Part 8 (1/2)
And yet there was a change: that subtle change which seeirls suddenly, in the space of a week--of one night And thiswhat the change ht be
He was ht that this subject--this pleasant young subject walking beside hirasped and understood if only one gave one's ift of his mind It was the frown that settled over his eyes when he cut the pages of a deep book and glanced at the point of his pencil
He had read s But there is one subject of which very little can be learnt in books--precisely the subject that walked in a blue cotton dress by Christian Vellacott's side at the edge of thecan aid this study, let hi of that cheery old ignorane And Vellacott was nearer to Gibbon in his learning than to Montaigne in his careless ignorance of those things that are written in books
He glanced at her; he frowned and brought his whole attention to bear upon her, and he could not even find out whether she was pleased to listen to his congratulations, or angry, orposition for a clever man--for a critic who knew hi the drift of uely conscious of defeat He felt that he was nonplussed by a pair of soft round eyes like the eyes of a kitten, and the dignified repose of a pair of deolden hair, were strangely faer he twisted the left side of hisat it with his teeth, distorted his face in an unbeco if reflective manner, which was habitually indicative of the deepest attention
While reflecting, he forgot to be conversational, and Hilda seeth of the ht have accomplished it a third time, had little Stanley Carew not appeared upon the scene with the i Christian to bowl him some really swift overhands
CHAPTER VII
PUPPETS
”Ah! It goes It goes already!”
The speaker--the Citizen Morot--slowly rubbed his white hands one over the other
He was standing at theof a snificant street on the southern side of the Seine He was remarkably calm--quite the calnificant little street was in an uproar There was a barricade at each end of it
Such a barricade as Parisians love It was composed of a few overturned omnibuses; for the true Parisian is a cynic He likes overturned things, and he loves to see objects of peace converted to purposes of war He is not content that ploughshares be beaten into swords He prefers altar-rails And so this little street was blocked at either end by a barricade of overturned omnibuses, of old hampers and e-stones brought froe operations round the corner
In the street between the barricades, surged, hooted, and yelled that wildest and erous of incomprehensibles--a Parisat once, and no one was listening to them Here and there amidst the rabble a voice was raised at times with suspicious persistence
”_Vive le Roi!_” it cried ”Long live the King!”
A few took up the refrain, but the general tone was negative It was not sodown that which was already up
”Doith the Republic!” was the favourite cry ”Doith the President! Doith everything!”
And each man cried down his favourite enemy
The Citizen Morot listened, and his contemptuous mouth isted with a delicate, subtle smile
”Ah!” heof the wolves
Go on, go on, in to believe that younow Let them bark
Soon we shall teach them to bite, and then--then, who knows?”
His voice dropped almost to a whisper, and he stood there a At last he raised his hand to his forehead--a prominent, rounded forehead, flat as the pal at either side, sharply, back to deep-sunken teh; and he drew from an inner pocket a delicately scented pocket-handkerchief, hich he wiped his brow ”If I get excited noill it be when they begin--to bite?”
All this while the orators were shouting their loudest, and the voices dispersed throughout the crowd raised at intervals their short, sharp cry of--
”Long live the King!”
And the police? There were only two agents attached to the iars and drinking absinthe in two separate cellars, with the door locked on the outside They were prisoners of war of the ned type The room in which stood the Citizen Morot was dark, and wisely so For the Parisian street politician can hted petroleum-lamp with an empty bottle or half a brick The as wide open, and the wooden shutters were hooked back