hering an imaginary yawn, "had you not spoken about my
brother . . ."

"I am coming to him now, citoyenne. Among the papers there was a letter
to Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, written by your brother, St. Just."

"Well? And?"

"That letter shows him to be not only in sympathy with the enemies of
France, but actually a helper, if not a member, of the League of the
Scarlet Pimpernel."

The blow had been struck at last. All along, Marguerite had been
expecting it; she would not show fear, she was determined to seem
unconcerned, flippant even. She wished, when the shock came, to be
prepared for it, to have all her wits about her--those wits which had
been nicknamed the keenest in Europe. Even now she did not flinch. She
knew that Chauvelin had spoken the truth; the man was too earnest, too
blindly devoted to the misguided cause he had at heart, too proud of his
countrymen, of those makers of revolutions, to stoop to low, purposeless
falsehoods.

That letter of Armand's--foolish, imprudent Armand--was in Chauvelin's
hands. Marguerite knew that as if she had seen the letter with her own
eyes; and Chauvelin would hold that letter for purposes of his own,
until it suited him to destroy it or to make use of it against Armand.
All that she knew, and yet she continued to laugh more gaily, more
loudly than she had done before.

"La, man!" she said, speaking over her shoulder and looking him full and
squarely in the face, "did I not say it was some imaginary plot. . . .
Armand in league with that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel! . . . Armand busy
helping those French aristocrats whom he despises! . . . Faith, the tale
does infinite credit to your imagination!"

"Let me make my point clear, citoyenne," said Chauvelin, with the same
unruffled calm, "I must assure you that St. Just is compromised beyond
the slightest hope of pardon."

Inside the orchestra box all was silent for a moment or two. Marguerite
sat, straight upright, rigid and inert, trying to think, trying to face
the situation, to realise what had best be done.

In the house Storace had finished the ARIA, and was even now bowing in
her classic garb, but in approved eighteenth-century fashion, to the
enthusiastic audience, who cheered her to the echo.

"Chauvelin," said Marguerite Blakeney at last, quietly, and without
that touch of bravado which had characterised her attitude all along,
"Chauvelin, my friend, shall we try to understand one another. It seems
that my wits ha