"You don't think I'm sorry for that?"
"No. But it makes my impotence worse." He waved his arm towards the city. "There it is—here am I! And yet—I'm powerless!"
Sophy followed his gesture, and understood what was passing in his mind—the pang of the soldier without his armament, the workman without his tools. Their midnight talk flashed back into recollection. She remembered his bitter complaint. Under her breath, and with a sigh, she whispered: "If you had the big guns now!"
Low as the whisper was, he heard it—and it seemed to shoot through his brain. He turned sharply round on her and gazed full into her eyes. So he stood a moment, then quickly returned to the table and sat down. Sophy followed, her gaze fixed on his face. Zerkovitch ceased writing—he had been drawing up another plan; both he and Marie now watched the Prince. Moments went by in silence.
At last the Prince spoke—in a low voice, almost dreamy. "My guns for Mistitch! Mistitch against my guns! That would be a price—a fair price!"
The three sat silent. The Zerkovitches, too, had heard him talk of the guns: how on them hung the tranquillity of the city, and how on them might hang the country's honor and existence. Stenovics could give them, if he would, in return for Mistitch. But to give up Mistitch was a great surrender. Sophy's whisper, almost involuntary, the voicing of a regret, hardly even of a distant aspiration, had raised a problem of conduct, a question of high policy. The Prince's brain was busy with it, and his mind perplexed. Sophy sat watching him, not thinking now, but waiting, conscious only that by what seemed almost chance a new face had, through her, been put on the situation.
Suddenly Zerkovitch brought his clinched fist down on the table. "No!" he almost shouted. "They'll think you're afraid!"
"Yes, they'll think that—but not all of them. Stenovics will know better—and Stafnitz, too. They'll know I do it, not because I'm afraid, but in order that I never need be."
"Then Stenovics won't give them!" cried Marie.
"I think he must give anything or everything for Mistitch." He rose and paced restlessly about the room. Sophy still followed him with her eyes, but she alone of the three offered no argument and made no suggestion. The Prince stood still for a moment in deep thought. Then his face cleared. He came quickly up to Sophy, took her hand, and kissed it.