“Out of order!” cried Bausch again, and was reinforced by Girdner, Fliess, and others. “Who said fight?”
“We are not making war.”
“Keep to the point.”
“Discussion is not in order.”
“Sit down.”
But the hard challenge of the professor’s glare compelled the Governor. “It is my carefully considered selection,” said he with a suggestion of sulkiness.
There leapt from Rappelje’s lips a blasting oath. From any mouth in that environment it would have been startling. From the lean dry, silent, repressed scholar it had something of the shock of nature’s forces in outbreak. Not less appalling was the single word to follow:
“Treason!”
Embree’s smile did not fade; but it shriveled into a masklike grimace, the rictus of a child before the convulsion racks it.
“You—you will retract—” he began chokingly.