"Ah!" She breathed the syllable contemptuously. "And what of La Boulaye?"
"Pooh! he says himself that he is in no great danger. He is among his fellows. Leave him to extricate himself. After all, it is his fault that we are here. Why should we endanger our necks by waiting his convenience?"
"But surely you forget what he has done for us. You are forgetting that he has rescued you from the guillotine, dragged you out of the very jaws of death. Do you think that to forsake him now would be a fair, an honest return?"
"But name of a name," rasped the Vicomte, "does he not say that he is far from despairing? His position is not half so dangerous as ours. If we are taken, there will be an end of us. With him matters are far from being so bad. He is one of the rabble himself, and the rabble will look after its own."
She rose impatiently.
"Monsieur, I am afraid the subject is not one that we may profitably discuss. I shall obey the voice of my conscience in the matter, and I shall wait until we hear again from La Boulaye. That is the message I am about to return him by his servant.
The Vicomte watched her fling out of the room, and his weak face was now white with anger. He rapped out an oath as he turned to the window again.
"Mad!" he muttered, through-set teeth. "Mad as a sun-struck dog.
The troubles she has lately seen have turned her head - never a difficult matter with a woman. She talks as if she had been reading Rousseau on the 'Right of man'. To propose to endanger our lives for the sake of that scum, La Boulaye! Ciel! It passes belief."
But it was in vain that he was sullen and resentful. Suzanne's mind entertained no doubt of what she should do, and she had her way in the matter, sending back Brutus with the message that she would wait until La Boulaye communicated with her again.
That night Caron slept tranquilly. He had matured a plan of escape which he intended to carry out upon the morrow, and with confident hope to cradle him he had fallen asleep.
But the morrow - early in the forenoon - brought a factor with which he had not reckoned, in the person of the Incorruptible himself.
Robespierre had returned in hot haste to Paris upon receiving Varennes' message, and he repaired straight to the house of La Boulaye.
Caron was in his dressing-gown when Robespierre was ushered into his study, and the sight of that greenish complexion and the small eyes, looking very angry and menacing, caused the song that the young man had been humming to fade on his lips.
"You, Maximilien!" he exclaimed.
"Your cordial welcome flatters me," sneered the Incorruptible, coming forward. Then with a sudden change of voice: "What is that they tell me you have done, miserable?" he growled.
It would have been a madness on Caron's part to have increased an anger that was already mounting to very passionate heights.
Contritely, therefore, and humbly he acknowledged his fault, and cast himself upon the mercy of Robespierre.
But the Incorruptible was not so easily to be shaken.