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stand each other. Does this surprise you? I sup- pose you think that such people would be foaming at the mouth and snarling at each other?" I protested hastily that I was not surprised in the least; that I thought nothing of the kind; that anarchists in general were simply inconceivable to me mentally, morally, logically, sentimentally, and even physically. X received this declaration with his usual woodenness and went on. "Horne had burst out into eloquence. While pour- ing out scornful invective, he let tears escape from his eyes and roll down his black beard unheeded. Sevrin panted quicker and quicker. When he opened his mouth to speak, everyone hung on his words. "'Don't be a fool, Horne,' he began. 'You know very well that I have done this for none of the reasons you are throwing at me.' And in a moment he became outwardly as steady as a rock under the other's lurid stare. 'I have been thwarting, deceiving, and betraying you -- from conviction.' "He turned his back on Horne, and addressing the girl, repeated the words: 'From conviction.' "It's extraordinary how cold she looked. I suppose she could not think of any appropriate gesture. There can have been few precedents indeed for such a situ- ation. "'Clear as daylight,' he added. 'Do you understand what that means? From conviction.' "And still she did not stir. She did not know what to do. But the luckless wretch was about to give her the opportunity for a beautiful and correct gesture. "'I have felt in me the power to make you share this conviction,' he protested, ardently. He had for- gotten himself; he made a step towards her -- perhaps he stumbled. To me he seemed to be stooping low as

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if to touch the hem of her garment. And then the appropriate gesture came. She snatched her skirt away from his polluting contact and averted her head with an upward tilt. It was magnificently done, this gesture of conventionally unstained honour, of an un- blemished high-minded amateur. "Nothing could have been better. And he seemed to think so, too, for once more he turned away. But this time he faced no one. He was again panting fright- fully, while he fumbled hurriedly in his waistcoat pocket, and then raised his hand to his lips. There was something furtive in this movement, but directly after- wards his bearing changed. His laboured breathing gave him a resemblance to a man who had just run a desperate race; but a curious air of detachment, of sud- den and profound indifference, replaced the strain of the striving effort. The race was over. I did not want to see what would happen next. I was only too well aware. I tucked the young lady's arm under mine without a word, and made my way with her to the stairs. "Her brother walked behind us. Half-way up the short flight she seemed unable to lift her feet high enough for the steps, and we had to pull and push to get her to the top. In the passage she dragged herself along, hanging on my arm, helplessly bent like an old woman. We issued into an empty street through a half-open door, staggering like besotted revellers. At the corner we stopped a four-wheeler, and the ancient driver looked round from his box with morose scorn at our efforts to get her in. Twice during the drive I felt her collapse on my shoulder in a half faint. Facing us, the youth in knickerbockers remained as mute as a fish, and, till he jumped out with the latch-key, sat more still than I would have believed it possible.

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"At the door of their drawing-room she left my arm and walked in first, catching at the chairs and tables. She unpinned her hat, then, exhausted with the effort, her cloak still hanging from her shoulders, flung her- self into a deep armchair, sideways, her face half buried in a cushion. The good brother appeared silently before her with a glass of water. She motioned it away. He drank it himself and walked off to a dis- tant corner -- behind the grand piano, somewhere. All was still in this room where I had seen, for the first time, Sevrin, the anti-anarchist, captivated and spell- bound by the consummate and hereditary grimaces that in a certain sphere of life take the place of feelings with an excellent effect. I suppose her thoughts were busy with the same memory. Her shoulders shook violently. A pure attack of nerves. When it quieted down she affected firmness, 'What is done to a man of that sort? What will they do to him?' "'Nothing. They can do nothing to him,' I assured her, with perfect truth. I was pretty certain he had died in less than twenty minutes from the moment his hand had gone to his lips. For if his fanatical anti- anarchism went even as far as carrying poison in his pocket, only to rob his adversaries of legitimate ven- geance, I knew he would take care to provide something that would not fail him when required. "She drew an angry breath. There were red spots on her cheeks and a feverish brilliance in her eyes. "'Has ever any one been exposed to such a terrible experience? To think that he had held my hand! That man!' Her face twitched, she gulped down a pathetic sob. 'If I ever felt sure of anything, it was of Sevrin's high-minded motives.' "Then she began to weep quietly, which was good for her. Then through her flood of tears, half resentful,

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'What was it he said to me? -- "From conviction!" It seemed a vile mockery. What could he mean by it?' "'That, my dear young lady,' I said, gently, 'is more than I or anybody else can ever explain to you.'" Mr. X flicked a crumb off the front of his coat. "And that was strictly true as to her. Though Horne, for instance, understood very well; and so did I, especially after we had been to Sevrin's lodging in a dismal back street of an intensely respectable quarter. Horne was known there as a friend, and we had no difficulty in being admitted, the slatternly maid merely remarking, as she let us in, that 'Mr Sevrin had not been home that night.' We forced open a couple of drawers in the way of duty, and found a little useful information. The most interesting part was his diary; for this man, engaged in such deadly work, had the weakness to keep a record of the most damnatory kind. There were his acts and also his thoughts laid bare to us. But the dead don't mind that. They don't mind anything. "'From conviction.' Yes. A vague but ardent humanitarianism had urged him in his first youth into the bitterest extremity of negation and revolt. After- wards his optimism flinched. He doubted and became lost. You have heard of converted atheists. These turn often into dangerous fanatics, but the soul remains the same. After he had got acquainted with the girl, there are to be met in that diary of his very queer politico-amorous rhapsodies. He took her sovereign grimaces with deadly seriousness. He longed to con- vert her. But all this cannot interest you. For the rest, I don't know if you remember -- it is a good many years ago now -- the journalistic sensation of the 'Hermi- one Street Mystery'; the finding of a man's body in the cellar of an empty house; the inquest; some arrests;

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many surmises -- then silence -- the usual end for many obscure martyrs and confessors. The fact is, he was not enough of an optimist. You must be a savage, tyrannical, pitiless, thick-and-thin optimist, like Horne, for instance, to make a good social rebel of the extreme type. He rose from the table. A waiter hurried up with his overcoat; another held his hat in readiness. "But what became of the young lady?" I asked. "Do you really want to know?" he said, buttoning himself in his fur coat carefully. "I confess to the small malice of sending her Sevrin's diary. She went into retirement; then she went to Florence; then she went into retreat in a convent. I can't tell where she will go next. What does it matter? Gestures! Gestures! Mere gestures of her class." He fitted on his glossy high hat with extreme pre- cision, and casting a rapid glance round the room, full of well-dressed people, innocently dining, muttered between his teeth: "And nothing else! That is why their kind is fated to perish." I never met Mr. X again after that evening. I took to dining at my club. On my next visit to Paris I found my friend all impatience to hear of the effect produced on me by this rare item of his collection. I told him all the story, and he beamed on me with the pride of his distinguished specimen. "Isn't X well worth knowing?" he bubbled over in great delight. "He's unique, amazing, absolutely terrific." His enthusiasm grated upon my finer feelings. I told him curtly that the man's cynicism was simply abominable. "Oh, abominable! abominable!" assented my friend,

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effusively. "And then, you know, he likes to have his