with being a bit more than that.”
Annette moved amongst her guests, trying to discipline her grin to a social smile. Somehow it no longer seemed possible to see her male guests as they wished to be seen. Deputy Petion (self-regarding smirk) seemed amiable; so did Brissot (a whole set of little tics and twitches). Danton was watching her across the room. Wonder what he’s thinking? She had a shrewd idea. She imagined Maitre Danton’s drawl: “Not a bad-looking woman, considering her age.” Freron stood alone, conspicuously alone; his eyes followed Lucile.
Camille, as usual these days, had an audience. “All we really have to do is decide on a title,” he said. “And organize the provincial subscriptions. It’s going to come out every Saturday, though more often when events require it. It will be in octavo, with a gray paper cover. Brissot is going to write for us, and Freron, and Marat. We shall invite correspondence from readers. We shall carry particularly scathing theater reviews. The universe and all its follies shall be comprehended in the pages of this hypercriticial journal.”
“Will it make money?” Claude asked.
“Oh, not at all.” Camille said happily. “I don’t even expect to cover costs. The idea is to keep the cover price as low as possible, so that nearly everybody will be able to afford it.”
“How are you going to pay your printer, then?”
Camille looked mysterious. “There are sources,” he said. “The idea really is to let people pay you to write what you were going to write anyway.”
“You frighten me,” Claude said. “You appear to have no moral sense whatever.”
“The end result will be good. I won’t have to spend more than a few columns paying compliments to my backers. The rest of the paper I can use to give some publicity to Deputy Robespierre.”
Claude looked around fearfully. There was Deputy Robespierre, in conversation with his daughter Adele. Their conversation seemed confidential—intimate almost. But then—he had to admit it—if you could separate Deputy Robespierre’s speeches at the Riding School from the deputy’s own person, there was nothing at all alarming about him. Quite the reverse really. He is a neat, quiet young man; he seems equable, mild, responsible. Adele is always bringing his name into the conversation; she must, obviously, have feelings towards him. He has no money, but then, you can’t have everything. You have to be glad simply to have a son-in-law who isn’t physically violent.
Adele had found her way to Robespierre by easy conversational stages. What were they talking about? Lucile. “It’s fearful,” she was saying. “Today—well, today was different, actually we had a good laugh.” I won’t tell him what about, she decided. “But normally the atmosphere’s quite frightening. Lucile’s so strong-willed, she argues all the time. And she’s really made her mind up on him.”
“I thought that, as he’d been asked here today, your father was softening a little.”
“So did I. But now look at his face.” They glanced across the room at Claude, then turned back and nodded to each other gloomily. “Still,” Adele said, “they’ll get their way in the end. They’re the kind of people who do. What worries me is, what will the marriage be like?”
“The thing is,” Robespierre said, “that everyone seems to regard Camille as a problem. But he isn’t a problem to me. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“Aren’t you nice to say so?” And yes, isn’t he, she thought. Who else would venture so artless a statement, in these complicated days? “Look,” she said. “Look over there. Camille and my mother are talking about us.”
So they were; heads together, just like in the old days. “Matchmaking is the province of elderly spinsters,” Annette was saying.
“Don’t you know one you could call in? I like things done correctly.”
“But he’ll take her away. To Artois.”
“So? One may travel there. Do you think there’s a steep cliff around Paris, and at Chaillot you drop off into hell? Besides, I don’t think he’ll ever go back home.”
“But what about when the constitution’s made, and the Assembly dissolves?”
“I don’t think it will work like that, you see.”
Lucile watched. Oh, mother, she thought, can’t you get any closer? Why don’t you just grapple him to the carpet, and have done with it? The earlier bonhomie had evaporated, as far as she was concerned. She didn’t want to be in this room, with all these chattering people. She looked around for the quietest possible corner. Freron followed her.
She sat; managed a strained smile. He stretched a proprietorial arm along the back of her chair; lounging, making small talk, his eyes on the room and not on her. But from time to time his eyes flickered downwards. Finally, softly, insinuatingly, he said, “Still a virgin, Lucile?”
Lucile blushed deeply. She bent her head. Not so far from the proper little miss, then? “Most emphatically,” she said.
“This is not the Camille I know.”
“He’s saving me till I’m married.”
“That’s all very well for him, I suppose. He’s got—outlets, hasn’t he?”
“I don’t want to know this,” she said.
“Probably better not. But you’re a grown-up girl now. Don’t you find the delights of your maiden state begin to pall?”
“What do you suggest I do about it, Rabbit? What opportunities do you think I have?”
“Oh, I know you find ways to see him. I know you slip out now and again. I thought, at the Dantons’ place perhaps. He and Gabrielle are not excessively moral.”
Lucile gave him a sideways glance, as devoid of expression as she could make it. She would not have taken part in this conversation—except that it was a painful relief to talk about her feelings to anyone, even a persecutor.
