He did not doubt that the old hag, believing he was lifeless, had hounded on her followers to steal his uniform and hurl him into the kennel for the most hideous of fates, which even the homeless and hopeless dread.  But for the enemy whom he hated, he might now be a boxful of dissected bones in the poor man’s lot instead of still enjoying the prospect, dear to the scion of an ancient race, of occupying his shelf in the family vault.

Although a soldier, he had such intimate relations with the civil powers, that the police aided him in searches which he took care astutely to represent as quite non-personal.  They led him to the street of the Persepolitan Hotel, where, before he entered, he was scrutinizing the vicinity when he spied the well-known form of the old beggar-chief.  Their surprise was alike.

“Traitress!” he said, with a red spot blazing on his pale cheeks, as he played with the swordknot on his new sword as if he wanted to loose it and flog her.  “After receiving my gold, to bring me to death’s door!  What have you to say to stay me from handing you to the town’s officers to be whipped out of it at the cart’s-tail?”

To his surprise again, she met his glance firmly, and her eyes seemed as irate as his own.

“You are mistaken,” she replied, carelessly, as if the matter were of no consequence.  “How can you expect those stalwart bullies to obey an old woman like me?  They would have beaten me to a jelly if I had tried to shield you.  Besides, my officer, I thought you had not a spark of life left in you after that beating.”

“He shall pay for it—­with the sword if worthy—­with the stick if a plebeian.”

“You need not believe he will ever meet you with the sword,” said the hag, glad to have the dialogue turn on another head than her own in spite of her unconcern.  “I am going to tell you all about one whom I hated by instinct and whom I find to be a hereditary enemy.”

“What do you mean?  He is but a boy and cannot have wronged you or yours.”

“His father, major, murdered my loveliest daughter and interrupted her career of splendor!  Alas! one that had a palace where kings were received and to whom princes often sued in vain!”

“Halloa! you, to have a daughter of that calibre!” and he laughed coarsely.

“You, who know everything, my officer, must at least have heard of the peerless Iza, the original of the most beautiful statue which—­reproduced in the precious and the mean metals, in clay, in parian, in plaster—­made the round of the civilized world?  ‘The Bather!’ That was my daughter!  She had her faults—­even the truly lovely have mental flaws, though bodily they are perfect—­but whilst she lived, her poor old mother dressed in silks and velvets—­not in rags; she ate and drank delicately, not sour crusts and sourer wine; she slept on down and not in a cellar!”

Von Sendlingen shook his head; he was of the new generation and he preserved but a dim remembrance of the noted beauties—­the stars of the living galaxy decorating the first cycle of the Bonapartist Restoration.