The eyes of Pauline Bonaparte shot fire while the other spoke. "You are very stupid to talk in this way to me, Joachim," she said, commanding herself in time. "You needed Napoleon—you need him now, for your scheme will never succeed unless he supports you. It is your good fortune that he needs you enough to forgive your defection. The family stands or falls together, mon ami."
"Evidently your mother does not think so," Murat replied, with pique. "I have just brought Madame Mère a present of eight fine carriage-horses. She declined them with thanks, and would not see me when I called on her in Rome. As for my loving brother-in-law, your noble husband——"
"Why should you mind Camillo's sulks since I do not? He and Madame Mère have such amusing ideas. It was not so much Caroline's correspondence with your 'dear Metternich' which offended them and my brother, too. They have never forgotten that little affair of the silver lemon squeezer. Ah, mon ami! you had had too much champagne when you brewed that bowl of punch at the officers' dinner."
"I never said that it was the Empress who taught me the recipe and gave me the lemon squeezer," he retorted, flushing.
"Oh! no; nor told you that oranges and not lemons were used with Jamaica rum in the islands; nor why pretty creoles were like lemons."
"Do you mean to provoke me?" Murat exclaimed, rising quickly.
"No, mon ami, though I shared in that suspicion, too, for they called me a creole on my return from San Domingo."
Murat's jaw fell. "Do you mean that your husband thought I meant you?" he asked.
"Prince Borghese is too polite a man to voice such a suspicion, and I am too clever a woman to show that I have guessed it, but that is reason enough why I cannot accept my sister's invitation to take possession of the entrancing Neapolitan villa which you so kindly offer me."
"You are like your mother. You refuse my peace-offerings; you will not visit us?"