Having lulled his conscience to sleep and satisfied his self-love by a passionate tirade, Maurice followed Crystal down the steps at the west front of Ste. Gudule.
Immediately opposite them at the corner of the narrow rue de Ligne was the old Auberge des Trois Rois, from whence the diligence started twice a day in time to catch the tide and the English packet at Ostend. Maurice and Crystal stood for a moment together on the steps watching the bustle and excitement, the comings and goings of the crowd, which always attend such departures. All day there had been a steady stream of fugitives out of the town, taking their belongings with them: the diligence was for the well-to-do and the indifferent who hurried away to England to await the advent of more settled times.
Victor de Marmont had secured his place inside the coach. He had exchanged his borrowed uniform for civilian clothes, he had bestowed his belongings in the vehicle and he was standing about desultorily waiting for the hour of departure. The diligence would not arrive at Ostend till five o'clock in the morning: then with the tide the packet would go out, getting into London well after midday. Chance, as represented by the tide, had seriously handicapped de Marmont's plans. But enthusiasm and doggedness of purpose whispered to him that he still held the winning card. The English packet was timed to arrive in London by two o'clock in the afternoon, he would still have two hours to his credit before closing time on 'Change and another hour in the street. Time to find his broker and half an hour to spare: that would still leave him an hour wherein to make a fortune for his Emperor.
At one time he was afraid that he would not be able to secure a seat in the diligence, so numerous were the travellers who wished to leave Brussels behind them. But in this, Chance and the length of his purse favoured him: he bought his seat for an exorbitant price, but he bought it; and at nine o'clock the diligence was timed to start.
It was now half-past eight. And just then de Marmont caught sight of Crystal and St. Genis coming down the cathedral steps.
He had half an hour to spare and he followed them. He wanted to speak to Crystal—he had wanted it all day—but the difficulty of getting what clothes he required and the trouble and time spent in bargaining for a seat in the diligence had stood in his way. M. le Comte de Cambray would never, of course, admit him inside his doors, and it would have meant hanging about in the rue du Marais and trusting to a chance meeting with Crystal when she went out, and for this he had not the time.
And the chance meeting had come about in spite of all adverse circumstances: and de Marmont followed Crystal through the crowded streets, hoping that St. Genis would take leave of her before she went indoors. But even if he did not, de Marmont meant to have a few words with Crystal. He was going to win a gigantic fortune for the Emperor—one wherewith that greatest of all adventurers could once again recreate the Empire of France: he himself—rich already—would become richer still and also—if his coup succeeded—one of the most trusted, most influential men in the recreated Empire. He felt that with the offer of his name he could pour out a veritable cornucopia of abundant glory, honours, wealth at a woman's feet. And his ambition had always been bound up in a great measure with Crystal de Cambray. He certainly loved her in his way, for her beauty and her charm; but, above all, he looked on her as the very personification of the old and proud regime which had thought fit to scorn the parvenu noblesse of the Empire, and for a powerful adherent of Napoleon to be possessed of a wife out of that exclusive milieu was like a fresh and glorious trophy of war on a conqueror's chariot-wheel.
De Marmont had the supreme faith of an ambitious man in the power of wealth and of court favour. He knew that Napoleon was not a man who ever forgot a service efficiently rendered, and would repay this one—rendered at the supreme hour of disaster—with a surfeit of gratitude and of gifts which must perforce dazzle any woman's eyes and conquer her imagination.
Besides his schemes, his ambitions, the future which awaited him, what had an impecunious wastrel like St. Genis to offer to a woman like Crystal de Cambray?
Outside the house in the rue du Marais where the Comte de Cambray lodged, St. Genis and Crystal paused, and de Marmont, who still kept within the shadows, waited for a favourable opportunity to make his presence known.