"Now she has discovered by some tone or trick of accent--I having the French well enough in ordinary since my father, Sir George Bracton, dwelt in Paris, and I was brought up and schooled there--that I am none. Yet, it may be, she knows not that I am English; but still--but still she has asked me if I know of the movements of my lords Athlone and Marlborough. If I can tell her when our army will draw near to Liége, when it will come, where it is now----"
"Tell her nothing," the captain said decisively. "She is a spy."
"No; she is no spy, I will be sworn. The cunning of spies harbours not behind such clear eyes or so honest a face as hers. If she is aught she should not be, and still I almost reproach myself for dreaming of such a thing, she is a woman who by some injustice, some wickedness done to her, is false to her own country, to France. Listen, gentlemen. This woman, the Comtesse de Valorme, desires one thing above all."
"What is it!" everyone of the dragoons asked in the same breath.
"To be brought to Marlborough or Athlone as soon as may be. How, then, shall she be a spy on us?"
"Upon a pretext to see one of these generals, upon seeing them, she might discover much," the lieutenant said; "yet she is but a sorry fool if she dreams of speaking with either of them or learning aught. Bah! Athlone--Ginkell--would offer her a glass of his native schnapps, bow before her with heavy, stolid grace, call her, 'Zhére Matam la Gondesse,' and tell her nothing. While as for my Lord Marlborough----"
"Ay, my Lord Marlborough!" Bevill said. "Marlborough!"
"He would receive her with infinite grace. Doubtless, he would kiss her hand with the most engaging look on his handsome face. Also, he would let her think that he esteemed himself well fortuned in being able to place himself and all the army at her disposal, and--he also would do nothing. A man with the sweetest disposition in all the world, one bred a courtier from his youth, one who has been a French soldier himself, who knows France as other Englishmen know their native hamlet, will not be hoodwinked by any scheming Frenchwoman."
"She is no schemer, or, if she is, it is against her own land," Bevill exclaimed. "Oh! if I knew, if I could divine what reason there may be for any French, in such times as these, to look to the English for help and support! Gentlemen, you have been long on this foreign service. Have you heard no word? Can any French, any portion of France, be hoping for help from us against their own selves?"
But the officers could tell him nothing. They had, indeed, been abroad some time, but that time had been passed only in the Netherlands. They did not know--it was impossible they should know--that far away in the South, whose shores and golden sands were laved by the soft waters of the Mediterranean, things were being done that were turning honest, faithful subjects into rebels. They did not know that homes were being rendered desolate, children made orphans, and parents childless; that the nobles were escaping, where possible, to other lands; that the working classes were being succoured in Clerkenwell and Spitalfields, beneath the Swiss snows and on the burning shores of Africa. Therefore, they could neither think nor dream of what might be the cause--if there were any such!--which could make this woman of the French aristocracy false to France.