She didn't
marry the lieutenant; she simply plucked him clean and he shot himself.
I've never understood why he didn't first shoot her."
"Doubtless it shows her cleverness?" Clarke remarked.
"Doubtless it does," replied Harleston, neatly spitting a leaf on the
pavement with his stick. "Afterward she had various adventures with
various wealthy men, and always won. Her particularly spectacular
adventure was posing, at the instigation of the Duke of Lotzen, as the
wife of the Archduke Armand of Valeria; and she stirred up a mess of
turmoil until the matter was cleared up."
"I remember something of it!" Clarke exclaimed.
"By that time she had so fascinated her employer, the Duke of Lotzen,
that he actually married her--morganatically, of course."
"Again showing her astonishing cleverness."
"Just so--and, cleverer still, she held him until his death five years
later. Which death, despite the authorized report, was not natural: the
King of Valeria killed him in a sword duel in Ferida Palace on the
principal street of Dornlitz. The lady then betook herself to Paris and
took up her present life of extreme respectability--and political
usefulness to our friends of Wilhelm-strasse. In fact, I understand that
she has more than made good professionally, as well as fascinated at
least half a dozen Cabinet Ministers besides.
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