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I am betrothed to the Vicomte Anatole d'Ombreval. The contract has already been signed, and the Vicomte will be meeting us at Treves." It was as if she had struck him, and amazement left him silent a moment. In a dim, subconscious way he seemed to notice that the name she mentioned was that of the man he was bidden to arrest. Then, with an oath: "I care naught for that," he cried.
A shadow crossed her face, which remained otherwise calm and composed the beautiful, intrepid face that had more than once been La Boulaye's undoing. "I am glad that you have waited, Monsieur. In so doing you need have no doubts concerning me. M. d'Ombreval is my betrothed, and the troth I plighted him binds me in honour to succour him now." La Boulaye looked steadily at her for a moment.
"I trust you remembered that you are to become the Vicomtesse d'Ombreval" he answered, constructing his sentence differently. "Monsieur!" exclaimed Bellecour angrily. "I was chiefly mindful of the fact that I had my brother's life to save," said the girl, very coldly, her eye resting upon her betrothed in a glance of so much contempt that it forced him into an abashed silence.
He rose, absorbed in his successful find, and he pursued upon the table the process of smoothing the creases as much as possible from that priceless document. That done he took up a pen and attached his own signature alongside of Robespierre's; then into the blank space above he filled the name of Anatole d'Ombreval ci-devant Vicomte d'Ombreval. He dropped the pen and took up the sand-box.
"I wonder would it be beneath the dignity of his courage," mused the same caustic friend. "But surely not, for nothing could be beneath that." "Madame!" exclaimed Suzanne, her cheeks reddening; for as of old, and like her father, she was quickly moved to anger. "Will it please you to remember that M. d'Ombreval is my affianced husband?" "True," confessed the lady, no whit abashed.
But does it not seem a pity to spoil everything and to neutralise so wonderful an achievement for the mere sake of boasting of it to a poor, ignorant peasant, Monsieur le Vicomte Anatole d'Ombreval?" With a sudden cry, the pseudo courier leapt to his feet, whilst Des Cadoux turned on the stool he occupied to stare alarmedly at the speaker. "Name of God!
"M. d'Ombreval means to pay you a compliment," she informed La Boulaye, "but he has such an odd way of choosing his expressions that I feared you might misunderstand him." La Boulaye signified his indifference by a smile.
"Unless you can conceive thoughts of a pleasanter complexion," she said, "I should prefer your silence, M. d'Ombreval." He laughed in his disdainful way for he disdained all things, excepting his own person and safety but before he could make any answer they were joined by the Marquis and his son.
His instances were met with a certain coldness, which at last was given expression by the most elegant Vicomte d'Ombreval the man who was about to become his son-in-law. "My dear Marquis," protested the young man, his habitually supercilious mouth looking even more supercilious than usual as he now spoke, "I beg that you will consider what you are proposing.
In the eleventh hour she came to me to make terms for your pardon. She proposed to deliver up to me the person of the ci-devant Vicomte d'Ombreval provided that I should grant you an unconditional pardon. You can imagine, my good Caron, with what eagerness I agreed to her proposal, and with what pleasure I now announce to you that you are free."
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