She saw the question struck home. “We revolutionists work in hourly danger from the police. Safety compels us to assume disguises, and we fit our disguises to our missions. My mission of yesterday required that I should seem what you call a lady.” “You mean that your yesterday’s clothes were only a disguise?” “Only a disguise.” He pondered for a moment. No, a woman of position, which he had half guessed her to be, would have no reason for discontent; no reason for risking comfort, wealth, life even, in this struggle for better conditions. After all, she was probably one of those rarely beautiful, rare-spirited women who now and again flower among the common people. “Then this is all I am to know?” he asked slowly. “That I am just one of the hundred thousand--that is all.” She started toward the door. “Wait!” he cried. “Wait! Surely I shall see you again.” She shook her head. “You are not to be released till after my mission has been accomplished. By that time I shall have disappeared. This is the last time we shall meet. Good-bye.” Her hand was on the knob, when Drexel sprang forward and threw himself between her and the door. “No! No! No!” his words burst forth. “I can’t lose you forever like this! I can’t! I can’t!” She drew back and gazed at him with a flashing, imperious manner. “What does this mean?” “It means I love you!” he cried. “It means I do not care who you are--what you are. I love you. I love you! With all my heart--with all my soul!” At the sight of his big, strong, quivering body, his tense, working face, the hauteur all slipped out of her bearing. “You are in earnest?” she asked slowly, in amazement. “God strike me dead if I am not! And as never before in all my life!” “I am sorry--sorry,” she said with true sympathy. “Even if I cared--it could not be. The liberty of my country has first place in my heart. That is my husband.” “Then you refuse me?” cried Drexel. “I must.” “And this is final?” “It is.” “No! No! No!” he cried, inflamed with love and the danger of the loved one’s eternal loss, and seizing at every argument. “Listen!” He stepped nearer her. “Listen, before you speak finally. I can take you out of this poverty, this turmoil, this oppression! I can give you peace, and comfort, and position!” “Ah!” she breathed. “Again the king stoops to the beggar maid.” Swept madly on by his desire to win her, his dreams for a towering financial future rushed into the form of argument. He stood before her the impassioned embodiment of the American hero--the strong, masterful man of affairs, flashing forth an all-conquering confidence. “Yes!” cried he, and he glowed dominantly down upon her. “You shall have everything! Everything! You and I, side by side, shall go breast to breast with the foremost. I tell you, with your beauty, you shall queen it over every woman in Chicago!”