your freedom should be promptly curtailed, Gabrielle. You are an active
citizen, but you are dangerous, truly."

"I like you better when you do not have your way. Yet my children do
not hate you, M. Barre. You speak your thought, and they know what to
expect. Your family have little more freedom in France than my children
have here."

M. Barre looked at her keenly for an instant, then, lighting a cigarette,
he said: "So, Gabrielle, so! That is enough. You wish to speak to
M. Shorland--well!" He waved his hand to her and walked away from them.
Gabrielle paused a moment, looking sharply at Blake Shorland, then she
said: "Monsieur will come with me?"

She led the way into another room, the boudoir, sitting-room, breakfast-
room, library, all in one. She parted the curtains at the window,
letting the light fall upon the face of her companion, while hers
remained in the shadow. He knew the trick, and moved out of the belt of
light. He felt that he was dealing with a woman of singular astuteness,
with one whose wickedness was unconventional and intrepid. To his mind
there came on the instant the memory of a Rocky Mountain lioness that he
had seen caged years before; lithe, watchful, nervously powerful,
superior to its surroundings, yet mastered by those surroundings--the
trick of a lock, not a trick of strength. He thought he saw in Gabrielle
a woman who for a personal motive was trying to learn the trick of the
lock in Noumea, France's farthest prison. For a moment they looked at
each other steadily, then she said: "That portrait--let me see it."

The hand that she held out was unsteady, and it looked strangely white
and cold. He drew the photograph from his pocket and handed it to her.