l talker, and de Batz was essentially good
company. His vapourings had always been amusing, but Armand now gave him
credit for more seriousness of purpose; and though the chief had warned
him against picking up acquaintances in Paris, the young man felt that
that restriction would certainly not apply to a man like de Batz, whose
hot partisanship of the Royalist cause and hare-brained schemes for
its restoration must make him at one with the League of the Scarlet
Pimpernel.

Armand accepted the other's cordial invitation. He, too, felt that he
would indeed be safer from observation in a crowded theatre than in
the streets. Among a closely packed throng bent on amusement the
sombrely-clad figure of a young man, with the appearance of a student or
of a journalist, would easily pass unperceived.

But somehow, after the first ten minutes spent in de Batz' company
within the gloomy shelter of the small avant-scene box, Armand already
repented of the impulse which had prompted him to come to the theatre
to-night, and to renew acquaintanceship with the ex-officer of the late
King's Guard. Though he knew de Batz to be an ardent Royalist, and even
an active adherent of the monarchy, he was soon conscious of a vague
sense of mistrust of this pompous, self-complacent individual, whose
every utterance breathed selfish aims rather than devotion to a forlorn
cause.

Therefore, when the curtain rose at last on the first act of Moliere's
witty comedy, St. Just turned deliberately towards the stage and tried
to interest himself in the wordy quarrel between Philinte and Alceste.

But this attitude on the part of the younger man did not seem to suit
his newly-found friend. It was clear that de Batz did not consider the
topic of conversation by any means exhausted, and that it had been more
with a view to a discussion like the present interrupted one that he had
invited St. Just to come to the theatre with him to-night, rather
than for the purpose of witnessing Mile. Lange's debut in the part of
Celimene.

The presence of St. Just in Paris had as a matter of fact astonished de
Batz not a little, and had set his intriguing brain busy on conjectures.
It was in order to turn these conjectures into certainties that he had
desired private talk with the young man.

He waited silently now for a moment or two, his keen, small eyes resting
with evident anxiety on Armand's averted head, his fingers still beating
the impatient tattoo upon the v