"So your friends have come at last," said Miss Chrysie to Adelaide and Sophie as they were taking their evening promenade along one of the broad parapeted walls which formed the quadrangle of the works. "Somehow I always thought it was this pole they were going to look for, not the other one. I reckon they allowed there was a lot more to be found here than up north yonder."
"Of course they did," said Adelaide, with a low laugh that had a wicked ring in it. "There is no need for diplomacy now. Here is the world-throne, the seat of such power as man never wielded before. Here, within these four great walls, are contained the destinies of all the nations on earth. Here is everything; anywhere else nothing. Pah! is it not worth fighting for?"
"My dear marquise," said Sophie, "do you not think that you are letting your feelings run away with you? I grant you they are natural, but----"
"But I guess that's what she means all the same," said Chrysie; "and I don't like her any the less for saying it. Those scientific expeditions of yours have just come out here to take the works by storm, if they can, and run the show on their own. Well, that's war, and we're not going to grumble at it. We've made war on Europe, and Europe's feeling pretty sick over it; but I'll tell you honestly that the sickness of Europe just now isn't a circumstance to what those expeditions are going to experience if they try to rush these works by force, and they won't get them any other way. Well, now I see that some of the people are going down to the steam launch. Shouldn't wonder if Lord Orrel and poppa were sending your friends an invitation to supper, or breakfast, or whatever you'd call it in this everlasting daylight. I reckon that would be quite an interesting little surprise-party, wouldn't it?"
"Delightful!" said Sophie, her quick wits already at work on the problem of how to turn such a surprise-party to the advantage of Russia. After all, when the supreme moment came, it might be possible. Victor Fargeau would be there on the French expedition, with all the information required to keep the works in operation, or to give the soul which they had stolen from the world back to it. Even at the last moment it was still possible to triumph.