“Well, if you'll watch, you'll see that I'm correct. There are women and children in plenty on trains moving westward. But on trains moving eastward, where we're going—no.”
Hindwood watched the man intently, wondering at what he was driving.
“Would you be surprised,” he continued, “if I were to tell you that one of the chief reasons for the women's absence is this affair of Prince Rogo-vich?”
“You rather harp on Prince Rogovich, don't you?” Hindwood flicked his ash. “After a time one ceases to be surprised at anything. But aren't you presuming too much in insisting on his having been murdered? All that's known by your own account is that he's vanished. In any case, what can he possibly have to do with the scarcity of women on trains running eastward?”
“Everything.” The Captain's face darkened with earnestness. “What I'm trying to tell you is that you're taking your wife into danger. Every man who can afford it, in the countries to which you're going, is hurrying his women-folk to France, England, Spain, America—anywhere westward for safety. They can feel the storm rising, the deluge of catastrophe that can't be held back much longer. When it bursts, it'll tear everything established from its moorings and sweep across Europe in a wave of savagery.”
“And this deluge that you speak of—what had Prince Rogovich to do with it?”
“He was keeping it from bursting.”
Hindwood smiled. “Alone?”
“No man's single strength could accomplish that. He was one of the most powerful of the resisting forces. When society's tottering, it's the little added strain that upsets the equilibrium. Remember how the last war started, with an obscure assassination.”
Hindwood crossed his knees and dug himself back into the cushions. “Your information, to say the least of it, is strangely melodramatic. If I understand you aright, you're urging me to discontinue my journey. Can't you be more explicit?”