be a
military music.

The band was a full one, not military, wearing a slatternly sort of
uniform but playing well enough as they came up through the thickening
dusk, marching close to the eastern curb of the avenue.

They were playing _The Marseillaise_. Four abreast, behind them,
marched a dingy column of men and women, mostly of foreign aspect and
squatty build, carrying a flag which seemed to be entirely red.

Palla, perplexed, incredulous, yet almost instantly suspecting the
truth, stared at the rusty ranks, at the knots of red ribbon on every
breast.

Other people were staring, too, as the unexpected procession came
shuffling along--late shoppers, business men returning home,
soldiers--all paused to gaze at this sullen visaged battalion clumping
up the avenue.

"Surely," said Palla to Ilse, "these people can't be Reds!"

"Surely they are!" returned the tall, fair girl calmly. Her face had
become flushed, and she stepped to the edge of the curb, her blue,
wrathful eyes darkening like sapphires.

A soldier came up beside her. Others, sailors and soldiers, stopped
to look. There was a red flag passing. Suddenly Ilse stepped from the
sidewalk, wrenched the flag from the burly Jew who carried it, and,
with the same movement, shattered the staff across her knee.

Men and women in the ranks closed in on her; a shrill roar rose from
them, but the soldiers and sailors, cheering and laughing, broke into
the enraged ranks, tearing off red rosettes, cuffing and kicking the
infuriated Terrorists, seizing every seditious banner, flag, emblem
and placard in sight.

Female Reds, shrieking with rage, clawed, kicked and bit at soldier,
sailor and civilian. A gaunt man, with a greasy bunch of hair under a
bowler, waved dirty hands above the melee and shouted that he had the
Mayor's permission to parade.

Everywhere automobiles were stopping, crowds of people hurrying up,
policemen running. The electric lights snapped alight, revealed a mob
struggling there in the yellowish glare.

Ilse had calmly stepped to the sidewalk, the fragments of flag and
staff in her white-gloved hands; and, as she saw the irresponsible
soldiers and blue-jackets wading lustily into the Reds--saw the lively
riot which her own action had started--an irresistible desire to laugh
seized her.

Clear and gay above the yelling of Bolsheviki and the "Yip--yip!" of
the soldiers, peeled her infectious laughter. But Palla, more gentle,
stood with dark