"I do not think," she said, her voice very low, "that the time has yet come for making plans."
Dumaresq threw back his head with a movement that seemed to indicate either impatience or surprise.
"You are living on the edge of a volcano," he told her, with grim force; "and at any moment you may be overwhelmed. Have you never faced that yet? Haven't you yet begun to realise that Maritas is a hotbed of scoundrels—the very scum and rabble of creation—blackguards whom their own countries have, for the most part, refused to tolerate—some of them half-breeds, all of them savages? Haven't you yet begun to ask yourself what you may expect from these devils when they take the law into their own hands? I tell you, mademoiselle, it may happen this very night. It may be happening now!"
She raised her eyes at that—dark eyes that gleamed momentarily and were as swiftly lowered. When she spoke, her low voice held a thrill of scorn.
"Not now, monsieur," she said. "To-night—possibly! But not now—not without you to lead them!"
Pierre Dumaresq made a slight movement. It could not have been called a menace, though it was in a fashion suggestive of violence suppressed—the violence of the baited bull not fully roused to the charge.
"You are not wise, Mademoiselle Stephanie," he said.
She answered him in a voice that quivered, in spite of her obvious effort to control it.
"Nor am I altogether a fool, monsieur. Your sympathies are well known. The revolutionists have looked to you to lead them as long as I have known Maritas."
"That may be, mademoiselle," he sternly responded. "But it is possible, is it not, that they may look in vain?"