“Yes, at your service.”
The third man did not speak. He was young and had a noble face; during the ceremony he had done nothing but study the crowd. The surgeon was the first to depart, plunging onto the thick of the mob, which had forgotten him, being less grateful than Rousseau, but he intended to remind them some day.
Waiting till he had gone, the other young man addressed the philosopher, saying:
“Are you not going?”
“I am too old to risk myself in that crush.”
“In that case,” said the young man, lowering his voice, “we shall meet to-night in Plastriere Street—Do not fail, Brother Rousseau!”
The author started as though a phantom had risen in face of him. His usually pale tint became livid. He meant to reply to the other but he had vanished.
After these singular words from the stranger, trembling and unhappy, Rousseau meandered among the groups without remembering that he was old and feared the press. Soon he got out upon Notre Dame Bridge, and he crossed in musing and self-questioning, the Grêve Ward next his own.
“So, the secret which every one initiated is sworn to guard at the peril of his life, is in the grip of the first comer. This is the result of the secret societies being made too popular. A man knows me, that I am his associate—perhaps his accomplice! Such a state of things is absurd and intolerable. I wanted to learn the bottom of the plan for human regeneration framed by those chosen spirits called the Illuminati: I was mad enough to believe that good ideas could come from Germany, that land of mental mist and beer. I have entangled myself with some idiots or knaves who used it as cloak to conceal their folly. But no, this shall not be. A lightning flash has shown me the abyss, and I am not going to throw myself into it with lightness of heart.”
Leaning on his cane, he stopped in the street for an instant.