“It was the work of David,” he continued. “You will find it well authenticated. Look upon the back of it.”
She looked, and her heart beat a little faster. “This was done when he was alive?” she said.
“For the King of Rome,” he answered. “Adieu, madame. Again I thank you, for our cause as for myself.”
He turned away. She let him get as far as the door. “Wait, wait!” she said suddenly, a warm light in her face, for her imagination had been touched. “Tell me, tell me the truth. Who are you? Are you really a Napoleon? I can be a constant ally, but, I charge you, speak the truth to me. Are you—” She stopped abruptly. “No, no; do not tell me,” she added quickly. “If you are not, you will be your own executioner. I will ask for no further proof than did Sergeant Lagroin. It is in a small way yet, but you are playing a terrible game. Do you realise what may happen?”
“In the hour that you ask a last proof I will give it,” he said almost fiercely. “I go now to meet an enemy.”
“If I should change that enemy into a friend—” she hinted.
“Then I should have no need of stratagem or force.”
“Force?” she asked suggestively. The drollery of it set her smiling.
“In a week I shall have five hundred men.”
“Dreamer!” she thought, and shook her head dubiously; but, glancing again at the ivory portrait, her mood changed.