"If it lies within my power," he replied; "I pray you to command Madame."
"I am thinking of sending a messenger post haste to the commander of Le Monarque with orders to set sail at once for Scotland," she continued in matter-of-fact tones. "I should want a fresh copy of the map where Prince Charles Edward is in hiding, and to make assurance doubly sure a letter from you to the prince, asking him to trust Captain Barre implicitly. Le Monarque I know can reach Scotland long ere Le Levantin is ready for sea, and my idea had been originally to commission her to take the prince and his friends on board, and then to skirt the west coast of Ireland, reaching Brittany or mayhap the Pyrenees by a circuitous route. I have firm belief that it is not too late to send this messenger, milor, and thus to put my original plan into execution. And if you will give me a new map and full directions and your signet ring for the prince, I feel confident that I can find someone whom I could thoroughly trust . . ."
"There is no one whom you could thoroughly trust with such an errand, Madame!" he said drily.
"I must risk that, milor. The crisis has become so acute that I must do something to avert that awful catastrophe."
"Betrayal would be the inevitable result."
"I entreat you to leave that to me," she urged firmly. "I know I can find someone, all I ask is for the map, and a word and signet ring from you."
She was leaning forward now, eager and enthusiastic again, self-willed and domineering, determined that he should do what she wished. Her eyes were glowing, the marble was indeed endowed with life; she gleamed like a jewel, white and fragile-looking, in this dull and sombre room, and he forgetting for the moment her cruelty of awhile ago was loth to let her go, to speak the harsh words which anon would have to be said, and which would send her resentful, contemptuous, perhaps heartbroken, out of his sight again.
Would it not have been ten thousand times more simple to throw pride, just anger, reason to the winds, to fall at those exquisite feet, to encircle that glittering marble with passionately tremulous arms, to swear fealty, slavery, obedience to her whims.
How she would smile, and how softly and tenderly would the flush of victory tinge those pale cheeks with delicate rose! to see it gradually chase away the pearl-like tone of her skin, to see her eyes brighten at his word, to feel perhaps the tiny hand tremble with joy as it lay for sheer gratitude a few brief seconds in his, was not that well worth the barren victory of a man's pride over a woman's self-will?
She had thought that he would have yielded at her first word, would at once have fawned at her feet, kissing her hand, swearing that he was her slave. He had done it once . . . a year ago, and why not now again? Then she had smiled on him, had allowed him to kneel, to kiss her gown, anon had yielded her cold fingers to his kiss; he had reaped a year of misery for that one moment's joy, and now, just for the space of a few seconds he was again assailed with an awful temptation to throw prudence and pride away, to enjoy one golden hour—less perhaps—but glorious and fulsome whilst it lasted, until it gave way once more to humiliation, far worse to bear than heretofore.