And she had burked the revolution--betrayed it, I suppose--and the consequences did not ensue, and Halderschrodt and all the rest of them were left high and dry.
The whole thing was a matter of under-currents that never came to the surface, a matter of shifting sands from which only those with the clearest heads could come forth.
"And we ...

we have clear heads," she said.

It was impossible to listen to her without shuddering.

For me, if he stood for anything, Halderschrodt stood for stability; there was the tremendous name, and there was the person I had just seen, the person on whom a habit of mind approaching almost to the royal had conferred a presence that had some of the divinity that hedges a king.

It seemed frightful merely to imagine his ignominious collapse; as frightful as if she had pointed out a splendid-limbed man and said: "That man will be dead in five minutes." That, indeed, was what she said of Halderschrodt....