"You thief!" she said, very low, but very fiercely. "That was the paper that you left behind you, was it?"
"The paper that I have is certainly the paper that I left behind," he answered serenely, for he had himself well in hand by now. "And as for dubbing me a thief so readily"--he paused, and shrugged his shoulders--"you are a woman," he concluded, with an air suggesting that that fact was a conclusion to all things.
"Fool!" she blazed. "Do you think to overcome me by quibbles? Do you think to dupe me with words and shrugs?"
"My dear Cecile" he begged half-whimsically, "may I implore you to use some restraint? Inured as I am to the unbounded licence of your tongue and to the abandon that seems so inherent in you, let me a.s.sure you that--"
"Ah! You can say Cecile now?" she cried, leaving the remainder of his speech unheeded. "Now that you need me; now that you want me to be a party to your treacherous designs against my uncle. Oh, you can say "Cecile" and "dear Cecile" instead of your everlasting "Citoyenne".
"It seems I am doomed to be always misunderstood by you," he laughed, and at the sound she started as if he had struck her.
Had she but looked in his eyes she had seen no laughter there; she might have realised that murder rather than mirth was in his soul--for, at all costs, he was determined to hold the paper he had been at such pains to get.
"I understand you well enough," she cried hotly, her cheeks flaming red of a sudden. "I understand you, you thief, you trickster. Do you think that I heard nothing of what pa.s.sed this morning between my uncle and you? Do you think I do not know whose name you have written on that paper? Answer me," she commanded him.
"Since you know so much, what need for any questions?" quoth he coolly, transferring the coveted paper to his pocket as he spoke. "And since we are so far agreed that I am not contradicting anything you say--nor, indeed, intend to--perhaps you will see the convenience of ending an interview that promises to be fruitless. My dear Cecile, I am very grateful to you for the key of this room. I beg that you will make my compliments to the Citizen your uncle upon his return, and inform him of how thoroughly you ministered to my wants."
With that and a superb air of insouciance, he made shift to go. But fronting him she barred his way.
"Give me that paper, sclerat," she demanded imperiously. "You shall not go until you surrender it. Give it to me or I will call Duplay."
"You may call the devil for aught I care, you little fool," he answered her, very pleasantly. "Do you think Duplay will be mad enough to lay hands upon a Deputy of the Convention in the discharge of the affairs of the Nation?"
"It is a lie!"
"Why, of course it is," he admitted sweetly. "But Duplay will not be aware of that."
"I shall tell him."
"Tut! He won"t believe you. I"ll threaten him with the guillotine if he does. And I should think that Duplay has sufficient dread of the national barber not to risk having his toilet performed by him. Now, be reasonable, and let me pa.s.s."
Enraged beyond measure by his persiflage and very manifest contempt of her, she sprang suddenly upon him, and caught at the lapels of his redingote.
"Give me that paper!" she screamed, exerting her entire strength in a vain effort to boldly shake him.
Coldly he eyed this golden-haired virago now, and looked in vain for some trace of her wonted beauty in the stormy distortion of her face.
"You grow tiresome with your repet.i.tions," he answered her impatiently, as, s.n.a.t.c.hing at her wrists, he made her release her hold. "Let me go."
And with that he flung her roughly from him.
A second she staggered, then, recovering her balance and without an instant"s hesitation, she sped to the door. Imagining her intent to be to lock him in La Boulaye sprang after her. But it seemed that his mind had been more swift to fasten upon the wiser course than had hers.
Instead, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the key and closed the door on the inside. She wasted a moment fumbling at the lock, and even as he caught her by the waist the key slipped in, and before he dragged her back she had contrived to turn it, and now held it in her hand. He laughed a trifle angrily as she twisted out of his grasp, and stood panting before him.
"You shall not leave this room with that paper," she gasped, her anger ever swelling, and now rendering her speech almost incoherent.
He set his arms akimbo, and surveyed her whimsically.
"My dear Cecile," quoth he, "if you will take no thought for my convenience, I beg that, at least, you will take some for your good name. Thousand devils woman! Will you have it said in Paris that you were found locked in a room with me? What will your uncle--your virtuous, prudish, incorruptible uncle--say when he learns of it? If he does not demand a heavy price from you for so dishonouring him, he is not the man I deem him. Now be sensible, child, and open that door while there is yet time, and before anybody discovers us in this most compromising situation."
He struck the tone most likely to win him obedience, and that he had judged astutely her face showed him. In the place of the anger that had distorted it there came now into that countenance a look of surprise and fear. She saw herself baffled at every point. She had threatened him with Duplay--the only man available--and he had shown her how futile it must prove to summon him. And now she had locked herself in with him, thinking to sit there until he should do her will, and he showed her the danger to herself therein, which had escaped her notice.
There was a settle close behind her, and on to this she sank, and bending her head she opened the floodgates of her pa.s.sionate little soul, and let the rage that had so long possessed her dissolve in tears.
At sight of that sudden change of front La Boulaye stamped his foot. He appreciated the fact that she was about to fight him with weapons that on a previous occasion--when, however, it is true, they were wielded by another--had accomplished his undoing.
And for all that he steeled his heart, and evoked the memory of Suzanne to strengthen him in his purpose: he approached her with a kindly exterior. He sat him down beside her; he encompa.s.sed her waist with his arm, and drawing her to him he set himself to soothe her as one soothes a wilful child. Had he then recalled what her att.i.tude had been towards him in the past he had thought twice before adopting such a course. But in his mind there was no sentiment that was not brotherly, and far from his wishes was it to invest his action with any other than a fraternal kindness.
But she, feeling that caressing arm about her, and fired by it in her hapless pa.s.sion for this man, was quick to misinterpret him, and to translate his att.i.tude into one of a kindness far beyond his dreams. She nestled closer to him; at his bidding her weeping died down and ceased.
"There, Cecile, you will give me the key now?" he begged.
She glanced up at him shyly through wet lashes--as peeps the sun through April clouds.
"There is nothing I will not do for you, Caron," she murmured. "See, I will even help you to play the traitor on my uncle. For you love me a little, cher Caron, is it not so?"
He felt himself grow cold from head to foot, and he grew sick at the thought that by the indiscretion of his clumsy sympathy he had brought this down upon his luckless head. Mechanically his arm relaxed the hold of her waist and fell away. Instinctively she apprehended that all was not as she had thought. She turned on the seat to face him squarely, and caught something of the dismay in his glance of the loathing almost (for what is more loathsome to a man than to be wooed by a woman he desires not?) Gradually, inch by inch, she drew away from him, ever facing him, and her eyes ever on his, as if fascinated by the horror of what she saw. Thus until the extremity of the settle permitted her to go no farther. She started, then her glance flickered down, and she gave a sudden gasp of pa.s.sion. Simultaneously the key rang on the boards at Caron"s feet angrily flung there by Cecile.
"Go!" she exclaimed, in a suffocating voice, "and never let me see your face again."
For a second or two he sat quite still, his eyes observing her with a look of ineffable pity, which might have increased her disorder had she perceived it. Then slowly he stooped, and took up the key.
He rose from the settle, and without a word--for words he realised, could do no more than heighten the tragic ba.n.a.lity of the situation--he went to the door, unlocked it, and pa.s.sed out.
Huddled in her corner sat Cecile, listening until his steps had died away on the stairs. Then she cast herself p.r.o.ne upon the settle, and in a frenzy of sobs and tears she vented some of the rage and shame that were distracting her.
CHAPTER XX. THE GRAt.i.tUDE OF OMBREVAL
What La Boulaye may have lacked in knowledge of woman"s ways he made up for by his knowledge of Cecile, and from this he apprehended that there was no time to be lost if he would carry out his purpose. Touching her dismissal of him, he permitted himself no illusions. He rated it at its true value. He saw in it no sign of relenting of generosity, but only a desire to put an end to the shame which his presence was occasioning her.
He could imagine the lengths to which the thirst of vengeance would urge a scorned woman, and of all women he felt that Cecile scorned was the most to be feared. She would not sit with folded hands. Once she overcame the first tempestuous outburst of her pa.s.sion she would be up and doing, straining every sense to outwit and thwart him in his project, whose scope she must have more than guessed.
Reasoning thus, he clearly saw not only that every moment was of value, but that flight was the only thing remaining him if he would save himself as well as...o...b..eval. And so he hired him a cabriolet, and drove in all haste to the house of Billaud Varennes, the Deputy, from whom he sought to obtain one of the two signatures still needed by his order of release. He was disappointed at learning that Varennes was not at home--though, had he been able to peep an hour or so into the future, he would have offered up thanks to Heaven for that same Deputy"s absence.
His insistent and impatient questions elicited the information that probably Verennes would be found at Fevrier"s. And so to Fevrier"s famous restaurant in the old Palais Royal went La Boulaye, and there he had the good fortune to find not only Billaud Varennes, but also the Deputy Carnot. Nor did fortune end her favours there. She was smiling now upon Caron, as was proved by the fact that neither to Varennes nor Carnot did the name of Ombreval mean anything. Robespierre"s subscription of the doc.u.ment was accepted by each as affording him a sufficient warrant to append his own signature, and although Carnot asked a question or two, it was done in an idle humour, and he paid little attention to such replies as Caron made him.
Within five minutes of entering the restaurant, La Boulaye was in the street again, driving, by way of the Pont Neuf, to the Luxembourg.
At the prison he encountered not the slightest difficulty. He was known personally to the officer, of whom he demanded the person of the ci-devant Vicomte, and his order of release was too correct to give rise to any hesitation on the part of the man to whom it was submitted.
He was left waiting a few moments in a chamber that did duty as a guard-room, and presently the Vicomte, looking pale, and trembling with excitement at his sudden release, stood before him.
"You?" he muttered, upon beholding La Boulaye. But the Republican received him very coldly, and hurried him out of the prison with scant ceremony.
The officer attended the Deputy to the door of his cabriolet, and in his hearing Caron bade the coachman drive to the Porte St. Martin. This, however, was no more than a subterfuge to which he was resorting with a view to baffling the later possibility of their being traced. Ombreval naturally enough plied him with questions as they went, to which La Boulaye returned such curt answers that in the end, discouraged and offended, the n.o.bleman became silent.
Arrived at the Porte St. Martin they alighted, and La Boulaye dismissed the carriage. On foot he now led his companion as far as the church of St. Nicholas des Champs, where he hired a second cabriolet, bidding the man drive him to the Quai de la Greve. Having reached the riverside they once more took a short walk, crossing by the Pont au Change, and thence making their way towards Notre Dame, in the neighbourhood of which La Boulaye ushered the Vicomte into a third carriage, and thinking that by now they had done all that was needed to efface their tracks, he ordered the man to proceed as quickly as possible to Choisy.