She had plenty to say when questioned by Pochart and Danou; proud of the fact that for over two years now she had supplied the Sisteron section of the Committee of Public Safety with information about the district. She had known the ci-devant Frontenacs and it was—she was proud to state—chiefly owing to her that they came to be suspected of treason. They used to turn one of their rooms into a chapel on Sundays and a ci-devant priest, who was not Constitutional, performed there rites and ceremonies with wafer and cup which had long since been decreed treasonable against the State. Adèle had been forced by the ci-devant Frontenac women to be present at these treasonable practices; she had even been made to scrub the floor of that temple of superstition and to remove the dust from the so-called altar. Her patriotic soul had risen in revolt and she had journeyed to Sisteron one day when she was free and placed the matter before the Committee of Public Safety who had commended her for her zeal.
“Adèle!” Fleurette exclaimed involuntarily. “How could you? Indeed le bon Dieu will punish you for this.”
At which remark everybody laughed—except Chauvelin, who smothered a groan. Oh! the child! the senseless, foolish, adorable child! She seemed wilfully to run her darling head into the noose. Adèle turned a sneering glance on Fleurette.
“I’ll chance a punishment from your bon Dieu,” she said flippantly, “for the joy of seeing you punished by the Revolutionary Tribunal.”
And strange to say Chauvelin did not strike her, though she stood quite near him, with only the width of the table between her and his avenging hand. But he did not strike her, even though his muscles ached with the desire to strike her on the mouth. It was pride that held him back. How those men would have laughed to see him lose his self-control with this wench who was only emitting principles that he indirectly had taught her. Retribution! Nemesis at every turn.
And now Adèle embarked upon her main story. Her spying on Fleurette. Long, long had she suspected her, with her airs of virtue and bunches of forget-me-nots in front of a statue representing a ci-devant saint. “Saint Antoine de Padoue, priez pour nous!” every time she placed a fresh bunch of flowers before that statue. Bah! such superstition made a patriot’s gorge rise with disgust. But Adèle had said nothing. Not for a long time. She knew that citizen Chauvelin—he was known as Armand over at Laragne—was a great patriot and an intimate friend of Citizen Robespierre over in Paris. So Adèle decided to bide her time, and she did. Until that evening when at last the Frontenacs were arrested and the château ransacked. That night Adèle had had her suspicions aroused by Fleurette’s strange airs of mystery, her desire to meet Citizen Colombe alone on a dark night. Fleurette had always been such a Sainte Nitouche that Adèle guessed that something serious was in the wind.
Like a zealous patriot she had watched, and she had seen Fleurette hand over a casket and a wallet to young Colombe. She had heard the two talk over the question of hiding these things in a shed behind Citizen Colombe’s shop, and finally seen them locked in each other’s arms, which confirmed her in the idea that Fleurette, with all her appearances of virtue, was a woman guilty of moral turpitude.
And still Chauvelin did not strike her on the mouth. He fell to wondering what crime he had committed that was heinous enough to deserve this punishment of impotence.
The others listened for the most part in silence. Only occasionally did one or the other break into a chuckle. Nom de nom, what an event! Representative Chauvelin! the man of almost arrogant integrity, sent to Orange to spy and report on the workings of the Committee of Public Safety, one of the makers of the Terror, a man whose every glance was a menace, and every word a threat of death! When Adèle had finished speaking, Pochart winked across at Danou. Here was a find that would exalt them both, bring their names to the notice of the great men over in Paris. All sorts of possibilities of reward and advancement loomed largely before them. And Pochart rubbed his large, coarse hands contentedly together and Danou poured himself out a glass of water and drank it down. All these possibilities had made him thirsty.
Fleurette too was silent. For the first time in her life she had come in contact with human passions of which hitherto she had not even dreamed. Adèle, the little maid of all work, with the coarse hands, the red elbows and narrow ratlike face, who wore Fleurette’s cast-off clothes and worn-out shoes, had suddenly become an ununderstandable and terrifying enigma. Fleurette felt as if she could not utter a sound, that any word of protest which she might raise would choke her. The girl’s words, her bitter accusations, spoken in an even monotone, gave her a feeling as of an icy-cold grip upon her heart. Surrounded from her cradle onwards with love and care this first glimpse of spite and hatred paralysed her. Only when Adèle spoke of M’sieu’ Amédé and of that kiss which had tokened him to Fleurette, that delicious kiss under the almond-trees, only then did a hot blush rise to her cheeks, and tears of shame gather in her eyes.
Beyond that she felt like an automaton, while these four creatures who hated her and
