Tower Cafe (Private)

[Martha Villiers]

"Opportunity?" she echoed. Nodding as she thought about it, trying to weigh his smirk;

"Well, that might be true! Opportunity is almost, but lest we forget, not quite, a synonym for exploitation! It's a word often used by accomplished confidence tricksters too." she winks theatrically at Matty.

"Those audacious Bolsheviks did usurp the already revolutionary national command of the Provisional Government. I think the link between the advocacy of the continuance of the war against Germany by the Provisional Government was the key moment of decision for those more radical Bolsheviks." she nodded in thought. Her tone seems to suggest a fear and, something not unlike respect, for the Russian revolutionaries.

"Much like the French Revolution, the several civil wars of England under Cromwell and King Charles Stuart or the Chinese Civil War after the collapse of the Japanese Imperial project in the 1940s. One revolution seems to beget another. Each more determined to be more pure ideologically than the last. The next more cruel and brutal than the last. As if the greater volume of violence and bloodshed is, somehow, the only corrolaratory measure of revolutionary fervor." she shrugs and rubs her missing knee. Obviously worried at that bizarre trend in history.

"Interesting, I think, that in both cases the execution of the Royal..." she sighs. Pausing as if beaten by some unseen fatigue. She blinks and after this pause, Martha is clearly glad of the change of direction of the conversation that Matty offers;

"History? Oh, I see what you mean! Yes, I shall help with that, sir." she tries a shy smile.