Peter said nothing. His eyes were fixed upon the Baroness. She sat in her chair quite motionless, but her face had become like the face of some graven image. She looked at Bernadine, but her eyes said nothing. Every glint of expression seemed to have left her features. Since that one wild shriek she had remained voiceless. Encompassed by danger though he knew they now must be, Peter found himself possessed by one thought only. Was this a trap into which they had fallen, or was the woman, too, deceived?
“You bring later news from Paris than I myself,” Sogrange proceeded, helping himself to one of the dishes which a footman was passing round. “How did you reach the coast? The evening papers stated distinctly that since the accident no attempt had been made to run trains.”
“By motor car from Chantilly,” Bernadine replied. “I had the misfortune to lose my servant, who was wearing my coat, and who, I gather from the newspaper reports, was mistaken for me. I myself was unhurt. I hired a motor car and drove to Boulogne—not the best of journeys, let me tell you, for we broke down three times. There was no steamer there, but I hired a fishing boat, which brought me across the Channel in something under eight hours. From the coast I motored direct here. I was so anxious,” he added, raising his eyes, “to see how my dear friend—my dear Aimee—was bearing the terrible news.”
She fluttered for a moment like a bird in a trap. Peter drew a little sigh of relief. His self-respect was reinstated. He had decided that she was innocent. Upon them, at least, would not fall the ignominy of having been led into the simplest of traps by this white-faced Delilah. The butler had brought her another glass, which she raised to her lips. She drained its contents, but the ghastliness of her appearance remained unchanged. Peter, watching her, knew the signs. She was sick with terror.
“The conditions throughout France are indeed awful,” Sogrange remarked. “They say, too, that this railway strike is only the beginning of worse things.”
Bernadine smiled.
“Your country, dear Marquis,” he said, “is on its last legs. No one knows better than I that it is, at the present moment, honeycombed with sedition and anarchical impulses. The people are rotten. For years the whole tone of France has been decadent. Its fall must even now be close at hand.”
“You take a gloomy view of my country’s future,” Sogrange declared.
“Why should one refuse to face facts?” Bernadine replied. “One does not often talk so frankly, but we three are met together this evening under somewhat peculiar circumstances. The days of the glory of France are past. England has laid out her neck for the yoke of the conqueror. Both are doomed to fall. Both are ripe for the great humiliation. You two gentlemen whom I have the honor to receive as my guests,” he concluded, filling his glass and bowing towards them, “in your present unfortunate predicament represent precisely the position of your two countries.”
“Ave Caesar!” Peter muttered grimly, raising his glass to his lips.