Nicole, not certain whether she spoke in jest or in earnest, abandoned uneasily the conversation, saying, "Where do we dine to-night?" "At the Bonnet Rouge." "Why there?" "It is the rendezvous for the Marseillais. If there is to be an attack, we'll have the news." "Do you think it will be for to-night?" "Yes; there is something in the air that makes me think so." Their way soon involved them in a network of dusky, gaping streets. On each side somber walls, peopled with dim, curious flecks of headgear, strained upward and back in a bulging effort to draw down a little more of the allotted strip of sky. The windows of taverns, on the ground floor, were beginning to redden and to cast faint streaks across the black, oozing streets; but the frugal inhabitants of upper stories, in deference to the price of candles, still hung on the sills, causing the evening to resound with the nervous chatter of window-to-window speculation. At times the tension of conjecture and discussion would be broken by the bass voice of a passing laborer thundering forth, "Ça ira! Ça ira! Ça ira!" Above the soprano of women's voices and the thin piping of children responded feverishly: "La liberté s'établira: Malgré les tyrans tout réussira!" They found the cabaret beginning to fill up by twos and threes--workingmen for the most part: water-carriers divesting themselves of their barrels at the door with a sigh of contentment; wood-carriers, with relaxed limbs, slipping gratefully into the hard wooden benches; women of the markets, corpulent, quick-tongued, smelling of onion and garlic; erstwhile actors still with the strut of the stage; an occasional bourgeois in misfortune; a handful of gamins, impudent and witty--all discussing feverishly the projected attack. The two girls, perceiving the congestion in the outer room, elbowed their way to where, by an inner door, a waiter of exceptional but broken height was scanning the crowd with an eye to orders. "Well, Citoyen Boudgoust, what news?" At Louison's question, he showed the palms of his hands, finally volunteering: "Santerre is to send us word." "There's room beyond?" "You are going to eat?" "Of course," Louison said impatiently, as he barred the way. "Besides, mon ami, don't you think we know what's going on?" He allowed them to pass, grumbling, "Every one comes to talk; no one to eat." In the farther hall the crowd was thinner and composed mostly of Marseillais and the National Guard, who looked up furtively, until half a dozen greetings removed their suspicions. "Good evening, Citoyenne Nicole." In her astonishment, she turned to find Geneviève. "What are you doing here, child?" she cried. "I am listening." "You are no longer afraid?" "We are to attack," the girl said proudly, and her eyes snapped with defiant ardor. "Bravo, little one!" laughed Nicole. "Sit with us, then." She turned to Louison in explanation. "She is my protégée who is coming to me for lessons."