e
salad-bowl with a crash that sent the pieces flying about the room.

"Parbleu!" exclaimed Jean, laughing heartily; "there goes my salad!"

"No; the salad is here. There goes my pretty bowl!"

"Very well, then, let us turn out to-morrow, Monsieur Marot, and do
our duty. Au revoir."

In parting the artist nodded his head in cold recognition of the
existence of Mlle. Fouchette. The latter turned on her dainty heel
with a glance at Jean that spoke volumes. But she began arranging the
little table slowly, absent-mindedly, without a word. He thought she
was lamenting the loss of the salad-bowl.

"I'll buy you a pretty one," he said.

"A pretty--er--a what?"

"Salad-bowl."

"Oh, dame! I was not thinking of the salad-bowl."

"Something more serious?"

"Yes. Don't go to-morrow, Monsieur Jean!"

Her voice was earnest, but sunk to a whisper. He regarded her with
astonishment.

"Don't go, Monsieur Jean!" she repeated. "Have nothing to do with
them! There will be two thousand hired roughs from La Villette, the
killers from the abattoirs, and----" She stopped short.

"How now, mon enfant? How----"

But she had clapped her small hand over his mouth in a half-vexed,
half-frightened way, with a definite gesture towards the next room.

"Have a care, monsieur," she whispered in his ear, then laughingly
resumed her bantering tone. "How do you like my salad? Is it not
capital?"

CHAPTER XI

Jean Marot found Mlle. Fouchette interesting but incomprehensible.

Jean believed himself to be a sincere and true republican,--and he
was, in fact, quite as logical in this as were many of the so-called
republicans of the French Parliament, who, like their familiar
political prototypes in the United States, talked one way and voted
another. He had participated in the street disturbances as a protest
against the Ministry and for the pure love of excitement, not against
the republic.

As to the Dreyfus case, he had been satisfied, with most of his
countrymen, upon the statement of five successive ministers of war.

After all, in a country where so many have always stood ready to sell
their national liberty for the gold of the stranger, it came easy to
believe in one Judas more.

The United States has had but one Benedict Arnold; France counts her
traitors by the thousands. They spring from every rank and are
incidental to every age. The word Treachery is the most important word
in French domestic history.

And when