"We can die but once----" broke in a clear high voice almost beside him. Tatyana had risen pale and erect, her hands at her sides and faced him calmly.
"We can die but once," she repeated again more insistently as though she feared he might not have heard.
Von Stromberg stared at her in a moment of silence, then without replying turned to Herr Senf who still stood, trembling with anger.
"You refuse to obey my command?" asked the General.
"I do."
"Then I will take the chair," he grinned. "Herr Hochwald! You will take pencil and paper and record the vote." And then raising his voice so that it rang sharply through the rooms.
"It has been moved by Herr General Graf von Stromberg, Privy Councillor of His Majesty the Emperor----"
He paused to grin in self-gratulation--"that the funds of the Society of Nemi at the present moment in the custody of the Central Socialist Revolutionary Committee of Bavaria, be and hereby are appropriated for the uses of the Socialist Party in the Reichstag as his Imperial Majesty may direct."
A death-like silence had now fallen. What did it portend? Rowland stood as though the smile had frozen on his lips, the impudence of this old man was more wonderful than anything he had ever witnessed in his life--one man against two hundred enemies, so sure of himself and of the power that he represented--that there seemed to be not a doubt in his own mind as to the outcome of his audacity. Rowland could have shot him as he stood, but feared. Their leader could not stand alone. Senf was plainly frightened.
It was their fight--those others. He set his jaws in a moment of fury. Were they stuffed men--images? Where was the defiance he had heard so brave upon their lips today? Shriveled in their hearts with the terror that made them dumb. He had no definite plan, but he measured the distance to the door behind the table, resolved that if the worst came the money and Tanya would go with him from this room. What a fool he had been to bring it here.