“What has he to do with it?”
“Quite a good deal, I am afraid. The prescription I would offer, fair lady, is called by a very plebeian name: Work!”
“Work?”
Chauvelin looked at Marguerite long and scrutinisingly. It seemed as if those keen, pale eyes of his were reading every one of her thoughts. They were alone together; the evening air was quite still, and their soft whispers were drowned in the noise which came from the coffee-room. Still, Chauvelin took a step or two from under the porch, looked quickly and keenly all round him, then, seeing that indeed no one was within earshot, he once more came back close to Marguerite.
“Will you render France a small service, citoyenne?” he asked, with a sudden change of manner, which lent his thin, fox-like face singular earnestness.
“La, man!” she replied flippantly, “how serious you look all of a sudden. . . . Indeed I do not know if I would render France a small service—at any rate, it depends upon the kind of service she—or you—want.”
“Have you ever heard of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Citoyenne St. Just?” asked Chauvelin, abruptly.
“Heard of the Scarlet Pimpernel?” she retorted with a long and merry laugh, “Faith, man! we talk of nothing else. . . . We have hats ‘à la Scarlet Pimpernel’; our horses are called ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’; at the Prince of Wales’ supper party the other night we had a ‘oufflé à la Scarlet Pimpernel.’ . . . Lud!” she added gaily, “the other day I ordered at my milliner’s a blue dress trimmed with green, and bless me, if she did not call that ‘à la Scarlet Pimpernel.’”
Chauvelin had not moved while she prattled merrily along; he did not even attempt to stop her when her musical voice and her childlike laugh went echoing through the still evening air. But he remained serious and earnest whilst she laughed, and his voice, clear, incisive, and hard, was not raised above his breath as he said,—
“Then, as you have heard of that enigmatical personage, citoyenne, you must also have guessed, and known, that the man who hides his identity under that strange pseudonym, is the most bitter enemy of our republic, of France . . . of men like Armand St. Just.”