“Thank you,” I said, my heart warm with gratitude. “Shall I ask her?”
“No; I will attend to that;” and she smiled a little as she glanced across the board. “But I know that it is not discreet; I am falling a victim to my curiosity. You have piqued it most successfully. Although I can never solve a riddle for myself, I cannot rest until I know the solution. I hope your riddle will be worth the risk.”
“It will,” I assured her; and fell silent, nerving myself for the task which lay before me.
“But will you hear what this tyrant is saying?” cried madame—“that I must leave the château to dwell amid the fogs of England——”
“Or beneath the blue skies of Italy,” said M. le Comte. “Really, madame, I fear the château is no longer safe for you. The Revolution is looking this way—and not with friendly eyes.”
“Does the Revolution, then, make war on women?”
“Have you forgotten Mlle. de Lamballe?”
Madame went white at the retort, almost brutal in its brevity.
“But that was the canaille of Paris,” she protested. “There are no such monsters here in Poitou.”
“Ah, my dear,” said her husband, sadly, “I fear there are monsters of the same sort wherever there are suffering and degraded men and women. And since it is us they blame for their suffering and degradation, it is upon us they try to avenge themselves. Besides, since the Republicans are trying to entrap me, they will doubtless end by coming here; and not finding me, they may throw you into prison as the surest way of causing me to suffer.”