busy with villainies in country places; character was
complex by force of circumstances, which, under other conditions, might
have been simple and straightforward. With some a certain
straightforwardness remained, not always directed to wrong ends. It was
so in Lucien Bruslart. It was not easy for him to be a scoundrel, and
self was not always master. Even with Pauline Vaison in his arms he
thought of Jeanne St. Clair, and shuddered at the way he had spoken of
her to this woman. What would happen if Jeanne came to Paris? For a
moment the horrible possibilities seemed to paralyze every nerve and
thought. He spoke no word, he did not cease his caressing, yet the woman
suddenly released herself as though his train of thought exerted a
subtle influence over her, and stood before him again, not angrily, yet
with a look in her eyes which was a warning. So an animal looks when
danger may be at hand.

"If you were to deceive me," she said, in a low voice, almost in a
whisper, the sound of a hiss in it.

"Deceive you?"

It was not easily said, but a question only half comprehended, as when
one is recalled from a reverie suddenly, or awakes from a dream at a
touch.

"To deceive me would be hell for both of us, for all of us," said the
woman.

He tried to laugh at her, but he could not even bring a smile to his
lips at that moment.

Pauline caught his hand and pulled him to the window, opened it, and
pointed.

"There. You know what I mean," she said.

The roar of Paris floated up to them, the daily toil, the noise of it,
its bartering, its going and coming. Men and women must live, even in a
revolution, and to live, work. Underneath it all there was something
unnatural, a murmur, a growl, the sound of an undertone, secret, cruel,
deadly; yet the woman's pointing finger was all Lucien was conscious of
just now.

"You know what I mean," she repeated.

He shook his head slightly, dubiously, for he partly guessed. In that
direction was the Place de la Revolution.

"If this other woman should take my place, if you lied to me, I would
have my revenge. It would be easy. She is an aristocrat. One word from
me, and do you think you could save her? Yonder stands the guillotine,"
and she made a downward sweep of the arm. "It falls like that. You
couldn't save her."

Lucien stood looking straight before him out of the window. Pauline
still held his hand. She waited for him to speak, and when he did not,
she shook his hand.