ng to denounce me to the
Prussian provost?"

He lifted his well-shaped head and gazed at the Countess with an
admirable pathos which seemed a mute appeal for protection from
brutality.

"That question is a needless one," said the Countess, quietly. "It
was a cruel one, also, Monsieur Scarlett."

"I did not mean it as an offensive question," said I. "I was merely
reciting a fact, most creditable to Mr. Buckhurst. Mon Dieu, madame, I
am an officer of Imperial Police, and I have lived to hear blunt
questions and blunter answers. And if it be true that Monsieur
Buckhurst desires to atone for--for what has happened, then it is
perfectly proper for me, even as a prisoner myself, to speak
plainly."

I meant this time to thoroughly convince Buckhurst of my ability to
gabble platitude. My desire that he should view me as a typical
gendarme was intense.

So I coughed solemnly behind my hand, knit my eyebrows, and laid one
finger alongside of my nose.

"Is it not my duty, as a guardian of national interests, to point out
to Mr. Buckhurst his honest errors? Certainly it is, madame, and this
is the proper time."

Turning pompously to Buckhurst, I fancied I could almost detect a
sneer on that inexpressive mask he wore--at least I hoped I could, and
I said, heavily:

"Monsieur, for a number of years there has passed under our eyes here
in France certain strange phenomena. Thousands of Frenchmen have, so
to speak, separated themselves from the rest of the nation.

"All the sentiments that the nation honors itself by professing these
other Frenchmen rebuke--the love of country, public spirit, accord
between citizens, social repose, and respect for communal law and
order--these other Frenchmen regard as the hallucinations of a nation
of dupes.

"Separated by such unfortunate ideas from the nation within whose
boundaries they live, they continue to abuse, even to threaten, the
society and the country which gives them shelter.

"France is only a name to them; they were born there, they live
there, they derive their nourishment from her without gratitude.
But France is nothing to them; _their mother-land is the
Internationale_!"

I was certain now that the shadow of a sneer had settled in the
corners of Buckhurst's thin lips.

"I do not speak of anarchists or of terrorists," I continued, nodding
as though profoundly impressed by my own sagacity. "I speak of
socialists--that dangerous society to which the cry of Karl Marx