“Surely,” said the painter, “monsieur my friend the artist of the Thuilleries gardens!” “At monsieur’s service,” said Ned, rising, with a complete lack of cordiality. “And of the Rue Beautreillis, M. David, where a poor devil of a papetier had his factory gutted.” He drew a little away. David’s face showed villainously distorted. “That may be,” said he, taken aback. Then he advanced again, with an air of sudden frankness. “‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’ We do not, in these days of realisation, repudiate our responsibility for the acts that in those were tentative. But a generous conqueror does not dwell on the humiliation of his adversaries. The end justifies the means, monsieur; and you, at least, if I remember, were no advocate of social tyranny. But that was long ago, yet not so long but that I can recall monsieur as a promising probationer in the art that is the most admirable in the world.” Ned, touched upon his unguarded side, was standing at a loss for an answer, when the painter’s two companions joined the group at the table. “Citizen Egalité,” said David, addressing the supercilious-looking man, “let me have the pleasure of making known to you M. Murk, an artist who would be a patriot were he not, unfortunately for us, an Englishman.” Ned started. “Egalité!” he exclaimed. “Ci-devant Duc d’Orléans,” said the tall man himself, with a little mocking bow. “Monseigneur,” began Ned. “Citizen,” said the other, bowing again. His eyes were dead stones of irony. His expression was as of one hopeless of convalescence from the weary illness of life. Ned fetched his letter from his breast. “Citizen Egalité--if so I am to call you,” said he, “I meet you in the good hour, being on the road, indeed, to seek the citizen himself.” “Me, sir?” “You, monsieur--or the Duke of Orleans. I have the honour to place in the hands of the duke a packet with the delivery of which I have been entrusted by an intimate correspondent of monsieur.” Monsieur, looking a little surprised, received the missive, and deliberately breaking the seal, deliberately read through madame la gouvernante’s letter. Ned must discipline his sick impatience the while, and the two other men conversed apart--David in some obvious wonder over the result of his introduction. Presently the duke, carelessly returning the paper to its folds, looked up. Ned strove, but failed, to read his sentence in the impassive face. A moment’s silence succeeded. It was a test beyond his endurance. “I undertook to acquaint monsieur le duc, from my personal knowledge,” he blurted out, “of the causes of madame’s apprehensions.” “Madame,” said Egalité, “is very fortunate in a courier whose discretion, she informs me, is only equalled by his disinterestedness. Madame has, indeed, always the faculty to find some one to pull her her chestnuts out of the fire.” He spoke so languidly, so suggestively, so insolently, that Ned, despite his desperate anxiety, fired up.