gh yielding on seeing her pretexts
exhausted. Desnoyers was silent, too, construing her stillness as
assent. They had left the garden and she was looking around uneasily,
terrified to find herself in the open street beside her lover, and
seeking a hiding-place. Suddenly she saw before her the little red door
of an automobile, opened by the hand of her adorer.

"Get in," ordered Julio.

And she climbed in hastily, anxious to hide herself as soon as possible.
The vehicle started at great speed. Marguerite immediately pulled down
the shade of the window on her side, but, before she had finished and
could turn her head, she felt a hungry mouth kissing the nape of her
neck.

"No, not here," she said in a pleading tone. "Let us be sensible!"

And while he, rebellious at these exhortations, persisted in his
advances, the voice of Marguerite again sounded above the noise of the
rattling machinery of the automobile as it bounded over the pavement.

"Do you really believe that there will be no war? Do you believe that we
will be able to marry? . . . Tell me again. I want you to encourage me
. . . I need to hear it from your lips."

CHAPTER II

MADARIAGA, THE CENTAUR

In 1870 Marcelo Desnoyers was nineteen years old. He was born in the
suburbs of Paris, an only child; his father, interested in little
building speculations, maintained his family in modest comfort. The
mason wished to make an architect of his son, and Marcelo was in the
midst of his preparatory studies when his father suddenly died, leaving
his affairs greatly involved. In a few months, he and his mother
descended the slopes of ruin, and were obliged to give up their snug,
middle-class quarters and live like laborers.

When the fourteen-year-old boy had to choose a trade, he learned wood
carving. This craft was an art related to the tastes awakened in Marcelo
by his abandoned studies. His mother retired to the country, living with
some relatives while the lad advanced rapidly in the shops, aiding his
master in all the important orders which he received from the provinces.
The first news of the war with Prussia surprised him in Marseilles,
working on the decorations of a theatre.

Marcelo was opposed to the Empire like all the youths of his generation.
He was also much influenced by the older workmen who had taken part in
the Republic of '48, and who still retained vivid recollections of the
Coup d'Etat of the second of December.

One day he saw i