he
bottom of our sympathies caused me to feel amused at that perfectly
uncalled-for performance.

"In every other respect the risky experiment, the theatrical coup, if you
like to call it so, seemed to have failed. The deception could not
be kept up much longer; the explanation would bring about a very
embarrassing and even grave situation. The man who had eaten the paper
would be furious. The fellows who had bolted away would be angry, too.

"To add to my vexation, the door communicating with the other cellar,
where the printing-presses were, flew open, and our young lady
revolutionist appeared, a black silhouette in a close-fitting dress and
a large hat, with the blaze of gas flaring in there at her back. Over
her shoulder I perceived the arched eyebrows and the red necktie of her
brother.

"The last people in the world I wanted to see then! They had gone that
evening to some amateur concert for the delectation of the poor people,
you know; but she had insisted on leaving early, on purpose to call in
Hermione Street on the way home, under the pretext of having some work
to do. Her usual task was to correct the proofs of the Italian and
French editions of the Alarm Bell and the Firebrand." . . .

"Heavens!" I murmured. I had been shown once a few copies of these
publications. Nothing, in my opinion, could have been less fit for the
eyes of a young lady. They were the most advanced things of the sort;
advanced, I mean, beyond all bounds of reason and decency. One of them
preached the dissolution of all social and domestic ties; the other
advocated systematic murder. To think of a young girl calmly tracking
printers' errors all along the sort of abominable sentences I remembered
was intolerable to my sentiment of womanhood. Mr. X, after giving me a
glance, pursued steadily.

"I think, however, that she came mostly to exercise her fascinations
upon Sevrin, and to receive his homage in her queenly and condescending
way. She was aware of both--her power and his homage--and enjoyed them
with, I dare say, complete innocence. We have no ground in expediency
or morals to quarrel with her on that account. Charm in woman and
exceptional intelligence in man are a law unto themselves. Is it not
so?"

I refrained from expressing my abhorrence of that licentious doctrine
because of my curiosity.

"But what happened then?" I hastened to ask.

X went on crumbling slowly a small piece of bread with a careless left
hand.

"W