It was in truth a strange situation, this chance meeting between Percy
Blakeney and ex-Ambassador Chauvelin.
Marguerite looked up at her husband. She saw him shrug his broad
shoulders as he first caught sight of Chauvelin, and glance down in his
usual lazy, good-humoured manner at the shrunken figure of the silent
Frenchman. The words she meant to say never crossed her lips; she was
waiting to hear what the two men would say to one another.
The instinct of the grande dame in her, the fashionable lady accustomed
to the exigencies of society, just gave her sufficient presence of mind
to make the requisite low curtsey before His Royal Highness. But the
Prince, forgetting his accustomed gallantry, was also absorbed in the
little scene before him. He, too, was looking from the sable-clad figure
of Chauvelin to that of gorgeously arrayed Sir Percy. He, too, like
Marguerite, was wondering what was passing behind the low, smooth
forehead of that inimitable dandy, what behind the inscrutably
good-humoured expression of those sleepy eyes.
Of the five persons thus present in the dark and stuffy booth, certainly
Sir Percy Blakeney seemed the least perturbed. He had paused just long
enough to allow Chauvelin to become fully conscious of a feeling
of supreme irritation and annoyance, then he strolled up to the
ex-ambassador, with hand outstretched and the most engaging of smiles.
“Ha!” he said, with his usual half-shy, half-pleasant-tempered smile,
“my engaging friend from France! I hope, sir, that our demmed climate
doth find you well and hearty to-day.”
The cheerful voice seemed to ease the tension. Marguerite sighed a sigh
of relief. After all, what was more natural than that Percy with his
amazing fund of pleasant irresponsibility should thus greet the man
who had once vowed to bring him to the guillotine? Chauvelin, himself,
accustomed by now to the audacious coolness of his enemy, was scarcely
taken by surprise. He bowed low to His Highness, who, vastly amused at
Blakeney's sally, was inclined to be gracious to everyone, even though
the personality of Chauvelin as a well-known leader of the regicide
government was inherently distasteful to him. But the Prince saw in
the wizened little figure before him an obvious butt for his friend
Blakeney's impertinent shafts, and although historians have been unable
to assert positively whether or no George Prince of Wales knew aught of
Sir Percy's dual life, yet there is no doubt that he was always ready
to enjoy a situation which brought about the discomfiture of any of the
Scarlet Pimpernel's avowed enemies.
“I, too, have not met M. Chauvelin for many a long month,” said His
Royal Highness with an obvious show of irony. “And I mistake not, sir,
you left my father's court somewhat abruptly last year.”
“Nay, your Royal Highness,” said Percy gaily, “my friend Monsieur...
er... Chaubertin and I had serious business to discuss, which could only
be dealt with in France.... Am I not right, Monsieur?”
“Quite right, Sir Percy,” replied Chauvelin curtly.
“We had to discuss abominable soup in Calais, had we not?” continued
Blakeney in the same tone of easy banter, “and wine that I vowed
was vinegar. Monsieur... er... Chaubertin... no, no, I beg pardon...
Chauvelin... Monsieur Chauvelin and I quite agreed upon that point.
The only matter on which we were not quite at one was the question of
snuff.”
“Snuff?” laughed His Royal Highness, who seemed vastly amused.
“Yes, your Royal Highness... snuff... Monsieur Chauvelin here had--if I
may be allowed to say so--so vitiated a taste in snuff that he prefers
it with an admixture of pepper... Is that not so, Monsieur... er...
Chaubertin?”
“Chauvelin, Sir Percy,” remarked the ex-ambassador drily.
He was determined not to lose his temper and looked urbane and pleasant,
whilst his impudent enemy was enjoying a joke at his expense. Marguerite
the while had not taken her eyes off the keen, shrewd face. Whilst the
three men talked, she seemed suddenly to have lost her sense of the
reality of things. The present situation appeared to her strangely
familiar, like a dream which she had dreamt oft times before.
Suddenly it became absolutely clear to her that the whole scene had been
arranged and planned: the booth with its flaring placard, Demoiselle
Candeille soliciting her patronage, her invitation to the young actress,
Chauvelin's sudden appearance, all, all had been concocted and arranged,
not here, not in England at all, but out there in Paris, in some dark
gathering of blood-thirsty ruffians, who had invented a final trap for
the destruction of the bold adventurer, who went by the name of the
Scarlet Pimpernel.
And she also was only a puppet, enacting a part which had been written
for her: she had acted just as THEY had anticipated, had spoken the very
words they had meant her to say: and when she looked at Percy, he seemed
supremely ignorant of it all, unconscious of this trap of the existence
of which everyone here present was aware, save indeed himself. She
would have fought against this weird feeling of obsession, of being a
mechanical toy would up to do certain things, but this she could not do;
her will appeared paralysed, her tongue even refused her service.
As in a dream she heard His Royal Highness ask for the name of the young
actress who was soliciting alms for the poor of Paris.
That also had been prearranged. His Royal Highness for the moment was
also a puppet, made to dance, to speak and to act as Chauvelin and his
colleagues over in France had decided that he should. Quite mechanically
Marguerite introduced Demoiselle Candeille to the Prince's gracious
notice.
“If your Highness will permit,” she said, “Mademoiselle Candeille will
give us some of her charming old French songs at my rout to-morrow.”
“By all means! By all means!” said the Prince. “I used to know some
in my childhood days. Charming and poetic.... I know.... I know.... We
shall be delighted to hear Mademoiselle sing, eh, Blakeney?” he added
good-humouredly, “and for your rout to-morrow will you not also invite
M. Chauvelin?”
“Nay! but that goes without saying, your Royal Highness,” responded Sir
Percy, with hospitable alacrity and a most approved bow directed at his
arch-enemy. “We shall expect M. Chauvelin. He and I have not met for so
long, and he shall be made right welcome at Blakeney Manor.”