rapidly towards him. Striking his hands with so violent
a blow that the casket fell to the ground, she seized it, flung it into
the middle of the fire, and stood with her back to the chimney in a
threatening attitude before either of the agents recovered from their
surprise. The scorn which flamed from her eyes, her pale brow, her
disdainful lips, were even more insulting than the haughty action which
treated Corentin as though he were a venomous reptile. Old d'Hauteserre
felt himself once more a cavalier; all his blood rushed to his face, and
he grieved that he had no sword. The servants trembled for an instant
with joy. The vengeance they had called down upon these men had come.
But their joy was driven back within their souls by a terrible fear; the
gendarmes were still heard coming and going in the garrets.

The _spy_--noun of strength, under which all shades of the police are
confounded, for the public has never chosen to specify in language the
varieties of those who compose this dispensary of social remedies so
essential to all governments--the spy has this curious and magnificent
quality: he never becomes angry; he possesses the Christian humility of
a priest; his eyes are stolid with an indifference which he holds as
a barrier against the world of fools who do not understand him; his
forehead is adamant under insult; he pursues his ends like a reptile
whose carapace is fractured only by a cannonball; but (like that
reptile) he is all the more furious when the blow does reach him,
because he believed his armor invulnerable. The lash of the whip upon
his fingers was to Corentin, pain apart, the cannonball that cracked
the shell. Coming from that magnificent and noble girl, this action,
emblematic of her disgust, humiliated him, not only in the eyes of the
people about him, but in his own.

Peyrade sprang to the hearth, caught Laurence's foot, raised it, and
compelled her, out of modesty, to throw herself on the sofa, where she
had lately lain asleep. The scene, like other contrasts in human things,
was burlesque in the midst of terror. Peyrade scorched his hand as he
dashed it into the fire to seize the box; but he got it, threw it on the
floor and sat down upon it. These little actions were done with great
rapidity and without a word being uttered. Corentin, recovering from the
pain of the blow, caught Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne by both hands, and
held her.

"Do not compel me to use force against you," he sai