Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/21

 eyes and uncompromising manner was not what they expected.

"Your pardon, Citizen, but we are looking for the Citizeness Susanne Louvegny, ci-devant comtesse d'Aules"

"And you expect to find her here—in my house? Imagine yourself that!" He laughed, one short, impatient, chiding note. "I am Mordecai Westhorne, Paris representative of Westhorne et Fils of Boston. You'seek for cocottes here?"

The guardsmen drew aside a little. "Un Américain—un bas bleu—an American blue-stocking!" one whispered to the other.

"The Citizen has his passport?" The commissaire was ill at ease. One did not quite know how to take these savages from across the sea. Some of them were worldly men—oui-da, fellows most decidedly in the know—others were chill and cold as Calvinists, and all were very ready with the fist. Besides, their ships were needed for commerce

Mordecai drew his laissez-passer from his pocket and held it out in his left hand, tapping his boot impatiently with the blackthorn in his right. A very little light flowed past him through the door, the paper rattled in the wind, making reading difficult. "Come, come, man, don't be all night about it! I have been wet to the skin, and want to dry myself before the fire"

"Your pardon, Citizen," the commissaire returned the passport unread. "Your papers seem in order. Naturally, there is no such person as the ci-devant comtesse here"

"Naturally," Mordecai agreed. His mouth became a straight line, then curved in a slight smile. "There is no woman here but my old servant and Madame"—deliberately he flung the aristocratic title in their faces—"Madame Westhorne." And thereupon he slammed the door on the Republic's authority.

face was very white, her lovely eyes shadowed and tragic, when he rejoined her. "They are gone, Mademoiselle," he told her soothingly. But still she looked at him with fear-filled, almost inattentive eyes, hardly seeming to perceive the meaning of his words.

Gently he repeated: "They are gone; I sent them off."

"Ah, but they will return, Monsieur! They will never give up searching, especially with Henriot to urge them on"

She paused a long breath-space; then: "Do you truly think you killed him?"

"Killed him? Whom do you mean?"

"Macrin Henriot, the man from whom you rescued me; the one who bore the sword."

Mordecai laughed grimly. "I think I did, and if I did not, he will surely suffer from a headache for a long time"

"Ah, but if he is not dead I am undone, and so are you. He has followed—hounded me, since I left Pont l'Evêque. He was my father's hostler"

"Eh, a hostler"

"But yes. We are Normans, we Louvegnies; my father was the Comte d'Aules, a poor but very honorable gentleman.

"He farmed our estate, not disdaining to take part in manual labor in the field himself, and believed as firmly in the Social Contract of Rousseau as he believed in heaven. When the States General were convoked he came to Paris as a delegate, and as a