Page:Wilson - Bunker bean.djvu/90

74 had heard the word "bounder." It seemed to him that Napoleon had shown himself to be just that—a fearful and impossible bounder. He tingled with shame. He wished he might speak to that Queen now as a gentleman would.

And yet he could not read the book without a certain evil quickening. Brutal though his method of approach had been, the man had conquered more than mere force may ever conquer. The Polish woman had come to love him; the little actress would have followed him to his lonely island. Others, too many others, had confessed his power.

He was ashamed of such a past, yet read it with a guilty relish. He recalled the flapper who had so boldly met his glance. He thought she would have been less bold if she could have known the man she looked at. He placed "Napoleon, Man and Lover" at the bottom of his trunk beside the scarlet cravat he had feared to wear. It was not a book to "leave around."

"The Hundred Days," which he read the following night, was a much less discouraging work. It told of defeat, but of how glorious a defeat! The escape from Elba, the landing in France and the march to Paris, conquering, where he passed, by the sheer magnetism of his personality! His spirit bounded as he read of this and of the frightened exit of that puny usurper before the mere rumour of his approach. Then that audacious staking of all on a throw of the dice—Waterloo and a deathless ignominy. He heard the