Part 20 (1/2)

I said, abruptly: ”So you are not going to denounce me to the Prussian provost?”

He lifted his well-shaped head and gazed at the Countess with an admirable pathos which seemed a mute appeal for protection from brutality.

”That question is a needless one,” said the Countess, quietly. ”It was a cruel one, also, Monsieur Scarlett.”

”I did not mean it as an offensive question,” said I. ”I was merely reciting a fact, most creditable to Mr. Buckhurst. Mon Dieu, madame, I am an officer of Imperial Police, and I have lived to hear blunt questions and blunter answers. And if it be true that Monsieur Buckhurst desires to atone for--for what has happened, then it is perfectly proper for me, even as a prisoner myself, to speak plainly.”

I meant this time to thoroughly convince Buckhurst of my ability to gabble plat.i.tude. My desire that he should view me as a typical gendarme was intense.

So I coughed solemnly behind my hand, knit my eyebrows, and laid one finger alongside of my nose.

”Is it not my duty, as a guardian of national interests, to point out to Mr. Buckhurst his honest errors? Certainly it is, madame, and this is the proper time.”

Turning pompously to Buckhurst, I fancied I could almost detect a sneer on that inexpressive mask he wore--at least I hoped I could, and I said, heavily:

”Monsieur, for a number of years there has pa.s.sed under our eyes here in France certain strange phenomena. Thousands of Frenchmen have, so to speak, separated themselves from the rest of the nation.

”All the sentiments that the nation honors itself by professing these other Frenchmen rebuke--the love of country, public spirit, accord between citizens, social repose, and respect for communal law and order--these other Frenchmen regard as the hallucinations of a nation of dupes.

”Separated by such unfortunate ideas from the nation within whose boundaries they live, they continue to abuse, even to threaten, the society and the country which gives them shelter.

”France is only a name to them; they were born there, they live there, they derive their nourishment from her without grat.i.tude.

But France is nothing to them; _their mother-land is the Internationale_!”

I was certain now that the shadow of a sneer had settled in the corners of Buckhurst's thin lips.

”I do not speak of anarchists or of terrorists,” I continued, nodding as though profoundly impressed by my own sagacity. ”I speak of socialists--that dangerous society to which the cry of Karl Marx was addressed with the warning, 'Socialists! Unite!'

”The government has reason to fear socialism, not anarchy, for it will never happen in France, where the pa.s.sion for individual property is so general, that a doctrine of brutal destruction could have the slightest chance of success.

”But wait, here is the point, Monsieur Buckhurst. Formerly the name of 'terrorist' was a shock to the entire civilized world; it evoked the spectres of a year that the world can never forget. And so our modern reformers, modestly desiring to evade the inconveniences of such memories among the people, call themselves the 'Internationale.'

Listen to them; they are adroit, they blame and rebuke violence, they condemn anarchy, they would not lay their hands on public or individual property--no, indeed!

”Ah, madame, but you should hear them in their own clubs, where the ladies and gentlemen of the gutters, the barriers, and the abattoirs discuss 'individual property,' 'the tyranny of capital,' and similar subjects which no doubt they are peculiarly fitted to discuss.

”Believe me, madame, the little coterie which you represent is already the dupe and victim of this terrible Internationale. Their leaders work their will through you; a vast conspiracy against all social peace is spread through your honest works of mercy. The time is coming when the whole world will rise to combat this Internationale; and when the mask is dragged from its benignant visage, there, grinning behind, will appear the same old 'Spectre Rouge,' torch in one hand, gun in the other, squatting behind a barricade of paving-blocks.”

I wagged my head dolefully.

”I could not have rested had I not warned Mr. Buckhurst of this,” I said, sentimentally.

Which was fairly well done, considering that I was figuratively lamenting over the innocence of the most accomplished scoundrel that ever sat in the supreme council of the Internationale.

Buckhurst looked thoughtfully at the floor.

”If I thought,” he murmured--”if I believed for one instant--”