who had fixed upon him a sort
of modified exile.

Louis had only a languid interest in the feud between his arm of the
family and the reigning branch. He would willingly enough have taken a
scepter from the hand of any King-maker who proffered it, but he would
certainly never, of his own incentive, have struck a blow for a throne.

Sometimes, indeed, as he sat at a cafe table on the _Champs Elysees_
when awakening dreams of Spring were in the air and a military band was
playing in the distance, dormant ambitions awoke. Sometimes when he
watched the opalescent gleam in his glass as the garcon carefully
dripped water over absinthe, he would picture himself wresting from the
incumbent, the Crown of Galavia, and would hear throngs shouting "Long
live King Louis!" At such moments his stimulated spirit would indulge in
large visions, and his half-degenerate face would smile through its
gentle but dissipated languor.

Louis Delgado was a man of inaction. He had that quality of personal
daring which is not akin to moral resoluteness. He was ready enough at a
fancied insult to exchange cards and meet his adversary on the field,
but a throne against which he plotted was as safe, unless threatened by
outside influences, as a throne may ever be.

When Louis presented Jusseret to the Countess Astaride there flashed
between the woman of audacious imagination and the master of intrigue a
message of kinship. The Frenchman bent low over her hand.

"That hand, Madame," he had whispered, "was made to wield a scepter."

The Countess had laughed with the melodious zylophone note that caressed
the ear, and had flashed on Jusseret her smile which was a magic thing
of ivory and flesh and sudden sunshine. She had held up the slender
fingers of the hand he had flattered, possibly a trace pleased with the
effect of the Duke's latest gift, a huge emerald set about with small
but remarkably pure brilliants. She had contemplated it, critically, and
after a brief silence had let her eyes wander from its jewels to the
Frenchman's face.

"Wielding a scepter, Monsieur," she had suggested smilingly, "is less
difficult than seizing a scepter. I fear I should need a stronger hand."

"Ah, but Madame," the Frenchman had hastened to protest, "these are the
days of the deft finger and the deft brain. Even crowns to-day are not
won in tug-of-war."

The woman had looked at him half-seriously, half-challengingly.

"I am told, Monsieur Jusseret," she s