“To cut his throat, I suppose,” said the girl coolly. “Gregori is so elemental and so horrific! I can’t imagine that he ever has cut a throat in his life, but I suppose he feels that it is in keeping with his sunny southern nature to talk like that. No, Colonel _mio_,” she mimicked, “we have stopped short of murder so far and I think we will remain on the safe side. My theory coincides with Mike’s. I was reading an article of his in a Socialistic paper the other day and it was all about the Right to Live. I don’t believe in killing people. I believe in bleeding those who have grown apoplectic with their money and I don’t even know whether I believe in that.” “What do you mean?” the Colonel looked up at her under his shaggy brows. She shrugged her shoulders. “I mean,” she said slowly, “I never know whether my views are my own views or whether they are just your views which I reflect like a mirror. You see, dear,” she said, “I am very young but I have a logical mind and my logical mind tells me that no girl can have any very definite views at nineteen, not of her own, I mean. Perhaps when I am twenty-five I shall look upon you as a terrible person, and all this,” she spread her hands out, “as something to think of with a shudder.” “In the meantime,” said her uncle practically, “you are Miss Ali Baba, chief strategist of our little army and a very exigent young lady--by-the-way, Gregori is kicking.” She looked at him with a contemptuous little twist of her lips. “There is a great centre forward lost in Gregori,” she said. “What has moved that dago’s feet?” “Hush, hush, my child,” cautioned her uncle, “our admirable friend is upstairs and, anyway, it doesn’t do to speak disrespectfully of one’s criminal associates. There is a certain punctilio in our profession which you may have noticed.” “How queer it sounds!” she said, leaning forward and clasping her knee. “Do you know, uncle, I cannot think straight. Ever since I was so high,” she stretched her hand out before her, “I have never known a desire to secure anything I wanted, save by taking it from somebody else. At the school in Lausanne I seemed to be amongst the queerest people and, honestly, although you had warned me, I thought they were all mad. All their fathers made money in business, which seems to be a slow method of stealing which is allowed by the law. Think of the horrible monotony of working steadily day after day without any holidays, with no excitement, no adventures, save the artificial thrill of a theatre and the adventures that meet you on your way home.” “I didn’t even know there were those kind of adventures,” said the Colonel, fingering his trim moustache and enjoying with closed eyes the fragrance of his cigar.