Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 29.djvu/75

Rh "Plunder?" she repeated; "what a strange expression! Let me explain——"

"Not a word," he said, taking both her hands and kissing them with a courtier's ready gallantry. "Listen to me," he went on, after a pause, "if I were to stay here while they stop the coach, our people would kill me, for I should——"

"They would not kill you," she answered quickly; "they would tie your hands together, always with due respect to your rank; and after levying upon the Republicans a contribution sufficient for their equipment and maintenance, and for some purchases of gunpowder, they would again obey you blindly."

"And you would have me command here? If my life is necessary to the cause for which I am fighting, you must allow me to save my honor as a commander. I can pass over this piece of cowardice if it is done in my absence. I will come back again to be your escort."

He walked rapidly away. The young lady heard the sound of his footsteps with evident vexation. When the sound of his tread on the dead rustling leaves had died away, she waited a while like one stupefied, then she hurried back to the Chouans. An abrupt scornful gesture escaped her; she said to Marche-à-Terre, who was aiding her to dismount, "The young man wants to open war on the Republic in regular form!—Ah, well, he will alter his mind in a day or two. But how he has treated me!" she said to herself after a pause.

She sat down on the rock where the Marquis had been sitting, and waited the coming of the coach in silence. It was not one of the least significant signs of the times that a young and noble lady should be thus brought by violent party feeling into the struggle between the monarchies and the spirit of the age, impelled by the strength of those feelings to assist in deeds, to which she yet was (so to speak) not an accessory, led like many another by an exaltation of soul that sometimes brings great things to pass. Many a woman, like her, played a part in those troubled