But, more than anything, his voice and manner made me feel that we had passed out of a realm of farcical allegory.

I knew enough to see that she might be speaking the truth.

And, if she were, her calm avowal of such treachery proved that she _was_ what she had said the Dimensionists were; cold, with no scruples, clear-sighted and admirably courageous, and indubitably enemies of society.
"I don't understand," I said.

"But de Mersch then ?" She made a little gesture; one of those movements that I best remember of her; the smallest, the least noticeable.

It reduced de Mersch to nothing; he no longer even counted.
"Oh, as for him," she said, "he is only a detail." I had still the idea that she spoke with a pitying intonation--as if she were speaking to a dog in pain.