I stopped to give her an opportunity of promising to do this; but she remained silent, and walked with her head bent low. I felt rather a clumsy fool. She was such a sensitive little body, that the thought of my being killed, as the result of her having got me to help her brother away, naturally upset her. She couldn't know how gladly I should welcome the other man's sword-point between my ribs.
After a pause of considerable constraint she said:—
"There is no need whatever for you to go out and meet Major Devinsky. You can do as Alexis said; be ill in bed until the passport comes back, and then leave."
"Oh, I'm not one to play the coward in that way," said I, lightly, when a look of reproach from those most expressive eyes of hers made me curse myself for a clumsy fool for this reflection on her brother's want of pluck. "I mean this. If I take up a part in anything I must play it my own way; but there's more than that behind. I don't want to look like bragging before you; but I have come out here to Russia to volunteer for the war which everyone says must come with Turkey. I've done it because—well, you may guess that a man has a pretty strong reason when he wants to volunteer to fight another country's battles. It's the sort of thing in which he can expect plenty of the kicks, while others get all the ha'pence. I've not been a success in England and I've had a stroke lately that's made me sick of things. I can't explain all this in detail: but the long and short of it is that if anything were to happen to me to-morrow morning, it would be the most welcome thing imaginable for me. Now, you'll understand what I mean when I tell you that nothing you can say as to the danger of the business can do anything but attract me. If I could only feel my blood tingling again in a rush of excitement, I'd give anything."
My companion listened carefully to this, and her tell-tale face was all sympathy when I finished. Obviously she was deeply interested.
"Have you no mother or sister?" she asked.
"No—fortunately for them."
"Have you never had anyone to lean on you and trust to you for guidance and protection? That helps a good man."
"No. But I've had those who've taken good care to break my trust in them—and everything else." This with a bitter little reminiscent sneer and a shrug of the shoulders. "Still, it has its advantages. Any new part I might wish to play could not be more barren than the old."
My companion shot a glance up in my face as I said this, but made no answer. It was I who broke the silence.