Martial yielded unresistingly to the charm of his position.
How could he suspect unworthy motives in a young girl whose eyes were so pure, whose laugh rang out with the crystalline clearness of childhood!
Involuntarily he compared her with the grave and thoughtful Marie-Anne, and his imagination floated from one to the other, inflamed by the strangeness of the contrast.
He occupied a seat beside Mlle. Blanche at table; and they chatted gayly, amusing themselves at the expense of the other guests, who were again conversing upon political matters, and whose enthusiasm waxed warmer and warmer as course succeeded course.
Champagne was served with the dessert; and the company drank to the allies whose victorious bayonets had forced a passage for the King to return to Paris; they drank to the English, to the Prussians, and to the Russians, whose horses were trampling the crops under foot.
The name of d’Escorval heard, above the clink of the glasses, suddenly aroused Martial from his dream of enchantment.
An old gentleman had just risen, and proposed that active measures should be taken to rid the neighborhood of the Baron d’Escorval.
“The presence of such a man dishonors our country,” said he, “he is a frantic Jacobin, and admitted to be dangerous, since Monsieur Fouche has him upon his list of suspected persons; and he is even now under the surveillance of the police.”
This discourse could not have failed to arouse intense anxiety in M. d’Escorval’s breast had he seen the ferocity expressed on almost every face.
Still no one spoke; hesitation could be read in every eye.