“Sacrifice your love!  That would be odious—­that must not be!  Do you mean that they want you to marry?  How cruel!”

He did not smile at the absurdity of her protest, it was so sincere.

“Well, Cesarine, they are blind here, and deaf to the signs along their own frontier.  The French rely on a Russian alliance, when already Herr von Bismarck, the Prussian ambassador at St. Petersburg, long ago secured its suspension.  Besides, the Crimean War will always be remembered against Napoleon—­it is so easy not to ally oneself with England, and, considering her proverbial ingratitude, so rarely profitable.  I spoke of Bismarck!  This man of a million, with deep, dark eyes, fixed and unreadable, with a cold, mocking mouth, iron will and mighty brain, is soon to be pitted against Napoleon, the shadow whom you have seen.  I am no soothsayer, but I can tell which must go down in the charge, and never to hold up his head again.  I am one of the flies on the common wheel who will be carried into the action and smashed, whoever is the victor.  I am unwilling to perish thus, when I can find in love of you a paradise on earth wherever you consent to dwell with me.  Listen:  I am entrusted with a prodigious sum in cash by a political organization, the headquarters of which in France are here, at the old marchioness’s—­a veteran puller of the wires that move the European puppets.  They have practically seized my German bands, and unless I retake them at the head of a column of victorious French, I may as well say good-bye to them.  As for Terremonde, the revenue is falling every quarter.  If it were not for this secret service, I should be bankrupt, for the Tuileries, perhaps, suspecting my good faith, pay me only in pretty words—­a la francaise.  This bank which I hold tempts me sorely, Cesarine, but only if you will dip into it with me.  Only once in a life does a man have his great opportunity.  Mine is the present.  A fortune—­a beauty!  Never will I have such an opportunity again to found a principality in Florida or the South Seas or South America—­wherever we choose to come to a rest.  Speak, Cesarine, are you with me?  After a while, when the modern Attila has swept over France, perhaps we will like to come and view the ruins and fill our gallery with the art-treasures which the impoverished defeated ones will gladly sell.”

“A large sum!” repeated the woman, frowning as her thoughts concentrated.

“Enormous!  I have been changing it into sight-drafts, and we can put on our wings at a moment’s notice.”

“It belongs to a political organization, you say?”

“Have no qualms—­it is a few drops out of a reptilian fund!  No one can claim what was handed over to me without witnesses, and no receipt demanded.  I make no secret:  I am offering for your love the price of my honor.  Only let us flee to a distance for a while.  The money could not be claimed of me in a public court, but they might punish me with an assassin’s bullet.”