cracy... Autocracy... Autocracy...."

"Then tell me, Baron," I said, "if it isn't an impertinent question, do
you feel so secure in your position that you have no fears at all? Does
such a crisis, as for instance Milyukoff's protest last November, mean
nothing? You know the discontent.... Is there no fear....?"

"Fear!" He interrupted me, his voice swift and soft and triumphant. "M.
Durward, are you so ignorant of Russia that you consider the outpourings
of a few idealistic Intelligentzia, professors and teachers and poets,
as important? What about the people, M. Durward? You ask any peasant in
the Moscow Government, or little Russia, or the Ukraine whether he will
remain loyal to his Little Father or no! Ask--and the question you
suggested to me will be answered."

"Then, you feel both secure and justified?" I said.

"We feel both secure and justified"--he answered me, smiling.

After that our conversation was personal and social. Lawrence was very
quiet. I observed that the Baroness had a motherly affection for him,
that she saw that he had everything that he wanted, and that she gave
him every now and then little friendly confidential smiles. As the meal
proceeded, as I drank the most excellent wine and the warm austerity of
my surroundings gathered ever more closely around me, I wondered whether
after all my apprehensions and forebodings of the last weeks had not
been the merest sick man's cowardice. Surely if any kingdom in the world
was secure, it was this official Russia. I could see it stretching
through the space and silence of that vast land, its servants in every
village, its paths and roads all leading back to the central citadel,
its whispered orders flying through the air from district to district,
its judgements, its rewards, its sins, its virtues, resting upon a basis
of superstition and ignorance and apathy, the three sure friends of
autocracy through history!

And on the other side--who? The Rat, Boris Grogoff, Markovitch. Yes, the
Baron had reason for his confidence.... I thought for a moment of that
figure that I had seen on Christmas Eve by the river--the strong grave
bearded peasant whose gaze had seemed to go so far beyond the bounds of
my own vision. But no! Russia's mystical peasant--that was an old tale.
Once, on the Front, when I had seen him facing the enemy with bare
hands, I had, myself, believed it. Now I thought once more of the
Rat--_that_ was the type whom I must now confront.

I