Madame la Roturière may dress her smiling face in the mode of Mme l’Aristocrate; may tune her company voice to the same rhythm; but put her in a passion, and see how the mud comes boiling up from the depths, and how the voice so smooth and suave just now, rings out in its native bourgeois tones. Hébert knew the difference as well as another, and his thoughts were busy. Aristocrat disguised, spelled aristocrat conspiring, and a conspiring aristocrat under the same roof as Jacques Dangeau, what did that spell? He rubbed his pale fat hands, where the reddish hair showed sickly, and strolled away thinking wicked thoughts. Plots were the obsession of the day, and, to speak the truth, there were enough and to spare, but patriot eyes were apt to see double, and treble, when drunk with enthusiasm, and to detect a conspirator when there was only a victim. Plots which had never existed gave hundreds to the knife, and the populace shouted themselves into a wilder delirium. Did the price of bread go up? Machinations of Pitt in England. Did two men quarrel, and blows pass? "Monarchist!" shouted the defeated one, and presently denounced the other. Had a woman an inconvenient husband, why, a cry of "Austrian Spy!" and she might be comfortably rid of him for ever. Evil times for a beautiful, friendless girl upon whom gross Hébert cast a wishful eye! He walked into the shop next day, and accosted Rosalie with Republican sternness of manner. "Good-day, Citoyenne Leboeuf." Rosalie was fluttered. Her nerves were no longer quite so reliable as they had been. Madame Guillotine’s receptions were disturbing them, and in the night she would dream horribly, and wake panting, with her hands at her fat throat. "Citizen Hébert," she murmured. He bent a cold eye upon her, noting a beaded brow. "You have a girl lodging here—Marie Roche?" "Assuredly, Citizen." "I must speak to her alone." Rosalie rallied a little, for Hébert had a certain reputation, and Louison had not held her tongue. "I will call her down," she said, heaving her bulky form from its place. "No, I will go up," said Hébert, still with magisterial dignity. "Pardon me, Citizen Deputy, she shall come down." "It is an affair of State. I must speak privately with her," he blustered. Rosalie’s eyes twinkled; her nerves were steadying. They had begun to require constant stimulation, and this answered as well as anything else. "Bah," she said. "I shall not listen to your State secrets. Am I an eavesdropper, or inquisitive? Ask any one. That is not my character. You may take her to the farther end of the shop, and speak as low as you please, but, she is a young girl, this is a respectable house, and see her alone in her room you shall not, not whilst she is under my care." "That privilege being reserved for my colleague, Citizen Dangeau," sneered Hébert.