cessary in the world.

"As for the Bolsheviki," said Marya, turning her warm young face to
Shotwell with a lissome movement of the shoulders, almost caressing,
"in the beginning we social revolutionists agreed with them and
believed in them. Why not? Kerensky was an incapable dreamer--so
sensitive that if you spoke rudely to him he shrank away wounded to
the soul.

"That is not a leader! And the Cadets were plotting, and the Cossacks
loomed like a tempest on the horizon. And then came Korniloff! And the
end."

"The peace of Brest," explained Vanya, in his gentle voice, "awoke us
to what the Red Soviets stood for. We saw Christ crucified again. And
understood."

Marya sat up straight on the sofa, running her dazzling white fingers
over her hair--hair that seemed tiger-red, and very vaguely scented.

"For thirty pieces of silver," she said, "Judas sold the world. What
Lenine and Trotsky sold was paid for in yellow metal, and there were
more pieces."

Ilse said: "Babushka is dying of it. That is enough for me."

Vanya replied: "Where the source is infected, drinkers die at the
river's mouth. Little Marie Spiridonova perished. Countess Panina
succumbed. Alexandria Kolontar will die from its poison. And, as these
died, so shall Ivan and Vera die also, unless that polluted source be
cleansed."

Marya rested her tawny young head on the cushions again and smiled at
Shotwell:

"It's confusing even to Russians," she said, "--like a crazy Bakst
spectacle at the Marinsky. I wonder what you must think of us."

But on her expressive mouth the word "us" might almost have meant
"me," and he paid her the easy compliment which came naturally to him,
while she looked at him out of lazy and very lovely eyes as green as
beryls.

"_Tiche_," she murmured, smiling, "_ce n'est pas moi l'etat,
monsieur_." And laughed while her indolent glance slanted sideways on
Vanya, and lingered there as though in leisurely but amiable
appraisal.

The girl was evidently very young, but there seemed to be an
indefinable something about her that hinted of experience beyond her
years.

Palla had been looking at her--from Shotwell to her--and Marya's sixth
sense was already aware of it and asking why.

For between two females of the human species the constant occult
interplay is like steady lighting. With invisible antennae they touch
one another incessantly, delicately exploring inside that grosser aura
which is all that the male perceives.