and seizing his right arm.) What are you
thinking of, lieutenant? It's a lady: don't you hear that it's a
woman's voice?

LIEUTENANT. It's HIS voice, I tell you. Let me go. (He breaks away, and
rushes to the inner door. It opens in his face; and the Strange Lady
steps in. She is a very attractive lady, tall and extraordinarily
graceful, with a delicately intelligent, apprehensive, questioning
face--perception in the brow, sensitiveness in the nostrils, character
in the chin: all keen, refined, and original. She is very feminine, but
by no means weak: the lithe, tender figure is hung on a strong frame:
the hands and feet, neck and shoulders, are no fragile ornaments, but
of full size in proportion to her stature, which considerably exceeds
that of Napoleon and the innkeeper, and leaves her at no disadvantage
with the lieutenant. Only her elegance and radiant charm keep the
secret of her size and strength. She is not, judging by her dress, an
admirer of the latest fashions of the Directory; or perhaps she uses up
her old dresses for travelling. At all events she wears no jacket with
extravagant lappels, no Greco-Tallien sham chiton, nothing, indeed,
that the Princesse de Lamballe might not have worn. Her dress of
flowered silk is long waisted, with a Watteau pleat behind, but with
the paniers reduced to mere rudiments, as she is too tall for them. It
is cut low in the neck, where it is eked out by a creamy fichu. She is
fair, with golden brown hair and grey eyes.)

(She enters with the self-possession of a woman accustomed to the
privileges of rank and beauty. The innkeeper, who has excellent natural
manners, is highly appreciative of her. Napoleon, on whom her eyes
first fall, is instantly smitten self-conscious. His color deepens: he
becomes stiffer and less at ease than before. She perceives this
instantly, and, not to embarrass him, turns in an infinitely well bred
manner to pay the respect of a glance to the other gentleman, who is
staring at her dress, as at the earth's final masterpiece of
treacherous dissimulation, with feelings altogether inexpressible and
indescribable. As she looks at him, she becomes deadly pale. There is
no mistaking her expression: a revelation of some fatal error utterly
unexpected, has suddenly appalled her in the midst of tranquillity,
security and victory. The next moment a wave of color rushes up from
beneath the creamy fichu and drowns her whole face. One can see that
she is blushin