The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📗

to be that what love she was capable of had undoubtedly been given to Bertrand Moncrif, whom she would not entirely dismiss from his allegiance, even though she had at last been driven into promising marriage to the powerful Terrorist.

It is doubtful if, despite that halfhearted and wholly selfish love for the young royalist, she had ever intended that he should be more to her than a slavish worshipper, a friend on whom she could count for perpetual adoration or mere sentimental dalliance; but a husband⁠—never! Certain it is that even Tallien, influential as he was, was only a pis-aller. The lovely Spaniard, we make no doubt, would have preferred Robespierre as a future husband, or, failing him, Louise-Antoine St. Just, but the latter was deeply enamoured of another woman; and Robespierre was too cautious, too ambitious, to allow himself to be enmeshed.

So she fell back on Tallien.

III

“Give me my orders for tonight,” the lovely woman had said to her future lord. And he⁠—a bundle of vanity and egoism⁠—was flattered and soothed by this submission, though he knew in his heart of hearts that it was only pretence.

“You will help me, Theresia?” he pleaded.

She nodded, and asked coldly: “How?”

“You know that Robespierre suspects me,” he went on, and instinctively, at the mere breathing of that awe-inspiring name his voice sank to a murmur. “Ever since I came back from Bordeaux.”

“I know. Your leniency there is attributed to me.”

“It was your influence, Theresia⁠—” he began.

“That turned you,” she broke in coldly, “from a bloodstained beast into a right-minded justiciary. Do you regret it?”

“No, no!” he protested; “since it gained me your love.”

“Could I love a beast of prey?” she retorted. “But if you do not regret, you are certainly afraid.”

“Robespierre never forgives,” he rejoined vaguely. “And he had sent me to Bordeaux to punish, not to pardon.”

“Then you are afraid!” she insisted. “Has anything happened?”

“No; only his usual hints⁠—his vague threats. You know them.”

She nodded.

“The same,” he went on somberly, “that he used ere he struck Danton.”

“Danton was hotheaded. He was too proud to appeal to the populace who idolised him.”

“And I have no popularity to which I can appeal. If Robespierre strikes at me in the Convention, I am doomed⁠—”

“Unless you strike first.”

“I have no following. We none of us have. Robespierre sways the Convention with one word.”

“You mean,” she broke in more vehemently, “that you are all cringing cowards⁠—the abject slaves of one man. Two hundred of you are longing for this era of bloodshed to cease; two hundred would stay the pitiless work of the guillotine⁠—and not one is plucky enough to cry, ‘Halt! It is enough!’ ”

“The first man who cries ‘Halt!’ is called a traitor,” Tallien retorted gloomily. “And the guillotine will not rest until Robespierre himself had said, ‘It is enough!’ ”

“He alone knows what he wants. He alone fears no one,” she exclaimed, almost involuntarily giving grudging admiration where in truth she felt naught but loathing.

“I would not fear either, Theresia,” he protested, and there was a note of tender reproach in his voice, “if it were not for you.”

“I know that, mon ami,” she rejoined with an impatient little sight. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

He leaned forward in his chair, closer to her, and did not mark⁠—poor fool!⁠—that, as he drew near, she recoiled ever so slightly from him.

“There are two things,” he said insinuatingly, “which you could do, Theresia, either of which would place Robespierre under such lasting obligation to you that he would admit us into the inner circle of his friends, trust us and confide in us as he does in St. Just or Couthon.”

“Trust you, you mean. He never would trust a woman.”

“It means the same thing⁠—security for us both.”

“Well?” she rejoined. “What are these two things?”

He paused a moment, appeared to hesitate; then said resolutely:

“Firstly, there is Bertrand Moncrif⁠ ⁠… and his Fatalists⁠—”

Her face hardened. She shook her head.

“I warned Robespierre about tonight,” she said. “I knew that a lot of young fools meant to cause a fracas in the Rue St. Honoré. But the whole thing has been a failure, and Robespierre has no use for failures.”

“It need not be a failure⁠—even yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Robespierre will be here directly,” he urged, in a whisper rendered hoarse with excitement. “Bertrand Moncrif is here⁠—Why not deliver the young traitor, and earn Robespierre’s gratitude?”

“Oh!” she broke in indignant protest. Then, as she caught the look of jealous anger which at her obvious agitation suddenly flared up in his narrow eyes again, she went on with a careless shrug of her statuesque shoulders: “Bertrand is not here, as I told you, my friend. So these means of serving your cause are out of my reach.”

“Theresia,” he urged, “by deceiving me⁠—”

“By tantalizing me,” she broke in harshly, “you do yourself no good. Let us understand one another, my friend,” she went on more gently. “You wish me to serve you by serving the dictator of France. And I tell you you’ll not gain your ends by taunting me.”

“Theresia, we must make friends with Robespierre! He has the power; he rules over France. Whilst I⁠—”

“Ah!” she retorted with vehemence. “That is where you and your weak-kneed friends are wrong! You say that Robespierre rules France. ’Tis not true. It is not Robespierre, the man, who rules; it is his name! The name of Robespierre has become a fetish, an idolatry. Before it every head is bent and every courage cowed. It rules by the fear which it evokes and by the slavery which it compels under the perpetual threat of death. Believe me,” she insisted, “ ’tis not Robespierre who rules, but the guillotine which he wields! And we are all of us helpless⁠—you and I and your friends. And all the others who long to see the end of this era of bloodshed and of revenge, we have got to do as he tells us⁠—pile up crime upon crime, massacre upon massacre, and bear the odium of it all,