all inform the Emperor that
you are here,' said he, with two deprecating hands outstretched.

'Ah, then he _is_ there!' she cried furiously. 'I see it all!
I understand it all! But I will expose him--I will reproach him with
his perfidy! Let me pass, Constant! How dare you stand in my way?'

'Allow me to announce you, your Majesty.'

'I shall announce myself.' With swift undulations of her beautiful
figure she darted past the protesting valet, parted the curtains, threw
open the door, and vanished into the next room.

She had seemed a creature full of fire and of spirit as, with a flush
which broke through the paint upon her cheeks, and with eyes which
gleamed with the just anger of an outraged wife, she forced her way into
her husband's presence. But she was a woman of change and impulse, full
of little squirts of courage and corresponding reactions into cowardice.
She had hardly vanished from our sight when there was a harsh roar, like
an angry beast, and next instant Josephine came flying into the room
again, with the Emperor, inarticulate with passion, raving at her heels.
So frightened was she, that she began to run towards the fireplace, upon
which Madame de Remusat, who had no wish to form a rearguard upon such
an occasion, began running also, and the two of them, like a pair of
startled hens, came rustling and fluttering back to the seats which they
had left. There they cowered whilst the Emperor, with a convulsed face
and a torrent of camp-fire oaths, stamped and raged about the room.

'You, Constant, you!' he shouted; 'is this the way in which you serve
me? Have you no sense then--no discretion? Am I never to have any
privacy? Must I eternally submit to be spied upon by women?
Is everyone else to have liberty, and I only to have none? As to you,
Josephine, this finishes it all. I had hesitations before, but now I
have none. This brings everything to an end between us.'

We would all, I am sure, have given a good deal to slip from the room--at
least, my own embarrassment far exceeded my interest--but the Emperor
from his lofty standpoint cared as little about our presence as if we
had been so many articles of furniture. In fact, it was one of this
strange man's peculiarities that it was just those delicate and personal
scenes with which privacy is usually associated that he preferred to
have in public, for he knew that his reproaches had an additional sting
when they fell upon other ears besi