He asked Congress
to declare that peace with Germany was ended. Her ambassador was
sent home and ours called home.
In March the British captured Bagdad and the Germans suddenly
retreated along a sixty-mile front in France; then the Russian
revolution abruptly changed the almighty Czar into a weeping
prisoner digging snow. And the vast burying-ground of Siberia
gave up its living dead in a sudden apocalypse of freedom. Fifty
thousand sledges sped across the steppes laden with returning
exiles, chains stil dangling at many a wrist from the dearth of
blacksmiths to strike them off.
Kedzie did not value the privilege of living in times when epochs
of history were crowded into weeks and cycles completed in days.
The revolution in Russia disturbed Kedzie as it did many a monarch,
and she said to her mother:
"What a shame to treat the poor Czar so badly! Strathie and I were
planning to visit Russia after the war, too. The Czar was awfully
nice to Strathie once and I was sure we'd be invited to live right
in the Duma or the Kremlin or whatever they call the palace. And
now they've got a cheap and nasty old republic over there! And
they're talking of having republics everywhere. What could be more
stupid? As if everybody was born free and equal. Mixing all the
aristocrats right up with the common herd!"
Mrs. Thropp agreed that it was simply terrible.
"Do you know what?" Kedzie gasped.
"What?" her mother echoed.
"I've just had a hunch.
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