She took a deep breath and said: “How can I ever thank you?”

He ignored the question. “Would you like something to eat?”

“Just tea.” She had recognized his accent, and she began to speak Russian. “Where are you from?”

He looked pleased that she could speak his language. “I was born in Tambov province. You speak Russian very well.”

“My mother is Russian, and my governess.”

A waitress came, and he said: “Two teas, please, love.”

Charlotte thought: He is learning English from Cockneys. She said in Russian: “I don’t even know your name. I’m Charlotte Walden.”

“Feliks Kschessinsky. You were brave, to join that march.”

She shook her head. “Bravery had nothing to do with it. I simply didn’t know it would be like that.” She was thinking: Who and what is this man? Where did he come from? He looks fascinating. But he’s guarded. I’d like to know more about him.

He said: “What did you expect?”

“On the march? I don’t know… Why do those men enjoy attacking women?”

“This is an interesting question.” He was suddenly animated, and Charlotte saw that he had an attractive, expressive face. “You see, we put women on a pedestal and pretend they are pure in mind and helpless in body. So, in polite society at least, men must tell themselves that they feel no hostility toward women, ever; nor do they feel lust for women’s bodies. Now, here come some women-the suffragettes-who plainly are not helpless and need not be worshiped. What is more, they break the law. They deny the myths that men have made themselves believe, and they can be assaulted with impunity. The men feel cheated, and they give expression to all the lust and anger which they have been pretending not to feel. This is a great release of tension, and they enjoy it.”

Charlotte looked at him in amazement. It was fantastic-a complete explanation, just like that, off the top of his head! I like this man, she thought. She said: “What do you do for a living?”

He became guarded again. “Unemployed philosopher.”

The tea came. It was strong and very sweet, and it restored Charlotte somewhat. She was intrigued by this weird Russian, and she wanted to draw him out. She said: “You seem to think that all this-the position of women in society and so on-is just as bad for men as it is for women.”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Why?”

He hesitated. “Men and women are happy when they love.” A shadow passed briefly across his face and was gone. “The relation of love is not the same as the relation of worship. One worships a god. Only human beings can be loved. When we worship a woman we cannot love her. Then, when we discover she is not a god, we hate her. This is sad.”

“I never thought of that,” Charlotte said wonderingly.

“Also, every religion has good gods and bad gods. The Lord and the Devil. So, we have good women and bad women; and you can do anything you like to the bad women, for example, suffragettes and prostitutes.”

“What are prostitutes?”

He looked surprised. “Women who sell themselves for-” He used a Russian word that Charlotte did not know.

“Can you translate that?”

“Swiving,” he said in English.

Charlotte flushed and looked away.

He said: “Is this an impolite word? I’m sorry. I know no other.”

Charlotte screwed up her courage and said in a low voice: “Sexual intercourse.”

He reverted to Russian. “I think you have been put on a pedestal.”

“You can’t imagine how awful it is,” she said fiercely. “To be so ignorant! Do women really sell themselves that way?”

“Oh, yes. Respectable married women must pretend not to like sexual intercourse. This sometimes spoils it for the men, so they go to the prostitutes. The prostitutes pretend to like it very much, although since they do it so often with so many different people, they don’t really enjoy it. Everyone ends up pretending.”

These things are just what I need to know! thought Charlotte. She wanted to take him home and chain him up in her room, so that he could explain things to her day and night. She said: “How did we get like this-all this pretending?”

“The answer is a lifetime study. At least. However, I’m sure it has to do with power. Men have power over women, and rich men have power over poor men. A great many fantasies are required to legitimize this system-fantasies about monarchy, capitalism, breeding and sex. These fantasies make us unhappy, but without them someone would lose his power. And men will not give up power, even if it makes them miserable.”

“But what is to be done?”

“A famous question. Men who will not give up power must have it taken from them. A transfer of power from one faction to another faction within the same class is called a coup, and this changes nothing. A transfer of power from one class to another is called a revolution, and this does change things.” He hesitated. “Although the changes are not necessarily the ones the revolutionaries sought.” He went on: “Revolutions occur only when the people rise up en masse against their oppressors-as the suffragettes seem to be doing. Revolutions are always violent, for people will always kill to retain power. Nevertheless they happen, for people will always give their lives in the cause of freedom.”

“Are you a revolutionary?”

He said in English: “I’ll give you three guesses.”

Charlotte laughed.

It was the laugh that did it.

While he spoke, a part of Feliks’s mind had been watching her face, gauging her reactions. He warmed to her, and the affection he felt was somehow familiar. He thought: I am supposed to bewitch her, but she is bewitching me.

And then she laughed.

She smiled widely; crinkles appeared in the corners of her brown eyes; she tipped back her head so that her chin pointed forward; she held up her hands, palms forward, in a gesture that was almost defensive; and she chuckled richly, deep in her throat.

Feliks was transported back in time twenty-five years. He saw a three-roomed hut leaning against the side of a wooden church. Inside the hut a boy and a girl sat opposite one another at a crude table made of planks. On the fire was a cast-iron pot containing a cabbage, a small piece of bacon fat and a great deal of water. It was almost dark outside and soon the father would be home for his supper. Fifteen-year-old Feliks had just told his eighteen-year-old sister, Natasha, the joke about the traveler and the farmer’s daughter. She threw back her head and laughed.

Feliks stared at Charlotte. She looked exactly like Natasha. He said: “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

There occurred to Feliks a thought so astonishing, so incredible and so devastating that his heart stood still.

He swallowed, and said: “When is your birthday?”

“The second of January.”

He gasped. She had been born exactly seven months after the wedding of Lydia and Walden; nine months after the last occasion on which Feliks had made love to Lydia.

And Charlotte looked exactly like Feliks’s sister, Natasha.

And now Feliks knew the truth.

Charlotte was his daughter.