useful to his country, to bind himself to some office and honorably attend to it.”
“Office?” she quietly repeated. “Is that something more than collecting taxes, dues, settling the quarrels of people over estates or a handful of money, condemning the guilty to prison or to death?”
“Well, if he did not like the life of a civil officer,” he continued, “I should ask him to go to the army, gain merit and honors as a soldier.”
“Soldier?” the young lady repeated more quietly and slowly. “Is that something more than to shoot men and to command others to do the same?”
The Emperor looked up.
“Strange, really strange, are your ideas of life. I am amazed to think how they could have originated in your mind.”
“Is it really strange if some one tries to look at the world without prejudice, and call everything in it by its proper name? Then, my father must be right. I am getting to be unpleasantly peculiar, because I scorn lies and
