"I know that you are the brain of the Girondins. Can''t even you participate in those discussions?" Edith said indignantly.
Madame Roland shook her head with a bitter smile.
"I can only record my thoughts with a pen and express them through my husband''s hands."
Edith looked disappointed.
Madame Roland covered her mouth and leaned in towards the girl. "But you know what''s even worse? Sometimes you have to listen to a doltish man babble on and on, as if he were Demosthenes or Voltaire himself. Yet all you can do is roll your eyes on the sly at the quacks of this silly goose! "
This acrid and humorous remark made Edith laugh.
At that moment, a dashing gentleman approached their spot.
"Good evening, respectable ladies," he elegantly bowed.
"Good evening, Citizen Buzot," Lucile replied with a smile.
Edith was surprised by Madame Roland''s silence, who was usually very courteous. She turned her head and saw Madame gazing at Buzot with a doleful expression, slowly raising her arm towards him.
The handsome man, appearing to be in his thirties, reverently kissed the lady''s delicate hand. In his lifting eyes to meet those of Madame Roland''s, there was also a smoldering passion, impossible to conceal.
Edith blushed and felt her heart skip a beat at this chance encounter, inwardly amazed.
Lucile had to leave early to take care of her baby.
Edith continued to talk for hours with her idol. Only after most of the guests had dispersed from the living room did she reluctantly bid farewell.
"You can directly call me Manon from now on, dear Edith," Madame Roland said before she left. "I have high hopes for you."
-----------------
Not long after leaving Roland''s house, a cold winter rain began to fall from the sky.
Edith had been hiding under a narrow eave by the roadside, but seeing the rain only grow fiercer, she gritted her teeth and stepped into the downpour.
However, in an instant, the rain above her head ceased. She found herself enveloped in a warm, dry scope.
Without turning around, she could guess the identity of the person behind her from the scent.
"Citizen, thou art impeding a patriot''s liberty to embrace