"France doesn't, I am sure of that. I am thinking
there will be events, though, before long, Colville. Will there not,
now?"

Colville looked at him with an open smile.

"You mean," he said, slowly, "the Prince President."

"That is what he calls himself at present. I'm wondering how long. Eh!
man. He is just pouring money into the country from here, from America,
from Austria--from wherever he can get it."

"Why is he doing that?"

"You must ask somebody who knows him better than I do. They say you knew
him yourself once well enough, eh?"

"He is not a man I have much faith in," said Colville, vaguely. "And
France has no faith in him at all."

"So I'm told. But France--well, does France know what she wants? She
mostly wants something without knowing what it is. She is like a woman.
It's excitement she wants, perhaps. And she will buy it at any cost, and
then find afterward she has paid too dear for it. That is like a woman,
too. But it isn't another Bonaparte she wants, I am sure of that."

"So am I," answered Colville, with a side glance toward Barebone, a mere
flicker of the eyelids.

"Not unless it is a Napoleon of that ilk."

"And he is not," completed Colville..

"But--" the Scotchman paused, for a waiter came at this moment to tell
him that his dinner was ready at a table nearer to the fire. "But," he
went on, in French, for the waiter lingered, "but he might be able to
persuade France that it is himself she wants--might he not, now? With
money at the back of it, eh?"

"He might," admitted Colville, doubtfully.

The Scotchman moved away, but came back again.

"I am thinking," he said, with a grim smile, "that like all intelligent
people who know France, you are aware that it is a King she wants."

"But not an Orleans King," replied Colville, with his friendly and
indifferent laugh.

The Scotchman smiled more grimly still and went away.

He was seated too near for Colville and Loo to talk of him. But Colville
took an opportunity to mention his name in an undertone. It was a name
known all over Europe then, and forgotten now.

CHAPTER XXXI. THE THURSDAY OF MADAME DE CHANTONNAY

"It is," Madame de Chantonnay had maintained throughout the months of
January and February--"it is an affair of the heart."

She continued to hold this opinion with, however, a shade less
conviction, well into a cold March.

"It is an affair of the heart, Abbe," she said. "Allez! I know what I
talk of. It