"Ah! You are an independent communist?"
"Not even that. Just a friend of progress."
"So. A dreamer. One of the few who have wealth. And you have a plan to free these men?"
Hugo shrugged. "I merely speculated on the possible outcome of such a thing; assume that they were snatched from prison and hidden beyond the law."
Skorvsky meditated. "It would be a great victory for the cause, of course. A splendid lift to its morale."
"The cause of Bolshevism?"
"A higher and a different cause. I cannot explain it briefly. Perhaps I cannot explain it at all. But the old world of empires is crumbled. Democracy is at its farcical height. The new world is not yet manifest. I shall be direct. What is your plan, Mr. Danner?"
"I couldn't tell you. Anyway, you would not believe it. But I could guarantee to deliver those two men anywhere in the country within a few days without leaving a trace of how it was done. What do you think of that, Skorvsky?"
"I think you are a dangerous and a valuable man."
"Not many people do." Hugo's eyes were moody. "I have been thinking about it for a long time. Nothing that I can remember has happened during my life that gives me a greater feeling of understanding than the imprisonment and sentencing of those men. I know poignantly the glances that are given them, the stupidity of the police and the courts, the horror-stricken attitude of those who condemn them without knowledge of the truth or a desire for such knowledge." He buried his face in his hands and then looked up quickly. "I know all that passionately and intensely. I know the blind fury to which it all gives birth. I hate it. I detest it. Selfishness, stupidity, malice. I know the fear it engenders—a dreadful and a justified fear. I've felt it. Very little in this world avails against it. You'll forgive so much sentiment, Skorvsky?"