"I should think that you would hate it. I should were I you," and La Liberté shook her brown curls with a laugh.
"Notwithstanding," said St. Hilaire, "I would not go back to the old régime."
"I do not understand you at all," exclaimed La Liberté in despair, with a puzzled look on her brow.
"Why try?" he asked dryly. "I have given it up myself. Tell me in what way I can serve you?"
"I have come here to do you a service," she answered. The room was warm, and as she spoke she threw her ermine-lined cloak over the back of the chair.
A slight trace of surprise showed itself upon Citizen St. Hilaire's face as he looked at her inquiringly.
She had evidently found the chair too large to sit in comfortably, for she perched herself upon its arm with one foot on the floor while she swung the other easily.
"That is extraordinary!'" he exclaimed. "It is a long time since any one has gone out of his way to do me a service. May I ask why you have done so?"
"Oh, I can hardly tell you why," she replied, tapping her boot heel against the side of the chair. It was a very dainty foot and clad in the finest chaussure to be found in Paris. "You were once kind to a friend of mine," she went on to say, slowly—"and I rather liked you—and so I have come to show you this." She put a slip of paper into his hand.
It was headed, "List for the fifteenth Pluviose." Then followed a score of names. St. Hilaire saw his own among them near the end.