If she attempted to leave the house before sunrise, on no matter what pretext, his suspicions would be aroused, for she had told him that she had been given a week for rest.  For the same reason she dared not awaken him and ask him to go.  He would refuse, for it was no time to slip out of a woman’s apartment; far better wait until ten o’clock, when there were always visitors of both sexes in her office.  Moreover, he would no more wish to go than he would permit her to leave him.

She was utterly in his power if he awakened and chose to exert it.  He had mastered her, conquered her, routed her career and her peace, and she had gloried in her submission; gloried in it still.  A commonplace woman would have been satisfied, satiated, felt free for the moment, turned with relief to the dry convention of the daily adventure, rather resenting, if she had a pretty will, the supreme surrender to the race in an unguarded hour.

Gisela was cast in the heroic mold.  She came down from the old race of goddesses of her own Nibelungenlied, whose passions might consume them but had nothing in common with the ebb and flow of mortals.  But great brains are fed by stormy souls, and in the souls of women there is an element of weakness, unknown, save in a few notable instances, to great men in the crises of their destiny; for women are the slaves of the race, and nature when permitting them the abnormality of genius takes her revenge.

If he awakened....  There was little time for thought.  She must plan quickly.  If she left the house at once he might awaken immediately and after searching the apartment, follow her; there was the dire possibility that he would learn too much before the terrific drama of the revolution opened, and manage to thwart their plans.  He was a man of quick brain and ruthless will; no consideration for her would stop him, although he would save her from the consequences of her act, no doubt of that.  Save her for himself.

Mimi Brandt, and Heloise and Marie von Erkel were asleep in rooms at the end of the hall....  She had a mad idea of binding him hand and foot and locking him in her bedroom....  Either he would hate her for the humiliation he—­Franz von Nettelbeck, glorious on the field of honor, a bound prisoner in a woman’s bedroom while his class was blown to atoms, and his caste was roaring its impotent fury to a napping Gott!...  Oh, an insufferable affront to a man of his order who held even the dearest woman as the favored pensioner on his bounty ... or she would be consumed with remorse, melt ... it was positive that she must visit him—­not leave him to starve ... nor could she keep him bound ... and once more she would be his slave ... could she hold out even for a day?

The first blow of a revolution is, after all, only its first.  There is always the danger of a swift reaction.

Unremitting vigilance, work, encouragement are the part of its leaders for months, possibly years, to come.  All revolutions are dependent for ultimate success upon one preeminent figure.