“Uncle Jesse,” explained Lanny, “Professor Alston asked me to bring him to you because he has an important proposition to put and he hopes you'll be kind enough to hear it.”
The painter, of course, knew that his nephew had been avoiding him for years and that this had been at Robbie's orders. He knew also that the youth had taken a job with the peace-makers. He looked over the mild and bespectacled professor, whose physical vigor hadn't improved much under the strain of hard work in damp and chilly Paris. There was no abatement of the uncle's hostile manner as he said: “All right. What is it?”
Frankly, but at the same time tactfully, the scholar explained the efforts of the American commission to bring at least a partially sane peace out of an insane war. President Wilson was being opposed, not merely by all the jealousies and greeds and fears of Europe, but by the reactionary elements at home, the big-money interests and our newly awakened militarism. Just now there was a crisis over the subject of Russia and a decision might be taken at any hour. The President wanted to get the warring factions together in a council hall; while the French and British military men wanted invasions on a big scale.
“I don't know whether you have heard it or not,” said Alston, “but Winston Churchill is in Paris now, for the purpose of urging a real war to put down Bolshevism. Foch has been demanding it from the day of the armistice, and the whole French General Staff is with him. Clemenceau is beginning to waver — and of course Lloyd George wavers all the time.”
“What's the use of telling all this to me?” questioned Uncle Jesse.
The professor looked about him uneasily, and asked: “May I sit down? I have not been well.”
The painter knew that he hadn't been a gentleman, and he stood up. “Have my chair,” he said.
“This is all right,” replied the other, and sat on the edge of the cot. Lanny pushed some books aside and rested on a corner of the table.
“Mr. Blackless, nobody in our staff at the Crillon wants any more war; and there's a group of us who are convinced that concessions have to be made and an armistice brought about in Russia before there can be any real peace. That doesn't mean that we are sympathetic to Bolshevism, but it does mean that we have studied the forces which brought on the revolution, and we don't consider it possible to set back the clock of history. My own position is entirely that of a scientist — ”
“What sort of a scientist?”
“I am a geographer and ethnologist, but just now I have been set the task of finding out what some of the peoples of Europe want.”
“You have your hands full, Professor.”
“No doubt of that; and I have the right to ask for the help of every well-meaning man.”
“What leads you to think that I am well-meaning?”
“I think it of every man, Mr. Blackless, until he shows me otherwise. I assume that you don't want to see any more war in Europe.”
“You assume incorrectly, Professor.”
“You do want war?”
“I tell the workers to fight for their rights, and I hope they will do so until they have overthrown the capitalist system.”
“But surely you can't think that the Russians can defeat the Allied armies, if they decide seriously to fight!”
“My answer is that if the Allied armies believed they could defeat the Russians, they'd be fighting right now. I take your visit as a sign that the Allied leaders are beginning to find out what the rank and file of their troops are thinking and saying. Lloyd George and Clemenceau will have to face it, and even Foch and the lineal descendant of the Duke of Marlborough.”
So Lanny and his employer knew that they had found a real Bolshevik; one who could tell President Wilson exactly what was in the hearts of men and women who were risking their lives trying to make revolutions throughout Europe!
X
Jesse Blackless appeared to be showing the effects of mental strain. The lines around his eyes were more plentiful and those at the sides of his mouth more deeply graven. He was balder than ever, but the bare scalp wasn't so bronzed — he had, presumably, been living in cities and wearing a hat. He was even more gaunt and his voice seemed hoarse, as if he had been talking a lot. Doubtless he had much to say to proletarians, as he called them; but with bourgeois persons like Lanny and his chief he didn't care to be bothered — or so his manner seemed to say. He didn't argue, he told you, and there came that disagreeable twist of the mouth. Lanny had always disliked this strange man, and did now; but he had to admit that he had convictions and stood by them.
Just now the painter was convinced that the Bolsheviks had Central Europe in their grasp. He announced it defiantly; but Alston, who had inside knowledge, stopped him with the remark: “That is all right for a stump speech or a manifesto; but are you sure it's the attitude of Lenin? Mightn't it be that he'd like a little time to collect his forces?”
The painter eyed his visitor sharply, and decided to take a different tone. “Just what is it you propose, Professor?”
“First, that you should understand me. I know you are suspicious, and doubtless you have reason in many cases. But you waste time if you suspect me. I am a scholar who doesn't like bloodshed and has come over here to help make peace. In this visit to you I have no authority from anybody. I came on my own impulse, when Lanny told me about his uncle. Knowing the situation at the Crillon, I thought some of my superiors might like to confer with you.”
“A fine time I'd have explaining to my friends if I took up with the Crillon!”
“Don't your friends trust you, Mr. Blackless?”
“A certain distance; but not that far!”
“There's no reason why you shouldn't tell them in advance that you are going, and why. There is nothing secret about my visit. You will see that I ask you no questions — who your associates are, or anything of that sort. I take it for granted that you may know where to find some persons who are in touch with the Bolsheviks and could discuss with us the basis for a conference.”
“Suppose I should go to the Crillon and not come out again?”
The professor smiled. “Be reasonable, Mr. Blackless. Undoubtedly the French military authorities know your address, and can come here just as well as I can. That goes for the Americans also. I can't give you any guarantees — except that anything that happens to you won't be of my doing. On the other hand, if the Crillon should invite you to come and talk to them, it would certainly be a bona-fide invitation to a conference and would confer immunity upon you for the time being.”
Said Jesse Blackless: “I think the man you need to talk with is Sazonov.” This was the former Foreign Minister of the Tsar, now in Paris, and the remark was, of course, a sneer.
“We don't have to go to any of the Whites,” replied Alston, patiently. “They come to us in droves. They tell us they will have nothing to do with assassins and bloody-handed murderers, and so on. They demand that we give them unlimited arms and money so that they can crush the Reds. That happens to be the idea of the military men, including some of the Americans, I am sorry to say. But fortunately it is the civil authorities who have the decision. Trust me, Mr. Blackless, and help me to get your point of view before the Council of Ten, right now while the subject is up for settlement.”
“You mean, it's your idea that the Bolsheviks shall come to Paris and sit down with the Whites?”
“Not in Paris — Clemenceau would never allow that. It would be somewhere close to Russia, and far from here.”