I went back then to Gatrina, and her eyes fastened upon my face instantly, full of apprehensive questioning anxiety. I looked probably as grave as I felt; the Colonel’s last words having made me fully alive to the vital issues which depended upon the coming interview; and her anxiety deepened into fear as I took my seat without speaking.
An orderly came in almost directly with a message for the major, who went out, and then we two were alone again.
“About yourself?” asked Gatrina, eagerly, as the door closed behind them.
“I have no longer anything to fear. All that the Colonel said was for the other man’s benefit, I think. I am free to leave Belgrade when I will; and indeed he urged me to do so at once.”
“I am glad—so glad,” she answered, with a wan smile and a sigh of relief. “He succeeded in frightening me. I did not realise before he spoke so, all you risked in this. I have been thinking while you were with him, and I see it now.”
“I don’t think there was ever any real risk of trouble. I had his promise from the outset to do all he could for me; and of course there were other reasons.”
“No risk, you say, after the conduct of that awful man whom poor old Chris attacked?”
“Ah, poor old dog. How we shall miss him. Yet he could not have given his life for a better cause. If we ever come back to Belgrade, I’ll have a reckoning with that bully.”
She noticed that “we.” She glanced sharply at me, and appeared as if to be going to speak of it, but stopped. “What has occurred at the Palace?”
“The news is about as black as it can be;” and I told her all that Petrosch had said to me. I was relieved to see that although she was deeply and indeed intensely affected, her grief was less poignant than before. Finding this, I dwelt with emphasis upon the position of the Queen’s sisters; until she understood my purpose.