"Of course, of course, Bertrand," she said a little impatiently, though obviously trying to be kind. "But I do entreat you not to go into heroics at this hour, and not to put on tragic airs. You must see that for yourself as well as for me it would be fatal if you were found here, and——"
"And I am going, Theresia," he broke in seriously. "I ought never to have come. I was a fool, as usual!" he added with bitterness. "But after that awful fracas I was dazed and hardly knew what I was doing."
The frown of vexation reappeared upon the woman's fair, smooth brow.
"The fracas?" she asked quickly. "What fracas?"
"In the Rue St. Honoré. I thought you knew."
"No. I know nothing," she retorted, and her voice now was trenchant and hard. "What happened?"
"They were deifying that brute Robespierre——"
"Silence!" she broke in harshly. "Name no names."
"They were deifying a bloodthirsty tyrant, and I——"
"And you rose from your seat," she broke in again, and this time with a laugh that was cruel in its biting irony; "and lashed yourself into a fury of eloquent vituperation. Oh, I know! I know!" she went on excitedly. "You and your Fatalists, or whatever you call yourselves! And that rage for martyrdom! . . . Senseless, stupid and selfish! Oh, my God! how selfish! And then you came here to drag me down with you into an abyss of misery, along with you to the guillotine . . . to . . ."