'Ah, my days of quiet writing are over now. The battle grows hot. I don't want a Secretary, I want a comrade in arms. Will you go to Servia for me?'
'I'll go to hell, if you like,' was the direct reply.
'The two will soon be synonymous, if all I hear is correct. But what about your wife?'
'It used to be one of your principles,' Litvinoff said, using the word, as it were, reluctantly, 'that if a man believes in anything enough to place himself in danger for it, he should not hesitate to risk all he holds precious for the same end; and my wife is not a coward, she would go with me.'
'Poor little woman,' said Petrovitch; 'but that was and is one of my principles. If you go to Servia under my name I shall have a far better chance of getting back to St Petersburg under someone else's. And the risk to your wife is of the slightest, for it is a peaceful errand I will send you on.'
'I hate peaceful errands.'
'I dare say there'll be a little excitement thrown in—but don't rush into danger. There is no need there, and it can do no good. I know hard fighting is the easiest; but our business is to do the thing which has to be done, be it peace or be it war.'
'Ah!' said Litvinoff, with enthusiasm; 'to act up to that ideal is easy enough for men like you, but you must remember that such men as you are as far above the rest of us as the Christian martyrs are above the average church-goer. You are the Saints of the New Religion.'
'Don't you think we'd better go and have some dinner?' said Petrovitch, drily.