suit his newly-found friend. It was clear that de Batz did not
consider the topic of conversation by any means exhausted, and
that it had been more with a view to a discussion like the present
interrupted one that he had invited St. Just to come to the
theatre with him to-night, rather than for the purpose of
witnessing Mile. Lange's debut in the part of Celimene.

The presence of St. Just in Paris had as a matter of fact
astonished de Batz not a little, and had set his intriguing brain
busy on conjectures. It was in order to turn these conjectures
into certainties that he had desired private talk with the young
man.

He waited silently now for a moment or two, his keen, small eyes
resting with evident anxiety on Armand's averted head, his fingers
still beating the impatient tattoo upon the velvet-covered cushion
of the box. Then at the first movement of St. Just towards him he
was ready in an instant to re-open the subject under discussion.

With a quick nod of his head he called his young friend's
attention back to the men in the auditorium.

"Your good cousin Antoine St. Just is hand and glove with
Robespierre now," he said. "When you left Paris more than a year
ago you could afford to despise him as an empty-headed windbag;
now, if you desire to remain in France, you will have to fear him
as a power and a menace."

"Yes, I knew that he had taken to herding with the wolves,"
rejoined Armand lightly. "At one time he was in love with my