Whereupon the fair Theresia, no longer gracious or arch, looked him up and down as if he were no better than a lacquey.
"Ah, ça!" she rejoined coldly. "Are you perchance trying to cross-question me? By what right, I pray you, citizen Tallien, do you assume this hectoring tone in my presence? I am not yet your wife, remember; and 'tis not you, I imagine, who are the dictator of France."
"Do not tease me, Theresia!" the man interposed hoarsely. "Bertrand Moncrif is here."
For the space of a second, or perhaps less, Theresia gave no reply to the taunt. Her quick, alert brain had already faced possibilities, and she was far too clever a woman to take the risks which a complete evasion of the truth would have entailed at this moment. She did not, in effect, know whether Tallien was speaking from positive information given to him by spies, or merely from conjecture born of jealousy. Moreover, another would be here presently—another, whose spies were credited with omniscience, and whom she might not succeed in dominating with a smile or a frown, as he could the love-sick Tallien. Therefore, after that one brief instant's reflection she decided to temporise, to shelter behind a half-truth, and replied, with a quick glance from under her long lashes:
"I am not teasing you, citizen. Bertrand came here for shelter awhile ago."
Tallien drew a quick sigh of satisfaction, and she went on carelessly:
"But, obviously, I could not keep him here. He seemed hurt and frightened. . . . He has been gone this past half-hour."
For a moment it seemed as if the man, in face of this obvious lie, would flare out into a hot retort; but Theresia's luminous eyes subdued him, and before the cool contempt expressed by those exquisite lips, he felt all his blustering courage oozing away.
"The man is an abominable and an avowed traitor," he said sullenly. "Only two hours ago——"
"I know," she broke in coldly. "He vilified Robespierre. A dangerous thing to do. Bertrand was ever a fool, and he lost his head."