she had failed to
understand--the word 'police' has an unmistakable sound--but rather as
if she could not help herself. She did not advance with the free gait
and expanding presence of a distinguished amateur anarchist amongst
poor, struggling professionals, but with slightly raised shoulders,
and her elbows pressed close to her body, as if trying to shrink within
herself. Her eyes were fixed immovably upon Sevrin. Sevrin the man, I
fancy; not Sevrin the anarchist. But she advanced. And that was natural.
For all their assumption of independence, girls of that class are used
to the feeling of being specially protected, as, in fact, they are. This
feeling accounts for nine tenths of their audacious gestures. Her face
had gone completely colourless. Ghastly. Fancy having it brought home to
her so brutally that she was the sort of person who must run away from
the police! I believe she was pale with indignation, mostly, though
there was, of course, also the concern for her intact personality, a
vague dread of some sort of rudeness. And, naturally, she turned to a
man, to the man on whom she had a claim of fascination and homage--the
man who could not conceivably fail her at any juncture."

"But," I cried, amazed at this analysis, "if it had been serious, real,
I mean--as she thought it was--what could she expect him to do for her?"

X never moved a muscle of his face.

"Goodness knows. I imagine that this charming, generous, and independent
creature had never known in her life a single genuine thought; I mean a
single thought detached from small human vanities, or whose source was
not in some conventional perception. All I know is that after advancing
a few steps she extended her hand towards the motionless Sevrin. And
that at least was no gesture. It was a natural movement. As to what
she expected him to do, who can tell? The impossible. But whatever she
expected, it could not have come up, I am safe to say, to what he had
made up his mind to do, even before that entreating hand had appealed to
him so directly. It had not been necessary. From the moment he had seen
her enter that cellar, he had made up his mind to sacrifice his future
usefulness, to throw off the impenetrable, solidly fastened mask it had
been his pride to wear--"

"What do you mean?" I interrupted, puzzled. "Was it Sevrin, then, who
was--"

"He was. The most persistent, the most dangerous, the craftiest, the
most systematic of informers. A genius am