"What is an emperor?" I inquired.
"A chief over kings," Doctor Chantry put in. "Bonaparte is a conqueror and can set kings over the countries he has conquered."
I said that was the proper thing to do. Miss Chantry glared at me. She had weak hair like her brother, but her eyes were a piercing blue, and the angles of her jaws were sharply marked.
Meditating on things outside of my experience I desired to know what the white silk man had done.
"Nothing."
"Then why should the emperor give him a kingdom?"
"Because he is the emperor's brother."
"But he ought to do something himself," I insisted. "It is not enough to accept a chief's place. He cannot hold it if he is not fit."
"So the poor Bourbons found. But they were not upstarts at any rate. I hope I shall live to see them restored."
Here was another opportunity to inform myself. I asked Miss Chantry who the Bourbons were.