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

St. Just, now as always the mouthpiece of his friend, was the first to give a serious turn to the conversation. Compliments, flatteries, had gone their round; platitudes, grandiloquent phrases on the subject of country, intellectual revolution, liberty, purity, and so on, had been spouted with varying eloquence. The fraternal suppers had been alluded to with servile eulogy of the giant brain who had conceived the project.

Then it was that St. Just broke into a euphemistic account of the disorderly scene in the Rue St. Honoré.

Theresia Cabarrus, roused from her queenlike indifference, at once became interested.

“The young traitor!” she exclaimed, with a great show of indignation. “Who was he? What was he like?”

Couthon gave quite a minute description of Bertrand, and accurate one, too. He had faced the blasphemer⁠—thus was he called by this compact group of devotees and sycophants⁠—for fully five minutes, and despite the flickering and deceptive light, had studied his features, distorted by fury and hate, and was quite sure that he would know them again.

Theresia listened eagerly, caught every inflection of the voices as they discussed the strange events that followed. The keenest observer there could not have detected the slightest agitation in her large, velvety eyes⁠—not even when the met Robespierre’s coldly inquiring gaze. No one⁠—not even Tallien⁠—could have guessed what an effort it cost her to appear unconcerned, when all the while she was straining every sense in the direction of the small kitchen at the end of the passage, where the much-discussed Bertrand was still lying concealed.

However, the certainty that Robespierre’s spies and those of the Committees had apparently lost complete track of Moncrif, did much to restore her assurance, and her gaiety became after awhile somewhat more real.

At one time she turned boldly to Tallien.

“You were there, too, citizen,” she said provokingly. “Did you not recognise any of the traitors?”

Tallien stammered out an evasive answer, implored her with a look not to taunt him and not to play like a thoughtless child within sight and hearing of a man-eating tiger. Thereisa’s dalliance with the young and handsome Bertrand must in truth be known to Robespierre’s army of spies, and he⁠—Tallien⁠—was not altogether convinced that the fair Spaniard, despite her assurances to the contrary, was not harbouring Moncrif in her apartment even now.

Therefore he would not meet her tantalising glance; and she, delighted to tease, threw herself with greater zest than before into the discussion, amused to see sober Tallien, whom in her innermost heart she despised, enduring tortures of apprehension.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, apparently enraptured by St. Just’s glowing account of the occurrence, “what would I not give to have seen it all! In truth, we do not often get such thrilling incidents every day in this dull and dreary Paris. The death-carts with their load of simpering aristos have ceased to entertain us. But the drama in the Rue St. Honoré! à la bonne heure! What a palpitating scene!”

“Especially,” added Couthon, “the spiriting away of the company of traitors through the agency of that mysterious giant, who some aver was just a coal-heaver named Rateau, well known to half the night-birds of the city as an asthmatic reprobate; whilst others vow that he was⁠—”

“Name him not, friend Couthon,” St. Just broke in with a sarcastic chuckle. “I pray thee, spare the feelings of citizen Chauvelin.” And his bold, provoking eyes shot a glance of cool irony on the unfortunate victim of his taunt.

Chauvelin made no retort, pressed his thin lips more tightly together as if to smother any incipient expression of the resentment which he felt. Instinctively his glance sought those of Robespierre, who sat by, still apparently disinterested and impassive, with head bent and arms cross over his narrow chest.

“Ah, yes!” here interposed Tallien unctuously. “Citizen Chauvelin has had one or two opportunities of measuring his prowess against that of the mysterious Englishman; but we are told that, despite his talents, he has met with no success in that direction.”

“Do not tease our modest friend Chauvelin, I pray you, citizen,” Theresia broke in gaily. “The Scarlet Pimpernel⁠—that is the name of the mysterious Englishman, is it not?⁠—is far more elusive and a thousand times more resourceful and daring than any mere man can possibly conceive. ’Tis woman’s wits that will bring him to his knees one day. You can take my word for that!”

“Your wits, citoyenne?”

Robespierre had spoken. It was the first time, since the discussion had turned on the present subject, that he had opened his lips. All eyes were at once reverentially turned to him. His own, cold and sarcastic, were fixed upon Theresia Cabarrus.

She returned his glance with provoking coolness, shrugged her splendid shoulders, and retorted airily:

“Oh, you want a woman with some talent as a sleuthhound⁠—a female counterpart of citizen Chauvelin. I have no genius in that direction.”

“Why not?” Robespierre went on drily. “You, fair citoyenne, would be well qualified to deal with the Scarlet Pimpernel, seeing that your adorer, Bertrand Moncrif, appears to be a protégé of the mysterious League.”

At this taunt, uttered by the dictator with deliberate emphasis, like one who knows what he is talking about, Tallien gave a gasp and his sallow cheeks became the colour of lead. But Theresia placed her cool, reassuring hand upon his.

“Bertrand Moncrif,” she said serenely, “is no adorer of mine. He foreswore his allegiance to me on the day that I plighted my troth to citizen Tallien.”

“That is as may be,” Robespierre retorted coldly. “But he certainly was the leader of the gang of traitors whom that meddlesome English rabble chose to snatch away tonight from the vengeance of a justly incensed populace.”

“How do you know that, citizen Robespierre?” Theresia asked. She was still maintaining an outwardly calm attitude; her voice was apparently quite steady, her glance absolutely serene. Only Tallien’s keen perceptions were able to note the almost wax-like pallor which had spread over her cheeks and the strained, high-pitched tone of her usually mellow voice. “Why do you suppose, citizen,” she insisted, “that Bertrand