“I would gladly, but for my orders, mademoiselle,” he replied, with truth.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I am tired of your orders, M. de Calvisson,” she remarked. “If I were a man, I would take orders from no one but my own conscience.”
“Mademoiselle, if you owed monsignor as much as I do,” he replied dryly, “you would serve him from love and not from fear.”
She elevated her eyebrows with an air of incredulity.
“Ciel!” she exclaimed; “is it possible that you love Cardinal de Richelieu?”
“I should be an ingrate if I did not,” he retorted boldly. “It is always possible, mademoiselle, for a statesman to make enemies; M. le Cardinal has made many, but had he no other friend, I would be one still.”
She smiled scornfully. “I admire your devotion, monsieur,” she said; “it is doubtless worth the hire.”
“Mademoiselle,” Péron exclaimed hoarsely, “you take advantage of your sex!”
“You forget, M. de Calvisson,” she replied, “that a prisoner has no resource but her tongue. However, I beg your pardon, I spoke in anger.”
He bowed gravely, too deeply incensed to reply, and remembering the cardinal’s instructions about the shutters, he walked across the room toward the nearest of the two windows and began to make the fastenings more secure. As he did so, mademoiselle rose deliberately, and taking the taper in her hand, walked to the other window.