Moreno pondered a little. In spite of her physical attraction for him, she was a pretty bad character on her own admissions. She had owned her great obligations to Jaques, who, rascal that he was, had been her benefactor. And yet she was ready to sell Jaques and the Cause he held so dear at heart for ready money. Was it possible a woman with this unscrupulous and predatory temperament could ever become a reformed character? And, if so, was he a likely man to bring about the miracle? Passionate love might work wonders, but was she not a little past the age of passionate love? "Let us come to the point," he said abruptly. "I take it you no longer desire what we politely term the `removal' of Guy Rossett." "Certainly not. I don't know that I ever really desired it." Moreno raised his hand. "Don't forget that night at the flat in Mount Street." "I know, I remember perfectly. I gave you a very bad impression of myself. I was angry, humiliated, bitterly jealous of a younger woman who had taken him from me." Moreno thought he understood. "And the Spanish side came uppermost then. You could have run a dagger into the pair of them at the moment, and perhaps after you had done it, sat down and wept because you had killed the man. I don't suppose you would have shed a tear over the woman--she would have deserved her fate." Violet was recovering herself fast. The colour had come back into her cheeks. She looked at him admiringly. "You seem to know something of my delightful sex," she said, with a faint smile. Then, after a pause, she added, "And you want to drive a bargain with me, don't you, in return for not denouncing me?" Moreno assented. "You are quite right. You say you now don't desire the removal of Rossett. To be quite frank, no more do I." She looked at him sharply out of her tear-dimmed eyes, red and swollen with the violent weeping of a few seconds ago. "But why do you wish to spare Guy Rossett? You say you are a true son of the Revolution." "I am," replied Moreno composedly. "I am with certain reservations." He felt he could not trust her too implicitly yet. "When they attack the Heads, the great ones of the earth, I am in the heartiest sympathy with them--that is the way to obtain our ends. But I draw the line at making martyrs of the small fry, the mere instruments, the humble tools of the despotic system. I think it brings justly deserved odium on us. To remove an inoffensive person like Rossett is worse than a crime, it is a blunder. If the great Revolution is coming, how can a feeble person like him stop its impetuous course?" Violet Hargrave listened attentively. When was he going to suggest the terms of the bargain?