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

Moncrif had anything to do with the fracas tonight? Methought he had emigrated to England⁠—or somewhere,” she added airily, “after⁠—after I gave him his definite congé.”

“Did you think that, citoyenne?” Robespierre rejoined with a wry smile. “Then let me tell you that you are under a misapprehension. Moncrif, the traitor, was the leader of the gang that tried to rouse the people against me tonight. You ask me how I know it?” he added icily. “Well, I saw him⁠—that is all!”

“Ah!” exclaimed Theresia, in well-played mild astonishment. “You say Bertrand Moncrif, citizen? He is in Paris, then?”

“Seemingly.”

“Strange, he never came to see me!”

“Strange, indeed!”

“What does he look like? Some people have told me that he is getting fat.”

The discussion had now resolved itself into a duel between these two: the ruthless dictator, sure of his power, and the beautiful woman, conscious of hers. The atmosphere of the drabbily furnished room had became electrical. Everyone felt it. Every man instinctively held his breath, conscious of the quickening of his pulses, of the accelerated beating of his heart.

Both the duellists appeared perfectly calm. Of the two, in truth, Robespierre appeared the most moved. His staccato voice, the drumming of his pointed fingers upon the arms of his chair, suggested that the banter of the beautiful Theresia was getting on his nerves. It was like the lashing of a puma’s tail, the irritation of a tempter unaccustomed to being provoked, and Theresia was clever enough⁠—above all, woman enough⁠—to note that, since the dictator was moved, he could not be perfectly sure of his ground. He would not display this secret irritation if by a word he could confound his beautiful adversary, and openly threaten where now he only insinuated.

“He saw Bertrand in the Rue St. Honoré,” was the sum total of her quick reasoning; “but does not know that he is here. I wonder what it is he does want!” came as an afterthought.

The one that really suffered throughout, and suffered acutely, was Tallien. He would have given all that he possessed to know for a certainty that Bertrand Moncrif was no longer in the house. Surely Theresia would not be foolhardy enough to provoke the powerful dictator into one of those paroxysms of spiteful fury for which he was notorious⁠—fury wherein he might be capable of anything⁠—insulting his hostess, setting his spies to search her apartments for a traitor if he suspected one of lying hidden away somewhere. In truth, Tallien, trembling for his beloved, was ready to swoon. How marvellous she was! how serene! While men held their breath before the inexorable despot, she went on teasing the tiger, even though he had already begun to snarl.

“I entreat you, citizen Robespierre,” she said, with a pout, “to tell me if Bertrand Moncrif has grown fat.”

“That I cannot tell you, citoyenne,” Robespierre replied curtly. “Having recognised my enemy, I no longer paid heed to him. My attention was arrested by his rescuer⁠—”

“That elusive Scarlet Pimpernel,” she broke in gaily. “Unrecognisable to all save to citizen Robespierre, under the disguise of an asthmatic gossoon. Ah, would I had been there!”

“I would you had, citoyenne,” he retorted. “You would have realised that to refuse your help to unmask an abominable spy after such an episode is tantamount to treason.”

Her gaiety dropped from her like a mantle. In a moment she was serious, puzzled. A frown appeared between her brows. Her dark eyes flashed, rapidly inquiring, suspicious, fearful, upon Robespierre.

“To refuse my help?” she asked slowly. “My help in unmasking a spy? I do not understand.”

She looked from one man to the other. Chauvelin was the only one who would not meet her gaze. No, not the only one. Tallien, too, appeared absorbed in contemplating his finger nails.

“Citizen Tallien,” she queried harshly. “What does this mean?”

“It means just what I said,” Robespierre intervened coldly. “That abominable English spy has fooled us all. You said yourself that ’tis a woman’s wit that will bring that elusive adventurer to his knees one day. Why not yours?”

Theresia gave no immediate reply. She was meditating. Here, then, was this other means to her hand, whereby she was to propitiate the man-eating tiger, turn his snarl into a purr, obtain immunity for herself and her future lord, but what a prospect!

“I fear me, citizen Robespierre,” she said after awhile, “that you overestimate the keenness of my wits.”

“Impossible!” he retorted drily.

And St. Just, ever the echo of his friend’s unspoken words, added with a great show of gallantry:

“The citoyenne Cabarrus, even from her prison in Bordeaux, succeeded in snaring our friend Tallien, and making him the slave of her beauty.”

“Then why not the Scarlet Pimpernel?” was Couthon’s simple conclusion.

“The Scarlet Pimpernel!” Theresia exclaimed with a shrug of her handsome shoulders. “The Scarlet Pimpernel, forsooth! Why, meseems that no one knows who he is! Just now you all affirmed that he was a coal-heaver named Rateau. I cannot make love to a coal-heaver, can I?”

“Citizen Chauvelin knows who the Scarlet Pimpernel is,” Couthon went on deliberately. “He will put you on the right track. All that we want is that he should be at your feet. It is so easy for the citoyenne Cabarrus to accomplish that.”

“But if you know who he is,” she urged, “why do you need my help?”

“Because,” St. Just replied, “the moment that he lands in France he sheds his identity, as a man would a coat. Here, there, everywhere⁠—he is more elusive than a ghost, for a ghost is always the same, whilst the Scarlet Pimpernel is never twice alike. A coal-heaver one day; a prince of dandies the next. He has lodgings in every quarter of Paris and quits them at a moment’s notice. He has confederates everywhere: concierges, cabaret-keepers, soldiers, vagabonds. He has been a public letter-writer, a sergeant of the National Guard, a rogue, a thief! ’Tis only in England that he is always the same, and citizen Chauvelin can identify him there. ’Tis there that you