And she drew out a fold of the loose sleeve, and showed the rent made by the steel in it and the wet red patches fast drying into brownish stains. And he who saw could only choke out, as his brows scowled and his yellow-flecked eyes burned tigerishly:
"The brutes!... The cowardly beggars! Oh, if I had only been there!"
"Of what use?" she said. "They would only have killed you!"
"An Englishman," he blustered: "I'd like to have had them try! Why, we're neutral. No Germans would dare——"
She said, bending her great black brows upon him, and sternly drawing down her upper lip:
"Monsieur, they would have killed you, as they killed my father. They have no pity, these men with panther hearts. How should they, when he has none—that soldier-Minister whom Germany worships to idolatry. Contradict me—say that I am wrong—to convince me would be impossible. For I read the soul of Count Bismarck when I looked him in the face."
For the owner of the domineering voice that had roused her from her stupor of misery was for Juliette de Bayard a very Moloch, ravenous for flesh of men, insatiable in thirst for blood. And comprehending this, P. C. Breagh put forth no plea for a more tolerant judgment of his erstwhile hero, beyond lamely saying:
"He's a great man—a terribly great man, however you look at him. And he—do you know, he saved my life once!"
She said, with her deeply cut nostrils swelling and quivering:
"Our Lord will say to him upon the Day of Judgment, 'You saved this one. How many others have you given to death?'"