would
never, of course, admit him inside his doors, and it would have meant
hanging about in the rue du Marais and trusting to a chance meeting with
Crystal when she went out, and for this he had not the time.

And the chance meeting had come about in spite of all adverse
circumstances: and de Marmont followed Crystal through the crowded
streets, hoping that St. Genis would take leave of her before she went
indoors. But even if he did not, de Marmont meant to have a few words
with Crystal. He was going to win a gigantic fortune for the
Emperor--one wherewith that greatest of all adventurers could once again
recreate the Empire of France: he himself--rich already--would become
richer still and also--if his coup succeeded--one of the most trusted,
most influential men in the recreated Empire. He felt that with the
offer of his name he could pour out a veritable cornucopia of abundant
glory, honours, wealth at a woman's feet. And his ambition had always
been bound up in a great measure with Crystal de Cambray. He certainly
loved her in his way, for her beauty and her charm; but, above all, he
looked on her as the very personification of the old and proud regime
which had thought fit to scorn the parvenu noblesse of the Empire, and
for a powerful adherent of Napoleon to be possessed of a wife out of
that exclusive milieu was like a fresh and glorious trophy of war on a
conqueror's chariot-wheel.

De Marmont had the supreme faith of an ambitious man in the power of
wealth and of court favour. He knew that Napoleon was not a man who ever
forgot a service efficiently rendered, and would repay this
one--rendered at the supreme hour of disaster--with a surfeit of
gratitude and of gifts which must perforce dazzle any woman's eyes and
conquer her imagination.

Besides his schemes, his ambitions, the future which awaited him, what
had an impecunious wastrel like St. Genis to offer to a woman like
Crystal de Cambray?

Outside the house in the rue du Marais where the Comte de Cambray
lodged, St. Genis and Crystal paused, and de Marmont, who still kept
within the shadows, waited for a favourable opportunity to make his
presence known.

"I'll find M. le Comte and bring him back with me," he heard St. Genis
saying. "You are sure I shall find him at the Legitimiste?"

"Quite sure," Crystal replied. "He did not mean to leave the Cercle till
about nine. He is sure to wait for every bit of news that comes in."

"It will be a grea