watched my father and his visitors? Was it spite that made her smile now,
as she gazed at the room's battered prosperity, and at my grandfather's
portrait above the mantlepiece, in the unruffled dignity of its
blackening oils?

"It was the coach," said Mademoiselle, "of Napoleon at Montmareuil. A
dozen of them set upon the coach. The lead horses were killed, and in an
instant they were at the doors. They flung them open, but he was not
inside. Instead, the coach was filled with the consular police. The
paper, the paper they had signed, was at Blanzy, and your father had
agreed to rescue it in case of accident. He would not leave me, Monsieur,
and he would not destroy the paper."

She paused, and regarded me with a frown that had more of curiosity in it
than displeasure.

"It was all well enough," she added, "until he heard of you, until you
and he had dinner. It is something you did, something you said, that has
made it all different. I ask you--what have you done to him? He was our
friend before he saw you. Or why would he have ridden through half of
France with Napoleon's police a half a league behind him? Why did he risk
everything to bring out the paper when he might have burned it? Why did
he not sell it there? He might have done so half a dozen times. Why does
he wait till now?

"Do you know what I would say if you were older and less transparent? Do
you know?"

An imperious, ringing note had entered into her voice, which made me
regard her with a sudden doubt. About her was the same charm and mystery