“I am going to write. Don’t hustle me, like a good man. What I want to say to you is this, that I must send a line to Adeline Maud as well as to the police sergeant. I want to tell her that I’m not really dead, only bluffing.”
“That,” said Mr. Red, “is impossible.”
“Nonsense. There’s nothing impossible about it. It’s just as easy to write two letters as one. I shan’t mention the Brotherhood to her, and if I did she would have more sense than to talk about it. If you don’t believe me you can read the letter yourself.”
“I trust no woman.”
“That,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is a most illiberal sentiment, and I’m surprised to hear you utter it. If you’d been an old-fashioned Tory now, or an Irish landlord, or a Liberal Cabinet Minister, I could have understood your position; but in a military——”
“Anti-militarist,” said Mr. Red.
“That’s what I meant. In an anti-militarist, that sort of prejudice against women is most inconsistent. Who was it that hammered a nail into Sisera’s head? A woman, and an anti-military woman. Who was it that stuck a knife into that horrid beast Marat, when he was sitting in his bath? A woman again. Who was it that shot that Russian governor the other day? I’ve forgotten her name for the minute, but you know who I mean. It was a woman. She did for him on a railway platform. And yet you stand up there calling yourself an advanced kind of anarchist, and say that you can’t trust a woman. Emperor, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Just think the matter out and you’ll see that when it comes to thorough-going, out-and-out revolutions women are quite the most trustworthy kind of people there are.”
Mr. Red gave another brief order in his foreign language. The fair-haired anarchist stepped forward and took away the note-paper, pen and ink.
“What are you at now?” said Dr. O’Grady. “Surely to goodness you’re not going back on the suicide plan? Oh, very well. I can’t help it. But you’ll be sorry afterwards when the police come here looking for me.”