you his hand.
Dilate not at all, but urge him to leave the town without delay. From
the maid I will get to know the hour of the chaise's starting and the
route so that you can plant your men. I grant that this has the air of a
highwayman's attack, but, after all, the uniform covers a host of civil
sins, and, really, I do not see a better way to have done with the
youth. It will never do to have him strut about Paris boasting that he
snatched the sword away from an officer and drubbed him with a cane into
the bargain."

Sullen fire burned in the hearer's eyes. He stamped his foot, suppressed
an oath, and when he looked up, had a serene countenance.

"You have said enough. A willing steed does not need the spur. I will
lay the train and prepare the match. Let each look to himself lest he
suffer by the explosion."

Successful though the old woman had been in her arrangement to convert
an offended employer into a vigorous ally, she shuddered as if he were,
in these ominous words, as good a soothsayer as he pretended to be.

CHAPTER VII.

ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES--A BAD ONE.

Probably no more terrifying a figure could have presented itself at the
Persepolitan Hotel than the major of cavalry, and he looked the type of
his class, insolent with aristocratic hauteur, martial to the point of
arrogance, and domineering and as blustering toward inferiors as he
would have been bland and meek to his superiors. The landlord, one of
the hybrid Levantines in whose blood that of a dozen races flowed, was
as alarmed as the maid, whom he sent up the stairs to announce the
visitor to Herr Daniels. Strange to say, the officer, who had taken a
seat in the sitting-room, unasked, with his heavy sabre held upright
between his knees, bore the somewhat lengthy delay with patience. The
girl returned to say that Herr Daniels would be honored with the visit,
although, he had said, he had not a pleasant remembrance of the
gentleman. In fact, before his assault in the street upon La Belle
Stamboulane, the major had persecuted her and deserved the reproof from
her father which it was too dangerous, as Munich society was ruled, for
him to utter.

But, contrary to all precedent, the military Lovelace quietly walked
into the room where Claudius was restored to health and whence he had
been removed to the inmost chamber vacated by the young singer. The
major's accident might account for his meekness, but his manners and
voice accorded with hi