The Face and the Mask | Page 4

upon
the scene.
"This scoundrel," said the man, "has just assaulted a woman. I saw
him."
"He has done more than that," said one of the officers, grimly, as if,
after all, the striking of a woman was but a trivial affair.
They secured the young man, and dragged him with them. The girl
came up to them and said, falteringly--
"It is all a mistake, it was an accident. He didn't mean to do it."
"Oh, he didn't, and pray how do you know?" asked one of the officers.
"You little devil," said Jean to the girl, through his clinched teeth, "it's
all your fault."
The officers hurried him off.
"I think," said one, "that we should have arrested the girl; you heard
what she said."

"Yes," said the other, "but we have enough on our hands now, if the
crowd find out who he is."
Lurine thought of following them, but she was so stunned by the words
that her lover had said to her, rather than by the blow he had given her
that she turned her steps sadly towards the Pont Royal and went to her
room.
The next morning she did not go through the gardens, as usual, to her
work, and when she entered the Pharmacie de Siam, the proprietor
cried out, "Here she is, the vixen! Who would have thought it of her?
You wretch, you stole my drugs to give to that villain!"
"I did not," said Lurine, stoutly. "I put the money in the till for them."
"Hear her! She confesses!" said the proprietor.
The two concealed officers stepped forward and arrested her where she
stood as the accomplice of Jean Duret, who, the night before, had flung
a bomb in the crowded Avenue de l'Opéra.
Even the prejudiced French judges soon saw that the girl was innocent
of all evil intent, and was but the victim of the scoundrel who passed by
the name of Jean Duret. He was sentenced for life; she was set free. He
had tried to place the blame on her, like the craven he was, to shield
another woman. This was what cut Lurine to the heart. She might have
tried to find an excuse for his crime, but she realized that he had never
cared for her, and had but used her as his tool to get possession of the
chemicals he dared not buy.
In the drizzling rain she walked away from her prison, penniless, and
broken in body and in spirit. She passed the little Pharmacie de Siam,
not daring to enter. She walked in the rain along the Rue des Pyramides,
and across the Rue de Rivoli, and into the Tuileries Gardens. She had
forgotten about her stone woman, but, unconsciously her steps were
directed to her. She looked up at her statue with amazement, at first not
recognizing it. It was no longer the statue of a smiling woman. The
head was thrown back, the eyes closed. The last mortal agony was on

the face. It was a ghastly monument to Death. The girl was so
perplexed by the change in her statue that for the moment she forgot the
ruin of her own life. She saw that the smiling face was but a mask, held
in place by the curving of the left arm over it. Life, she realized now,
was made up of tragedy and comedy, and he who sees but the smiling
face, sees but the half of life. The girl hurried on to the bridge, sobbing
quietly to herself, and looked down at the grey river water. The
passers-by paid no attention to her. Why, she wondered, had she ever
thought the river cold and cruel and merciless? It is the only home of
the homeless, the only lover that does not change. She turned back to
the top of the flight of steps which lead down, to the water's brink. She
looked toward the Tuileries Gardens, But she could not see her statue
for the trees which intervened. "I, too, will be a woman of stone," she
said, as she swiftly descended the steps.

THE CHEMISTRY OF ANARCHY.
It has been said in the London papers that the dissolution of the Soho
Anarchist League was caused by want of funds. This is very far from
being the case. An Anarchist League has no need for funds and so long
as there is money enough to buy beer the League is sure of continued
existence. The truth about the scattering of the Soho organization was
told me by a young newspaper-man who was chairman at the last
meeting.
The young man was not an anarchist, though he had to pretend to be
one in the interests of his paper, and so joined the Soho League, where
he