“I don’t understand you.”
“No. I suppose not. You haven’t the key.”
“You can have no reason to be afraid to go back to Belgrade. I know that, because at the camp you were so anxious to start. Your sighs then were of discontent because you couldn’t start at once.”
“You remember?” She smiled slowly, and then grew serious. “No, it is not exactly fear, and yet—I suppose in a way it is fear. It is certainly reluctance. Oh, I see what you mean.” She broke off, smiling very brightly this time. “That there may be some reason connected with the cause of my capture which threatens me: that I have committed some offence or——”
“No, no, I don’t think anything of the sort,” I interposed.
“No, I’m not a criminal, not even a political criminal, Burgwan—and not even a witch.” The smile became a free and joyous laugh, and I joined in and laughed also.
“I’m not so sure about the witchcraft, Mademoiselle.”
“If I were a witch I should know all about you and I—yes, I should like to, and yet I would rather not. We can be so frank while you are just Burgwan. It is all so strange, this comradeship of ours. I shall never forget it. Shall you—even when you get to those clean clothes that are so much in your thoughts?”
“I’m not likely to change my thoughts even when I change my clothes.”
“What a time Karasch is,” she laughed, throwing back my own words at me. “Keeping you from the tailor and the barber in this way!”