"You are sure they went up to my rooms?" Theresia broke in quickly.
"Yes. Two minutes later I saw a light in your apartment." She turned abruptly to Tallien.
"My cloak!" she commanded. "I left it in the box."
He tried to protest.
"I am going," she rejoined firmly. "This is some ghastly mistake, for which that fiend Chauvelin shall answer with his life. My cloak!"
It was Bertrand who went back for the cloak and wrapped her in it. He knew—none better—that if his divinity desired to go, no power on earth would keep her back. She did not appear in the least afraid, but her wrath was terrible to see, and boded ill to those who dared provoke it. Indeed, Theresia, flushed with her recent triumph and with Robespierre's rare if clumsy gallantries still ringing in her ear, felt ready to dare anything, to brave any one—even Chauvelin and his threats. She even succeeded in reassuring Tallien, ordered him to remain in the theatre, and to show himself to the public as utterly unconcerned.
"In case a rumour of this outrage penetrates to the audience," she said, "you must appear to make light of it. . . . Nay! you must at once threaten reprisals against its perpetrators."
Then she wrapped her cloak about her, and taking Bertrand's arm, she hurried out of the theatre.