Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/74

 the illustrious dynasty of Pavelovitch! Oh, lady, lady! I call it downright unfriendly, downright inhospitable of you. Where shall my grey hairs find shelter? I'm so comfortable here under your royal roof-tree. You wouldn't deprive the gentlest of God's creatures of a happy home? Better that a thousand Tsargradevs should flourish like a green bay tree, than that one upright man should be turned out of comfortable quarters. There, now, be kind. As a personal favour to me, won't you please just leave things as they are?"

The Queen laughed a little—not very heartily, though, and not at all acquiescently. "Monsieur Tsargradev must go to prison," was her inexorable word.

We pleaded, we argued, we exhausted ourselves in warnings and protestations, but to no purpose. And in the end she lost her patience, and shut us up categorically.

"No! Let me be!" she cried. "I've heard enough. I know my own mind. I won't be bothered."

It was with heavy spirits and the dismallest forebodings that we assisted at her subsequent proceedings. We had an anxious time of it for many days; and it has never ceased to be a source of astonishment to me that it all turned out as well as it did. But—ce que femme veult, le diable ne'sçaurait pas l'empêcher.

She began operations by despatching an aide-de-camp to M. Tsargradev's house, with a note in which she commanded him to wait upon her forthwith at the Palace, and to deliver up his seals of office.

At the same time she summoned to her presence General Michaïlov, the Military Governor of Vescova, and Prince Vasiliev, the leader of the scant Conservative opposition in the Soviete.

She