"To freeze is no more than one might expect in your company," she answered, stifling her anger.
He made no reply. He moved to the window, and stood drumming absently on the panes. He was inured to these invasions on the part of Cecile Deshaix and to the bold, unwomanly advances that repelled him. To-day his patience with her was even shorter than its wont, haply because when his official had announced a woman he had for a moment permitted himself to think that it might be Suzanne. The silence grew awkward, and at last he broke it.
"The Citizen Robespierre is well?" he asked, without turning.
"Yes," said she, and for all that there was chagrin to spare in the glance with which she admired the back of his straight and shapely figure, she contrived to render her voice airily indifferent. "We were at the play last night."
"Ah!" he murmured politely. "And was Talma in veine?"
"More brilliant than ever," answered she.
"He is a great actor, Citoyenne."
A shade of annoyance crossed her face.
"Why do you always address me as Citoyenne?" she asked, with some testiness.
He turned at last and looked at her a moment.
"We live in a censorious world, Citoyenne," he answered gravely.
She tossed her head with an exclamation of impatience.
"We live in a free world, Citizen. Freedom is our motto. Is it for nothing that we are Republicans?"
"Freedom of action begets freedom of words," said he, "and freedom of words leads to freedom of criticism--and that is a thing to which no wise woman will expose herself, no matter under what regime we live.
You would be well-advised, Citoyenne, in thinking of that when you come here."
"But you never come to us, Caron," she returned, in a voice of mild complaint. "You have not been once to Duplay"s since your return from Belgium. And you seem different, too, since your journey to the army."
She rose now and approached him. "What is it, cher Caron?" she asked, her voice a very caress of seductiveness, her eyes looking up into his.
"Is something troubling you?"
"Troubling me?" he echoed, musingly. "No. But then I am a busy man, Citoyenne."
A wave of red seemed to sweep across her face, and her heel beat the parquet floor.
"If you call me Citoyenne again I shall strike you," she threatened him.
He looked down at her, and she had the feeling that behind the inscrutable mask of his countenance he was laughing at her.
"It would sort well with your audacity," he made answer coolly.
She felt in that moment that she hated him, and it was a miracle that she did not do as she had threatened, for with all her meek looks she owned a very fiercest of tempers. She drew back a pace or two, and her glance fell.
"I shall not trouble you in future," she vowed. "I shall not come here again."
He bowed slightly.
"I applaud the wisdom of your resolve--Cit--Cecile. The world, as I have said, is censorious."
She looked at him a second, then she laughed, but it was laughter of the lips only; the eyes looked steely as daggers and as capable of mischief.
"Adieu, Citizen La Boulaye," she murmured mockingly.
"Au revoir, Citoyenne Deshaix," he replied urbanely.
"Ough!" she gasped, and with that sudden exclamation of pent-up wrath, she whisked about and went rustling to the door.
"Citoyenne," he called after her, "you are forgetting your flowers."
She halted, and seemed for a second to hesitate, looking at him oddly.
Then she came back to the table and took up her roses. Again she looked at him, and let the bouquet fall back among the papers.
"I brought them for you, Caron," she said, "and I"ll leave them with you. We can at least be friends, can we not?"
"Friends? But were we ever aught else?" he asked.
"Alas! no," she said to herself, whilst aloud she murmured: "I thought that you would like them. Your room has such a gloomy, sombre air, and a few roses seem to diffuse some of the sunshine on which they have been nurtured."
"You are too good, Cecile" he answered, and, for all his coldness, he was touched a little by this thoughtfulness.
She looked up at the altered tone, and the expression of her face seemed to soften. But before she could make answer there was a rap at the door.
It opened, and Brutus stood in the doorway.
"Citizen," he announced, in his sour tones, "there is another woman below asking to see you."
La Boulaye started, as again his thoughts flew to Suzanne, and a dull flush crept into his pale cheeks and mounted to his brow. Cecile"s eyes were upon him, her glance hardening as she observed these signs. Bitter enough had it been to endure his coldness whilst she had imagined that it sprang from the austerity of his nature and the absorption of his soul in matters political. But now that it seemed she might have cause to temper her bitterness with jealousy her soul was turned to gall.
"What manner of woman, Brutus?" he asked after a second"s pause.
"Tall, pale, straight, black hair, black eyes, silk gown--and savours the aristocrat a league off," answered Brutus.
"Your official seems gifted with a very comprehensive eye," said Cecile tartly.
But La Boulaye paid no heed to her. The flush deepened on his face, then faded again, and he grew oddly pale. His official"s inventory of her characteristics fitted Mademoiselle de Bellecour in every detail.
"Admit her, Brutus," he commanded, and his voice had a husky sound.
Then, turning to Cecile, "You will give me leave?" he said, cloaking rude dismissal in its politest form.
"a.s.suredly," she answered bitterly, making shift to go. "Your visitor is no doubt political?" she half-asked half-a.s.serted.
But he made no answer as he held the door for her, and bowed low as she pa.s.sed out. With a white face and lips tightly compressed she went, and half-way on the stairs she met a handsome woman, tall and of queenly bearing, who ascended. Her toilette lacked the elaborateness of Cecile"s, but she carried it with an air which not all the modistes of France could have succeeded in imparting to the Citoyenne Deshaix.
So dead was Robespierre"s niece to every sense of fitness that, having drawn aside to let the woman pa.s.s, she stood gazing after her until she disappeared round the angle of the landing. Then, in a fury, she swept from the house and into her waiting coach, and as she drove back to Duplay"s in the Rue St. Honore she was weeping bitterly in her jealous rage.
CHAPTER XVII. LA BOULAYE"S PROMISE