to. But, Monsieur l'Abbe, I have never once attended the Committee
meetings. So how could I intervene, having assuredly no influence
whatever?"

Again had the figures of Eve and Gerard arisen before her, for it was at
this asylum that the pair had first met. And influenced by her sorrowful
maternal love she was already weakening, although it was regretfully that
she had lent her name to one of those noisy charitable enterprises, which
people abused to further their selfish interests in a manner she
condemned.

"But, madame," Pierre insisted, "it is a question of a poor starving old
man. I implore you to be compassionate."

Although the priest had spoken in a low voice the General drew near.
"It's for your old revolutionary that you are running about, is it not,"
said he. "Didn't you succeed with the manager, then? The fact is that
it's difficult to feel any pity for fellows who, if they were the
masters, would, as they themselves say, sweep us all away."

M. de Larombiere jerked his chin approvingly. For some time past he had
been haunted by the Anarchist peril. But Pierre, distressed and
quivering, again began to plead his cause. He spoke of all the frightful
misery, the homes where there was no food, the women and children
shivering with cold, and the fathers scouring muddy, wintry Paris in
search of a bit of bread. All that he asked for was a line on a visiting
card, a kindly word from the Countess, which he would at once carry to
Baroness Duvillard to prevail on her to set the regulations aside. And
his words fell one by one, tremulous with stifled tears, in that mournful
/salon/, like sounds from afar, dying away in a dead world where there