Her reply was discomfortingly vague. “As long as you can endure me.”
“Inside of two months,” he told her, “I think I can promise you immunity. At present, according to information, Central Europe's starving. With winter comes the crisis. I've forseen that. For some time I've been shipping food to Holland. It's lying there in warehouses in immense quantities. I have an entire fleet secretly at work, plying back and forth across the Atlantic. When the famine becomes too acute, I'm prepared to strike my bargain. I'll take railroads and concessions in exchange for bread. Other upstarts have carved out kingdoms with armies; I intend to conquer mine with food. There never was a war or any social uprising that wasn't caused by an empty stomach. Within three hours of my terms having been accepted, my trains will be streaming out of Holland. Where they halt, the flames of revolution will be quenched. If I haven't miscalculated, I shall be unofficial President of the United States of Europe.” He paused to watch his effect. “I've nominated myself,” he smiled.
His smile was unreturned. She was regarding him with an expression of horror. Their rôles seemed reversed. It was evident that to her way of thinking it was he who had become the criminal and she who was looking down on him from a higher moral level.
“But they're starving.” Her voice shook passionately. “If you have these stores, why don't you feed them? They're dying. So many of them are children!”
“You don't understand.” He tried to make his tones reasonable. “I've invested all my fortune in the venture. I'm a business man. In business one man's calamity is another's opportunity. The same is true of nations.”
Seeing that she still looked grieved, he patted her shoulder. “Don't worry. We'll rustle through. Your life will be spared.”
“I wasn't thinking of my life.” She spoke contemptuously.
“Then of what?”
“Of the women dead of hunger in the ditches about Kiev.”
As she rose to leave, she glanced back from the doorway. “There was a message I had to deliver to you. Varensky's setting out on his last journey. He hopes to see you in Budapest. He told me to say, 'Soon you can have her.'”