˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ Part three. Marguerite’s blue eyes had twinkled with merriment at this gracious speech from her exalted friend. The Comtesse de Tournay, who lately had so flagrantly insulted her, was here receiving a public lesson, at which Marguerite could not help but rejoice. But the Comtesse, for whom respect of royalty amounted almost to a religion, was too well-schooled in courtly etiquette to show the slightest sign of embarrassment, as the two ladies curtsied ceremoniously to one another. “His Royal Highness is ever gracious, Madame,” said Marguerite, demurely, and with a wealth of mischief in her twinkling blue eyes, “but here there is no need for his kind mediation. . . . Your amiable reception of me at our last meeting still dwells pleasantly in my memory.” “We poor exiles, Madame,” rejoined the Comtesse, frigidly, “show our gratitude to England by devotion to the wishes of Monseigneur.” “Madame!” said Marguerite, with another ceremonious curtsey. “Madame,” responded the Comtesse with equal dignity. The Prince in the meanwhile was saying a few gracious words to the young Vicomte. “I am happy to know you, Monsieur le Vicomte,” he said. “I knew your father well when he was ambassador in London.” “Ah, Monseigneur!” replied the Vicomte, “I was a leetle boy then . . . and now I owe the honour of this meeting to our protector, the Scarlet Pimpernel.” “Hush!” said the Prince, earnestly and quickly, as he indicated Chauvelin, who had stood a little on one side throughout the whole of this little scene, watching Marguerite and the Comtesse with an amused, sarcastic little smile around his thin lips. “Nay, Monseigneur,” he said now, as if in direct response to the Prince’s challenge, “pray do not check this gentleman’s display of gratitude; the name of that interesting red flower is well known to me—and to France.” The Prince looked at him keenly for a moment or two. “Faith, then, Monsieur,” he said, “perhaps you know more about our national hero than we do ourselves . . . perchance you know who he is. . . . See!” he added, turning to the groups round the room, “the ladies hang upon your lips . . . you would render yourself popular among the fair sex if you were to gratify their curiosity.” “Ah, Monseigneur,” said Chauvelin, significantly, “rumour has it in France that your Highness could—an you would—give the truest account of that enigmatical wayside flower.” He looked quickly and keenly at Marguerite as he spoke; but she betrayed no emotion, and her eyes met his quite fearlessly. “Nay, man,” replied the Prince, “my lips are sealed! and the members of the league jealously guard the secret of their chief . . . so his fair adorers have to be content with worshipping a shadow. Here in England, Monsieur,” he added, with wonderful charm and dignity, “we but name the Scarlet Pimpernel, and every fair cheek is suffused with a blush of enthusiasm. None have seen him save his faithful lieutenants. We know not if he be tall or short, fair or dark, handsome or ill-formed; but we know that he is the bravest gentleman in all the world, and we all feel a little proud, Monsieur, when we remember that he is an Englishman.”
“Ah, Monsieur Chauvelin,” added Marguerite, looking almost with defiance across at the placid, sphinx-like face of the Frenchman, “His Royal Highness should add that we ladies think of him as of a hero of old . . . we worship him . . . we wear his badge . . . we tremble for him when he is in danger, and exult with him in the hour of his victory.” Chauvelin did no more than bow placidly both to the Prince and to Marguerite; he felt that both speeches were intended—each in their way—to convey contempt or defiance. The pleasure-loving, idle Prince he despised; the beautiful woman, who in her golden hair wore a spray of small red flowers composed of rubies and diamonds—her he held in the hollow of his hand: he could afford to remain silent and to await events. A long, jovial, inane laugh broke the sudden silence which had fallen over everyone. “And we poor husbands,” came in slow, affected accents from gorgeous Sir Percy, “we have to stand by . . . while they worship a demmed shadow.” Everyone laughed—the Prince more loudly than anyone. The tension of subdued excitement was relieved, and the next moment everyone was laughing and chatting merrily as the gay crowd broke up and dispersed in the adjoining rooms. ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ The Scrap of Paper. Marguerite suffered intensely. Though she laughed and chatted, though she was more admired, more surrounded, more fêted than any woman there, she felt like one condemned to death, living her last day upon this earth. Her nerves were in a state of painful tension, which had increased a hundredfold during that brief hour which she had spent in her husband’s company, between the opera and the ball. The short ray of hope—that she might find in this good-natured, lazy individual a valuable friend and adviser—had vanished as quickly as it had come, the moment she found herself alone with him. The same feeling of good-humoured contempt which one feels for an animal or a faithful servant, made her turn away with a smile from the man who should have been her moral support in this heart-rending crisis through which she was passing: who should have been her cool-headed adviser, when feminine sympathy and sentiment tossed her hither and thither, between her love for her brother, who was far away and in mortal peril, and horror of the awful service which Chauvelin had exacted from her, in exchange for Armand’s safety. There he stood, the moral support, the cool-headed adviser, surrounded by a crowd of brainless, empty-headed young fops, who were even now repeating from mouth to mouth, and with every sign of the keenest enjoyment, a doggerel quatrain which he had just given forth. Everywhere the absurd, silly words met her: people seemed to have little else to speak about, even the Prince had asked her, with a laugh, whether she appreciated her husband’s latest poetic efforts. “All done in the tying of a cravat,” Sir Percy had declared to his clique of admirers. “We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell? That demmed, elusive Pimpernel?” Sir Percy’s bon mot had gone the round of the brilliant reception-rooms. The Prince was enchanted. He vowed that life without Blakeney would be but a dreary desert. Then, taking him by the arm, had led him to the card-room, and engaged him in a long game of hazard. Sir Percy, whose chief interest in most social gatherings seemed to centre round the card-table, usually allowed his wife to flirt, dance, to amuse or bore herself as much as she liked. And to-night, having delivered himself of his bon mot, he had left Marguerite surrounded by a crowd of admirers of all ages, all anxious and willing to help her to forget that somewhere in the spacious reception-rooms, there was a long, lazy being who had been fool enough to suppose that the cleverest woman in Europe would settle down to the prosaic bonds of English matrimony.
