“This David,” he muttered, “that heard Reveillon say the words, and that has haunted the St Antoine of late--this David.” And with the thought there was the man himself coming slowly on with the crowd past him. The Englishman planted his shoulder against the torrent and managed to sidle alongside the painter. He--M. Jacques-Louis David--carried a very enigmatical smile on his face, the physical malformation of which, however, served him for conscious misinterpreter of many moods. Now it expressed no disturbance over his contact with a person who had offended him. “Good day,” said he. “M. David,” said Ned, “I do not forget what enraged you with M. Reveillon in the Thuilleries gardens. I think you are a scoundrel, M. David!” The other did not even start; much less did he condescend to refute the sudden charge; but he cocked his head evilly as he walked. “Have you considered,” he said, “that if what you imply be true (which I do not admit), you are insulting a general in the presence of his bodyguard?” “If what I imply be true,” retorted Ned hotly, “I can understand your indulging any brutal and contemptible vindictiveness.” Perhaps, in his strenuous indignation, he might have struck at the vicious creature beside him; but the crowd, at that moment violently surging forward, swept him anywhere from his place and saved him the consequences of a foolish impulse. Now he would fain have turned and escaped from the press, lest by any self-misconception his conscience should accuse him of lending his countenance to an iniquity; for he saw that such was planned and determined on, and for the first time there awoke in his heart some shadowy realisation of the true import of certain months-long signs and significances. He would have turned: he could not. He was wedged in, carried forward, rushed to the very outer core of the congested block of frowsy humanity that stormed and spat and shrieked under the high dull walls of the factory. Here, perhaps, his national self-sufficiency was his somewhat arrogant counsellor. “What has this man done,” he cried to those about him, “but exemplify that right to liberty of speech which you all demand?” A dozen loathing glances were turned upon him. Savage oaths and ejaculations contested the opportuneness of so reasonable a sentiment. But it was not St Antoine’s way, now or at any time, to approve counsel for the defence. Only a cry, a sinister one then first beginning to be heard in the streets, broke out here and there. “Down with the aristocrat!” There was threat of a concentric movement upon the Englishman. He felt it as a moral pressure even before his immediate neighbours began to close inwards. One of the latter had a similar consciousness apparently. She was a coarse, fat _poissarde_, and the shallow groove that was her waist seemed moulded of the very habit of her truculent arms folded in front of her.