AN OLD SCANDAL

“Corsica to-morrow,” said the admiral.

“Napoleon,” said Laura.

“Romance,” said Cathewe.

“Treasures,” said M. Ferraud.

Hildegarde felt uneasy.  Breitmann toyed with the bread crumbs.  He was inattentive besides.

“Napoleon.  There is an old scandal,” mused M. Ferraud.  “I don’t think that any of you have heard it.”

“That will interest me,” Fitzgerald cried.  “Tell it.”

M. Ferraud cleared his throat with a sharp ahem and proceeded to burnish his crystals.  Specks and motes were ever adhering to them.  He held them up to the light and pretended to look through them:  he saw nothing but the secretary’s abstraction.

“We were talking about treasures the other night,” began the Frenchman, “and I came near telling it then.  It is a story of Napoleon.”

“Never a better moment to tell it,” said the admiral, rubbing his hands in pleasurable anticipation.

“I say to you at once that the tale is known to few, and has never had any publicity, and must never have any.  Remember that, if you please, Mr. Fitzgerald, and you also, Mr. Breitmann.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Breitmann.  “I was not listening.”

M. Ferraud repeated his request clearly.

“I am no longer a newspaper writer,” Breitmann affirmed, clearing the fog out of his head.  “A story about Napoleon; will it be true?”

“Every word of it.”  M. Ferraud folded his arms and sat back.

During the pause Hildegarde shivered.  Something made her desire madly to thrust a hand out and cover M. Ferraud’s mouth.

“We have all read much about Napoleon.  I can not recall how many lives range shoulder to shoulder on the booksellers’ shelves.  There have been letters and memoirs, anecdotes by celebrated men and women who were his contemporaries.  But there is one thing upon which we shall all agree, and that is that the emperor was in private life something of a beast.  As a soldier he was the peer of all the Caesars; as a husband he was vastly inferior to any of them.  This story does not concern him as emperor.  If in my narrative there occurs anything offensive, correct me instantly.  I speak English fluently, but there are still some idioms I trip on.”

“I’ll trust you to steer straight enough,” said the admiral.

“Thank you.  Well, then, once upon a time Napoleon was in Bavaria.  The country was at that time his ablest ally.  There was a pretty peasant girl.”

A knife clattered to the floor.  “Pardon!” whispered Hildegarde to Cathewe.  “I am clumsy.”  She was as white as the linen.

Breitmann went on with his crumbs.