"My mate and I have a number of excellent disguises in this wardrobe here, Madame la Comtesse," he said, as he pointed to a large piece of furniture which stood in a corner of the room, "and all are at your service. I would suggest a peasant's dress for Mademoiselle, and," he added significantly, "a man's attire for Madame, since she is so very much at home in it."
"You are right, my man," rejoined Madame lightly. "I was perfectly at home in my son's breeches, and I shall never cease to regret that Jacques de Romaine must remain now as he is—vanished or dead—for as long as I live."
The two men then took their leave, and the ladies proceeded to select suitable disguises. Silently and methodically they proceeded in their task, Mariette de Romaine making herself look as like a labourer's wench as she could, whilst Mme. la Comtesse slipped into a rough suit of coat and breeches with the ease born of constant habit. Her short dark hair she tied into a knot at the nape of her neck and placed a shabby three-cornered hat jauntily upon it. Her broad, unfeminine figure, her somewhat hard-marked features and firm mouth and chin made her look a handsome and dashing cavalier.
When a few moments later the sound of voices in the hall proclaimed the return of the men, Mme. la Comtesse was standing expectant and triumphant facing the door, ready for adventure as she had always been, a light of daring and of recklessness in her eyes, love of intrigue and of tortuous paths, of dark conspiracies and even of unavowable crimes glowing in her heart—all for the sake of a King whom France with one voice had ejected from her shores, and a régime which the whole of France abhorred.
The door was opened: a woman's cry of joy and astonishment rang out.
"Why Jacques, you young scamp!" exclaimed Mademoiselle Philippa who, dressed in a brilliant dark green silk, with feathered hat and well-rouged cheeks, was standing under the lintel of the narrow door like a being from another world. "Where have you been hiding all this while?"
But her cry of mingled pleasure and petulance had already been followed by a double cry of terror. Mme. la Comtesse, white now to the lips, had fallen back against the table, to which she clung, whilst Mariette de Romaine, wide-eyed like a tracked beast at bay, was gazing in horror straight before her, where, behind Philippa's flaring skirts, appeared the stern, colourless face of a small man in a grey coat.
"It was for the mean spies of that Corsican upstart," she exclaimed with passionate indignation, "to have devised such an abominable trick."
Already the Man in Grey had entered the room. Behind him, in the dark, narrow hall, could be seen the vague silhouettes of three or four men in plain clothes.
"Trick for trick, Mademoiselle, and disguise for disguise," said the secret agent quietly. "I prefer mine to the one which deceived and defrauded Mademoiselle Philippa here of close on a million francs' worth of jewels."