And so it was that she had no hesitation in revealing Prince Sant'Anna's secret and the reason why that great aristocrat had desired the blood of an emperor for his son. Yet, for all that, as she told him she did experience a momentary fear of what Napoleon might say. She need not have worried.

She was on the point of taking up her narrative again after a brief pause when she felt the Emperor's hand on her arm.

'I was angry with you once for marrying without my consent, Marianne,' he said, with the rare but very real tenderness which belonged to him alone. 'Now, I ask you to forgive me. I could never have found you such a husband.'

'What? You are not shocked? Do you really think—'

'That you have married a most exceptional man, and one of rare quality. You realize that, I hope?'

'Certainly. I could hardly fail to do so. But—'

He got up then and, putting one knee on the sofa, took her chin in his hand so that she was obliged to meet his eyes.

'But what?' he said, and there was that steely note in his voice which boded no good. 'Are you, by any chance, going to talk to me again about that American of yours? Take care, Marianne. I have always believed that you, too, were no ordinary woman. I should not like to have to change my opinion.'

'Sire!' she exclaimed in some alarm. 'I beg of you! I – I have not finished yet.'

He let her go and walked away from her.

'Go on then. I am listening.'

There had been a subtle change in the atmosphere which, for a moment, had become what it had been in earlier days. Napoleon had resumed his pacing of the room but he was walking very slowly, his head sunk on his chest, listening and pondering at once. And when at last Marianne fell silent he turned towards her slowly and his grey eyes looked consideringly at her for a long time, and once again the anger had gone from them.

'What do you mean to do now?' he asked her gravely.

She hesitated a little. She had, naturally enough, omitted all reference to Cardinal de Chazay's presence in Moscow and it was therefore impossible to declare her intention of proceeding to Count Sheremetiev's country estate. Moreover, if she had done so, Napoleon might very well have taken exception to this trafficking with the enemy.

Dropping her head to avoid his searching eyes, she said in a low voice: 'I thought – I thought to leave Moscow tonight. My friend Jolival is lying in the Rostopchin Palace with a broken leg and if there should be trouble it would be difficult for him to escape.'

'Where will you go?'

'I – I don't know.'

'You're lying.'

'Sire!' she protested indignantly, furious to feel herself blushing.

'No protests. I tell you you are lying, as you very well know. What you want is to go running after the cossacks, isn't it? Come hell or high water, you want to find this Beaufort because you are so besotted about him that it has addled your wits. Don't you see that he is destroying you?'

'That's not true! I love him—'

'What has that to say to anything? I loved Josephine but I divorced her because I wanted an heir. I loved you – oh, yes, you may smile, but I loved you truly and perhaps I love you still. Yet I married another because she was the daughter of an emperor and the foundation of a dynasty demanded it.'

'It's not the same—'

'Why not? Because you think you have invented love? Because you think that he is the one love of your life? Come now, Marianne – not to me! When you married him, did you not love the man I sent to the guillotine at Vincennes?'

'He killed my love. Besides, I was a child, infatuated—'

'Come, come! If he had not been the wretch he was but the man that you had pictured him, you would have adored him your whole life through and never looked at another. Yet you had already met Monsieur Beaufort—And myself?'

'You?'

"Yes, me. Did you love me, yes or no? Or were you playing with me at the Trianon? And at the Tuileries?'

She gazed at him in terror, knowing that in the face of this remorseless logic she was lost.

'I hope,' she murmured softly, 'that you don't believe that. Yes, I loved you – loved you so much that I was mad with jealousy on your wedding day.'

'And if I had married you, I should have had no more faithful empress. And yet you knew Jason Beaufort then! Tell me, Marianne, can you recall the precise moment when you knew you loved him?'

'I don't know. It's all so vague… These things don't happen all at once. But I think that when I really knew it was – at the Austrian ambassador's ball.'

The Emperor nodded. 'When you saw him with another woman. When you learned that he was married and so lost to you. Just as I thought.'

'What do you mean?'

He smiled at her fleetingly, with that smile that brought back all his vanished youth, and very tenderly he put his arm round her and drew her to him.

'You are like a child, Marianne. Children always want what they cannot have, and the more it eludes them, the more they want it. They will spurn the prettiest toys, the greatest treasures even, for the sake of a thing of no value at all that lies beyond their reach. They are even capable of dying in the effort to grasp a star that glitters in the darkness of a well. You are like that. You would throw away the world for a reflection in the water – for something you will never reach and which will destroy you.'

She protested again, but with less conviction.

'He loves me too.'

'You do not say it quite so loudly – because you are not really sure. And you are right. What he loves is, above all, the image of himself which he sees in your eyes. Oh, to be sure, he may love you in his fashion. You are lovely enough. But admit that he has done little enough to prove it. Believe me, Marianne, and give up this idea. Relinquish this love for no good will come of it. You must not go on living a life that is not for you, living for another and through another—'

'I cannot! I cannot!'

He moved away without answering and left her to her tears. Going quickly to the wall, he took down the portrait which he had hung there so carefully a little while before, and put it in her hands.

'See! That is my son. The portrait is by Gerard. Bausset brought it to me from Paris on the eve of the Moskva. It is my most precious possession. See how beautiful he is.'

'Very beautiful, Sire.'

Filled with a despair she could not comprehend, she stared down through her tears at the picture of a fine, fair-haired baby boy who looked back gravely, in spite of the muslins and the garlands of flowers which were his scanty clothing. The Emperor's voice had dropped to a confidential murmur, yet there was an urgency in his words:

"You too have a son. You told me what a fine boy he was. You say you cannot help loving Beaufort, but what of your son, Marianne? Is it so easy to cease loving him? You know it is not. If you persist in this mad quest for an impossible happiness, in running after a man who already has a wife – for the Señora Beaufort still exists, you know, however much you may seek to forget her – so, if you persist, the day will come when the longing to see your child again will be more than you can bear, even, indeed especially, if you have other children by then, for he will be the one whose love you have never known.'

Marianne could bear no more. She let go of the portrait and threw herself at full length on the sofa, torn by shattering sobs that made her whole body tremble. She scarcely heard the Emperor when he murmured: 'Weep! It will do you good. Stay here. I will come back soon.'

And weep she did, for how long she did not know, nor was she even very sure what she was weeping for. For the life of her, she could not have said who was the cause of the despair that racked her, whether it was the man she so persistently adored or the child so suddenly recalled to her mind.

At last she felt herself being lifted up and a gentle hand wiping her face with a cloth drenched in eau de Cologne, which made her sneeze.

She opened her eyes and saw Constant bending over her with such an anxious expression that, for all her wretchedness, she had to smile.

'It's a long time since you last had to take care of me, Constant, my friend.'

'It is indeed, Princess. I have often thought so with regret. Do you feel better now? I have made some more coffee.'

She took the scalding cup and drank the contents almost at a gulp, conscious only that she felt better almost at once. Then, realizing that the room was empty but for the faithful valet, she asked: 'Where is the Emperor?'

'In the next room which he has made his office. It appears that fresh fires have broken out along a smaller river which is called the Yaouza, in the vicinity of a mansion of the name of Balachov where the King of Naples has established his headquarters.'

Marianne was on her feet at once and running to the windows, but these did not look in the right direction and she saw nothing beyond a slight haze of smoke to the east.

'I told him there would be more,' she said tensely. 'Perhaps this new outbreak will make him decide to pull out.'

'I hardly think so,' Constant observed. 'Withdraw is not a word known to His Majesty. Any more than the word retreat. He does not know the meaning of it. And that in spite of any danger. See,' he added, showing her a fat, green portfolio which he had just extracted from a travelling trunk, 'look at this folder. Do you see the laurel crown that is stamped on it in gold leaf?'

Marianne nodded. Constant sighed and his finger traced, almost tenderly, the design stamped on the leather.

'That crown is the same as the one he placed on his own head in Notre Dame on the day of his coronation. Look at the design of the leaves. They are pointed like the arrows of our old archers and, like them, go straight for their goal.'

'But they may be destroyed. What will become of your laurels in the midst of the fire, my poor Constant?'

'A halo, your Highness, and shining all the brighter in time of trouble. A flaming crown, as you might say.'

He broke off as the Emperor's quick footsteps sounded outside and withdrew, with a deep bow, to the far end of the room, just as Napoleon came in. His face was clouded now and his frowning brows were drawn down like a bar above his steely-grey eyes.

Thinking that she must be in the way, Marianne sketched a curtsy.

'With your permission, your Majesty—'

He glared at her frostily.

'Save your curtsy, Princess. There is no question of your leaving. I wish you to stay. You have a recent wound, let me remind you, and I've no intention of letting you go running off to be a prey to all the hazards of war.'

'But Sire – I can't!'

'Why not? Because of your – forebodings? Are you afraid?'

She shrugged her shoulders faintly, more from weariness than disrespect.

'Your Majesty must know that I am not. But I left my young coachman outside and there are old friends waiting for me at the Rostopchin Palace who may be anxious—'

'Then they need not be. You are in no danger with me, so far as I know. As to the Rostopchin Palace, Trévise's grenadiers are billeted there, so your friends are not without protection. Never mind. I won't have you worrying, or making some foolhardy attempt to escape. Who brought you here?'

'Major Trobriant.'

'Another old friend,' the Emperor commented sardonically. 'There seems to be no end of them. Well, I will have him sent for to go and pick up your Jolival and the – Irishman, I think you said he was? They should be brought here. There's room in this place to lodge an army, thank God! Constant will see to you and tonight we will sup together. That is not an invitation, Madame,' he added, seeing Marianne about to beg him to excuse her. 'It is an order.'

There was nothing for it but to obey. Marianne swept a low curtsy and then followed the valet who, with the confidence of a man long used to finding his way about the most extensive palaces, led her by way of two corridors and a small staircase to a comfortable room with windows almost directly above the Emperor's, only rather more dusty.

'We'll see what we can do by way of chambermaids tomorrow,' he told her with a reassuring smile. 'For tonight, if your Highness would kindly make allowances…'

Left to herself, Marianne did her best to calm her agitated spirits and to shake off the misery that oppressed her. She felt lost and abandoned, in spite of the undoubted concern Napoleon had shown for her, and that at a time when he must have had other things to do than trouble himself with a woman's private emotions. What was it he had said? That perhaps he still loved her? No, that must be impossible. He had said it only to comfort her. The one he loved was his little blonde Austrian. Besides, what did it matter now? What was more serious, and more disturbing also, was that bold, categorical declaration of his. With what remorseless logic he had demonstrated that she was not a woman dedicated to a single love, that she might be susceptible to the attractions of other men besides Jason. How could he fail to see that that was false, that she loved him, had never loved anyone else but him, not even after Corfu when—