A meeting was held in Berlin, one in London, another in Paris. Moscow was silent, but Moscow was reported to be in an uproar. The trial assumed international proportions overnight. Embassies were stormed; legations from America were forced to board cruisers. Strikes were ordered; long queues of sullen men and women formed at camp kitchens. The President delivered a message to Congress on the subject. Prominent personages debated it in public halls, only to be acclaimed and booed concomitantly. The sentence imposed on two Russian immigrants rocked the world. In some cities it was not safe for American tourists to go abroad in the streets. And all the time the two men drew nearer to the electric chair.
It was then that Hugo met Skorvsky. Many people knew him; he was a radical, a writer; he lived in Washington, he styled himself an unofficial ambassador of the world. A small, dark man with a black moustache who attended one of Hugo's informal afternoon discussions on a vicarious invitation. "Come over and see Hugo Danner. He's something new in Washington."
"Something new in Washington? I shall omit the obvious sarcasm. I shall go." Skorvsky went.
Hugo listened to him talk about the two prisoners. He was lucid; he made allowances for the American democracy, which in themselves were burning criticism. Hugo asked him to dinner. They dined at Hugo's house.
"You have the French taste in wines," Skorvsky said, "but, as it is to my mind the finest taste in the world, I can say only that."
Hugo tried to lead him back to the topic that interested both of them so acutely. Skorvsky shrugged. "You are polite--or else you are curious. I know you--an American business man in Washington with a purpose. Not an apparent purpose--just now. No, no. Just now you are a host, cultivated and genial, and retiring. But at the proper time--ah! A dam somewhere in Arizona. A forest that you covet in Alaska. Is it not so?"
Skorvsky stared at the ceiling. "What then? A secret? Yes, I thought that about you while we were talking to the others to-day. There is something deep about you, my new friend. You are a power. Possibly you are not even really an American."
"You assure me that I am right. But I will agree with you. You are, let us say, the very epitome of the man Mr. Mencken and Mr. Lewis tell us about so charmingly. I am Russian and I cannot know all of America. You might divulge your errand, perhaps?"