balance.

"But, la! I should have known you anywhere," continued Sir Percy,
placidly, as he poured himself out another glass of wine, "although the
wig and hat have changed you a bit."

"Do you think so?"

"Lud! they alter a man so . . . but . . . begad! I hope you don't mind my
having made the remark? . . . Demmed bad form making remarks. . . . I
hope you don't mind?"

"No, no, not at all--hem! I hope Lady Blakeney is well," said Chauvelin,
hurriedly changing the topic of conversation.

Blakeney, with much deliberation, finished his plate of soup, drank
his glass of wine, and, momentarily, it seemed to Marguerite as if he
glanced all round the room. "Quite well, thank you," he said at last,
drily. There was a pause, during which Marguerite could watch these two
antagonists who, evidently in their minds, were measuring themselves
against one another. She could see Percy almost full face where he
sat at the table not ten yards from where she herself was crouching,
puzzled, not knowing what to do, or what she should think. She had quite
controlled her impulse now of rushing down hand disclosing herself to
her husband. A man capable of acting a part, in the way he was doing
at the present moment, did not need a woman's word to warn him to be
cautious.

Marguerite indulged in the luxury, dear to every tender woman's heart,
of looking at the man she loved. She looked through the tattered
curtain, across at the handsome face of her husband, in whose lazy blue
eyes, and behind whose inane smile, she could now so plainly see the
strength, energy, and resourcefulness which had caused the Scarlet
Pimpernel to be reverenced and trusted by his followers. "There are
nineteen of us ready to lay down our lives for your husband, Lady
Blakeney," Sir Andrew had said to her; and as she looked at the
forehead, low, but square and broad, the eyes, blue, yet deep-set and
intense, the whole aspect of the man, of indomitable energy, hiding,
behind a perfectly acted comedy, his almost superhuman strength of
will and marvellous ingenuity, she understood the fascination which he
exercised over his followers, for had he not also cast his spells over
her heart and her imagination?

Chauvelin, who was trying to conceal his impatience beneath his usual
urbane manner, took a quick look at his watch. Desgas should not be
long: another two or three minutes, and this impudent Englishman would
be secure in the keeping of half a dozen of Captain