III
It was only when the men had gone that Madame la Marquise bethought herself of her niece, and of the latter's strange attitude while the council of war had been going on; whereupon she frowned and then remarked testily:
"Of a truth, Fernande, I do not understand you. Here you have been sitting like a stuffed dummy, the while the destinies of France were being talked of by men who are sacrificing their lives for her. Where is your enthusiasm of a year ago, my child? Where is your patriotism? And what, in Heaven's name, hath come over you these past few days?"
"Nothing, ma tante," replied Fernande with a little sigh of impatience; "only a foreboding, I think."
"A foreboding?" queried Madame. "What about?"
"I don't know. But it seems to me that you are all so confident ... so sure of success...."
"Well, are not you?"
"I think that M. de Puisaye—that you all, in fact, are not taking one vastly important factor into your reckoning."
"What do you mean, Fernande? What factor are you alluding to?"
"To M. le Comte Ronnay de Maurel, of course," replied Fernande.
"Well," queried Madame tartly, "what about him?"
"Only, ma tante, that M. de Maurel is not the nonentity that you and M. de Puisaye seem to imagine. He has just come back from Poland, and at once dismissed the military overseers who had taken his place in his absence. Does that look as if he meant to let the reins of government slip through his fingers?"
"I don't know what you mean, child. Ronnay de Maurel may have every intention in the world of ruling over his work-people and being master in his own factories, but we are going to relieve him of that responsibility in a day or two's time."
"That is where you are wrong, ma tante," broke in Fernande firmly. "Ronnay de Maurel is not a man from whom you can wrest a responsibility or a right quite so easily. Think you he doth not already suspect Leroux' treachery and hath not taken the first steps to combat it?"
"No, I do not think it for a moment," replied Madame with her usual decisiveness. "Ronnay has only been home two days; he cannot yet have taken up the reins of government at his factories with any assurance. Moreover, Gaston de Maurel hath claimed all his nephew's attention. The old man is really dying at last, I do believe."
"M. le Comte de Maurel is quite capable of devoting his time to his sick kinsman and of keeping an eye on the administration of his factories at the same time."
"You seem to have a very high opinion of my son's capabilities, my dear," said Madame la Marquise snappishly.
"I have seen him with his workmen, remember," retorted Fernande. "I have seen him deal with men like Leroux."
"Well?... And?..."
"And as I told you just now, he is not a man whom the Leroux' or the de Puisayes are going to hoodwink, or to make a fool of; he is not a man who can be caught napping, or from whose nerveless hands the sceptre of power can so easily be snatched. Ronnay de Maurel may to all outward appearances be a rustic—an unsophisticated boor—but he is a man, for all that—a man and not a puppet—he is very wide-awake—he is alive, oh! very much alive!—and, believe me, he will know how to guard what is not only his own, but is also of priceless value to the Emperor whom he worships."
"Hoity-toity, child!" exclaimed Madame with ill-concealed asperity. "Your indifference of a while ago seems to have given place to marvellous vehemence in the defence of our common enemy. 'Tis lucky your future husband is not here to see your flaming cheeks now and your glowing eyes. But perhaps," she added with a dry, forced laugh, "you will be good enough to explain the meaning of these Cassandra-like prophetic warnings, for, of a truth, I do confess that I do not understand them."
"An you will jeer, ma tante," said Fernande quietly; "'twere better I said no more."
"It is your duty to say more, child, now you have said so much," said Madame gravely. "What is it that in our council of war has struck you as rash or ill-advised? I will confess that you do know my son Ronnay better than any of us; you have seen him more often. He has made love to you, and, in so doing, he may have revealed some traits in his character which have remained hidden from us. Speak, therefore, child, openly and frankly. You wish to warn us all. Against what?"
"Against bribing a criminal—a jail-bird like Leroux, to betray his master," replied Fernande calmly.
Madame laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
"That," she said, "my dear, is childish. On Leroux' help rests the whole edifice of our plans and our entire hope of success."
"I know that well enough," rejoined Fernande. "I know that you are not like to heed anything I say. I only spoke because you forced me. Think you," she added more vehemently, "that if I had thought for a moment that you, or father, or M. de Puisaye, would have listened to me, I would not have dragged myself at your feet and kissed the ground and licked the dust and never risen until you heard, until you gave up all thought of joining issue with a miserable traitor, a criminal like Leroux. It is because I knew that my voice would count as less than nothing with you all that I remained silent."
"You speak with strange excitement, child...."
"I speak as I feel," she retorted hotly. "I speak because something in me tells me that some awful disaster will come to us and to our cause through trafficking with Leroux and his kind. Of this I am as convinced, ma tante, as I am of the fact that M. de Maurel already suspects our machinations, and on this," she concluded with marvellous forcefulness, "I would stake my life."
"You are mad, Fernande!"
"Mad?" retorted the girl hotly, "mad because I implore you not to sully our cause by joining issue with a handful of felons; mad because I foresee an abyss of misery and of remorse for us all in this monstrous treachery which we have planned. Ah! if it only meant a ruse of war, a clever intrigue to catch an unwary foe! But what M. de Puisaye has planned may mean murder, ma tante—the murder of a brave man—and that man your son ...!"
"Fernande! In Heaven's name, what does this mean?"
The cry came from the door, which had suddenly been thrown open, and Fernande, almost beside herself with the vehemence of her emotion, turned and found herself face to face with Laurent, who was standing under the lintel, his cheeks pale, his breath coming and going in rapid gasps through his parted lips, his dark eyes fixed gloweringly upon her.
"Mother, will you explain?" continued the young man peremptorily, as he turned to Madame la Marquise and, closing the door behind him, strode into the room.
"Nay, my good Laurent," replied Madame testily, "that I cannot do. The explanation of this extraordinary outburst on the part of your fiancée can only come from her. As for myself, I confess that I am utterly bewildered by this torrent of recrimination which Fernande has chosen to let loose upon us all. It seems that M. de Puisaye is a murderer and we his accomplices ... that we are bribing a felon to assassinate Ronnay de Maurel, for whose welfare my niece appears to evince an extraordinarily deep interest. You must forgive me, therefore, if I leave you to deal with the situation as best you can. When Fernande is in a more rational frame of mind, we can discuss the question of her leaving for Courson as soon as may be."