"
But, evading him, she towered, lean and malevolent as a fury.
"Calm?" she echoed contemptuously. "Brave?" Then a short laugh
broke from her - a despairing, mocking, mirthless expression of
anger. "By God, do you add effrontery to your other failings?
Dare you bid me be calm and brave in such an hour? Have I been
warning you fruitlessly these twelve months past, that, after
disregarding me and deriding my warnings, you should bid me be
calm now that my fears are realized?"
There was a sound of creaking gates below. The Vicomte heard it.
"Madame," he said, putting aside his erstwhile tender manner, and
speaking with a lofty dignity, "the troopers have been admitted.
Let me entreat you to retire. It is not befitting our station--"
"What is our station?" she interrupted harshly. "Rebels - proscribed,
houseless beggars. That is our station, thanks to you and your
insane meddling with treason. What is to become of us, fool? What
is to become of Roxalanne and me when they shall have hanged you and
have driven us from Lavedan? By God's death, a fine season this to
talk of the dignity of our station! Did I not warn you, malheureux,
to leave party faction alone? You laughed at me."
"Madame, your memory does me an injustice," he answered in a
strangled voice. "I never laughed at you in all my life."
"You did as much, at least. Did you not bid me busy myself with
women's affairs? Did you not bid me leave you to follow your own
judgment? You have followed it - to a pretty purpose, as God lives!
These gentlemen of the King's will cause you to follow it a little
farther," she pursued, with heartless, loathsome sarcasm.
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