I sprang forward, I could contain myself no longer. "And I!" I cried, "I, M. le Marquis, have something to say, too! I have something to declare! A moment ago I refused that tricolour! I rejected the overtures of those who brought it to me. I was resolved to stand by you and by my brethren against my better judgment. I was of your party, though I did not believe in it; and you might have tied me to it. But this gentleman is right, you are yourself the strongest argument against yourself. And I do this! I do this!" I repeated passionately. "See, M. le Marquis, and know that it is your doing!"
With the word I snatched up the ribbon, on which Mademoiselle had trodden, and with fingers that trembled scarcely less than hers had trembled, when she unfastened it, I pinned it on my breast.
He bowed, with a sardonic smile. "A cockade is easily changed," he said. But I could see that he was livid with rage; that he could have slain me for the rebuke.
"You mean," I said hotly, "that I am easily turned."
"You put on the cap, M. le Vicomte," he retorted.
The other three had withdrawn a little--not without open signs of disgust--and left us face to face on the spot on which we had stood three weeks before on the eve of his mother's reception. Still raging with anger on Mademoiselle's account, and minded to wound him, I recalled that to him, and the prophecies he had then uttered, prophecies which had been so ill-fulfilled.
He took me up at the second word. "Ill-fulfilled?" he said grimly. "Yes, M. le Vicomte, but why? Because those who should support me, those who from one end of France to the other should support the King, are like you--waverers who do not know their own minds! Because the gentlemen of France are proving themselves churls and cravens, unworthy of the names they bear! Yes, ill-fulfilled," he continued bitterly, "because you, M. de Saux, and men like you, are for this to-day, and for that to-morrow, and cry one hour, 'Reform,' and the next, 'Order!'"
The denial stuck in my throat, and my passion dying down I could only glower at him. He saw this, and taking advantage of my momentary embarrassment, "But enough," he continued in a tone of dignity very galling to me, since it was he who had behaved ill, not I. "Enough of this. While it was possible I courted your aid, M. de Saux; and I acknowledge, I still acknowledge, and shall be the last to disclaim, the obligation under which you last night placed us. But there can never be true fellowship between those who wear that"--and he pointed to the tricolour I had assumed--"and those who serve the King as we serve him. You will pardon me, therefore, if I take my leave, and without delay withdraw my sister from a house in which her presence may be misunderstood, as mine, after what has passed, must be unwelcome."
He bowed again with that, and led the way into the house; while I followed, tongue-tied and with a sudden chill at my heart. There was no one in the hall except André, who was hovering about the farther door; but in the avenue beyond were three or four mounted servants waiting for M. de St. Alais, and half-way down the avenue a party of three were riding towards the gates. It needed but a glance to show me that the foremost of these was Mademoiselle, and that she rode low in the saddle, as if she still wept. And I turned in a hot fit to M. de St. Alais.
But I found his eye fixed on me in such a fashion that the words died on my lips. He coughed drily. "Ah!" he said. "So Mademoiselle has herself felt the propriety of leaving. You will permit me, then, to make her acknowledgments, M. de Saux, and to take leave for her."