He stopped short. "What is your interest in this man?" he demanded, and the question was so fiercely put as to suggest that it would be well for La Boulaye that he should prove that interest slight indeed.
But whatever feelings may have been swaying Caron at the moment, fear was not one of them.
"My interest in him is sufficiently great to cause me to seek his ******* at your hands," he answered, with composure.
Robespierre eyed him narrowly for a moment, peering at him over his spectacles which he had drawn down on to his tip-tilted nose. Then the fierceness died out of his mien and manner as suddenly as it had sprung up. He became once more the weak-looking, ineffectual man that had first greeted La Boulaye: urbane and quiet, but cold-cold as ice.
"I am desolated, my dear Caron, but you have asked me for the one man in the prisons of France whose life I cannot yield you. He is from Artois, and there is an old score 'twixt him and me, 'twixt his family and mine. They were the grands seigneurs of the land on which we were born, these Ombrevals, and I could tell you of wrongs committed by them which would make you shudder in horror. This one shall atone in the small measure we can enforce from him. It was to this end that I ordered you to effect his capture. Have patience, dear Caron, and forgive me that I cannot grant your request. As I have said, I am desolated that it should be so. Ask me, if you will, the life of any other - or any dozen others - and they are yours. But Ombreval must die."
Caron stood a moment in silent dismay. Here was an obstacle upon which he had not counted when he had passed his word to Suzanne to effect the release of her betrothed. At all costs he must gain it, he told himself, and to that end he now set himself to plead, advancing, as his only argument - but advancing it with a fervour that added to its weight - that he stood pledged to save the ci-devant Vicomte. Robespierre looked up at him with a shade of polite regret upon his cadaverous face, and with polite regret he deplored that Caron should have so bound himself.
So absorbed were they, the one in pleading, the other in resisting, that neither noticed the opening of the door, nor yet the girl who stood observing them from the threshold.
"If this man dies," cried La Boulaye at last, "I am dishonoured.
"It is regrettable," returned Robespierre, "that you should have pledged your word in the matter. You will confess, Caron, that it was a little precipitate. Enfin," he ended, crumpling the document he had signed and tossing it under the table, "you must extricate yourself as best you can. I am sorry, but I cannot give him to you."
Caron's face was very white and his hands were clenched convulsively.
It is questionable whether in that moment he had not flung himself upon the Incorruptible, and enforced that which hitherto he had only besought, but that in that instant the girl stepped into the room.
"And is it really you, Caron?" came the melodious voice of Cecile.
La Boulaye started round to confront her, and stifled a curse at the untimely interruption which Robespierre was blessing as most timely.
"It is - it is, Citoyenne," he answered shortly, to add more shortly still: "I am here on business with the Citizen, your uncle."
But before the girl could so much as appreciate the rebuke he levelled at her intrusion, her uncle had come to the rescue.
"The business, however, is at an end. Take charge of this good Caron, Cecile, whilst I make ready for my journey."
Thus, sore at heart, and chagrined beyond words, La Boulaye was forced to realise his defeat, and to leave the presence of the Incorruptible. But with Cecile he went no farther than the landing.
"If you will excuse me, Citoyenne," he said abstractedly, "I will take my leave of you."
"But I shall not excuse you, Caron," she said, refusing to see his abstraction. "You will stay to dinner - "
"I am sorry beyond measure, but - "
"You shall stay," she interrupted. "Come, Caron. It is months since you were with us. We will make a little fete in honour of your yesterday's triumph," she promised him, sidling up to him with a bewitching glance of blue eyes, and the most distracting toss of golden curls upon an ivory neck.
But to such seductions Caron proved as impervious as might a man of stone. He excused himself with cold politeness. The Nation's business was awaiting him; he might not stay.
"The Nation's business may await you a little longer," she declared, taking hold of his arm with both hands, and had she left it at that it is possible that she had won her way with him. But most indiscreetly she added:
"Come, Caron, you shall tell me who was your yesterday's visitor.
Do you know that the sight of her made me jealous? Was it not foolish in me?"
And now, from cold politeness, La Boulaye passed to hot impoliteness.
Roughly he shook her detaining hands from him, and with hardly so much as a word of farewell, he passed down the stairs, leaving her white with passion at the slight he had thereby put upon her.
The beauty seemed to pass out of her face much as the meekness was wont to pass out of her uncle's when he was roused. Her blue eyes grew steely and cruel as she looked after him.
"Wait, Caron," she muttered to herself, "I will cry quits with you."
And then, with a sob of anger, she turned and mounted the stairs to her apartments.