Victor smothered a curse. These aristos were as arrogant as ever. What lesson had the revolution and the guillotine taught them? None. This girl who had spent her whole life in poverty and exile, and was like—after a brief interregnum—to return to exile and poverty again, was not a whit less proud than her kindred had been when they walked in their hundreds up the steps of the guillotine with a smile of lofty disdain upon their lips.
Victor de Marmont was a son of the people—of those who had made the revolution and had fought the whole of Europe in order to establish their right to govern themselves as they thought best, and he hated all these aristos—the men who had fled from their country and abandoned it when she needed her sons' help more than she had ever done before.
The aristocrat was for him synonymous with the émigré—with the man who had raised a foreign army to fight against France, who had brought the foreigner marching triumphantly into Paris. He hated the aristocrat, but he loved Crystal, the one desirable product of that old regime system which he abhorred.
But with him a woman's love meant a woman's submission. He was more determined than ever now to win her, but he wanted to win her through her humiliation and his triumph—excitement had turned his brain? Well! so be it, fear and oppression would turn her heart and crush her pride.
He made no further attempt to detain her: he had asked for a kind word and she had given him withering scorn. Excitement had turned his brain . . . he was not even worthy of parley—not even worthy of a formal refusal!
To his credit be it said that the thought of immediate revenge did not enter his mind then. He might have subjected her then and there to deadly outrage—he might have had her personal effects searched, her person touched by the rough hands of his soldiers. But though his estimate of a woman's love was a low one, it was not so base as to imagine that Crystal de Cambray would ever forgive so dastardly an insult.
As she walked past him to the door, however, he said under his breath:
"Remember, Mademoiselle, that you and your family at this moment are absolutely in my power, and that it is only because of my regard for you that I let you all now depart from here in peace."
Whether she heard or not, he could not say; certain it is that she made no reply, nor did she turn toward him at all. The light of the lanthorn lit up her delicate profile, pale and drawn, her tightly pressed lips, the look of utter contempt in her eyes, which even the fitful shadow cast by her hair over her brows could not altogether conceal.
The Comte had given what instructions he wished to Pierre. He stood by the carriage door waiting for his daughter: no doubt he had heard what went on between her and de Marmont, and was content to leave her to deal what scorn was necessary for the humiliation of the traitor.