Dangeau was met almost on the threshold by a fair-haired, eager-looking youth, who hailed him warmly as Jacques, and, linking his arm in his, led him, unresisting, into the deep embrasure of the window. "What is it, Edmond?" inquired Dangeau, an unusually attractive smile lighting up his rather grave features. It was plain that this young man roused in him an amused affection. "Nothing," said Edmond aloud, "but it is so long since I saw you. Have you been dead, buried, or out of Paris?" "Since the arm you pinched just now is reasonably solid flesh and blood, you may conclude that during the past fortnight Paris has been rendered inconsolable by my absence," said Dangeau, laughing a little. Edmond Cléry threw an imperceptible glance at his fellow-Commissioners. Two being always with the prisoners, there remained four others, and of these a couple were playing cards at the wine-stained table, and two more lounged on the doorstep smoking a villanously rank tobacco and talking loudly. Certainly no one was in the least interested in the conversation of Citizens Dangeau and Cléry. Yet for all that Edmond dropped his voice, not to a whisper, but to that smooth monotone which hardly carries a yard, and yet is distinctly audible to the person addressed. In this voice he asked: "You have not been to the Club?" Dangeau shook his head. "Nor seen Hébert, Marat, Jules Dupuis?" An expression of distaste lifted Dangeau’s finely cut lip. "I have existed without that felicity," he observed, with a slightly sarcastic inflexion. "Then you have been told—have heard—nothing?" "My dear Edmond, what mysteries are these?" Edmond Cléry leaned a little closer, and dropped his voice until it was a mere tenuous thread. "They have decided on a massacre," he said. "A massacre?" "Yes, of the prisoners." "Just Heaven! No!" "It is true. Things have fallen from Hébert once or twice. He and Marat have been closeted for hours—the devil’s own alliance that—and the plan is of their hatching. Two days ago Hébert spoke at the Club. It was late, Danton was not there. They say—" Cléry hesitated, and stole a glance at his companion’s set face,—"they say he wishes to know nothing." "A lie," said Dangeau very quietly. "I don’t know. There, Jacques, don’t look at me like that! How can I tell? I tell you my brain reels at the thought of the thing." "What did Hébert say? He spoke?" "Yes; said the people must be fleshed,—there was not sufficient enthusiasm. Paris as a whole was quiescent, apathetic. This must be changed, an elixir was needed. What? Blood,—blood of traitors,—blood of aristocrats,—oppressors of the people. Bah!—you can fancy the rest well enough." "Did any one else speak?" "Marat said the Jacobins were with us." "Robespierre?" "In it, of course, but would n’t dirty those white hands for the world," said Cléry, sneering. "No one opposed it?"