“How long have you been in bed?” asked the member of the Ogpu.
“I have not been to bed,” she replied, promptly.
“You keep late hours,” he said, suspiciously, “here in the country — later than we do in Moscow.”
“If I am to teach, I must learn,” said Marie Lou. “I read late if I cannot sleep.”
“Till one o’clock in the morning?” said the man. He was tall and thin and menacing. “Come, these men were with you earlier tonight?”
She shook her head.
“You,” said the man, sharply, to Rakov. “This woman wished to buy horses of you tonight — is that not so?”
Rakov bowed obsequiously — his straggly beard almost touched the level of his hands, which were hidden, Chinese-fashion, in the sleeves of his kaften. “Yes, master, horses and a sleigh.”
“There are no masters now,” snapped the thin man, irritably. He turned on the girl. “What have you to say, Comrade?”
“He lies, the greedy kulak — he lies in hope of reward. He would kill his mother for an egg,” Marie Lou said hotly.