“But it is impossible for me to believe it, Madame.”
“If seeing is believing, you will believe it, Monsieur, this costume will do for the present,” and Madame, without more ado, proceeded to unlock the glass door opening on the balcony, and was apparently in the act of stepping out when Danton managed to get between her and it.
“Madame! Madame! you cannot mean this! Augustine! Augustine! Chérie!”
There was no mistaking the tenderness of his tone.
Madame took her hand from the lock.
“Ah, Danton, Danton, why did you ever allow ‘Le Vieux Corsaire’ to come between you and me—married these twenty years. I, proud of my husband always, and he, I think, had no reason to be ashamed of me.”
“My love! My pride! My noble Augustine! Nothing shall come between us.”
“But it has, Danton. Your ‘Vieux Corsaire,’ and your ‘Drapeau Rouge,’ and your ‘mangeurs de prêtres’—you have brought it all between you and me and between our child and her happiness.”
“Down with the ‘Drapeau Rouge!’ Augustine, let me disarrange that fatal flag,” and he ran to the balcony, and, with a few deft and rapid tugs, drew out the blue folds and the white folds from the festoon of bunting until the balcony was gay at every point with the hues of the orthodox and veritable tricolour. Then he rushed back into the room, his arms outspread, his eyes streaming, his breast panting, a little geyser and volcano of emotion.