ongst betrayers. Fortunately
for us, he was unique. The man was a fanatic, I have told you.
Fortunately, again, for us, he had fallen in love with the accomplished
and innocent gestures of that girl. An actor in desperate earnest
himself, he must have believed in the absolute value of conventional
signs. As to the grossness of the trap into which he fell, the
explanation must be that two sentiments of such absorbing magnitude
cannot exist simultaneously in one heart. The danger of that other and
unconscious comedian robbed him of his vision, of his perspicacity, of
his judgment. Indeed, it did at first rob him of his self-possession.
But he regained that through the necessity--as it appeared to him
imperiously--to do something at once. To do what? Why, to get her out of
the house as quickly as possible. He was desperately anxious to do that.
I have told you he was terrified. It could not be about himself. He had
been surprised and annoyed at a move quite unforeseen and premature. I
may even say he had been furious. He was accustomed to arrange the
last scene of his betrayals with a deep, subtle art which left his
revolutionist reputation untouched. But it seems clear to me that at
the same time he had resolved to make the best of it, to keep his mask
resolutely on. It was only with the discovery of her being in the house
that everything--the forced calm, the restraint of his fanaticism, the
mask--all came off together in a kind of panic. Why panic, do you ask?
The answer is very simple. He remembered--or, I dare say, he had never
forgotten--the Professor alone at the top of the house, pursuing his
researches, surrounded by tins upon tins of Stone's Dried Soup. There
was enough in some few of them to bury us all where we stood under
a heap of bricks. Sevrin, of course, was aware of that. And we must
believe, also, that he knew the exact character of the man. He had
gauged so many such characters! Or perhaps he only gave the Professor
credit for what he himself was capable of. But, in any case, the effect
was produced. And suddenly he raised his voice in authority.

"'Get the lady away at once.'

"It turned out that he was as hoarse as a crow; result, no doubt, of
the intense emotion. It passed off in a moment. But these fateful words
issued forth from his contracted throat in a discordant, ridiculous
croak. They required no answer. The thing was done. However, the man
personating the inspector judged it expedient to say