"Oh, yes, I shall! And you'll like it, won't you?" He turned to his wife affectionately. "As if I should let you take it if I didn't like it," she answered, smiling. "Think how I shall show off before all my good countrywomen in Paris!"
"I don't know how to thank your Majesty," said Max.
"I don't want any thanks. I haven't done it for thanks. I thought you the best man."
"No, no," he murmured. "I like to think it's partly friendship for my wife and me. Everybody will say so."
I looked up with a little start.
"I suppose they will," said I.
"Yes, you'll be handsomely abused."
"That'll be rather funny," I remarked almost unconsciously, as I looked across to the Countess, smiling.
"I mean—you don't mind my saying?" asked Max; and when I nodded, he went on, "They'll point out that you're turning to our side the moment that the Prince is dead. Yes, it will make a good deal of talk; they'll call it the beginning of a new era."
"Perhaps they'll be right," said she in a low voice.
I rose to my feet. I recognised the truth in what Max said, and it seemed to add a touch of irony that the situation had lacked. Hammerfeldt himself, if he looked down from heaven (as Victoria picturesquely suggested), would be amused at the interpretation put on my action; it would suit his humour well to see the great sacrifice that I had made at the shrine of his teaching twisted into a
