“As much as anything for what he must think of me when he realises how shamefully I have used him.”
“And does it matter what the canaille thinks? Shall it matter what the citizen-assassin thinks?”
“A little, Madame,” she sighed. “He will despise me as I deserve. I almost wish that I could undo it, and go back to that little room at Boisvert the prisoner of that fearful man, Tardivet, or else that—” Again she paused, and the Marquise turned towards her with a gasp.
“Or else that what?” she demanded. “Ma foi, it only remains that you should wish you had kept your promise to this scum.”
“I almost wish it, Madame. I pledged my word to him.”
“You talk as if you were a man,” said her mother; “as if your word was a thing that bound you. It is a woman's prerogative to change her mind. As for this Republican scum—”
“You shall not call him that,” was the rejoinder, sharply delivered; for Suzanne was roused at last. “He is twenty times more noble and brave than any gentleman, that I have ever met. We owe our liberty to him at this moment, and sufficiently have I wronged him by my actions—”
“Fool, what are you saying?” cried the enraged Marquise. “He, more noble and brave than any gentleman that you ever met? He—this kennel-bred citizen-ruffian of a revolutionist? Are you mad, girl, or—” The Marquise paused a moment and took a deep breath that was as a gasp of sudden understanding. “Is it that you are in love with this wretch!”
“Madame!” The exclamation was laden with blended wonder, dignity, and horror.
“Well?” demanded Madame de Bellecour severely. “Answer me, Suzanne. Are you in love with this La Boulaye?”