“Yes, women love their oppressors; but it is a love that in its hour of retaliation will ask a return in kindness for every blow given. What shall be the fate of the man, then, when he kisses each bruise?”
Ned dwelt on the patient face in some astonishment.
“Philosopher,” he said, “wilt thou take service with me?”
“Monsieur takes my breath away. It is too wonderful to be true.”
“The truth, I think, Laurent, is always wonderful. Come—hurry thou! I, at least, will profit by this lesson to go and tell it.”
“And to kiss the bruises, monsieur?”
Ned did not answer, but turned once more and entered the gardens, the Cagot following at his heels.
A clamour of voices that had come distantly wafted to them as they passed through the gate took volume with every step they advanced. Suddenly, breaking from a little park of trees into one of the long, snow-covered walks that enfiladed the gardens east and west, the cause of the tumult was revealed to them in the vision of a dozen or so infuriate tricoteuses, priestesses of St Antoine, who were hurrying in their direction, driving a single woman, like a scapegoat, in their front.
At first Ned, distinguishing nothing definitely, saw only exemplified in this throng of vicious wives, with its rabble of inhuman brats hooting and pervading it, one of those exacerbated paroxysms of the mania of Fraternity that were of such frequent occurrence nowadays as to confound the very heart of autonomy. But, as the horde came into focus, and he paused to gather the import of its vehemence—all in a moment the truth leapt upon him, and he uttered a cry and sprang into the road.
For he had recognised, in the subject of all this raging ferment, no less a person than the erst-Amazon, Théroigne herself.