It was to the wheeled chair that she led him. Drexel looked at the chair and stood amazed. For The White One, the leader feared and hated by the Government, the master mind, the very heart of the revolution, was a woman!
Aye, and an invalid at that! Her hands were twisted, her body bent, and he had no guess of what infirmities lay hid beneath the rug that warmed her lower body. But disease had stayed its withering hands at her shoulders. Such a head it had never been his fortune to look upon before: a pale, deep-wrinkled face, powerful, patient, austere, mighty with purpose, yet in it a tremendous, lofty love; and crowning her head, and falling unconfined upon her shoulders, a mass of soft short hair as white as the virgin snow.
The White One—well named indeed!
CHAPTER XVII
THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
SONYA had taken her stand beside the wheeled chair, her hand lightly upon The White One’s shoulder. As Drexel gazed upon the two women, side by side, and gathered the significance of the pair, a tremor of awe ran through all his being. Sisters in purpose, these two generations: one who had given all, one ready to give all. Sisters in purpose—yet what a contrast! Sonya, fresh, young, lithely erect; the other pale, old, shrivelled, twisted by a despot’s vengeful torture.
The White One bent upon him all-reading eyes, deep-set in purple hollows; and Drexel had the feeling that to her his soul was large print. After a moment she held out to him a withered hand. Though weak, its grasp was firm.
“We owe you much, Mr. Drexel,” she said, in a firm, resonant voice. “We are grateful; but as yet we can pay you in thanks alone.”
“That should be enough,” he managed to say. “Yet I should also like something else.”
“And that?”
“If I have helped, then to be allowed to help you further.”