t His Majesty might come, he said, and he had presumed so far as to
hope that His Majesty might deign to act as godfather for the poor
Indians, and so he had waited.

Nothing could have pleased Maximilian more, and he looked at the good
priest with an awakening favor. "Then let it be this afternoon," he
commanded. "I will stand their sponsor."

"----Before God, who will bless Your Majesty," murmured the priest.

And to be brief, let it be recorded that they were baptized by the
hundred, with hurried pomp--"pompes a incendie," as the godfather
himself described it.

CHAPTER XVII

RATHER A SMALL MAN

"Besides the queene, he dearly loved a fair and comely dame."
--_The Ballad of Fair Rosamond._

Jacqueline was protesting to a worried personage in Grand Uniform. The
personage was the Cerberus of the Emperor's antechamber, and he barred
her way. He was newly a personage, and did not know Jacqueline.

"But, Senor Oficial de Ordenes," she insisted, "don't you see that if I
put my name in your old register there, the man will be shot while your
Dignitaries are deciding to grant my audience!"

"Shot?" vaguely repeated the monarchial flunkey. He was a Mexican, and
took his unfamiliar responsibilities seriously. He turned to the Book of
Court Etiquette on the centre table.

"I tell you," exclaimed the impatient girl, "you won't find any
precedence for shooting in that thing. A doomed man hasn't any, take the
word of the Dama Mayor."

"Dama Mayor?" This was more tangible, and the Grand Uniform seized on it
gratefully. "But," and he quoted from the Ritual in triumph, "no Dama
can present herself except on matters of service."

Jacqueline hedged guilefully. "Of course not," she agreed, "and it's
precisely that why I must see His Majesty. It's about, about a piece of
valencienne he wished me to bring the Empress from Europe."

The Oficial de Ordenes hesitated. "But the man to be shot?"

"No matter, the lace is my business."

With which assurance, the Grand Uniform presumed to announce la Senorita
Marquesa d'Aumerle. He reappeared at once from the inner apartment. The
Emperor's order to admit her that instant rather disturbed his faith in
the Ritual and the leisurely decorum it prescribed.

Hardly had she stepped within the portieres than someone caught her
hand, and she saw Maximilian bending over it. There was an involuntary
warmth in his formal courtier grace. The only o