Babel broke loose then. Questions, ejaculations, comments, explanations, congratulations, in half-a-dozen European languages, crossed and recrossed in the air like bursting squibs. And seeing officials and attachés of the Embassy beset by eager questions; and conscious that curious glances from below were raking his own dark, unfamiliar features, Dunoisse, as a wave of excited humanity began to roll up the grand staircase, retreated to the library, knowing that the coup d’État was an accomplished fact.
He had left the library empty, but he found it occupied. A lady and a gentleman had entered by a door at the more distant end. The lady’s back was towards Dunoisse. Her male companion, a tall and handsome man of barely middle age, wearing the gold-embroidered uniform of the diplomatic corps with grace and distinction, said to her, in the act of quitting the room:
“Wait here. I will go and order the carriage, but the crush is so great that some delay is unavoidable. Mary shall come and keep you company. By that small private staircase communicating with the dining-room she can join you quite quietly and unobserved. No one will be likely to disturb you. M. Walewski will not be able to escape from the congratulations of his circle for a considerable interval, and Madame Walewski is engaged with the Duke.”
The speaker withdrew by the more distant door, softly closing it behind him. And Dunoisse stood still in the shadow of a massive writing-table, flung by the light of fire and candle upon the heavy velvet curtain behind him, uncertain whether to remain or to retreat. One moment more; and then, as the tall, slender, white-robed figure of the lady turned and moved towards him across the richly hued Oriental carpets, a memory, faint as a whiff of sweetness from some jar of ancient pot-pourri, wakened in him, quickening as she drew nearer into fragrance fresh and as living as that exhaled by the bouquet of pure white roses clustering in their glossy dark green leaves, that she carried in her slight gloved hand; and by their fellow-blossoms, drooping in the graceful fashion of the day, amidst the heavy shining coils of her rippling gold-brown hair.
For it was Ada Merling.
He drew noiselessly back into the shadow, looking at her intently. A dress of costly fabric, frost-flowers of Alençon lace wrought upon cloudy tulle, billowed and floated about her slender, rounded form. Glimpses of shimmering sea-blue showed through the exquisite folds. The moony glimmer of great pearls, and the cold white fire of diamonds crowned her rich hair and clasped her fair throat, circled her slight wrists, and heaved on her white bosom. Jewels and laces could not add to her beauty in the eyes of those who loved her. To Dunoisse the revelation of the loveliness that had been gowned in Quaker gray, crowned with the frilled cap of the nurse, and uniformed with the bibbed apron, came with a shock that took his breath away.
She had not seen him, standing by the curtain. She evidently believed herself alone when she dropped her fan and bouquet on a divan, as though their inconsiderable burden had oppressed her, and moved towards the fireplace. She looked steadfastly at the replica of the David portrait of the Great Napoleon that hung above. Her name was upon Dunoisse’s lips, when the sound of the unforgotten voice of melody arrested it. She spoke; and her words were addressed, not to the living man who heard, but to the deaf, unheeding dead.
“Oh, you with the inscrutable pale face and the cold, hard, pitiless eyes! who point forwards ceaselessly,” she said, “scourging your dying soldiers along the road of Death with the whip of your remorseless, merciless will, do you know what he has done, and is doing?—the man who bears your name, and would, if he could, revive the withered glories of your Empire by dipping them in a bath of human blood.... Do you hear the shrieks, and groans, and prayers for mercy? Do you see the red tide running in the streets of Paris? Do you see the people butchered at the police-bureau and guard-houses? And seeing, do you own the slayer as a son of your House?... I cannot believe that you and he have anything in common.... You were a magnificent despot, a royal tiger, but this man is——”