The Scarlet Pimpernel. Baroness Orczy

voice close to her ear roused her from her dreams. The mysterious hero had vanished, and, not twenty yards away from her, a man was drinking and laughing, to whom she had sworn faith and loyalty.

      “La! man,” she said with a return of her assumed flippancy, “you are astonishing. Where in the world am I to look for him?”

      “You go everywhere, citoyenne,” whispered Chauvelin, insinuatingly, “Lady Blakeney is the pivot of social London, so I am told … you see everything, you hear everything.”

      “Easy, my friend,” retorted Marguerite, drawing herself up to her full height and looking down, with a slight thought of contempt on the small, thin figure before her. “Easy! you seem to forget that there are six feet of Sir Percy Blakeney, and a long line of ancestors to stand between Lady Blakeney and such a thing as you propose.”

      “For the sake of France, citoyenne!” reiterated Chauvelin, earnestly.

      “Tush, man, you talk nonsense anyway; for even if you did know who this Scarlet Pimpernel is, you could do nothing to him – an Englishman!”

      “I’d take my chance of that,” said Chauvelin, with a dry, rasping little laugh. “At any rate we could send him to the guillotine first to cool his ardour, then, when there is a diplomatic fuss about it, we can apologise – humbly – to the British Government, and, if necessary, pay compensation to the bereaved family.”

      “What you propose is horrible, Chauvelin,” she said, drawing away from him as from some noisome insect. “Whoever the man may be, he is brave and noble, and never – do you hear me? – never would I lend a hand to such villainy.”