y in the Temple prison!"

"He has your sympathy, mademoiselle?"

"Of every right-minded woman in France, monsieur. Oh!" she added with a
pretty gesture of enthusiasm, clasping her hands together, and looking
at Armand with large eyes filled with tears, "if your noble Scarlet
Pimpernel will do aught to save that poor innocent lamb, I would indeed
bless him in my heart, and help him with all my humble might if I
could."

"May God's saints bless you for those words, mademoiselle," he said,
whilst, carried away by her beauty, her charm, her perfect femininity,
he stooped towards her until his knee touched the carpet at her feet. "I
had begun to lose my belief in my poor misguided country, to think all
men in France vile, and all women base. I could thank you on my
knees for your sweet words of sympathy, for the expression of tender
motherliness that came into your eyes when you spoke of the poor
forsaken Dauphin in the Temple."

She did not restrain her tears; with her they came very easily, just as
with a child, and as they gathered in her eyes and rolled down her fresh
cheeks they iii no way marred the charm of her face. One hand lay in her
lap fingering a diminutive bit of cambric, which from time to time she
pressed to her eyes. The other she had almost unconsciously yielded to
Armand.

The scent of the violets filled the room. It seemed to emanate from her,
a fitting attribute of her young, wholly unsophisticated girlhood. The
citizen was goodly to look at; he was kneeling at her feet, and his lips
were pressed against her hand.

Armand was young and he was an idealist. I do not for a moment imagine
that just at this moment he was deeply in love. The stronger feeling had
not yet risen up in him; it came later when tragedy encompassed him
and brought passion to sudden maturity. Just now he was merely yielding
himself up to the intoxicating moment, with all the abandonment, all the
enthusiasm of the Latin race. There was no reason why he should not bend
the knee before this exquisite little cameo, that by its very presence
was giving him an hour of perfect pleasure and of aesthetic joy.

Outside the world continued its hideous, relentless way; men butchered
one another, fought and hated. Here in this small old-world salon, with
its faded satins and bits of ivory-tinted lace, the outer universe had
never really penetrated. It was a tiny world--quite apart from the rest
of mankind, perfectly peaceful and absolutely