“If it is all one to you, Citoyenne, I should prefer that you call me citizen.”
“Citizen, then,” she amended. “I have brought with me the gems which I told you would constitute my dowry. In his letter to me the Vicomte suggested that—” She paused.
“That some Republican blackguard might be bribed,” he concluded, very gently.
His gentleness deceived her. She imagined that it meant that he might not be unwilling to accept such a bribe, and thereupon she set herself to plead with him. He listened dispassionately, his hands behind his back, his eyes bent upon her, yet betraying nothing of his thoughts. At last she brought her prayer for Ombreval's life to an end, and produced a small leather bag which she set upon the table, beseeching him to satisfy himself as to the value of the contents.
Now at last he stirred. His face grew crimson to the roots of his hair, and his eyes seemed of a sudden to take fire. He seized that little bag and held it in his hand.
“And so, Mademoiselle de Bellecour,” said he, in a concentrated voice, “you have learnt so little of me that you bring me a bribe of gems. Am I a helot, that you should offer to buy my very soul? Do you think my honour is so cheap a thing that you can have it for the matter of some bits of glass? Or do you imagine that we of the new regime, because we do not mouth the word at every turn, have no such thing as honour? For shame!” He paused, his wrath boiling over as he sought words in which to give it utterance. And then, words failing him to express the half of what was in him, he lifted the bag high above his head, and hurled it at her feet with a force that sent half the glittering contents rolling about the parquet floor. “Citoyenne, your journey has been in vain. I will not treat with you another instant.”
She recoiled before his wrath, a white and frightened thing that but an instant back had been so calm and self-possessed. She gave no thought to the flashing jewels scattered about the floor. Through all the fear that now possessed her rose the consideration of this man—this man whom she had almost confessed half-shamedly to herself that she loved, that night on the Liege road; this man who at every turn amazed her and filled her with a new sense of his strength and dignity.
Then, bethinking her of Ombreval and of her mission, she took her courage in both hands, and, advancing a step, she cast herself upon her knees before Caron.
“Monsieur, forgive me,” she besought him. “I meant you no insult. How could I, when my every wish is to propitiate you? Bethink you, Monsieur, I have journeyed all the way from Prussia to save that man, because my hon—because he is my betrothed. Remember, Monsieur, you held out to me the promise in your letter that if I came you would treat with me, and that I might buy his life from you.”
“Why, so I did,” he answered, touched by her humiliation and her tears. “But you went too fast in your conclusions.”