And the man on Bibi’s left asked: “Who is this woman, citizen lieutenant?”
Then only did Bibi appear to find his voice, and it came through his lips just as if someone held him by the throat and were trying to choke him before he had time to speak.
“My daughter,” was all he said.
As a matter of fact Fleurette did not understand. That something terrible had occurred, she could see well enough, but for the moment the fact that she was in any way involved had not reached her inner consciousness. She did not realize that when Lieutenant Godet spoke of having arrested a woman, he was referring to her. Thinking that she was probably in the way amongst these serious and busy men, she asked timidly:
“Shall I go, father?” whereat the man on the left gave a short, dry laugh.
“Not just yet, citizeness,” he said, “we shall have to ask you one or two questions before we let you go.”
“Citizen Pochart,” Bibi now rejoined somewhat more steadily, “there is obviously some grave error here on the part of the citizen lieutenant and—”
“Grave error,” Pochart broke in with a sneer. “We have heard nothing in the way of witnesses or details of the accusation so far, so why should you think there is an error, Citizen Chauvelin?”
Fleurette could see the struggle on Bibi’s face; she could see the great drops of moisture on his forehead, the swollen veins upon his temples; she saw his hands clenched one against the other, and how he passed his tongue once or twice over his lips.
“The citizen lieutenant,” he said with a marvellous assumption of calm, “has shown too much zeal. My daughter is as good a patriot as I am myself—”
“How do you know that, Citizen Chauvelin?” the other man asked, the one on the left of Bibi.
“Because she has led a modest and a sheltered life, Citizen Danou,” Bibi replied firmly. “Knowing nothing of town life, nothing of intrigues or plots against the State.”
“It is impossible,” Pochart put in sententiously, “for any man to know what goes on in a woman’s head. The soundest patriot may have a traitor for a wife—or else a daughter.”
Bibi was obviously making a superhuman effort to control himself. No one knew better than Fleurette how violent could be his temper when he was thwarted, and here were those two men, not to mention Lieutenant Godet, taunting and contradicting him, and she could see the veins swelling upon his temples and his hands clenched until the knuckles shone like polished ivory under the skin.
“My daughter is not a traitor, Citizen Pochart,” he said loudly and firmly.
“Lieutenant Godet says she is,” Pochart retorted dryly.
“I challenge him to prove it.”
“You forget, Citizen Chauvelin,” Danou put in suavely, “that it is not for the citizen lieutenant to prove this woman guilty; rather it is for her to prove her innocence.”
“The Law of the Suspect,” Pochart added, “has been framed expressly to meet such cases as these.”
The Law of the Suspect! Ye gods! He himself, Chauvelin, had in the National Assembly voted for its adoption.
“Are we not ordered instantly to arrest all persons who by their actions, their speaking, their writing or their connections have become suspect?” This from Danou who spoke slowly, unctuously, without a trace of spite or anger in his voice. And Pochart, more rough of tone, but equally conciliatory added:
“The Law tells us that if suspect of nothing else, a man, or a woman, or even a child, may be ‘suspect of being suspect.’ Is that not so, Citizen Chauvelin? Methinks you yourself had something to do with the framing of that law.”
“It was aimed at traitors—”
“No! No! at the suspect—”
“My daughter—”
“Ah ça, Citizen Chauvelin,” here interposed Pochart with an expressive oath, “are you by any chance on the side of traitors? What has the State to do with the fact that this woman is your daughter? A patriot has no relatives these days. He is a son of the State, a child of France, what? Her enemies are his enemies, his hatred of traitors should override every other sentiment.”
“A patriot has no sentiment,” Danou echoed suavely.
Chauvelin now looked like an animal at bay. Caught in a net turning round and round, wildly, impotently; seeking an egress and only succeeding in getting more and more firmly enmeshed. But he kept himself under control nevertheless. He felt the eyes of those three men probing his soul. Exulting over his misery. Hatred all around him. Cruelty. Godet openly hostile, vengeful, with a grievance for his own humiliation; ready to hit back, to demand humiliation for humiliation, and terror for terror. Revenge! My God! who but a fiend could dream of such revenge? And the other two: that fool Danou and that brute Pochart! No actual hostility about them. Only envy: a mad desire to save their own skins, to purchase notoriety, advancement at any price—even at the price of innocent blood.
And as a wild beast twirling and turning in the trap will pause from time to time and glare out into the open, which means all that its life has stood for until now, so did Chauvelin, with soul enmeshed in vengeance and envy, pause a moment in his mad struggle for freedom. He paused and with wildly dilated eyes gazed upon a swift, accusing vision of all the innocent blood he himself had helped to shed. Those clenched hands of his, on which his gaze for one instant rested, fascinated, how many times had they signed the decree which had deprived a father of his son, a wife of her husband, a lover of his mistress. And through the meshes that tightened round him now, Chauvelin gazing into space saw before his eyes the awful word “Retribution” written in letters of fire and blood.
And seeing the writing on the wall, he felt an immense rage against these men who dared to taunt him, who dared
