rvous little laugh, and murmured in the tones of a
frightened child:

"La, citizen, how glum you look! I thought you had come to compliment
me on my latest success. I saw you at the theatre last night, though
you did not afterwards come to see me in the green-room. Why! I had a
regular ovation! Look at my flowers!" she added more gaily, pointing to
several bouquets in vases about the room. "Citizen Danton brought me
the violets himself, and citizen Santerre the narcissi, and that laurel
wreath--is it not charming?--that was a tribute from citizen Robespierre
himself."

She was so artless, so simple, and so natural that Heron was completely
taken off his usual mental balance. He had expected to find the usual
setting to the dramatic episodes which he was wont to conduct--screaming
women, a man either at bay, sword in hand, or hiding in a linen cupboard
or up a chimney.

Now everything puzzled him. De Batz--he was quite sure--had spoken of an
Englishman, a follower of the Scarlet Pimpernel; every thinking French
patriot knew that all the followers of the Scarlet Pimpernel were
Englishmen with red hair and prominent teeth, whereas this man....

Armand--who deadly danger had primed in his improvised role--was
striding up and down the room declaiming with ever-varying intonations:

"Joignez tous vos efforts contre un espoir si doux
Pour en venir a bout, c'est trop peu que de vous."

"No! no!" said mademoiselle impatiently; "you must not make that ugly
pause midway in the last line: 'pour en venir a bout, c'est trop peu que
de vous!'"

She mimicked Armand's diction so quaintly, imitating his stride, his
awkward gesture, and his faulty phraseology with such funny exaggeration
that Heron laughed in spite of himself.

"So that is a cousin from Orleans, is it?" he asked, throwing his lanky
body into an armchair, which creaked dismally under his weight.

"Yes! a regular gaby--what?" she said archly. "Now, citizen Heron, you
must stay and take coffee with me. Aunt Marie will be bringing it in
directly. Hector," she added, turning to Armand, "come down from the
clouds and ask Aunt Marie to be quick."

This certainly was the first time in the whole of his experience that
Heron had been asked to stay and drink coffee with the quarry he was
hunting down. Mademoiselle's innocent little ways, her desire for
the prolongation of his visit, further addled his brain. De Batz had
undoubtedly spoken of an Englishman, and