"Your report, Vibert."
"My report to the Convention?"
Dangeau laughed, with the air of a man who is enjoying himself. After the dissimulation, the hateful necessity for repression and evasion, frankness was a luxury.
"Oh, no, my good Vibert, not your report to the Convention. It is your report to Robespierre that I mean. I have a curiosity to know how you mean to put the thing. 'Emotion at hearing of Danton's death,' is that your line, eh?"
"Citizen——"
"What, protestations? Really, Vibert, you underrate my intelligence. Shall I tell you what you said about me last time?"
Vibert shifted his eyes to the door, and seemed to measure his distance from it.
"What I said last time, Citizen?" he stammered. Once out of the tent he knew he could break Dangeau easily enough, but at present, alone with a man who he was aware must be desperate, he felt a creeping in his bones, and a strong desire to be elsewhere.
Dangeau's lip lifted.
"Be reassured, my friend. I am not a spy, and I really have no idea what it was that you said, though now that you have been so obligingly transparent I think I might hazard a guess. It would be a pity if this week's report were to contain nothing fresh. Robespierre might even be bored—in the intervals of killing his betters."