While St. Genis was speaking--or rather screaming--for his voice, pitched high, seemed to fill the entire room--every glance was fixed upon de Marmont. Every one of course expected a contradiction as hot and intemperate as was the accusation. It was unthinkable, impossible that what St. Genis said could be true. They all knew de Marmont well. Nephew of the Duc de Raguse who had borne the lion's share in surrendering Paris to the allies and bringing about the downfall of the Corsican usurper, he was one of the most trusted members of the royalist set in Dauphiné. They had talked quite freely before him, consulted with him when local Bonapartism appeared uncomfortably rampant. De Marmont was one of themselves. And yet he said nothing even now when St. Genis accused him and hurled insult upon insult at him:--he said nothing to refute the awful impeachment, to justify his conduct, to explain his companionship with Emery. His face was still livid, but it was with rage--not indignation. Marchand and Génevois still held him by the arms, else he and St. Genis would have been at one another's throat before now. But his gestures as he struggled to free himself, the imprecations which he uttered were those of a man who was baffled and found out--not of one who is innocent. But as St. Genis continued to speak and worked himself up every moment into a still greater state of excitement, de Marmont gradually seemed to calm down. He ceased to curse: he ceased to struggle, and on his face--which still was livid--there gradually crept a look of determination and of defiance. He dug his teeth into his under lip until tiny drops of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth and trickled slowly down his chin. Marchand and Génevois relaxed the grip upon his arms, since he no longer fought, and thus released he contrived to pull himself together. He tossed back his head and looked his infuriated accuser boldly in the face. By the time St. Genis paused in his impassioned denunciation, he had himself completely under control: only his eyes appeared to glow with an unnatural fire, and little beads of moisture appeared upon his brow and matted the dark hair against his forehead. The Comte de Cambray at this juncture would certainly have interposed with one of those temperate speeches, full of dignity and brimming over with lofty sentiments, which he knew so well how to deliver, but de Marmont gave him no time to begin. When St. Genis paused for breath, he suddenly freed himself completely with a quick movement, from Marchand's and Génevois' hold; and then he turned to the Comte and to the rest of the company: