Lord Tony and Sir Andrew watched the little scene with eager apprehension.

English though they were, they had often been in France, and had mixed sufficiently with the French to realise the unbending hauteur, the bitter hatred with which the old NOBLESSE of France viewed all those who had helped to contribute to their downfall.

Armand St.Just, the brother of beautiful Lady Blakeney--though known to hold moderate and conciliatory views--was an ardent republican; his feud with the ancient family of St.Cyr--the rights and wrongs of which no outsider ever knew--had culminated in the downfall, the almost total extinction of the latter.

In France, St.
Just and his party had triumphed, and here in England, face to face with these three refugees driven from their country, flying for their lives, bereft of all which centuries of luxury had given them, there stood a fair scion of those same republican families which had hurled down a throne, and uprooted an aristocracy whose origin was lost in the dim and distant vista of bygone centuries.
She stood there before them, in all the unconscious insolence of beauty, and stretched out her dainty hand to them, as if she would, by that one act, bridge over the conflict and bloodshed of the past decade.
"Suzanne, I forbid you to speak to that woman," said the Comtesse, sternly, as she placed a restraining hand upon her daughter's arm.
She had spoken in English, so that all might hear and understand; the two young English gentlemen, as well as the common innkeeper and his daughter.

The latter literally gasped with horror at this foreign insolence, this impudence before her ladyship--who was English, now that she was Sir Percy's wife, and a friend of the Princess of Wales to boot.
As for Lord Antony and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, their very hearts seemed to stand still with horror at this gratuitous insult.