ory answer. The reason which lay behind such a
question could not be ignored. Any helpless woman would have appealed
to him, he told himself, but the whole truth refused to be confined in
such an argument. Jeanne St. Clair meant something more to him than
this, but in this direction he refused to question himself further,
except to condemn himself. Was he not viewing Lucien Bruslart through
smoked glasses as it were?--an easy fault under the circumstances.
Jeanne loved this man. No greater proof was needed than her journey to
Paris for his sake. Barrington had done her a service for which he had
been amply thanked. To-night Bruslart would inform him that Jeanne was
safe, and thank him again for what he had done. There was an end of the
business; and since his enthusiasm to help the people had somewhat
evaporated--Jeanne's influence again, doubtless--why should he not
return home? France held no place for him. It would be better not to see
Jeanne again, more honorable, easier for him.

At a corner he stopped. Others had done the same. Coming up the street
was a ragged, shouting mob. There were some armed with pikes who had
made a vain attempt to keep the march orderly; others, flourishing
sticks, danced and sang as they came; others, barely clad, ran to and
fro like men half drunk, yelling ribald insults now at those who passed
by, now at the world at large. Women with draggled skirts and dirty and
disordered hair were in the crowd, shrieking joyous profanity, striking
and fighting one another in their mad excitement. There were children,
too, almost naked girls and boys, as ready with oath and obscenity as
their elders, fair young faces and forms, some of them, debauched out of
all that was childlike. Every fetid alley and filthy court near which
this procession had passed had vomited its scum to swell the crowd. In
the center of it rocked and swayed a coach. Hands were plenty to help
the frightened horses, hands to push, hands to grip the spokes and make
the wheels turn faster. The driver had no driving to do, so roared a
song. The inmate of the coach might be dumb with fear, half dead with
it, yet if he shrieked with terror, the cry of no single throat could
rise above all this babel of sound.

"Way! Way for the cursed aristocrat!"

Children and women ran past Barrington shouting. One woman touched him
with a long-nailed, dirty, scraggy hand.

"An aristocrat, citizen. Another head for La Guillotine," she cried, and