A look of pride and pleasure flashed over the pale face of Clémence—and Ivan saw it.
He resumed, “It was in Moscow, during the Occupation, that I met him first. My friend pointed him out to me in one of our churches. He found his way there, for he said it did him good to see men kneel in prayer to God, though he could not understand their words. Afterwards, as I told you, I saw him in the hospital at Vilna.”
Absorbed though she was in the interest of his narrative, Clémence perceived that Ivan was growing faint “Mother,” she whispered, “I fear we are hurting him. Let us go.”
“Only one word more,” said Ivan. “You wish to know how I came by that,” again indicating the handkerchief. “My friend Michael treasured it carefully as a souvenir, and when I was wounded the other night, he used it to bind the wound. Knowing how he prizes it, I was careful to have it washed, and kept it by me to give him when he comes to see me. Now it is better in your hands.”
Here one of the surgeons, who for some time had been hovering uneasily about the group, interposed and courteously requested the visitors to withdraw. He said, as he attended them to the door, “Pardon me, ladies, for interrupting your conversation, but I must take care of my patient, who will be in a high fever to-night if he excites himself any further. Indeed, I fear mischief has been done already—not by you, ladies,” he added with a bow, “but by one of his comrades, who came to him this morning full of yesterday’s triumphal entry into the city.”
“I hope,” Madame de Talmont contrived to say, in spite of her extreme agitation,—“I hope he is not severely wounded?”
“Severely, but not dangerously,” was the answer. “He is one of the finest young men we have, madame: an ensign in the Emperor’s Chevalier Guard, and already very favourably noticed by his Imperial Majesty.—Adieu, madame and mademoiselle: we shall be happy to see you another day.”