She lifted her head with a gesture of half-offended surprise. “Surely that is an unnecessary question!” she said. “Of course I know you would not speak of anything to outsiders; but I thought that perhaps, to the members of your party----” “The party's business is with facts, not with my personal conjectures and fancies. Of course I have never mentioned the subject to anyone.” “Thank you. Do you happen to have guessed which sect I belong to?” “I hope--you must not take offence at my frankness; it was you who started this talk, you know---- I do hope it is not the 'Knifers.'” “Why do you hope that?” “Because you are fit for better things.” “We are all fit for better things than we ever do. There is your own answer back again. However, it is not the 'Knifers' that I belong to, but the 'Red Girdles.' They are a steadier lot, and take their work more seriously.” “Do you mean the work of knifing?” “That, among other things. Knives are very useful in their way; but only when you have a good, organized propaganda behind them. That is what I dislike in the other sect. They think a knife can settle all the world's difficulties; and that's a mistake. It can settle a good many, but not all.” “Do you honestly believe that it settles any?” He looked at her in surprise. “Of course,” she went on, “it eliminates, for the moment, the practical difficulty caused by the presence of a clever spy or objectionable official; but whether it does not create worse difficulties in place of the one removed is another question. It seems to me like the parable of the swept and garnished house and the seven devils. Every assassination only makes the police more vicious and the people more accustomed to violence and brutality, and the last state of the community may be worse than the first.” “What do you think will happen when the revolution comes? Do you suppose the people won't have to get accustomed to violence then? War is war.” “Yes, but open revolution is another matter. It is one moment in the people's life, and it is the price we have to pay for all our progress. No doubt fearful things will happen; they must in every revolution. But they will be isolated facts--exceptional features of an exceptional moment. The horrible thing about this promiscuous knifing is that it becomes a habit. The people get to look upon it as an every-day occurrence, and their sense of the sacredness of human life gets blunted. I have not been much in the Romagna, but what little I have seen of the people has given me the impression that they have got, or are getting, into a mechanical habit of violence.” “Surely even that is better than a mechanical habit of obedience and submission.”