Enjolras stepped away from the door, allowing barely enough room for someone else to enter behind him. He watched Grantaire silently for another full minute. Not once during that time did Grantaire look up from his opponent and the table. No one in the smoky room seemed to notice Enjolras' presence.

"Grantaire," he muttered softly to himself in disgust, not expecting the sound to carry across the crowd.

Yet Grantaire heard and looked up at him. Neither young man smiled. Almost casually, as if this were part of some plan, Grantaire laid his large hand over the dominoes scattered across the table and beckoned to Enjolras. He said something to his opponent in a voice so low that Enjolras could not catch his words.

Half-irritated, Enjolras shook his head and turned back to the door. As he left, he overheard Grantaire raise his voice to address the entire room, "This has been great fun, but I've come tonight with something a bit more serious to do than play dominoes with you, splendid fellows though you are."

"If I had not come," Enjolras allowed himself to think once back on his course to see the Cougourde, "Grantaire would have failed me."

By the time he was cautiously picking his way over the rocks in the entrance to the quarry, he'd reasoned that Grantaire had probably botched it anyway. He put the subject aside to have all his wits for the meeting ahead, but still found himself resentful that Grantaire had robbed him of his previous good spirits.

The meeting with the men from Aix was only marginally successful. The Cougourde were sufficiently like-minded to fully understand Enjolras' agenda, but with their own leadership in Aix, not a few of them resented the manner in which he attempted to direct them. Most of the Cougourde were working men, with whom he usually shared an excellent camaraderie, yet resentment against his wealthier background erupted. His usual declarations against his own family did not quell the disturbance, and he eventually felt it necessary to leave without full confirmation of their support.

However, as he left, he'd been invited to attend a full convocation of the Cougourde to plead his case before their leaders. He noted the date, only a few days from now, and promised himself that he would allow no distractions to prevent him from attending.

That evening he sat in his usual chair at the Café Musain and took reports from his men. He'd slept badly after leaving the Cougourde, and was more tired than usual. He took pains not to show his fatigue, yet occasionally a voice, most often Joly's sibilant tenor, would melt into nonsense, and he'd have to ask the speaker to repeat himself.

"Is there something wrong?" Combeferre asked.

"Are you feeling well?" Joly added.

Enjolras shook his head automatically, then waved Joly back as the young medical student raised a hand to feel his forehead. "I've been thinking," he said and stood. Joly and Combeferre stepped back from him to give him room.

An amused murmur splashed across the room. "Of course he has," Courfeyrac said from his table in the opposite corner. He looked up from his dinner across to Enjolras. "We'd be worried if you didn't."

From his standing vantage, Enjolras looked around the room. As he'd been listening to the reports, he'd lost track of who'd entered the back room. No unfamiliar faces. Good. But the others knew better than to allow a stranger into their meetings. Enforcing secrecy had never been his responsibility.

No Marius. He'd expected that. As he'd said last night, Marius had not attended a meeting for some time. But no Grantaire either. "Has anyone seen Grantaire?" he asked.

Again, a murmur spread around the room, this time of astonishment. Courfeyrac answered, "He's probably sleeping off a mid-afternoon drunk." This prompted open laughter from the others.

Enjolras thrust out his hand for silence. The laughter halted abruptly. "I was expecting his report on the artisans at the Barrière du Maine."

"Enjolras," said Combeferre, "Surely, you didn't expect him to do as he said."

"Of course, I did," he said coldly. "I don't send men off on fool's errands. I need that report." He did not tell his friends of the doubts that had led him to check on Grantaire the night before.

"No one has seen him," Combeferre said in that same reasonable tone.

"Does no one have a lecture with him?" Enjolras asked.

"I have," Prouvaire said and yawned, "but the masons kept me up half the night with their worries. I overslept and wasn't there myself."

Enjolras sighed. "Combeferre," he said in his lowest voice, "go to Grantaire's rooms and fetch him, if he is there." No one in the room could have missed the implied threat in Enjolras' voice, and Combeferre hurried to do as ordered.

By the time Combeferre returned, Enjolras had sat back down and was making a pretense of correcting a translated passage Jean Prouvaire had brought for him to read. Enjolras heard Combeferre re-enter the room, but did not betray his anxiety by looking up at that instant. He kept his eyes on the paper before him until Combeferre approached him and said his name.

"He's not been back since last night," Combeferre said.

"That's nothing to worry us," said Courfeyrac. His attempt at laughter sounded forced and thin.

"I'm not worried," said Enjolras, not smiling. Jean Prouvaire stood and looked from face to face. "We should try to find him. He's one of us."

"No, he isn't," Enjolras said through clenched teeth. He glared at Prouvaire until the man blushed, then he scanned the other faces to see the poet's worry reflected everywhere.

Except for Courfeyrac, who still attempted to make light of the danger, unconsciously supporting Enjolras' nonchalance. "He's probably hiding so he doesn't have to tell Enjolras he didn't go to Richefeu's."

"Or that he got lost," Bossuet added. He himself frequently got lost on errands for Enjolras. However, the event happened so often he always admitted his failure.