Wolfe’s eyes had narrowed at her. “If you are saying that you came here and waited two hours for me on account of Marko’s death, I must ask why. Were you attached to him?”
“Yes.”
Wolfe shut his eyes.
“If I know,” she said, “what that word means — attached. If you mean attached as a woman to a man, no, of course not. Not like that.”
Wolfe opened his eyes. “Then how?”
“We were attached in our devotion to a great and noble cause! The freedom of our people! And your people! And there you sit making faces! Marko has told me — he has asked you to help us with your brains and your money, and you refused!”
“He didn’t tell me you were in it. He didn’t mention you.”
“I suppose not.” She was scornful. “He knew that would make you sneer even more. Here you are, rich and fat and happy with your fine home and fine food and your glass rooms on the roof with ten thousand orchids for you to smirk at, and with this Archie Goodwin for a slave to do all the work and take all the danger! What do you care if the people of the land you came from are groaning under the heel of the oppressor, with the light of their liberty smothered and the fruits of their labor snatched from them and their children at the point of the sword? Stop making faces! ”
Wolfe leaned back and sighed deeply. “Apparently,” he said dryly, “I must give you a lecture. I grimaced neither at your impudence nor at your sentiment, but at your diction and style. I condemn clichés, especially those that have been corrupted by fascists and communists. Such phrases as ‘great and noble cause’ and ‘fruits of their labor’ have been given an ineradicable stink by Hitler and Stalin and all their vermin brood. Besides, in this century of the overwhelming triumph of science, the appeal of the cause of human freedom is no longer that it is great and noble; it is more or less than that; it is essential. It is no greater or nobler than the cause of edible food or the cause of effective shelter. Man must have freedom or he will cease to exist as man. The despot, whether fascist or communist, is no longer restricted to such puny tools as the heel or the sword or even the machine gun; science has provided weapons that can give him the planet; and only men who are willing to die for freedom have any chance of living for it.”
“Like you?” She was disdainful. “No. Like Marko. He died.”