It is a gala night at Covent Garden, the first of the autumn season, and Gluck's Orpheus holds the house between gossip. Pitt rests in an orchestra box. The Prince of Wales moves from friend to friend. In Lord Grenville's box a thin man in unmarked black takes snuff and watches the audience more than the stage. The Foreign Secretary pays him frigid deference: Chauvelin is France's accredited agent, and England has not yet broken relations. Across the house the Comtesse de Tournay sits in heavy black while Lady Portarles tries to joke her into a smile. Lord Grenville repeats the League's pledge to bring the Comte over. Lady Portarles tells him to turn his back on the French scarecrow. The Comtesse answers that if Chauvelin wants mischief he will find a faithful ally in Lady Blakeney. Lady Portarles snaps that snubbing the leader of fashion will only make a refugee look a fool. The third act begins before anyone can answer.
Marguerite enters opposite in a short-waisted gown of gold embroidery, diamonds at her throat, and a salute from the royal box. Two days ago the Day Dream brought word that Armand had landed and would be prudent for her sake. For a little while the music lets her forget a dead love-dream and the lazy husband who sprawls beside her, then strolls away when convention allows. Admirers come and go. She dismisses them to be alone with Gluck. A discreet knock. Chauvelin is already behind her chair. Three minutes in the privacy of the box will do, he says. He sits so close he can whisper without being seen. Your brother, St. Just, is in peril.
She beats time on the cushion and laughs as if it were an imaginary plot. He recounts Dover: less than an hour after her refusal, his men gagged Sir Andrew and Lord Antony at The Fisherman's Rest and took their papers. Among them is a letter from Armand that shows him a helper of the League. She knows he is not lying. Still she calls the tale imagination, then drops the bravado and names the bargain herself. He wants her to spy in exchange for Armand's safety. He will not call it force, or by the shocking name of spying. He shows her a scrap in disguised handwriting: they must not meet more often than necessary; if they wish to speak again, the writer will be at G.'s ball. In the corner is a small red flower.
She understands. The Pimpernel will be at Grenville's ball tonight. Chauvelin has even released the two young men this morning, horses ready, so they can reach their chief. She says that when you want to kill a chicken you wring its neck, and only the chicken finds it less simple. He offers her a chance to save the brother she loves from his own folly. She asks for Armand's letter now. He will give it tomorrow, if she is useful. She thinks of Percy, of muscle if not brains, of outwitting this man together. Then her husband fills the door, sleepy, drawling about her chair and the demmed ball, offering two fingers to Chauvelin. The last hope vanishes. She takes his arm, looks back, and calls it only au revoir. Chauvelin dusts his jabot and rubs his bony hands together.
Coming Up in Chapter 11
At ten o'clock the Foreign Office rooms fill for Lord Grenville's ball. Chauvelin leans against a console in irreproachable black, watching the stair, while London society turns its back on France's envoy. The Blakeneys have not yet arrived.
