"I am most grateful to you," said the Countess. "If you will take these two girls for me, it will be a great load off my mind."
"But you?"
"I'll do what my son does. I've known so many cases of families being separated and not finding each other for months together. And I don't think I could bear the anxiety of that."
Vera Petrovna laughed.
"That is when people have to tramp the roads by night," she argued. "Your son can get on a troop train, by hook or by crook. On the roof, or with the stoker. It's nothing for a man."
"But the train he gets on might not go to Warsaw," objected the Countess. "And where should I find him with all the telegraphic communication stopped?"
"I sha'n't leave you," said Vanda.
"Nor I," added Minnie.
The old Russian was rather puzzled at this. But Ian came to the rescue. He looked on the matter in a far more practical light.
"It's the greatest piece of luck you could have," he said. "I can't tell you, Princess, how grateful I am. I've not been able ever to get anybody to listen to my request for a seat on the roof of a train, even. But I can tramp it. And I'll do it all the better when I know you're all safe."