Mr. Cherkassov leaned forward, his slanting gray eyes opening wide, and dropped his voice almost to a whisper. "Madame, she would bite your hand!"
"Then she doesn't deserve to be rescued!" Martha said sharply.
Mr. Cherkassov straightened up and began stroking his briefcase. "In one sense she is not even a dog," he suggested.
"No, she's an old wolf-thing. Like a cat. Dogs are loving!"
"Perhaps not morally worthy of your campaign?"
"No, of course not. Mr. Cherkassov, you have given me a new thought.... I hadn't realized...."
Mr. Cherkassov waited attentively, his fingers tracing another pattern. Paula and Monica looked at Martha and held their breaths.
"... hadn't realized how that subversive wolf blood has been creeping into our loving dogs all this long time. Why ... why it's miscegenation! It's bestiality! Confess it, Mr. Cherkassov—that's one way you Russians have been infiltrating us, now isn't it?"
Mr. Cherkassov raised his sandy eyebrows, and a frosty twinkle shone in his tilted eyes.
"You must realize that I could hardly admit to such a thing, even if it were true, Madame Stonery," he said judiciously.