"Fi donc—you must not be proud," remarked Rosalie the observant. "You are Marie Roche, you understand, a simple country girl, and Marie Roche must not be proud. Neither must she wear a fine muslin robe and a silk petticoat or a fichu trimmed with lace from Valenciennes. I have brought you a bundle of clothes, and you may be glad you had Rosalie Leboeuf to drive the bargain for you. Two shifts, these good warm stockings, a neat gown, with stuff for another, to say nothing of comb and brush, and for it all you need not pay a sou! Your own clothes in exchange, that is all. That is what I call a bargain! Brush the powder from your hair and put on these clothes, and I 'll warrant you 'll be safe enough, as long as you keep a still tongue and do as I bid you."
"Thank you," said Mademoiselle, with an effort. Even her inexperience was aware that she was being cheated, but she had sufficient intelligence to know herself completely in the woman's power, and enough self-control to bridle her tongue.
Rosalie, watching her, saw the struggle, inwardly commended the victory, and with a final panegyric on her own skill at a bargain she departed, and was to be heard stumping heavily down the creaking stair.
As soon as she was alone Aline sprang out of bed. Most of her own clothes had been removed, she found, and she turned up her nose a little at the coarse substitutes. There was no help for it, however, and on they went. Then came a great brushing of hair, which was left at last powderless and glossy, and twisted into a simple knot. Finally she put on the petticoat, of dark blue striped stuff, and the clean calico gown. There was a tiny square of looking-glass in the room, cracked relic of some former occupant, and Aline peeped curiously into it when her toilette was completed. A young girl's interest in her own appearance dies very hard, and it must be confessed that the discovery that her new dress was far from unbecoming cheered her not a little. She even smiled as she put on the coarse white cap, and turned her head this way and that to catch the side view; but the smile faded suddenly, and the next moment she was on her knees, reproaching herself for a hard heart, and praying with all dutiful earnestness for the repose of her cousin's soul.
CHAPTER VII
THE INNER CONFLICT
September passed on its eventful way. Dangeau was very busy; there were many meetings, much to be discussed, written, arranged, and on the twenty-first the Assembly was dissolved, and the National Convention proclaimed the Republic.
Dangeau as an elected member of the Convention had his hands full enough, and there was a great deal of writing done in the little room under the roof. Sometimes, as he came and went, he passed his pale fellow-lodger, and noted half unconsciously that as the days went on she grew paler still. Her gaze, proud yet timid, as she stood aside on the little landing, or passed him on the narrow stair, appealed to a heart which was really tender.
"She is only a child, and she looks as if she had not enough to eat," he muttered to himself once or twice, and then found to his half-shamed annoyance that the child's face was between him and his work.
"You are a fool, my good friend," he remarked, and plunged again into his papers.
He burned a good deal of midnight oil in those days, and Rosalie Leboeuf, whose tough heart really kept a soft corner for him, upbraided him for it.
"Tiens!" she said one day, about the middle of October, "tiens! The Citizen is killing himself."
Dangeau, sitting on the counter, between two piles of apples, laughed and shook his head.
"But no, my good Rosalie—you will not be rid of me so easily, I can assure you."
"H'm—you are as white as a girl—as white as your neighbour upstairs, and she looks more like snow than honest flesh and blood."
Dangeau, who had been wondering how he should introduce this very subject, swung his legs nonchalantly and whistled a stave before replying. The girl's change of dress had not escaped him, and he was conscious, and half ashamed of, his curiosity. Rosalie plainly knew all, and with a little encouragement would tell what she knew.
"Who is she, then, Citoyenne?" he asked lightly.
"Eh! the Citizen has seen her—a slip of a white girl. Her name is Marie Roche, and she earns just enough to keep body and soul together by embroidery."
Dangeau nodded his head. He did not understand why he wished to gossip with Rosalie about this girl, but an idle mood was on him, and he let it carry him whither it would.
"Why, yes, Citoyenne, I know all that, but that does n't answer my question at all. Who is Marie Roche?"
Rosalie glanced round. Indiscretion was as dear to her soul as to another woman's, and it was not every day that one had the chance of talking scandal with a Deputy. To do her justice, she was aware that Dangeau was a safe enough recipient of her confidences, so after assuring herself that there was no one within earshot, she abandoned herself to the enjoyment of the moment.
"Aha! The Citizen is clever, he is not to be taken in! Only figure to yourself, then, Citizen, that I find this girl, a veritable aristocrat, weeping at the gates of La Force, weeping, mon Dieu, because they will not keep her there with her friends! Singular, is it not? I bring her home, I am a mother to her, and next day, pff—all her friends are massacred, and what can I do? I have a charitable heart, I keep her—the marmot does not eat much."
Dangeau enjoyed his Rosalie.
"She earns nothing, then?" he observed, with a subdued twinkle in his eye.
"Oh, a bagatelle. I assure you it does not suffice for the rent; but I have a good heart, I do not let her starve"; and Rosalie regarded the Deputy with an air of modest virtue that sat oddly upon her large, creased face.
"Excellent Rosalie!" he said, with a soft, half-mocking inflection.
She bridled a little.
"Ah, if the Citizen knew!" she said, with a toss of the head, which, aiming at the arch, merely achieved the elephantine.
"If it is a question of the Citoyenne's virtues, who does not know them?" said Dangeau. He made her a little bow, and kept the sarcasm out of his voice this time. He was thinking of his little neighbour's look of starved endurance, and contrasting her mentally with the well-fed Rosalie. He had not much confidence in the promptings of the latter's heart if they countered the interests of her pocket. Suddenly a plan came into his head, and before he had time to consider its possible drawbacks, he found himself saying:
"Tell me, then, Citoyenne, does this Marie Roche write a good hand?"
"H'm—well, I suppose the nuns in that Convent of hers taught her something, and as it was neither baking nor brewing, it may have been reading and writing," said Rosalie sharply. "Does the Citizen wish her to write him a billet-doux?"
To Dangeau's annoyed surprise he felt the colour rise to his cheeks as he answered:
"Du tout, Citoyenne, but I do require an amanuensis, and I thought your protégée might earn my money as well as another. I imagine that much fine embroidery cannot be done in the evenings, and it would be then that I should require her services."
"The girl is an aristocrat," said Rosalie suspiciously.
Dangeau laughed.
"Are you afraid she will contaminate me?" he asked gaily. "I shall set her to copy my book on the principles of Liberty. Desmoulins says that every child in France should get it by heart, and though I do not quite look for that, I hope there will be some to whom it means what it has meant for me. Your little aristocrat shall write it out fair for the press, and we shall see if it will not convert her."
"It