I Will Repay

I Will Repay, by Baroness
Emmuska Orczy

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Title: I Will Repay
Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy

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I will repay.
By Baroness Orczy.

PROLOGUE.
I
Paris: 1783.
"Coward! Coward! Coward!"
The words rang out, clear, strident, passionate, in a crescendo of
agonised humiliation.
The boy, quivering with rage, had sprung to his feet, and, losing his
balance, he fell forward clutching at the table, whilst with a convulsive
movement of the lids, he tried in vain to suppress the tears of shame
which were blinding him.

"Coward!" He tried to shout the insult so that all might hear, but his
parched throat refused him service, his trembling hand sought the
scattered cards upon the table, he collected them together, quickly,
nervously, fingering them with feverish energy, then he hurled them at
the man opposite, whilst with a final effort he still contrived to mutter:
"Coward!"
The older men tried to interpose, but the young ones only laughed,
quite prepared for the adventure which must inevitably ensue, the only
possible ending to a quarrel such as this.
Conciliation or arbitration was out of the question. Déroulède should
have known better than to speak disrespectfully of Adèle de Montchéri,
when the little Vicomte de Marny's infatuation for the notorious beauty
had been the talk of Paris and Versailles these many months past.
Adèle was very lovely and a veritable tower of greed and egotism. The
Marnys were rich and the little Vicomte very young, and just now the
brightly-plumaged hawk was busy plucking the latest pigeon, newly
arrived from its ancestral cote.
The boy was still in the initial stage of his infatuation. To him Adèle
was a paragon of all the virtues, and he would have done battle on her
behalf against the entire aristocracy of France, in a vain endeavour to
justify his own exalted opinion of one of the most dissolute women of
the epoch. He was a first-rate swordsman too, and his friends had
already learned that it was best to avoid all allusions to Adèle's beauty
and weaknesses.
But Déroulède was a noted blunderer. He was little versed in the
manners and tones of that high society in which, somehow, he still
seemed and intruder. But for his great wealth, no doubt, he never would
have been admitted within the intimate circle of aristocratic France. His
ancestry was somewhat doubtful and his coat-of-arms unadorned with
quarterings.
But little was known of his family or the origin of its wealth; it was
only known that his father had suddenly become the late King's dearest

friend, and commonly surmised that Déroulède gold had on more than
one occasion filled the emptied coffers of the First Gentleman of
France.
Déroulède had not sought the present quarrel. He had merely blundered
in that clumsy way of his, which was no doubt a part of the inheritance
bequeathed to him by his bourgeois ancestry.
He knew nothing of the little Vicomte's private affairs, still less of his
relationship with Adèle, but he knew enough of the world and enough
of Paris to be acquainted with the lady's reputation. He hated at all
times to speak of women. He was not what in those days would be
termed a ladies' man, and was even somewhat unpopular with the sex.
But in this instance the conversation had drifted in that direction, and
when Adèle's name was mentioned, every one became silent, save the
little Vicomte, who waxed enthusiastic.
A shrug of the shoulders on Déroulède's part had aroused the