Lord Tony’s Wife by Baroness Orczy

Author:Baroness Orczy
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: 1789-1799 -- Fiction, Historical fiction, Sir (Fictitious character) -- Fiction, France -- History -- Revolution, Blakeney, Percy, Adventure stories, British -- France -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2020-12-31T19:51:28+00:00

V

Mar­tin-Ro­get rose from his seat and began pa­cing up and down the nar­row room. His nerves were ob­vi­ously on edge. It was dif­fi­cult for any man—let alone one of his tem­pera­ment and half-tutored dis­pos­i­tion—to re­main calm and de­fer­en­tial in face of the over­bear­ance of this bru­tal Jack-in-of­fice. Mar­tin-Ro­get—him­self an up­start—loathed the of­fens­ive self-as­ser­tion of that un­educated and bes­ti­al parvenu, who had be­come all-power­ful through the sole might of his sav­agery, and it cost him a mighty ef­fort to keep a vi­ol­ent re­tort from es­cap­ing his lips—a re­tort which prob­ably would have cost him his head.

Chauvelin, on the oth­er hand, ap­peared per­fectly un­con­cerned. He pos­sessed the art of out­ward pla­cid­ity to a mas­terly de­gree. Through­out all this while he had taken no part in the dis­cus­sion. He sat si­lent and all but mo­tion­less, fa­cing the darkened room in front of him, as if he had done noth­ing else in all his life but in­ter­view great dic­tat­ors who chose to keep their sac­red per­sons in the dark. Only from time to time did his slender fin­gers drum a tat­too on the arm of his chair.

Car­ri­er had re­sumed his in­ter­est­ing oc­cu­pa­tion of pick­ing his teeth: his long, thin legs were stretched out be­fore him; from be­neath his flac­cid lids he shot swift glances up­wards, whenev­er Mar­tin-Ro­get in his rest­less pa­cing crossed and re­crossed in front of the open door. But anon, when the lat­ter came to a halt un­der the lin­tel and with his foot al­most across the threshold, young Lalouët was upon him in an in­stant, bar­ring the way to the in­ner sanc­tum.

“Keep your dis­tance, cit­izen,” he said drily, “no one is al­lowed to enter here.”

In­stinct­ively Mar­tin-Ro­get had drawn back—sud­denly awed des­pite him­self by the air of mys­tery which hung over that darkened room, and by the dim sil­hou­ette of the sin­is­ter tyr­ant who at his ap­proach had with equal sud­den­ness cowered in his lair, draw­ing his limbs to­geth­er and thrust­ing his head for­ward, low down over the desk, like a leo­pard crouch­ing for a spring. But this spell of awe only las­ted a few seconds, dur­ing which Mar­tin-Ro­get’s un­steady gaze en­countered the half-mock­ing, wholly su­per­cili­ous glance of young Lalouët.

The next, he had re­covered his pres­ence of mind. But this crown­ing act of au­da­cious in­solence broke the bar­ri­er of his self-re­straint. An angry oath es­caped him.

“Are we,” he ex­claimed roughly, “back in the days of Ca­pet, the tyr­ant, and of Ver­sailles, that pat­ri­ots and cit­izens are treated like meni­als and ob­trus­ive slaves? Pardieu, cit­izen Car­ri­er, let me tell you this …”

“Pardieu, cit­izen Mar­tin-Ro­get,” re­tor­ted Car­ri­er with a growl like that of a sav­age dog, “let me tell you that for less than two pins I’ll throw you in­to the next barge that will float with open portholes down the Loire. Get out of my pres­ence, you swine, ere I call Fleury to throw you out.”

Mar­tin-Ro­get at the in­sult and the threat had be­come as pale as the lin­en at his throat: a cold sweat broke out upon his fore­head and he passed his hand two or three times across his brow like a man dazed with a sud­den and vi­ol­ent blow.

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