Highness retires to-night, my words will be forgotten.”

The lash fell on flesh already raw and smarting. To predict that he would change yet again, when to change he branded himself a wilful murderer–no! That was more than he could endure. She must not think that of him. He held out his hand. “Jeanne!” he murmured imploringly.

“Don’t!” she cried, “Don’t call me that!”

Then she bit her lip, and her fury turned against herself. “Jeanne” was feminine and French for “John,” which was masculine and–American. This important discovery she had made months ago when riding beside a man whose horse was “Demijohn.” As a girl in love, she had found a cozy joy in their names being the same. But for that very reason any recollection of it, since then, was the less to be borne.

Blushing indignantly, she saw that Maximilian was regarding her with a puzzled expression. Manlike, he referred it to himself, and suddenly, he too started. Only once before had he addressed her thus familiarly, which was during that memorable afternoon beside the artificial lake at Cuernavaca. Here, therefore, must lie the association that caused her agitation. Yet, since that afternoon, she had permitted no reference to their interview, unless to raise her brows quizzically at his continued presence in Mexico. But now, what of the self-betrayal into which he had just surprised her? It could not but be connected with that other time when he had murmured her name. There was, however, no conscious vanity in the remarkable explanation. It was remorse. He thought of Charlotte, his wife. And this other woman, had he wronged her also? For during the past weeks of trouble he had forgotten that he had loved her, and she had not forgotten. In two such facts, falling together, was the wrong, and one that a woman scarcely ever forgives, as he had had reason to know.

“I could not help supposing, mademoiselle,” he ventured 342diffidently, “that what you said at Cuernavaca was inspired by–by no feeling toward myself. I could suppose nothing else in the light of your utter indifference since then, and–and your aversion for my very presence.”

Jacqueline laughed pleasantly. “In that Your Highness deceives himself. I did then, as I do now, feel for Your Highness enough to wish him safely out of Mexico.”

“Charity, then?”

She did not protest.

“As I thought,” he said. “There was no feeling in–in––”

Jacqueline raised her eyes and met his frankly.

“When a woman feels in the sense you mean, sire,” she said, “then she does not make an empire, even the Austrian Empire, a condition. If the man in question has no more than his horse, his pistols, even his pipe, then the woman––” But she stopped abruptly.

“With you,” he granted honestly, “it was not a matter of personal ambition either. But if neither of these, then what–Now I see!” he cried. “A state reason! A decoy, to tempt me out of Mexico! Yes, yes, now I see!”

“It is good to know,” said Jacqueline, not ungratefully, “that Your Majesty at least, if no other, can see a high motive in my self abasement.”

“Now what can she mean by that?” he demanded of himself. “What other, in particular, thinks hard of her that she should care?”

Éloin was the only other man who could have seen them, there at Cuernavaca. No, little it mattered to her what Éloin thought. But–yes, there was another. There was the American who had intruded and wanted to save his empire. Maximilian recalled now her change to bitterness after the American had left them, and a moment ago he had seen the identical pain of self-contempt tug at her lips. And yet, once 343she had left the American to die. But Maximilian answered even that objection. Leaving him to die was a necessity for her country. And the sacrifice had gone farther. It had not faltered before the self-degradation of which she had just spoken.

The admiration in his eyes grew. The chivalry in his race awoke within him, and exalted him. He felt himself become the true knight, in the purity of devotion to a woman–a gentleman, as real chivalry would have the term. Poor man and poet, he felt even the impulse to bend the knee and crave as a boon some risk of life in her service, without thought of boon thereafter–a knightly impulse nearly obsolete in chivalry, if ever customary. But he knew now that the impulse was really possible, and the proof was this: that the constraint between them had vanished, that soon he was talking with her easily and naturally.

For Jacqueline also the air had become blessedly pure, and deeply, gratefully, she breathed of it. Because now she talked with one whose respect was a fact, who knew her for what she was, and during a moment’s space she was happy, with the happiness of delusion. It seemed that other men, that one other man, might one day know her too, and give her his esteem. But the phantasy passed. The knowledge must forever be restricted to the man before her, and for him she did not care.

Maximilian, very strangely, was thinking of the very self-same thing. Here was a service in her behalf already offering. If he could cause that other man to know? But it was out of the question. Men may convince one another of a woman’s guilt, and only too easily. But of her innocence? No, it was absurdly out of the question. Besides, next day the true knight would be starting back for Europe. Had he not just decided?