Part 14 (2/2)
Swords half drawn and hotter words to follow were intercepted by Gabrielle herself.
”I have already requested the favour of your hand to my coach, Mr.
Berrington,” she said, with a calmness and severity which were, alas!
betrayed by a tremulous catch in the young voice. ”A--a lady does not ask a gentleman twice.”
He bowed gravely, offering her his arm, which she took, demurely curtseying.
”We shall meet again, my lord,” he muttered behind his hand to Lord Denningham.
The latter grinned sardonically.
”I have heard of a Berrington hiding behind a woman's petticoats before,” he drawled aloud; but in a low tone, ”I'll tell you the tale, sir, at my own leisure.”
”Come, Michael,” cried Gabrielle sharply; ”my brother waits.”
Lord Denningham, left alone to moonlight reflection, took snuff with a scowl. He had thought the winning of a country mouse like to be easy work, since past experience had told him that the worse a man is the more probable that he takes the fancy of an innocent maid.
Little Gabrielle Conyers evidently had other tastes; and my lord, half in love by reason of her flouting, swore tremendous oaths.
Thus he was found, later, by Marcel Trouet, whose business in life was to act as a political firebrand, but who did not find his good friends the English of the most inflammable material.
But to-night Marcel was smiling.
”We drink good healths in ze house,” he observed, taking Denningham's arm familiarly. ”Come, come. We drink well, we sing very well, but we do need your voice to lead the rest. They are sheep who bleat for ze shephaird.”
His lords.h.i.+p yawned.
”Why leave them then?” he retorted.
Trouet chuckled.
”Helas,” he murmured. ”I am no shephaird, but only what you call the sheep-dog that barks, barks, always barks. But the shephaird of this n.o.ble Societe de Correspondance----” He bowed with exaggerated politeness.
”I do behold him now,” he said suavely. And Denningham followed slowly towards the house, from which the last coach had rolled away, leaving only a little knot of men around--and beneath--the supper-table.
They were toasting one Robespierre, a s.h.i.+ning light upon the path of liberty.
Michael Berrington was not amongst them.
CHAPTER X
THE COUSIN FROM BRITTANY
Gabrielle was singing softly as she bent over her tambour frame.
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