"Of a truth, Fernande, I do not understand you. Here you have been sitting like a stuffed dummy, the while the destinies of France were being talked of by men who are sacrificing their lives for her. Where is your enthusiasm of a year ago, my child? Where is your patriotism? And what, in Heaven's name, hath come over you these past few days?" "Nothing, _ma tante_," replied Fernande with a little sigh of impatience; "only a foreboding, I think." "A foreboding?" queried Madame. "What about?" "I don't know. But it seems to me that you are all so confident ... so sure of success...." "Well, are not you?" "I think that M. de Puisaye--that you all, in fact, are not taking one vastly important factor into your reckoning." "What do you mean, Fernande? What factor are you alluding to?" "To M. le Comte Ronnay de Maurel, of course," replied Fernande. "Well," queried Madame tartly, "what about him?" "Only, _ma tante_, that M. de Maurel is not the nonentity that you and M. de Puisaye seem to imagine. He has just come back from Poland, and at once dismissed the military overseers who had taken his place in his absence. Does that look as if he meant to let the reins of government slip through his fingers?" "I don't know what you mean, child. Ronnay de Maurel may have every intention in the world of ruling over his work-people and being master in his own factories, but we are going to relieve him of that responsibility in a day or two's time." "That is where you are wrong, _ma tante_," broke in Fernande firmly. "Ronnay de Maurel is not a man from whom you can wrest a responsibility or a right quite so easily. Think you he doth not already suspect Leroux' treachery and hath not taken the first steps to combat it?" "No, I do not think it for a moment," replied Madame with her usual decisiveness. "Ronnay has only been home two days; he cannot yet have taken up the reins of government at his factories with any assurance. Moreover, Gaston de Maurel hath claimed all his nephew's attention. The old man is really dying at last, I do believe." "M. le Comte de Maurel is quite capable of devoting his time to his sick kinsman and of keeping an eye on the administration of his factories at the same time." "You seem to have a very high opinion of my son's capabilities, my dear," said Madame la Marquise snappishly. "I have seen him with his workmen, remember," retorted Fernande. "I have seen him deal with men like Leroux." "Well?... And?..."