But still she had a store of reflected light with which to illuminate her Sunday reunions. * * * * * * * * “Citoyenne,” said an acrid young patriot, whose eyes were just cut apart by the mere blade of a nose, and who wore a little silver guillotine for a seal, “whither wilt thou fly when the Brunswicker enters to make good his manifesto?” “At his throat, Pollio,” (the company clapped its hands). “To hang round his neck?” “Ay, like a millstone.” “But, indeed,” said the young man, affecting to show trouble, “thou wilt surely be included amongst the proscribed.” “There will be none!” cried the girl: “the capitol is saved! the geese have begun to cackle!” Pollio, amidst the laughter, shook his head in pretended distress. “It is all very well. Yet not Paris but the world were lost to see our Judith under a wall, the mark to a platoon of dirty jägers.” Théroigne came to her feet. Her cheeks were flushed; her thick brown curls were slumbrous shadows upon the pale slopes of her shoulders. She was dressed quite simply, in the suggestiveness (something misread) of virgin white. But she was not at her ease. Radiant, glowing, voluptuous (she always looked, this woman, as if she were but just risen from a warm bed), there had yet been all the evening an unwonted rigidity in her manner, a distraught expression in her face, such as that with which one vouchsafes to another the shadow of an attention whose substance is given elsewhere. She would break into feverish fits of merriment. She would start and seem to listen, as if to some tiny voice making itself heard within the compass of many voices. It may have passed unregarded, this spasmodic manner of distraction; it may have been observed and accepted as a new accent to charms so many-humoured. The times took little note, little surprise, of unaccustomed tricks of speech or feature. It was because men and women had so lost sight of what were their true selves that moods passed for convictions. Now she stood like a Pythoness, the light from above falling upon her head, rounding and sleepily caressing all the fair curves of her figure, of the smooth naked arm she raised as in inspiration. “It is not the Brunswicker I fear,” she cried. “It is the enemy from within--from within!” She dropped her hand to her heart, as if that were her secret foe. “Citoyenne,” whispered a voice in her ear, “there is one waiting in the _foyer_ that is peremptory to see thee.” She stared a moment, with a lost expression; then looked aside, half in anger, to see her country Grisel regarding her appealingly. “What one, little fool--little Bona?” “Indeed, I do not know. He implored me by the love of God.” Théroigne laughed uneasily. “Rather by the love that is gratuitous, thou little _grand’-bêta_. Hush! Go before, and I will follow.”