“Is it true?” she said, softly. “Monsieur le Comte, it must be long since you have received a curtsey.”
She dropped me one there, bending to her own prettiness like a rose; and then she gave a little low laugh. Truly that city of Paris saw some strange meetings in the year of terror.
“I, too,” she said, “was born of the noblesse. That is a secret, monsieur, to set against yours.”
I could but answer, with some concern—
“Mademoiselle, these confessions, if meet for the holy saint yonder, are little for the ears of the devil’s advocates. I entreat let us be walking, or those in the ditch may anticipate upon us his benediction.”
“Ma foi!” she said, “it is true. Come, then!”
We went off together, stealing from the square like thieves. Presently, when I could breathe with a half relief, “You will not go to-morrow?” I said.
“To feed Radegonde! Ah, monsieur! I would not for the whole world lose the little sweet-tooth her goodies. Each of us has only the other to love in all this cruel city.”
“So, my child! And they have taken the rest?”
“Monsieur, my father was the rest. He went on the seventeenth Fructidor; and since, my veins do not run blood, I think, but only ice-water, that melts from my heart and returns to freeze again.”