‘Is that the way you carry yourself on a secret mission?’ he hissed, with that cold glare in his eyes.  ’Is it thus that you will make your comrades believe that nothing remarkable has occurred?  Have done with this nonsense, monsieur, or you will find yourself transferred to the sappers, where you would have harder work and duller plumage.’

That was the way with the Emperor.  If ever he thought that anyone might have a claim upon him, he took the first opportunity to show him the gulf that lay between.  I saluted and was silent, but I must confess to you that it hurt me after all that had passed between us.  He led on to the palace, where we passed through the side door and up into his own cabinet.  There were a couple of grenadiers at the staircase, and their eyes started out from under their fur caps, I promise you, when they saw a young lieutenant of hussars going up to the Emperor’s room at midnight.  I stood by the door, as I had done in the afternoon, while he flung himself down in an arm-chair, and remained silent so long that it seemed to me that he had forgotten all about me.  I ventured at last upon a slight cough to remind him.

‘Ah, Monsieur Gerard,’ said he, ’you are very curious, no doubt, as to the meaning of all this?’

‘I am quite content, sire, if it is your pleasure not to tell me,’ I answered.

‘Ta, ta, ta,’ said he impatiently.  ’These are only words.  The moment that you were outside that door you would begin making inquiries about what it means.  In two days your brother officers would know about it, in three days it would be all over Fontainebleau, and it would be in Paris on the fourth.  Now, if I tell you enough to appease your curiosity, there is some reasonable hope that you may be able to keep the matter to yourself.’

He did not understand me, this Emperor, and yet I could only bow and be silent.

‘A few words will make it clear to you,’ said he, speaking very swiftly and pacing up and down the room.  ’They were Corsicans, these two men.  I had known them in my youth.  We had belonged to the same society—­Brothers of Ajaccio, as we called ourselves.  It was founded in the old Paoli days, you understand, and we had some strict rules of our own which were not infringed with impunity.’

A very grim look came over his face as he spoke, and it seemed to me that all that was French had gone out of him, and that it was the pure Corsican, the man of strong passions and of strange revenges, who stood before me.  His memory had gone back to those early days of his, and for five minutes, wrapped in thought, he paced up and down the room with his quick little tiger steps.  Then with an impatient wave of his hands he came back to his palace and to me.