She, too, was searching for a motive, his motive in the interview.
“The Mexicans alone will sustain our patriotic ruler,” stoutly declared the generalísimo. “But let us suppose, merely for pastime, that His Majesty does abdicate. What then? What profit to France, since at this moment, before our eyes, her army is leaving?”
Jacqueline smoothed the ruffled pleats on her full gray skirt. They looked like an exaggerated railroad on a map, and doubtless needed smoothing.
“And remotely supposing,” she said, “that our army might come back again?”
Then, in a flash, she raised her eyes, and surprised the start he gave. But she laughed at once, and at him, for taking her nonsense as serious.
356“No,” she exclaimed, “Your Excellency can more easily recall Santa Anna from his island exile.”
This, too, was nonsense, or so he was forced to consider it. But knowing that the Empire could not endure, he was believed even then to be negotiating with the rich former dictator. In his scowl Jacqueline discovered what she sought. He wanted, in brief, to negotiate with Napoleon also, and he wanted to negotiate through her. Napoleon could bid higher than Santa Anna. She saw, moreover, what was worrying the traitor. If Napoleon did not mean to bid, why then was she staying in Mexico?
Marquez glanced fretfully at Ney and Berthe. If he might be honored in the privilege of calling to pay his respects?––
But Jacqueline regretted that she was to be too much occupied in preparations for her own early departure. And that very evening she sent a note to Maximilian, frankly warning him against the Leopard. But she warned His Majesty farther, that if he did not heed, that when it should be too late to save him in any case, and Marquez still had something to sell, that then she would advise her own emperor, should her own emperor wish to buy. Hoping, though, for the best, she sent by Ney a message to Bazaine at the head of the column, suggesting that he delay embarkation as long as possible. She had in mind Maximilian awakened to the faithlessness of his chief support and wishing to overtake the French troops.
For which it appears that Jacqueline still wielded a free lance, belonging to her own country alone and owning no master other than her own conscience.