a cause, not I. I carry too
decisive a weight in the balance to victory. I have a taste for fruits,
my fairest! And Republics, my bright Lutetia, can give you splendid
honours.' He helped her to realize this with the assuring splendour of
his eyes.

'"Bride of the Elect of the People!" is not that as glorious a title,
think you, as queen of an hereditary sovereign mumbling of God's grace
on his worm-eaten throne? I win that seat by service, by the dedication
of this brain to the people's interests. They have been ground to the
dust, and I lift them, as I did a persecuted lady in my boyhood. I am
the soldier of justice against the army of the unjust. But I claim
my reward. If I live to fight, I live also to enjoy. I will have my
station. I win it not only because I serve, but because also I
have seen, have seen ahead, seen where all is dark, read the
unwritten--because I am soldier and prophet. The brain of man is Jove's
eagle and his lightning on earth--the title to majesty henceforth. Ah!
my fairest; entering the city beside me, and the people shouting around,
she would not think her choice a bad one?'

Clotilde made sign and gave some earnest on his arm of ecstatic hugging.

'We may have hard battles, grim deceptions, to go through before that
day comes,' he continued after a while. 'The day is coming, but we must
wait for it, work on. I have the secret of how to head the people--to
put a head to their movement and make it irresistible, as I believe it
will be beneficent. I set them moving on the lines of the law of things.
I am no empty theorizer, no phantasmal speculator; I am the man of
science in politics. When my system is grasped by the people, there is
but a step to the realization of it. One step. It will be taken in my
time, or acknowledged later. I stand for index to the people of the path
they should take to triumph--must take, as triumph they must sooner
or later: not by the route of what is called Progress--pooh! That is
a middle-class invention to effect a compromise. With the people the
matter rests with their intelligence! meanwhile my star is bright and
shines reflected.'

'I notice,' she said, favouring him with as much reflection as a
splendid lover could crave for, 'that you never look down, you never
look on the ground, but always either up or straight before you.'

'People have remarked it,' said he, smiling. 'Here we are at this
funereal tree again. All roads lead to Rome, and ours appears