“Joignez tous vos efforts contre un espoir si doux
Pour en venir a bout, c’est trop peu que de vous.”
“No! no!” said mademoiselle impatiently; “you must not make that ugly pause midway in the last line: ‘pour en venir a bout, c’est trop peu que de vous!’”
She mimicked Armand’s diction so quaintly, imitating his stride, his awkward gesture, and his faulty phraseology with such funny exaggeration that Heron laughed in spite of himself.
“So that is a cousin from Orleans, is it?” he asked, throwing his lanky body into an armchair, which creaked dismally under his weight.
“Yes! a regular gaby—what?” she said archly. “Now, citizen Heron, you must stay and take coffee with me. Aunt Marie will be bringing it in directly. Hector,” she added, turning to Armand, “come down from the clouds and ask Aunt Marie to be quick.”
This certainly was the first time in the whole of his experience that Heron had been asked to stay and drink coffee with the quarry he was hunting down. Mademoiselle’s innocent little ways, her desire for the prolongation of his visit, further addled his brain. De Batz had undoubtedly spoken of an Englishman, and the cousin from Orleans was certainly a Frenchman every inch of him.
Perhaps had the denunciation come from any one else but de Batz, Heron might have acted and thought more circumspectly; but, of course, the chief agent of the Committee of General Security was more suspicious of the man from whom he took a heavy bribe than of any one else in France. The thought had suddenly crossed his mind that mayhap de Batz had sent him on a fool’s errand in order to get him safely out of the way of the Temple prison at a given hour of the day.
The thought took shape, crystallised, caused him to see a rapid vision of de Batz sneaking into his lodgings and stealing his keys, the guard being slack, careless, inattentive, allowing the adventurer to pass barriers that should have been closed against all comers.
Now Heron was sure of it; it was all a conspiracy invented by de Batz. He had forgotten all about his theories that a man under arrest is always safer than a man that is free. Had his brain been quite normal, and not obsessed, as it always was now by thoughts of the Dauphin’s escape from prison, no doubt he would have been more suspicious of Armand, but all his worst suspicions were directed against de Batz. Armand seemed to him just a fool, an actor quoi? and so obviously not an Englishman.
He jumped to his feet, curtly declining mademoiselle’s offers of hospitality. He wanted to get away at once. Actors and actresses were always, by tacit consent of the authorities, more immune than the rest of the community. They provided the only amusement in the intervals of the horrible scenes around the scaffolds; they were irresponsible, harmless creatures who did not meddle in politics.