“The headquarters of the brotherhood,” said St Denys, with a laugh; and he pushed open a creaking door and drew his visitor within.
“Holà, Basile!” came in a triple note of greeting.
Ned found himself—wondering somewhat—in a bare, small room, furnished only with a table and plain benches of chestnutwood. At this table were seated the exiguous sizar of the “Landlust,” and a couple of rather truculent-looking gentry—farmers of small holdings, by reasonable surmise. An oil-lamp burned against the wall, and its light swayed wooingly on the face of the fourth member of the company—Théroigne Lambertine, whom the young man had foreguessed to be the goddess. She sat, raised a little above the others, at the head of the board, a smile on her lips, her eyes awake with daring. Her hair was loosely caught under a scarlet handkerchief; about her bosom a white fichu was only too slackly knotted. Ned had never seen a living creature so richly secure in the defensive and aggressive qualities of beauty. She looked at him with a little defiance of recognition.
“Mes amis,” said St Denys, “I have the pleasure to introduce to you a visitor whom you will know as Edouard. He is all, I may tell you, for reforming society.”
“That is a discipline thou shalt not wield here, Edouard,” cried one of the loobies, with an insolent laugh.
Ned faced the speaker gravely.
“Not even for the whipping of a jackass?” said he.
There answered a cackle of derision. St Denys caught his friend by the arm.
“It is unfair, it is unfair!” he cried merrily. “I have brought him hither without a word of explanation.”
Then he took his captive by the lapels of his coat.