be
slayed."

I had for some time been watching Bohun. He had travelled a long journey
since that original departure from England in December; but I was not
sure whether he had travelled far enough to forget his English terror of
making a fool of himself. Apparently he had.... He said, his voice
shaking a little, blushing as he spoke:

"What about Germany?"

The lady in the middle of the floor turned upon him furiously:

"Germany! Germany will learn her lesson from us. When we lay down our
arms her people, too, will lay down theirs."

"Supposing she doesn't?"

The interest of the room was now centred on him, and every one else was
silent.

"That is not our fault. We shall have made our example."

A little hum of applause followed this reply, and that irritated Bohun.
He raised his voice:

"Yes, and what about your allies, England and France, are you going to
betray them?"

Several voices took him up now. A man continued:

"It is not betrayal. We are not betraying the proletariat of England and
France. They are our friends. But the alliance with the French and
English Capitalistic Governments was made not by us but by our own
Capitalistic Government, which is now destroyed."

"Very well, then," said Bohun. "But when the war began did you not--all
of you, not only your Government, but you people now sitting in this
room--did you not all beg and pray England to come in? During those days
before England's intervention, did you not threaten to call us cowards
and traitors if we did not come in? _Pomnite_?"

There was a storm of answers to this. I could not distinguish much of
what it was. I was fixed by Mlle. Finisterre's eagle eye, gleaming at
the thought of the storm that was rising.

"That's not our affair.... That's not our affair," I heard voices
crying. "We did support you. For years we supported you. We lost
millions of men in your service.... Now this terrible slaughter must
cease, and Russia show the way to peace."

Bohun's moment then came upon him. He sprang to his feet, his face
crimson, his body quivering; so desperate was his voice, so urgent his
distress that the whole room was held.

"What has happened to you all? Don't you see, don't you see what you are
doing? What has come to you, you who were the most modest people in
Europe and are now suddenly the most conceited? What do you hope to do
by this surrender?

"Do you know, in the first place, what you will do? You will deliver the
peo