I beamed. He was the very man to tell me all I wished to know. “He’s one of my best friends, General. He saved my life a couple of years ago in the Alps at the risk of his own. It’s a stroke of luck if he’s in the city.”
“There are two kinds of luck, so that may be true. He had heard you were here and wants to see you.”
“Not half so badly as I want to see him.”
“You know he is one of the Fraternity leaders?”
“He’s the gentlest soul in the world and wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“If you go to his house under the circumstances, it will be looked upon as suspicious; to-day of all days in the year. I warn you.”
“Why to-day?”
“I forgot you had been in prison for nearly a week and don’t know the news. Every eye in Russia to-day is waiting on events in Petersburg. The strikers are going to the Winter Palace to petition the Czar, and if bloodshed follows, as seems inevitable, it may spread over the whole Empire.”
“What has that to do with my seeing my friend?”
“You are playing with words, boy,” he answered sternly. “He is a leader of this movement; you are half suspect now; and if the trouble we fear comes, you will give Bremenhof the chance he seeks against you.”