ught
that ere now such notions had died out with you, and that, stupid enough
though your class has proved itself, it would at least have displayed
the intelligence to perceive that its day is ended, its sun set." He
turned and paced the apartment as he spoke. "The Lilies of France have
been shorn from their stems, they have withered by the roadside, and
they have been trampled into the dust by the men of the new regime,
and yet it seems that you others of the noblesse have not learnt your
lesson. You have not yet discovered that here in France the man who was
born a tiller of the soil is still a man, and, by his manhood, the equal
of a king, who, after all, can be no more than a man, and is sometimes
less. Enfin!" he ended brusquely. "This is not the National Assembly,
and I talk to ears untutored in such things. Let us deal rather with the
business upon which you are come."

She eyed him out of a pale face, with eyes that seemed fascinated. That
short burst of the fiery eloquence that had made him famous revealed him
to her in a new light: the light of a strength and capacity above and
beyond that which, already, she had perceived was his.

"Will you believe, Monsieur, that it cost me many tears to use you as I
did? If you but knew--" And there she paused abruptly. She had all but
told him of the kiss that she had left upon his unconscious lips that
evening on the road to Liege. "Mon Dieu how I hated myself!" And she
shuddered as she spoke.

He observed all this, and with a brusqueness that was partly assumed he
hastened to her rescue.

"What is done is done, Citoyenne. Come, let us leave reminiscences. You
are here to atone, I take it."

At that she started. His words reminded her of those of his letter.

"Monsieur La Boulaye--"

"If it is all one to you, Citoyenne, I should prefer that you call me
citizen."

"Citizen, then," she amended. "I have brought with me the gems which
I told you would constitute my dowry. In his letter to me the Vicomte
suggested that--" She paused.

"That some Republican blackguard might be bribed," he concluded, very
gently.

His gentleness deceived her. She imagined that it meant that he might
not be unwilling to accept such a bribe, and thereupon she set herself
to plead with him. He listened dispassionately, his hands behind his
back, his eyes bent upon her, yet betraying nothing of his thoughts. At
last she brought her prayer for Ombreval's life to an end, and produced
a