"The good God took her to Himself twelve years ago, in the fullness of life and strength and English beauty!—while I, more than thirty years her senior, hang yet upon the tree. On the top of the hill at Crusau is her tomb, where one day I shall lie beside her. But before that day"—the brave old eyes snapped fire, and he wrinkled up his ancient eagle-beak as though he savored the fumes already—"it may be that I shall smell powder again!"
"Let us drink to that!" said the Chancellor. As they filled their glasses there came a peculiar, scratching knock on the door.
"Come in, Bucher!" cried the host harshly, and the summons was answered by one of His Excellency's Privy Councillors of Legation, a little, stooping old gentleman, with a large hooked nose and a grizzled mustache and whiskers, who was dressed in a chocolate-colored, single-breasted frock-coat, tightly fastened with gilt buttons, and who wore a black satin stock, with the tongue of the buckle sticking up among the locks at the back of his neck, and baggy black cloth trousers ending in the feet of a Prussian Lifeguard, encased in huge and shapeless cloth boots; these moved him noiselessly to the elbow of the Chancellor, to whom he whispered, handing him a card, large and square, and unmistakably feminine:
"And so, as Madame was urgent ... Your Excellency knows what women are!"
"Thanks to some early studies in femininity, I am credited," said the Chancellor, "with knowing a great deal too much about the sex. Where have you put Madame?"
Bucher answered, raising himself on his toes to approach his lips to the large, well-shaped ear; for even seated, the Chancellor overtopped him:
"In the gracious Countess's little red damask back drawing-room."
"It is doubtful, my good Bucher, whether—did she know how she was honored—the gracious Countess would welcome her visitor."
"Alas! Your Excellency!" pleaded the Councillor, "but Her Excellency does not know!—and the room contains nothing valuable. Only a few family pictures—no china, silver, or bric-à-brac. Nothing that it would be any use to steal!"
"Come, come!" expostulated the Minister, his blue eyes alight with cynical amusement, "you must not speak of Madame as though she were a house-thief. Our good Bucher," he went on, turning jestingly to his table companions, "sees little difference between a person who picks brains for pay, and sells the pickings, and another person who picks locks and steals silver vases and cups. Rather a reflection on the Diplomatic Service, now I think of it!"