"And so it is gone--worse than gone--and so, my friend Victor, I am afraid you will have to find out in the course of circumstances that a woman's smiles do not always mean a reflection of the light in her lover's eyes, and that her kisses do not always mean love. It is a pity, because, after all, I believe you are a true Frenchman, even if you wear a German uniform; and if that dream had become a reality, and you and I had shared the throne of France, perhaps I should have loved you as well and as truly as most queens have loved their consorts.
"But, alas, my poor Victor, the sceptre has passed away--for the time being, at least--from the House of Bourbon. It is given into the hands of our enemies, and so you, by force of fate, must stand aside. I shall not tell you this yet, because afterwards, perhaps, you may be useful. I wonder what you would think of me--even you, a man who in the old days would only have been a sort of slave, living or dying socially as the great Louis smiled or frowned upon you--I wonder what you would think if you could look over my shoulder and read this writing and see a woman's soul laid naked on this page. Perhaps you might think me utterly mean and contemptible--you would if you didn't understand; but if you did, if you could see all and understand all--well, then, you might hate me, but I think you would be man enough to respect me.
"At least you are diplomatist enough to know, after all, in the great game of politics, a game that is played for the mastery of kingdoms and peoples, to say nothing of the empire of the world, women have to count themselves as pawns. Even the cleverest, the most brilliant, the most beautiful of us--that is all we are. Sometimes our beauty or the charm of our subtle wit may win the outer senses of the rulers of the world; they may admire us physically or mentally, or both, but even at the best, it is only the man that we enslave. The man goes to sleep for a night, he dreams perhaps of our beauty and the delight of our society, but in the morning it is the statesman that wakes, and he looks back on the little weakness of the night before, and thinks of us as an ordinary man might think of the one extra liqueur which he ought not to have taken after a good dinner.