"I," she returned with a quick flash of her eyes. "And why not? God knows we need new wits to bring us harmony. Why not Monsieur Rowland's?"
"But----"
She shrugged and turned to Shestov who was speaking.
"Madame Rochal is not often wrong and her influence is not to be despised. For Russia I can speak. A man who is willing to offer his own blood unselfishly in sacrifice for a nation not his own, is a friend to Freedom and to Russia."
The red-rimmed eyes of Monsieur Barthou blinked enormously behind his goggles. "I am for the old order of things--as they have been since the beginning----"
"And shall be everlastingly," said Khodkine sententiously. "Amen. And you, Irina Colodna?" he asked.
"What has been, shall be," she replied in her soft Italian accent. "Whatever happens--the order must not be broken."
"Bah!" thundered Liederman, "and jeopardize our leadership of the cause of the world by investing this adventurer, this soldier of fortune, with the right to----"
"Hush! Max!" cried Zoya Rochal shrilly. "You are a beast."
Liederman rocked in a moment of silence and then sank into a chair, his fists clasped over his folded arms.