Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/124

110 "If what?" he exclaimed, angrily. "You women always think of glory. Besides, there's no question of glory. They want me as a hostage, a non-combatant, a page d'honneur."

"You cannot go. You are not strong enough."

"You are a sensible girl, Marguerite. No, I cannot go. I must fly. I must get away to England. That is my only chance."

"To England!" She threw up her pretty hands. "To the enemy! Ah no! that were worst of all."

"We have no time to talk politics," he replied, with nervous irritation. "You may be French, but I am not, and your enemies are not naturally mine. I fly where I can get away from your Emperor."

"He is a great man," she exclaimed, kindling, "a maker of kings. If you only were strong like other youths—"

"Oh. by all means, betray me!" he cried. "Go find your old mother among her perfume-pots and tell her my secret, that she may inform the first official who comes to have his French mustaches dyed black."

"How you wrong me! You wrong me!" she answered. "I forgive. Go thou, then, to England, and forget."

He did not look at her, sullenly beating his foot on the floor.

It was she who broke the silence. "But this escape!" she said, slowly; "you speak as if it were an easy thing. The commissary of police was telling only yesterday, as my mother soothed his wrinkles, of a poor fellow that had run away from the conscription—" She broke off, shuddering.

"Go on!" he cried.

"They caught him on an English fishing-smack, and the military authorities hanged him as an informer."

"Marguerite, you can keep my secrets, and, besides, I need your help. I have got an English passport. I must be made up to match the description, and no one in the country can do that as well as you."

"Mother can," she said.

"Your mother is a chatterbox, and mad about your Emperor. And she is the intimate friend of every French coxcomb in the town. Swear that you will not breathe a word to your mother. I have confided in you. Help me."

"Dearest, I will do everything for you," she said.

He kissed her. Then he took out the passport, and immediately they discussed professional details. He must assume the disguise in Amsterdam.

"Your uncle and cousins," she said, "are in that city. You go to them to take leave?"

"No; they came to their country house again for the summer last week. All last year he could not get away from Amsterdam."

"I know," she said; "and so I have never seen them, never seen her."

"You do not want to see them."

"Is she pretty?"

"Certainly not as pretty as you. Still, she is pretty also."

"Different?"

"Very different. Cold and handsome."

"And I am warm—am I not?—and passionate. But her name is not like yours, van—der—Holst?" She lisped charmingly over the rough foreign syllables.

"No, you cannot remember their long Dutch name. I have told it you before. I have no time now to chat about my uncle and cousins. So you think you can manage the wart?"

"Of course I can manage the wart." She was studying the document. Suddenly she gave a cry. "There is a woman in it! A wife!"

"Yes, there is."

"Who is going with you?" She turned her flaming black eyes on him. "Oh, Floris!—your cousin—"

"Ta-ta-ta! Thou speakest foolishness. My cousin, the Prefect's daughter, is safe at home with her father, the Prefect."

She gave a great gasp. "But how then?" she stammered. "Who?"

"I must manage."

"You cannot. That is foolishness. Do you think for one moment they will let you pass without full information about the woman? Of these things, it seems, I know more than you. I hear the officers talking. If they doubt your passport—if they stop you—you are lost!"

He burst into lamentations and reproaches, like a petulant child.

For only answer she threw her arms about his neck.

"Let me go," she said. And as he did not answer: "As your wife. Let