In the coffee-room the masked leader of this daring attempt was quickly glancing through the stolen papers.
“Not a bad day’s work on the whole,” he muttered, as he quietly took off his mask, and his pale, fox-like eyes glittered in the red glow of the fire. “Not a bad day’s work.”
He opened one or two more letters from Sir Andrew Ffoulkes’ pocket-book, noted the tiny scrap of paper which the two young men had only just had time to read; but one letter specially, signed Armand St. Just, seemed to give him strange satisfaction.
“Armand St. Just a traitor after all,” he murmured. “Now, fair Marguerite Blakeney,” he added viciously between his clenched teeth, “I think that you will help me to find the Scarlet Pimpernel.”
CHAPTER X.
IN THE OPERA BOX
It was one of the gala nights at Covent Garden Theatre, the first of the autumn season in this memorable year of grace 1792.
The house was packed, both in the smart orchestra boxes and the pit, as well as in the more plebeian balconies and galleries above. Glück’s Orpheus made a strong appeal to the more intellectual portions of the house, whilst the fashionable women, the gaily-dressed and brilliant throng, spoke to the eye of those who cared but little for this “latest importation from Germany.”
Selina Storace had been duly applauded after her grand aria by her numerous admirers; Benjamin Incledon, the acknowledged favourite of the ladies, had received special gracious recognition from the royal box; and now the curtain came down after the glorious finale to the second act, and the audience, which had hung spell-bound on the magic strains of the great maestro, seemed collectively to breathe a long sigh of satisfaction, previous to letting loose its hundreds of waggish and frivolous tongues.
In the smart orchestra boxes many well-known faces were to be seen. Mr. Pitt, overweighted with cares of state, was finding brief relaxation in to-night’s musical treat; the Prince of Wales, jovial, rotund, somewhat coarse and commonplace in appearance, moved about from box to box, spending brief quarters of an hour with those of his more intimate friends.
In Lord Grenville’s box, too, a curious, interesting personality attracted everyone’s attention; a thin, small figure with shrewd, sarcastic face and deep-set eyes, attentive to the music, keenly critical of the audience, dressed in immaculate black, with dark hair free from any powder. Lord Grenville—Foreign Secretary of State—paid him marked, though frigid deference.