n. "He 'slightly obliged me by saving my life." The American,
threw that into the Russian's smooth sentences. "I put that fact before
the jury."

The four men listening laughed also, but the Russian held up a hand and
went on gravely: "It was quite simple, that episode, and the man's
pleasure. I knew him well. But what followed was not ordinary. The
Captain McLane saw to it that the soldier had his chance. He became an
officer. He went alive through the war, and at the end the Captain
McLane made it possible that he should be educated. His career was a
gift from the Captain McLane--from my friend the Judge to that man, who
is now--" the finished sentence halted a mere second--"who is now a
responsible person of Russia.

"And it is the incident of that sort, it is that incident itself which I
know, which leads me to combat--" he turned with a deep bow--"the
position of the Sena-torr that the great war did not make for democracy.
Gentlemen, my compatriot was a peasant, a person of ignorance, yet with
a desire of fulfilling his possibilities. He had been born in social
chains and tied to most sordid life, beyond hope, in old Russia. To try
to shake free he had gone to America. But it was that caldron of fire,
the war, which freed him, which fused his life and the life of the
Captain McLane, so different in opportunity, and burned from them all
trivialities and put them, stark-naked of advantages and of drawbacks
artificial, side by side, as two lives merely. It made them--brothers.
One gave and the other took as brothers without thought of false pride.
They came from the furnace men. Both. Which is democracy--a chance for a
tree to grow, for a flame to burn, for a river to flow; a chance for a
man to become a man and not rest a vegetable anchored to the earth
as--Oh, God!--for many centuries the Russian mujiks have rested. It is
that which I understand by democracy. Freedom of development for
everything which wants to develop. It was the earthquake of war which
broke chains, loosened dams, cleared the land for young forests. It was
war which made Russia a republic, which threw down the kingships, which
joined common men and princes as comrades. God bless that liberating
war! God grant that never in all centuries may this poor planet have
another! God save democracy--humanity! Does the Sena-torr yet believe
that the great war retarded democracy?" The Russian's brilliant,
smouldering eyes swept about, inquiring.

There wa