as nothing more indecent than for
a female to join in the dance under such circumstances, and now it was
he who asked her to do that very thing.

For this reason Hortense hesitated at first to comply, but Bonaparte
grew only the more pressing and vehement in his request.

"You know how I like to see you dance, Hortense," he said, with his
irresistible smile; "so do this much for me, even if you take the floor
only once, and that for but a single _contredance_."

And Hortense, although most reluctant, although blushing with shame at
the idea of exposing herself in such unseemly shape to the gaze of all,
obeyed and joined the dances.

This took place in the evening--how greatly surprised, then, was
Hortense when next morning she found, in the paper that she usually
read, a poem, extolling her performance in words of ravishing flattery,
and referring to the fact that, notwithstanding her advanced state of
pregnancy, she had consented to tread a measure in the _contredance_, as
a peculiar trait of amiability!

Hortense, however, far from feeling flattered by this very emphatic
piece of verse, took it as an affront, and hastened at once to the
Tuileries, to complain to her mother, and to ask her how it was possible
that, so early as the very next morning, there could be verses published
in the newspapers concerning what had taken place at the ball on the
preceding evening.

Bonaparte, who happened to be with Josephine when Hortense came in, and
was the first to be questioned by her, gave her only an evasive and
jocose reply, and withdrew. Hortense then turned to her mother, who was
leaning over on the divan, her eyes reddened with weeping and her heart
oppressed with grief. To her, Bonaparte had given no evasive answer, but
had told the whole truth, and Josephine's heart was at that moment too
full of wretchedness, too overladen with this fresh and bitter trouble,
for her possibly to retain it within her own breast.

Hortense insisted upon an explanation, and her mother gave it. She told
her that Bonaparte had got the poet Esmenard to write the verses
beforehand, and that it was for this reason that he had urged her to
dance; that he had ordered the ball for no other purpose than to have
her dance, and have the poem that complimented her and referred to her
pregnancy published in the next day's paper.

Then, when Hortense, in terror, begged to be informed of the ground for
all these proceedings, Josephine had the cr