Sylvia thought of Philidor's denunciations of Englishmen who had found that the Bulgarians were idealists, and sympathized with their partiality when she listened to this gentle rose-grower.
At last, about two o'clock in the morning, the train was allowed to proceed to Serbia. As it left the station the Bulgarian soldiers shouted: "Hourrah! Hourrah! Hourrah!" in accents between menace and triumph. She turned to her companion, with lifted eyebrows.
"They don't sound very pastoral," she said.
"Some Serbians in the train must have annoyed them," Rakoff explained.
"Well, I hope for the sake of the Serbians that we're not merely shunting," Sylvia laughed.
The train went more slowly than ever after they left Pirot, the first station in Serbia, where there had been an endless searching of half the passengers, of which, apparently, everybody had suddenly got tired, because the passengers in their portion of the train were not examined at all.
"I doubt if this train will go beyond Nish," said Rakoff. "The Austrians are advancing more rapidly than was expected. There is a great feeling in Serbia against us. I shall travel back by sea from Salonika."
They reached Nish at about seven o'clock in the morning. When Rakoff was standing outside the window of the compartment to help Sylvia with her luggage he was touched on the shoulder by a Serbian officer, who said something to him at which he started perceptibly. A moment later, however, he called out to Sylvia that he should be back in a moment and he would see her to the hotel. He waved his hand and passed on with the officer.
Sylvia turned round to go out by the corridor, but was met in the entrance by another Serbian officer who asked her to keep her seat.
"Mais je suis Anglaise," she protested.