“O, madam, my benefactress!” I cried. “It is much to expect, perhaps;
but do you not know me?”
“O, perfectly, madam!” she said, with a curtsey that made her balloon.
“We make it our pains to know all about our visitors. Believe me, you
was under surveillance from the moment you stepped ashore at the Mole.
It was not very likely, was it, that we should overlook the arrival of
her as seemed wishin’ to reap the discord she had sowed among us a
while back? Be sure we know you, madam, well enough, and the
reputation you built for yourself in Paris too!”
Startled as I was, I had a difficulty to refrain from retorting that
my reputation would bear comparison with hers. But I bit my lip on the
temptation, and for the moment took refuge from everything in tears,
to which, however, she listened silent.
“I did not refer to that,” I cried, looking up with clasped hands and
swimming eyes, “but to the goodness of a great and beautiful lady, who
once succoured a poor girl in distress.”
“And I include that too in my knowledge,” said she; “and much
gratitude you’ve shown to the class as befriended you.”
“Gratitude!” I cried. “O, believe me, that, until I reached here, I
never even guessed that, in conspiring against royalty, I was
conspiring against you, my saviour.”
She sat down on a chair, near breaking it.
“Didn’t you?” she said, gathering the folds of her cloak about her.
“Well, supposing you didn’t, what then? You ain’t goin’ to forego your
principles for a sentiment like that--don’t tell me.”
“If you won’t believe me”--I murmured despairingly.
“Why look here, Madame Lavasse, or Please, or whatever your damned
name is,” she said, shaking a hectoring finger at me, “one may help a
girl, but a woman helps herself, which I make no bones of guessing
you’ve managed to do pretty free. The question with you is whether
Jacobinism or royalty is going to pay best; and if you’re proposin’ to
change about and turn informer, no better moral than profit is at the
bottom of your little game, I’ll vow. Well, I don’t say but in that
case we’re open to treat; only I’ll ask you to drop the artless girl,
which don’t sit well on you at your age, and talk with me like one
woman of the world to another.”