“Then he's still alive?” Immediately he was conscious of the indecency of his disappointment.
She gazed into the darkness with a mild surprise. “I do not know. I never know. That's the torture of it. He was always less a man than a spirit. I begin to think he can not die.”
“You want him——?”
If she had heard his uncompleted question, she ignored it. With folded hands she stared into the red heart of the fire. Behind her, across the walls and ceiling as flames leaped and flickered, shadows took fantastic shapes. When she spoke, as though she were talking to herself, her words came softly.
“He was such a child—so dear, so vain, so intense, so sensitive. Why did he marry me, if it was only to resign me? He treated me as he treated Russia. We were both waiting for him to take us in his arms. But it was always ideals—things one can't embrace—that drew out his affections. Had he loved humanity less and individuals more, he could have gone so far. There was something monstrous about his self-abnegations. Perhaps he denied himself the things for which he did not care. He wanted to seem nobler than any one else. Through egotism he missed his chance. Had he planned to live, he could have killed his enemies and prevented revolution. There was a time when he could have crushed both Lenine and Trotzky. But he had to be too noble. 'No,' he said, 'if their ideal is more right than mine, it will conquer. Truth can not be silenced by slaughter.' It was his inhuman magnanimity that defeated him. So Lenine and Trotzky grew strong and crushed him. Because he had planned to die, millions are starving, and Russia is in chaos.”
“But he doesn't own it?”
“In his heart—yes. Like a General who has blundered, the vision of lost battlefields is forever in his eyes—the forests of white crosses! His egotism is gone. He wants to make atonement; to perish seems the only way. Any one who would delay him, even though she were a woman who loved him, is his enemy. In his remorse he hounds death as other men avoid it. He's head of the counterrevolution and goes continually into Russia for the overthrow of Bolshevism. Not that he hopes for success, but that he may be put against a wall and shot.”
“And always he returns?”
“Always until this last time.”
Her voice sank away in a whisper. He eyed her with misgiving. What was it she desired?