perceived that here all is not as well as it should be, not as well as we who helped to make this revolution could desire. But we who originally made are the ones who can mend, who can guide. Together with the Citizen de Batz, who is associated with me, I have made certain proposals to the Representative Chabot which he is now considering. The result of these would be to make for the aggrandizement of the sacred cause of Liberty. But the esteem in which you, my friends, are held by the Citizen Chabot is as high as it is no doubt deserved. He permits himself to be guided by you, in which he is heartily to be applauded. He would make no decision in the matter we set before him until he had taken counsel with you. Perhaps he has already done so?'
Junius, shrewd enough to perceive already whither his visitor was travelling, and relieved that it was no worse, spoke at last to answer him.
'He has not.'
'Then I come in good time. Aware as you are of my republican virtues, your own will hardly suffer you to advise him other than to associate himself with me in these little enterprises which de Batz and I have in view.'
He had done. He sat back in his chair, and waited. Emmanuel was shifting nervously, looking from his brother to their visitor until Junius, who had sat stolidly throughout, at last delivered himself.
'That, my dear Citizen Moreau, must depend upon the nature of these enterprises when the Citizen Chabot reveals them to me. Our duty to the cause ...'
He was interrupted. André-Louis raised a hand in protest. 'My dear Frey! Could I suggest any course from which it would be your duty to turn him? Can you impute such a thing as that to me, whose patriotism, I venture to say, stands as high as your own, and rests, if you will suffer the comparison, upon better evidence in our respective past actions?' He did not give the financier time to answer, but went on: 'Situated as we are, actuated as we are by the same sentiments of an unquestionable purity, you must see, citizen, as I see, that united we can be of great assistance to each other.' Very slyly he added, 'Almost it might be said of us that united we stand, severed we fall.'
If the threat was delicately veiled, it was none the less instantly apparent to Junius.
He laughed uncomfortably. 'Really, Citizen Moreau! Really! What you desire me to understand is that I shall find coöperation with you valuable, opposition to you dangerous.'
André-Louis smiled. 'It does happen that I can pull strings in both directions.'
'In short, you are threatening me, I think.'
'Threatening? My dear Citizen Frey! What a word to use!'
'Would it not be better to be plain?' Junius was severe.
Emmanuel sat timorously observant and effaced.
'That is what I have endeavoured. One may be plain without employing terms of an unnecessary harshness.'
'You appear, Citizen Moreau, to be a master of that art.'
'Among several others,' said André-Louis airily. He finished his wine, dusted some crumbs of cake from his neck-cloth, and got up. 'I am relieved to have been so readily understood.'
The Citizen Junius rose in his turn; his brother followed his example.
'You do not trouble,' said the elder Frey, 'to seek my answer.'
'Your answer? But your answer to what? I have asked no question, citizen. I have merely indicated a situation.'
'And you are not even curious to know how I shall act in it?'
'I place my trust entirely in your intelligence,' said the affable André-Louis, and took his leave with many expressions of the satisfaction it had afforded him to become acquainted with two such exemplary patriots as the brothers Frey.
'That's a damned impudent fellow,' said Junius to Emmanuel when André-Louis had gone.
'In these days,' said Emmanuel, 'only those who are safe venture to be impudent. And those who are safe are always dangerous. I think we should be careful with the Citizen Moreau. What shall you do, Junius?'
'Ah! What?' wondered Junius.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE GENIUS OF D'ENTRAGUES
André-Louis's heart would never have been as light as it was whilst he pursued his preparations for the blasting of republican reputations, as an important preliminary to the blasting of the Republic itself and the restoration of the House of Bourbon, if he could have guessed how the events at Hamm were conspiring towards the blasting of his own future.
We have seen the Count of Provence persuaded that it was his duty to bear what consolation he could to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou for the bereavement which the service of himself and his house had brought to her; and we have seen the diligent and far-sighted Count d'Entragues confirming Monsieur in that persuasion.
It was a duty to which Monsieur devoted himself assiduously; and his assiduity increased in a measure as the necessity for it mercifully diminished.
Once the shock had spent itself and the realization of her loss had fully overtaken her, Mademoiselle de Kercadiou braced herself to face life again as bravely as she might. The abiding wound to her spirit betrayed itself only in a wistfulness that served to heighten the appeal of her delicate loveliness and the more violently to stir those longings secretly harboured by the Regent. His attendance upon her became soon a daily habit. Daily he would escape from his labours of correspondence, so that he might wait upon Mademoiselle de Kercadiou, leaving his affairs more and more to d'Avaray and d'Entragues, and doing little besides holding the balance between the continual disagreements of these two. Almost daily now, when the weather was fine, the inhabitants of Hamm would meet the portly, strutting Regent of France and the slender, golden-headed Mademoiselle de Kercadiou walking abroad alone like any bourgeois couple.
Just as d'Entragues's confidence in the issue increased, so did d'Avaray's misgivings grow heavier. His uneasiness on the score of his friend Madame de Balbi drove him to write strongly to her. But the Countess, a child of pleasure who had found a pretext to depart from Turin because of the dullness of the court there, was not moved to quit the gaieties of Brussels for the monastic severity and penury of life at Hamm. Besides, her confidence in herself would not admit the uneasiness for which d'Avaray's letters so insistently stressed the reason. Let Monsieur by all means beguile the tedium of existence at Hamm by amusing himself with the insipidities of the Lord of Gavrillac's niece. Madame de Balbi would know how to resume her empire when life at the Regent's side demanded fewer sacrifices than those imposed by his Westphalian environment. She was not quite so explicit as this in her letters. But d'Avaray read the plain truth more and more clearly between the lines, and he was distressed. He did not share her opinion that Mademoiselle de Kercadiou was insipid, and it was quite evident to him that Monsieur was very far from sharing it. There were signs actually that Monsieur was discussing affairs of State with the Lord of Gavrillac's little niece, and than this nothing could have afforded a graver index of the depth of his feelings for her.
It was perhaps less significant than d'Avaray supposed. It was merely a measure of subtle flattery, which the Regent, rendered crafty by the unusual difficulties of the approach, was employing so as to avoid alarming Mademoiselle de Kercadiou.
Just as everything was flowing precisely as d'Entragues could wish, the courier from Pomelles, who had left Paris within some hours of Langéac's departure, arrived at Hamm a fortnight behind time, having been delayed on the way by a fall from his horse which had left him suffering from concussion. Fortunately for him, he was across the frontier when this happened, and so he remained in friendly hands, his papers untouched, until he was in case to resume his journey.
These papers, delivered to Monsieur d'Entragues, gave this subtle gentleman a bad quarter of an hour. There was the news in the letter from Pomelles of the survival of this Moreau, whom they had so confidently been accounting dead, and, what was worse, there was the letter from this inconvenient Moreau himself to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou.