Stealthily Éloin drew aside the bushes, and peered through. The tiny pond with its crystal surface sunk deep in foliage, its flowering island in the centre, looked not unlike a mirror on a dining table luxuriantly wreathed by garlands. The Belgian stared greedily. He did not see quite what Driscoll had seen, yet he saw enough to draw his brow to a narrowing fold of keenest interest. Jacqueline was seated on the raised edge of the basin, pensively dipping a hand into the water. Her plump wrist showed rosy, like coral, and glancing sideways now and again at a poor agitated prince striding up and down, she looked as she did that day in the small boat, while tempting a shark. As she leaned over, the line of her waist and neck was stately and beautiful; and there were the maddening baby tendrils of soft, glowing copper. Maximilian had evidently found her there, in a reverie perhaps, and was at sight of her lured to some act bold and desirous; for just as evidently, if his flushed face and the way he bit his lip were tokens, he had that moment been repelled. Éloin watched them avidly, the tall archduke pacing up and down, the demure lady seated on the basin’s edge.
“It was but the lowly homage of a prince,” Maximilian cried out peevishly. Such was his apology.
“Homage of a play-king,” she corrected him with exasperating sweetness.
259He turned on her angrily. “Why do you say that–a play-king?”
“Whose embassies,” she proceeded calmly, “cringe for recognition. Like beggars they prowl about that White House at Washington, yet never cross the threshold.”
Maximilian was too amazed for denial. “How do you know?” he exclaimed.
“While at the same time,” she went on, “the same neighbor receives the minister of the Mexican republic, and sends one in turn. But no matter. The marionettes of empire can dance, so long as Napoleon holds the strings. Was the princely homage a make-believe, too?”
“But–but, if I should convince you, mademoiselle, that the majesty which only asks to kneel is genuine?”
Her eyelids narrowed, and she looked at him with the oddest smile.
“You know–sire–that I only ask to be convinced. Where will Your Imperial Highness begin?”