Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/190

 Quit the garden instantly by that door, and your Highness shall suffer no further humiliation for an act that is at once a folly and an impertinence."

She extended her white hand with the gesture of one who orders a disobedient hound to kennel, and Captain George, in his hiding-place, felt the blood mounting to his brain. But the Regent was not so easily discouraged. Clasping both her hands in his own, he knelt at her feet, and while cloak and hat fell off, proceeded to pour out a stream of professions, promises, and protestations, with a good-humoured carelessness that was in itself an outrage.

Nevertheless, though she struggled fiercely to get free, cool, courageous, and self-possessed, she made no outcry; but in her efforts a bracelet flew from her arm, and the skirt of her muslin dress was torn to its hem.

Captain George could stand it no longer. In two strides he was upon him, hovering over the aggressor with his drawn sword.

Then the Regent's nerve failed. Shaken, excited, irritated, he suspected a plot; he shrank from assassination; he imagined himself surrounded.

"Help! help!" he shouted loudly, staggering to his feet, and looking wildly about him. "To me! my Musketeers, to me! Down with them! fire on them all! The traitors! the assassins!"

Lights twinkled in the hotel, and servants came rushing out in great alarm, but long ere they could reach the scene of action, half-a-dozen Musketeers had arrived, with Bras-de-Fer at their head.

"Why, 'tis the Captain!" exclaimed the latter, stopping short with his point lowered, in sheer bewilderment—a lack of promptitude that probably saved his officer's life.

"Arrest him, I tell you, idiots!" shrieked the Regent, with a horrible oath, trembling and glaring about him for a fresh enemy.

The Marquise had plenty of courage. Still she was but a woman, and not actually hemmed in a corner; so, when the Musketeers ran in with levelled weapons, she turned and fled; only as far as the terrace steps, however, where she took up her post and watched the sequel with a wild fixed face, white and stony as the balustrades themselves.