"
Inside the orchestra box all was silent for a moment or two.
Marguerite sat, straight upright, rigid and inert, trying to think,
trying to face the situation, to realise what had best be done.
In the house Storace had finished the ARIA, and was even now
bowing in her classic garb, but in approved eighteenth-century
fashion, to the enthusiastic audience, who cheered her to the echo.
"Chauvelin," said Marguerite Blakeney at last, quietly, and
without that touch of bravado which had characterised her attitude all
along, "Chauvelin, my friend, shall we try to understand one another.
It seems that my wits have become rusty by contact with this damp
climate. Now, tell me, you are very anxious to discover the identity
of the Scarlet Pimpernel, isn't that so?"
"France's most bitter enemy, citoyenne. . .all the more
dangerous, as he works in the dark."
"All the more noble, you mean. . . . Well!--and you would now
force me to do some spying work for you in exchange for my brother
Armand's safety?--Is that it?"
"Fie! two very ugly words, fair lady," protested Chauvelin,
urbanely. "There can be no question of force, and the service which I
would ask of you, in the name of France, could never be called by the
shocking name of spying.
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