“How lucky we were not to have the snow that time, weren’t we?” she broke in again.
“That wasn’t the real luck in my eyes. My luck was when I lost my sister and found in her place my——”
She held up her hand, laughing and blushing vividly. “If you do, I’ll——”
“Then I’ll wait until Father Ambrose has said it.”
“I shan’t mind then. Oh, Bob, won’t it be lovely!” and she laughed and squeezed my arm, and pressed her head against my shoulder.
All of which no doubt sounds very much like foolishness. It goes to shew that we were very young of course, very really in love, and very happy after our strenuous time. As happy indeed as any two young people could wish to be who were to be made man and wife within a few hours. In those hours a deal of happiness is just so much foolishness.
In one thing Volna was wrong. It was no ordeal that awaited her on the journey with the General to Cracow.
At her first glance he fell before her; and by the time we reached Cracow he was almost as much in love with her as I was.
During the journey he shewed such tact, too. He devoted most of his time to Volna’s mother; and having told her he had learnt that Katinka and Paul had left Warsaw and gone to Vienna, he kept her talking most of the time in one corner of the saloon, while Volna and I were alone in another.
When we parted at Cracow he took Volna’s two hands and pressed them, and smiled as he said tenderly, and very earnestly: “I can understand Bob now that I’ve seen you. You were just made to be loved as I know he loves you, my dear.”