Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/282

She pointed to a distant corner of the basement. "Morris," she sobbed as she approached him but eyeing his mournful resentment she edged her way back to Lamarque's desk. "What did they do to him?" she asked. Her voice was soft and thoughtful. When Lamarque explained she stopped abruptly. "And what about Gertrude?"

"I'm sorry," he said casually. "Her party was shipped east before we could locate her." Her face assumed a ghastly pallor. Dupont, the mechanic, studied her curiously. She turned away from his stare and noticed Fishman, the tailor, patching up old clothes. His relaxed state loosened her tension and she knelt down before Berger trying to find him again. "Morris," she kept on whispering, "Morris."

Her warm voice seemed to have melted the block of ice that was his mind and sudden tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Anna, Anna!" he moaned, "what have they done to us?"

"Don't worry, Morris," she said softly. "We'll make them pay." She sat down beside him, caressing his hands gently. Her fingers soothed him, like an ointment rubbed into a raw wound.

Outside the barred windows the feet of the disguised guard could be seen pacing nervously the hard pavement, while a young girl in a dim corner, lit by a single bulb, was pounding away at a typewriter, oblivious of Morris' hysteria. Flaxen-haired and palefaced, she seemed to have been poured into her tight sweater and skirt, and the cigarette dangling from her lips seemed to have been stuck into the mouth of marble statue. She appeared to have abolished her femaleness for the duration, and though her naked thigh showed above her stockingless legs, she made no effort to cover it, and banged away on the typewriter like an automaton pulled by hidden strings.

At the table sat Lamarque buried in a pile of notes and