"Pish! Abdallah," replied St. Just impatiently, "you waste your words; it is useless to attempt to turn me from ray purpose; I have taken my decision and will go through with it. Besides, do you suppose that, when I show to Josephine the proofs of her husband's design to divorce her and marry this Austrian Archduchess, she will flinch? No, rest assured that we shall gain our ends—at least I shall. For what other purpose, indeed, can she have appointed this meeting with me to-night?"
The Empress Josephine had given him many tokens that she was not indifferent to him, and, complimented by her notice, he had conceived for her a sort of passion; not such a passion as he had for Halima—for, had Halima remained true to him, he would not have given a thought to Josephine; and even now, his wife, had she so willed it, could have brought him to her feet again, with never a thought for any other woman—but an intimate relationship that, when leavened by compliments and risky phrases, and amorous sighs and suggestive glances, he chose to dignify by the name of love. He thought himself a very fine fellow, in that he dared to make advances to an Empress.
Abdallah saw that his protest might as well have been uttered to the winds, so he contented himself with a grunt and a shake of the head; meaning that it was a bad business and that he washed his hands of it.
No more was said between them, each remaining seated in moody silence, the while the carriage bowled along.
Presently it rattled across the bridge that spans the Seine; then they turned sharply to the left down an avenue leading to the palace gate. Here the carriage halted, and the occupants got out.
Instead of proceeding up the avenue, the main entrance to the palace, whose gloomy facade indistinctly loomed ahead of them, St. Just and his companion took a further detour to the left, bringing up, after a short walk, before a narrow gate. Abdallah took a key from his pocket and unlocked it; and both passed through.
They had but just re-closed it when a voice called out, "Hola! Who goes there?" and a tall sentry, topped with a huge bearskin that made him look gigantic in the gloom, seemed to spring out of the ground before them. He held his musket at the ready, and they could see the glimmering of the steel bayonet at its muzzle.
Before those challenged by the sentinel could make reply, another figure appeared upon the scene. He carried a lantern and, when he spoke, there was an air of authority about his tone that showed he was an officer.
"What's all this?" the words were shot out sharply.
"Not so last, Colonel Tremeau, I beseech you," said a peculiarly sweet voice behind the officer, and a woman in a superb evening toilette, but her head and shoulders enveloped in a shawl, emerged from a clump of trees and advanced to them. The lamplight was not strong enough to show her features, standing, as she was, in the shadow of the trees, but St. Just noticed that her figure was magnificent.