'It is also known in Paris that you have had much to do with secret and especial services. Is that not so?'

'Yes, it is true. It is also true that I took over from Lord Dungarth, but my present command ...' It was Drinkwater's turn to shrug; he was too keenly aware of the irony to offer a full explanation, and let the matter rest upon implication.

'Your appearance here off Calais is providential not only for myself and for France, but for the peace of Europe.'

Drinkwater was suddenly weary. What had the woman come for? He sensed some mystery but so preposterous a claim seemed to be verging on the hysterical, just when the abdicated Napoleon Bonaparte was to be mewed up on a remote island.

'I see you are growing tired, Captain ...'

'No, no ...' he lied.

'I must perforce beg you, as a man of influence, sir, to grant me a small comptence if I reveal what I know'

'Competence? You mean a pension?' So that was what it was all about! Here before him, one of the most beautiful women in Europe was begging. She was one piece of the human flotsam from the wreckage of Bonaparte's empire. He felt meanly disappointed, as though her presence here on this night should have some nobler motive. 'So, you have come to trade.'

'I have almost nothing, Captain, and I must look to the magnanimity of my enemies and the honour of a man I have always thought of as a true spirit, wherever our respective loyalties have led us in these past years. I should hate you for what you did to my husband, but Edouard would have killed you ...'

'He tried, several times, Hortense ...'

Ashamed of his meanness, he felt a great pity for her. She would not be the only casualty in the fall of France. Though he had been a consistent enemy of his sovereign's enemies, he had often, in the privacy of his own thoughts, admired the establishment of a new order. The regal buffoonery of the preceding day had reminded him of the craziness of the world.