“A little black-whispered man looked up from his soap and towels this morning. His hat fell off, and I saw he had come a long ways. He looked at me again, and I spoke to him. Samarc, it was another of these little whirlwinds of human force—a master workman like the man you loved.
“It was Moritz Abel who wrote We Are Free....
“And there are others—like Spenski and Abel—some of them dead—some to die to-morrow. Do you think the good God would let them die so easily if it wasn't all right? But we mustn't die without making our lives count.”
Peter's eyes were covered by slender hands. It was like passing a garden of mignonette in the night, that fleeting perfume of the hands.
“Oh, Peter, how sweet to see you and hear your voice!”
It seemed that he became molten in her presence. A heavenly adagio after a prolonged movement of sin and shame and every dissonance. It was as if she had come from a bath of peace to him; another inimitable moment in the life of his romance. He turned to her, holding fast to the hand that was stretched toward him. He cleared his voice.
“Excuse me, Samarc,” he said.