Diane said no word; she was the last woman on earth to detain a man from his duty.
François, who was then able to walk about with a stick made from a broom handle, protested in a whisper:
“Who is to chaperon Diane and me,” he asked, “when old Marie goes out at night?”
As he spoke, Jean slipped cautiously to the stone steps and lifted up the cellar door about an inch, showing the black night without. A great wave of smoke and an odor of flame rushed in, and through the crack thus made was seen a sky on fire with the luridness of miles of burning buildings. Paris had been set on fire by the Communards.
As Diane, leaning over Jean’s shoulder, caught a glimpse of the blazing sky, there was a crash of doors and windows overhead, a trampling of feet, drunken men and women shouting, laughing, swearing, fighting. In the midst of the uproar they could hear the grand piano, the only piece of furniture left in the house, dragged across the drawing-room floor, and the crash of music as it was pounded to accompany ribald songs. Jean quickly dropped the cellar door. They had no arms except each a pistol out of which their bullets had been fired, and there were no more bullets to be had.
As the drunken crew overhead grew more noisy and numerous, they overflowed into the garden, trampling the neglected flower beds and laughing like demons. Presently they rushed to the cellar door and lifted it up wide. They saw no light within, but a woman’s voice shrieked:
“If there is any champagne, it’s in the cellar!”
Then a torch was brought, and a man seizing it jumped down the steps holding the torch above his head, and came face to face with Diane. Half a dozen men and women followed him, and, catching sight of the wine bin, flew toward it with shouts of devilish joy, and began to hand out the bottles to those above them.
The man with the torch stuck it into an empty bottle, and the light revealed, not only Diane, but old Marie and Jean and François. The invader wore the uniform of a colonel of the National Guard, and was he who had once been known as the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel.
“Well now,” said he who had once been the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel, but who now called himself Colonel Egmont, addressing Diane, “here I find you, my very proper young lady, in bad company. How long have you been down here living with these two men?”