“Dear little boy, I treated you roughly.  Forgive me!  There was a real descent by the police—­it was no deception.  That’s why I asked you to play the Star-Spangled Banner—­”

“Excuse me, Yetta; but why did you do that?  Why didn’t you meet the police defiantly chanting the Marseillaise?  That would have been braver—­more like the true anarchist.”  She held down her head.

“Because—­because—­those poor folks—­I wanted to spare them as much trouble with the police as possible,” she said in her lowest tones.

“And why,” he pursued triumphantly, “why did you preach bombs after assuring me that reform must come through the spiritual propaganda?” She quickly replied:—­

“Because our most dangerous foe was in the audience.  You know.  The man with the beard who first spoke.  He has often denounced me as lukewarm; and then you know words are not as potent as deeds with the proletarians.  One assassination is of more value than all the philosophy of Tolstoy.  And that old wind-bag sat near us and watched us—­watched me.  That’s why I let myself go—­” she was blushing now, and old Koschinsky nearly dropped a bird-cage in his astonishment.

“Yetta, Yetta!” Arthur insisted, “wind-bag, you call your comrade?  Were you not, just for a few minutes, in the same category?  Again she was silent.

“I feel now,” he ejaculated, as he came very close to her, “that we must get outside of these verbal entanglements.  I want you to become my wife.”  His heart sank as he thought of his mother’s impassive, high-bred air—­with such a figure for a Fifth Avenue bride!  The girl looked into his weak blue eyes with their area of saucer-like whiteness.  She shook her stubborn head.

“I shall never marry.  I do not believe in such an institution.  It degrades women, makes tyrants of men.  No, Arthur—­I am fond of you, perhaps—­” she paused,—­“so fond that I might enter into any relation but marriage,—­that never!”

“And I tell you, Yetta, anarchy or no anarchy, I could never respect the woman if she were not mine legally.  In America we do these things differently—­” he was not allowed to finish.

She glared at him, then she strode to the shop door and opened it.

“Farewell to you, Mr. Arthur Schopenhauer Wyartz, amateur anarchist.  Better go back to your mother and sisters! Mein Gott, Schopenhauer, too!” He put his Alpine hat on his bewildered head and without a word went out.  She did not look after him, but walked over to the old bird-fancier and sat on his leather-topped stool.  Presently she rested her elbows on her knees and propped her chin with her gloveless hands.  Her eyes were red.  Koschinsky peeped at her and shook his head.

“Yetta—­you know what I think!—­Yetta, the boy was right!  You shouldn’t have asked him for the Star-Spangled Banner!  The Marseillaise would have been better.”

“I don’t care,” she viciously retorted.