She had spoken without raising her voice, and the calm tone in which these terrible theories had been expounded as they came from that charming mouth formed so strange a contrast with the ferocious cynicism of the confession that Lichtenbach, who, although he appeared to have no illusions left concerning his beautiful and dangerous partner, was placed for a moment out of countenance. He had very few scruples, this trafficker in all kinds of goods, who had commenced by despoiling his country in its hour of trial, and who continued speculating on social poverty and infamy. But now he found himself confronted by a creature more audacious and violent, if not more redoubtable, than himself, And he weighed in imagination the perils she might make him incur and the advantages she could bring him. This beautiful, intelligent, and unscrupulous woman was an admirable instrument. He knew what she was capable of, but he had no wish to run so great a risk as she ran without any need. The adventures which offered the Baroness Sophia her most certain means of existence were not open to him; other matters, those of a man on the eve of becoming a Deputy, perhaps a Minister, and those of this industrial cosmopolity, coining money with filth and blood. His coolness returned. He had said too much that was foolish at the beginning of the conversation. The time had come to mitigate the confidence of the beautiful Sophia, and to give her to understand that, between herself and himself, their existed a stout barrier of respectability and of millions of francs. “On the whole, my dear Baroness,” he said, “there is some truth in what you have just said, though your manner of explaining yourself is rather exotic. Your pompous and declamatory cynicism is of the Orient. All you have declared a few moments ago may be summed up in a very few words; human inequality is unchangeable. There are fools and rogues. The first are exploited by the second, under the surveillance of the police and the control of the law. In your theory, you have not granted sufficient importance to police and law. I could not recommend you too strongly to pay more attention to them. They are one of the most important factors in the problem you are spending your life in solving. If you consider them as a neglectable quantity, one of these mornings you will receive a rude awakening.” She smiled disdainfully— “The small fish are caught in the meshes of the net, the large ones break through and escape. I am afraid of no thing or person except myself. I alone am capable of doing myself any harm. That, of course, I never think of doing.” “Not just now. But you have gone through moments of anxiety. I heard that in London two years ago.” A dark cloud came over Sophia’s brow. She suddenly flung her cigarette into the fire, and in changed accents, said— “Yes, I have committed acts of folly, for I was in love. And a woman in love becomes as stupid as a man.”