“Yes, yes, we will save them too. Only, the risk is greater.”
“Bien!” He had almost accepted, but he smothered the word, and starting up, began to pace the room. At last he stopped. “The risk must be lessened, for them,” he said. “I will remain.”
“H’m’n,” the girl ejaculated, “Hamlet declines? Then there will be no play at all, at all.”
Maximilian knew how stubborn she could be; and so, reluctantly, he joined the plot.
“I have deserved Marquez and Fischer and Lopez,” he sighed. “But why there should be friends, even now, that I cannot understand.”
Yet she told him bluntly why she wanted his safety. It was on France’s account. Still, his gratitude was no less profound. She who would give life to others, what was her life to be henceforth? The mellowing sorrow, which her vivacity could not hide, smote him again, as it had that evening in Mexico when he came to her for counsel. He remembered. Out of a useless ambition for her country she had squandered 468her name, blighted her future. He remembered how, looking on her saddened face, he had been exalted to a pure devotion, and had burned with knightly fervor to do her some impossible service. But what was the service? There his memory failed, and he despised the chivalrous ardor which could be quenched with feeding on itself. After the fearful vigil of the night before, he had found a suit of armor beside him. In a word, he had forgotten self. Simple compassion was enough. That service? that service? If he could only remember. But he must. And in hot anger he strode back and forth, while Jacqueline sat and gazed in wonder. Once, turning from the corridor window, he paused. The guard had stopped a man, who now was evidently waiting until the prisoner should be unoccupied. Unseen himself, Maximilian recognized in the man the American named Driscoll. And then he remembered. He remembered Jacqueline’s secret, betrayed to him that evening in Mexico. He remembered that her happiness was lost in the loss of this man’s respect. Here, at last, lay the impossible service!
Maximilian glanced toward her stealthily. No, from where she sat she could not see the corridor, could not see the waiting American. A moment later Maximilian stood behind her; and when he spoke, she thought it odd that he should change from French to halting English.
“Miss d’Aumerle,” he began, in distinct if nervous phrasing, “yes, it was for France, all, all of which you haf done. Therefore is it that you haf come to this country, and here to Querétaro, whatever is to the contrary said.”
“De grace,” she laughed, rising abruptly, “there’s enough to do to-day without discussing––”
But he intercepted her even as she opened the door.