J

OSEPHINE, then, was shaking dice when her lord and master set his boot once more on the soil of France. Her last little tower of gold louis had been whisked away when Fouché's finger-tips fell like five cold bivalves on her arm.

"I would tempt Fate no longer," said the minister of police. "He travels fast!"

She turned with a swift movement from the waist, even in her alarm still graceful.

"Who travels fast, Citizen Fouché?" she asked, her little fist flying, clenched, to her parted lips.

"Your adoring husband, the illustrious general," supplied Talleyrand, bowing and applying thumb and forefinger outlined like a bird's head with brown grains in its beak, first to one nostril, then the other.

"There must be some mistake, Fouché," she cried. "Surely you are wrong. He would not leave without sending me some word."

"Even so, Citoyenne Bonaparte, he is here," said the death's-head, "on the road to Paris, and not, I should venture to say, sparing horse-flesh."

She knew that he was not mistaken. Did not this master spy know everything that went on! And surprise was her husband's first rule in love as in warfare.

Ruefully she looked at the green table. She had hoped to be able to pay off some of those debts long before his arrival. And, generous as he was, he could be very stern about debt. Still, one thing was certain; his brothers must not reach him before her.

"How charming to see a two years' bride so eager to greet her husband!" said Talleyrand, to the blinking minister of police, as she fled the room. "Pardieu! It restores one's faith in human nature.”

Outside she leaped into the berline, bidding the postilion lash his horses -a cruelty unusual in the softhearted Josephine.

"Louise! Hortense!" she called as she gained her room. "The general is on his way. Any moment he may be here. What shall I do?" "Why not, maman, ride down to meet him?" said Hortense.

"A stroke of genius, my child," exclaimed the lovely lady, her tears now turned to laughter. "If he is vexed, that will disarm his anger. But hurry, Louise. Pack. Don't stand there like an idiot, gaping!"

23

Meantime the various members of his family had gathered at Joseph's house in the Rue Rocher. It was a cozy home, rather elegant too, for

Joseph had capitalized his brother's fame and the comfortable dot which Monsieur Clary, the rich silk merchant of Marseilles, had turned over to him with Julie.

First Pauline had danced in, all soft curves and enchanting chatter; then, more mannish and imperious, Eliza. Louis had brought his young side-burns and a new hussar's uniform all green and gold, with a furred pelisse over the shoulder. Letizia surveyed him dryly. She could not altogether blame Napoleon for his disappointment in Louis. The little fellow he had taught and supported, covered up at night to protect him from the air of the Auxonne marshes, had turned into something of a dreamer.

Lucien, who now appeared with his wife Christine, was more promising. He had given up three jobs that Napoleon had secured for him; but now he was a rising young legislator in the Council of Five Hundred, making speeches to his heart's content-good ones, too-and looking quite well in his red senatorial toga.

Christine, too, was a satisfaction. Only an innkeeper's daughter, to be sure and a bit pock-pitted. But she had a sweet face and wore her clothes well. Nothing could be more svelte than her gown-from the hands of the renowned Germond-nothing less -though it cost too much. She learned very quickly, that girl.

And Julie was no trouble-so amiable and with such common sense. If only the widow-to Letizia, Josephine was still "that widow". had half as much!

Letizia had not greatly changed. A little gray in the chestnut, a few lines at the corners of the mouth, and

a decided paling of the old peachblow; but still plain of dress and awkward in her French, yet stately and commanding and with the old noble candor in the fine mouth and expressive eyes.

"Is not that like him?" Paulette was saying as her mother entered the room, from upstairs where Joseph had set aside an apartment for her. "To think of skipping over the sea and across all those countries without letting any one know!"

"Eh! He has come in time," said Eliza. "The creole's conduct has been perfectly scandalous!"

"Perhaps it was to catch her napping," Pauline suggested.

"I hope she hasn't heard the news. Then his eyes may be opened," Eliza returned. "Napoleon is not one to wear the two horns."

The boys made no comment on their sister-in-law; and Julie and Christine, who, though they had been thoroughly merged in this turbulent clan, yet had a little of understanding sympathy for Josephine, were too tactful to defend her now.

Letizia, however, was in no mood for gossip.

"This is no time for incrimination," she said in rebuke. "The important matter is that your brother has returned."

"She never paid you any attention -hasn't even called," persisted Paulette, pouting.

"I know; she has shown me little respect," her mother answered. "But all I want is Napoleon's happiness. If she has been indiscreet, things may be patched up. And you do not know that she has been more than that."

"Basta! Say nothing!" broke in the mother, her dark eyes flashing fire. "Time will settle all these things. All we are concerned with now is that your brother gets the proper welcome. He has been away from home for a year and a half, in strange lands, and through many dangers. We must be at his house in the event of his wife's not being on hand, as I suspect she may not.' "Trust that," said Pauline, in a murmur now, not daring more.

But Joseph and Lucien, who had been conferring, announced their intention to ride down to Lyons to meet the wayfarer; and the host pulled the bell-rope to order out his cabriolet. Louis, too, had a sugges

tion.

"Do you not think it wise," he asked, caressing his side-burns and

shifting his pelisse at the prospect, "for me to announce the news to Madame la Générale en Chef?"

"An imbecile idea!" Eliza again exploded. "To warn her and not let him see!"

"Per Dio! Did I not tell you to

hold your tongue, Signora Bacciochi? Go, Louis. Give the widow a chance. It may save him hurt."

So off Louis posted. He had not made the suggestion through consideration for his wandering brother only. In the course of following Napoleon's injunction to give Josephine "good advice" and relieve her loneliness, he had found duty somewhat less than stern, and her brown eyes-no, they were dark blue-or was it black-she was so dark of coloring one always thought of them as brown-anyway, he found them quite fascinating. And she, on her side, always welcomed "dear Louis."

And, "Dear Louis," she said now, "thank Heaven you have come!"taking his hands in hers, there in the mêlée of petticoats and sheer nightgowns which she was assembling to enslave the conqueror. There was no sign of tears. Before men who did not know her so well as Napoleon she was ever the poised, the lovely, the superbly dressed, and the most adorably feminine.

So it was that, a few leagues beyond the city walls, Madame de Bourrienne, riding up to Paris, saw Louis riding down, and, following him, a carriage with two fair passengers asleep, their poke-bonnets beside them, the chestnut hair by the flaxen, Hortense, compassionate even at her sixteen years, pillowing her mother on her shoulder. And MaAnd Madame de Bourrienne, who, like many in Paris, got some amusement out of poor Josephine's tragi-comedy, or comi-tragedy, did not stop them, though she had reason to think that Napoleon had gone the other way.

He had-Josephine's luck had deserted her; and when she was aroused by "Wake up, maman; we are at Lyons," it was to be informed by a jubilant crowd of hostlers, postilions, and cooks, who had left their horses half hitched in the shafts, their lentils and their bouillabaisse scorching in the pots:

"Le général est arrivé! Vive le général! The general was here; the general had gone. Oui, madame; he had gone-swift like the eagle. How he kicked up the dust! I saw himand I—and I-brown as an oak-leaf in winter; with folded arms thus, and so stern! But when he smiled it was as though the angel shone through. Which way, madame? By the Bourbonnais Road. 'Impossible? Non, madame. Oui, oui, via Bourbonnais. Voilà! There still hangs in the air the dust of his wheels. And here is the deux sous piece he gave me. I shall keep it for our children. Merci, madame, merci! He is the best man in all the world!"

"Too late! Now he will never forgive me," she cried. "And the

only word I get of him is from lackeys!" At which Louis looked blank, Hortense pitying.

"We shall hurry back, maman. And make no mistake. He will be overjoyed to see my beautiful mother. There, dry your eyes. Déjeuner, Uncle Louis, might help a little."

And Uncle Louis, himself only twenty-one, began to think a flaxen aureole of hair, sea-blue eyes, and sixteen quite as attractive a combination as creole brunette, olive skin, and thirty-seven.

And le général- "the best man in all the world"? "Brown as the oakleaf in winter, from the Egyptian suns, his arms folded thus," and not smiling like any angel now, but with eyes somber and stern, he whirled on toward Paris to a street once called that of the Little Sucking Pigs, then of the Queen of Song, and now of the Victor.

The horses were jerked back until traces and whiffletrees almost snapped; Napoleon leaped out, bade Lavalette and the officers, who had been transferred to Joseph's coach when the brothers met him, drive on to their homes; and also dismissed Joseph and Lucien; then entered the door. No one in the receptionroom, or in the dining-room on the stiff horsehair chairs. He raced up the steps, two at a time. The rooms were empty. On the bed was still the imprint of her form. His hand trembling through memories, he touched the place.

"The hare has flown. The nest is still warm."

Now Louise entered, no longer laughing in her sleeve. This was no gauche lover sitting like a ramrod