I was giving him back his own words.
"Thirty thousand lives," he repeated. "Yes, the price is cheap—thirty thousand every day for awhile—your life and mine, Lange—a cheap price to pay for the glory we see in the days to come. But I can't kill these—I think Christonal knew it all the time——"
"You aren't ready for work in the constructive end, if you falter here among the wreckers——" I said.
I knew that no Cause had ever uncovered a more valuable servant than this same Varsieff, though badly out of hand just now. I wasn't making any effect upon him. He looked at me strangely.
"That sounds true—exactly and unerringly true," he said wearily.
There was no quarter possible now.
"I remember your words in clubs and cabinets and in the ante-rooms of the dumas.... You weren't afraid of blood there, Varsieff."
He winced.
"They called you the 'Fire-eater,'" I added, never knowing when to stop. "It's just as straight to-day as it was when you talked there: 'The old civilisation must be washed clean with the blood of the new——'"
His hand came up piteously.