“So that is why you got me here?”
“I wished to see,” I said blandly, “if it was possible for me to offer you terms which might induce you to alter your views altogether—in short, to stop the war.”
The financier looked thunderstruck.
“Monsieur V——, you don’t know what you ask! But you—would a million rubles tempt you to come over, to be neutral, even?”
“I am a member, by adoption, of the imperial family of Japan,” I replied laconically.
Petrovitch was past surprise. If I had informed him that I was the Mikado in disguise, I think he would have taken it as a matter of course.
“This war is worth ten millions to me,” he confessed hoarsely.
I shook my head with resignation.
“The price is too high. We must be enemies, not friends, I perceive.”
The author of the war, who had regained his self-possession, did not blanch at these words.