"Because she is a woman, and has been a queen. She has nerves, poor soul, and weaknesses of body and of mind now. Alas for her! Alas for France! who wreaks such idle vengeance on so poor an enemy? Can you take hold of Marie Antoinette by the shoulders, shove her into the bottom of a cart and pile sacks of potatoes on the top of her? I did that to the Comtesse de Tournai and her daughter, as stiff-necked a pair of French aristocrats as ever deserved the guillotine for their insane prejudices. But can you do it to Marie Antoinette? She'd rebuke you publicly, and betray herself and you in a flash, sooner than submit to a loss of dignity."
"But would you leave her to her fate?"
"Ah! there's the trouble, friend. Do you think you need appeal to the sense of chivalry of my league? We are still twenty strong, and heart and soul in sympathy with your mad schemes. The poor, poor Queen! But you are bound to fail, and then who will help you all, if we too are put out of the way?"
"We should succeed if you helped us. At one time you used proudly to say: 'The League of The Scarlet Pimpernel has never failed.'"
"Because it attempted nothing which it could not accomplish! But, la! since you put me on my mettle--Demm it all! I'll have to think about it!"
And he laughed that funny, somewhat inane laugh of his, which had deceived the clever men of two countries as to his real personality.
Déroulède went up to the heavy oak desk which occupied a conspicuous place in the centre of one of the walls. He unlocked it and drew forth a bundle of papers.
"Will you look through these?" he asked, handing them to Sir Percy Blakeney.
"What are they?"
"Different schemes I have drawn up, in case my original plan should not succeed."
"Burn them, my friend," said Blakeney laconically. "Have you not yet learned the lesson of never putting your hand to paper?"
"I can't burn these. You see, I shall not be able to have long conversations with Marie Antoinette. I must give her my suggestions in writing, that she may study them and not fail me, through lack of knowledge of her part."
"Better that than papers in these times, my friend: these papers, if found, would send you, untried, to the guillotine."
"I am careful, and, at present, quite beyond suspicion. Moreover, among the papers is a complete collection of passports suitable for any character the Queen and her attendant may be forced to assume. It has taken me some months to collect them, so as not to arouse suspicion; I gradually got them together, on one pretence or another: now I am ready for any eventuality--"
He suddenly paused. A look in his friend's face had given him a swift warning.
He turned, and there in the doorway, holding back the heavy portière, stood Juliette, graceful, smiling, a little pale, this no doubt owing to the flickering light of the unsnuffed candles.
So young and girlish did she look in her soft, white musling frock that at sight of her the tension in Déroulède's face seemed to relax. Instinctively he had thrown the papers back into his desk, but his look had softened, from the fire of obstinate energy to that of inexpressible tenderness.
Blakeney was quietly watching the young girl as she stood in the doorway, a little bashful and undecided.
"Madame Déroulède sent me," she said hesitatingly, "she says the hour is getting late and she is very anxious. M. Déroulède, would you come and reassure her?"
"In a moment, mademoiselle," he replied lightly, "my friend and I have just finished our talk. May I have the honour to present him?--Sir Percy Blakeney, a traveller from England. Blakeney, this is Mademoiselle Juliette de Marny, my mother's guest."
Chapter Seven
A Warning
Sir Percy bowed very low, with all the graceful flourish and elaborate gesture the eccentric customs of the time demanded.
He had not said a word, since the first exclamation of warning with which he had drawn his friend's attention to the young girl in the doorway.
Noiselessly, as she had come, Juliette glided out of the room again, leaving behind her an atmosphere of wild flowers, of the bouquet she had gathered, then scattered in the woods.
There was silence in the room for a while. Déroulède was locking up his desk and slipping the keys into his pocket.
"Shall we join my mother for a moment, Blakeney?" he said, moving towards the door.
"I shall be proud to pay my respects," replied Sir Percy; "but before we close the subject, I think I'll change my mind about those papers. If I am to be of service to you I think I had best look through them, and give you my opinion of your schemes."
Déroulède looked at him keenly for a moment.
"Certainly," he said at last, going up to his desk. "I'll stay with you whilst you read them through."
"La! not to-night, my friend," said Sir Percy lightly; "the hour is late, and madame is waiting for us. They'll be quite safe with me, an you'll entrust them to my care."
Déroulède seemed to hesitate. Blakeney had spoken in his usual airy manner, and was even now busy readjusting the set of his perfectly-tailored coat.
"Perhaps you cannot quite trust me?" laughed Sir Percy gaily. "I seemed too lukewarm just now."
"No; it's not that, Blakeney!" said Déroulède quietly at last. "There is no mistrust in me, all the mistrust is on your side."
"Faith!--" began Sir Percy.
"Nay! do not explain. I understand and appreciate your friendship, but I should like to convince you how unjust is your mistrust of one of God's purest angels, that ever walked the earth."
"Oho! that's it, is it, friend Déroulède? Methought you had foresworn the sex altogether, and now you are in love."
"Madly, blindly, stupidly in love, my friend," said Déroulède with a sigh. "Hopelessly, I fear me!"
"Why hopelessly?"
"She is the daughter of the late Duc de Marny, one of the oldest names in France; a Royalist to the backbone--"
"Hence your overwhelming sympathy for the Queen!"
"Nay! you wrong me there, friend. I'd have tried to save the Queen, even if I had never learned to love Juliette. But you see now how unjust were your suspicions."
"Had I any?"
"Don't deny it. You were loud in urging me to burn those papers a moment ago. You called them useless and dangerous and now--"
"I still think them useless and dangerous, and by reading them would wish to confirm my opinion and give weight to my arguments."
"If I were to part from them now I would seem to be mistrusting her."
"You are a mad idealist, my dear Déroulède!"
"How can I help it? I have lived under the same roof with her for three weeks now. I have begun to understand what a saint is like."
"And 'twill be when you understand that your idol has feet of clay that you'll learn the real lesson of love," said Blakeney earnestly. "Is it love to worship a saint in heaven, whom you dare not touch, who hovers above you like a cloud, which floats away from you even as you gaze? To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, our equal in sin as well as in virtue. To love, for us men, is to clasp one woman with our arms, feeling that she lives and breathes just as we do, suffers as we do, thinks with us, loves with us, and, above all, sins with us. Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if she have not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall at the feet of your idol an you wish, but drag her down to your level after that--the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart."
Who shall render faithfully a true account of the magnetism which poured forth from this remarkable man as he spoke: this well-dressed, foppish apostle of the greatest love that man has ever known. And as he spoke the whole story of his own great, true love for the woman who once had so deeply wronged him seemed to stand clearly written in the strong, lazy, good-humoured, kindly face glowing with tenderness for her.