Lord Tony’s Wife, Baroness Orczy [bill gates best books TXT] 📗

mind telling you. As you remarked awhile ago the Northwest wind is wont to be of good counsel. I have thought the matter over whilst I walked with you along the quay and I have decided to act on Carrier’s suggestion. Our eminent proconsul said just now that it was the duty of every true patriot to marry an aristo, an he be free and Chance puts a comely wench in his way. I mean,” he added with a cynical laugh, “to act on that advice and marry Yvonne de Kernogan⁠ ⁠… if I can.”

“She has refused you up to now?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… up to now.”

“You have threatened her⁠—and her father?”

“Yes⁠—both. Not only with death but with shame.”

“And still she refuses?”

“Apparently,” said Martin-Roget with ever-growing irritation.

“It is often difficult,” rejoined Chauvelin meditatively, “to compel these aristos. They are obstinate.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh! don’t forget that I am in a position now to bring additional pressure on the wench. That lout Carrier has splendid ideas⁠—a brute, what? but clever and full of resource. That suggestion of his about the Rat Mort is splendid.⁠ ⁠…”

“You mean to try and act on it?”

“Of course I do,” said Martin-Roget roughly. “I am going over presently to my sister’s house to see the Kernogan wench again, and to have another talk with her. Then if she still refuses, if she still chooses to scorn the honourable position which I offer her, I shall act on Carrier’s suggestion. It will be at the Rat Mort tonight that she and I will have our final interview, and there when I dangle the prospect of Cayenne and the convict’s brand before her, she may not prove so obdurate as she has been up to now.”

“H’m! That is as may be,” was Chauvelin’s dry comment. “Personally I am inclined to agree with Carrier. Death, swift and sure⁠—the Loire or the guillotine⁠—is the best that has yet been invented for traitors and aristos. But we won’t discuss that again. I know your feelings in the matter and in a measure I respect them. But if you will allow me I would like to be present at your interview with the soi-disant Lady Anthony Dewhurst. I won’t disturb you and I won’t say a word⁠ ⁠… but there is something I would like to make sure of.⁠ ⁠…”

“What is that?”

“Whether the wench has any hopes⁠ ⁠…” said Chauvelin slowly, “whether she has received a message or has any premonition⁠ ⁠… whether in short she thinks that outside agencies are at work on her behalf.”

“Tshaw!” exclaimed Martin-Roget impatiently, “you are still harping on that Scarlet Pimpernel idea.”

“I am,” retorted the other drily.

“As you please. But understand, citizen Chauvelin, that I will not allow you to interfere with my plans, whilst you go off on one of those wild-goose chases which have already twice brought you into disrepute.”

“I will not interfere with your plans, citizen,” rejoined Chauvelin with unwonted gentleness, “but let me in my turn impress one thing upon you, and that is that unless you are as wary as the serpent, as cunning as the fox, all your precious plans will be upset by that interfering Englishman whom you choose to disregard.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know him⁠—to my cost⁠—and you do not. But you will, an I am not gravely mistaken, make acquaintance with him ere your great adventure with these Kernogan people is successfully at an end. Believe me, citizen Martin-Roget,” he added impressively, “you would have been far wiser to accept Carrier’s suggestion and let him fling that rabble into the Loire for you.”

“Pshaw! you are not childish enough to imagine, citizen Chauvelin, that your Englishman can spirit away that wench from under my sister’s eyes? Do you know what my sister suffered at the hands of the Kernogans? Do you think that she is like to forget my father’s ignominious death any more than I am? And she mourns a lover as well as a father⁠—she mourns her youth, her happiness, the mother whom she worshipped. Think you a better gaoler could be found anywhere? And there are friends of mine⁠—lads of our own village, men who hate the Kernogans as bitterly as I do myself⁠—who are only too ready to lend Louise a hand in case of violence. And after that⁠—suppose your magnificent Scarlet Pimpernel succeeded in hoodwinking my sister and in evading the vigilance of a score of determined village lads, who would sooner die one by one than see the Kernogan escape⁠—suppose all that, I say, there would still be the guard at every city gate to challenge. No! no! it couldn’t be done, citizen Chauvelin,” he added with a complacent laugh. “Your Englishman would need the help of a legion of angels, what? to get the wench out of Nantes this time.”

Chauvelin made no comment on his colleague’s impassioned harangue. Memory had taken him back to that one day in September in Boulogne when he too had set one prisoner to guard a precious hostage: it brought back to his mind a vision of a strangely picturesque figure as it appeared to him in the window-embrasure of the old castle-hall:1 it brought back to his ears the echo of that quaint, irresponsible laughter, of that lazy, drawling speech, of all that had acted as an irritant on his nerves ere he found himself baffled, foiled, eating out his heart with vain reproach at his own folly.

“I see you are unconvinced, citizen Martin-Roget,” he said quietly, “and I know that it is the fashion nowadays among young politicians to sneer at Chauvelin⁠—the living embodiment of failure. But let me just add this. When you and I talked matters over together at the Bottom Inn, in the wilds of Somersetshire, I warned you that not only was your identity known to the man who calls himself the Scarlet Pimpernel, but also that he knew every one of your plans with regard to the Kernogan wench and her father. You laughed at me then⁠ ⁠… do you remember?⁠ ⁠… you shrugged your shoulders and