For three days the President of the Order of Nemi had sat in the room upon the third floor of Number 16 Schwaiger Strasse, keeping the convalescent Zoya company, sleeping at night on a pallet of straw in the dark hole under the eaves. Frau Nisko brought food and water and dressed Zoya's wound, which was of a much less serious character than had been supposed. Rowland had at last prevailed upon Frau Nisko to accept five hundred marks from the roll that he had abstracted from a package of the bank notes--legitimate traveling expenses on this extraordinary commission. Nothing had disturbed the quiet of his imprisonment but the itching desire to be on his way, and the impatience of his difficult companion, who with her improvement showed growing symptoms of a gayety which Rowland could not share. Frau Nisko had reported that all was quiet in the neighborhood, the guard of soldiers having been withdrawn, and from his view from the dormer window, the peaceful streets were tempting. Rowland longed to go down the stairs and carelessly saunter forth under the very eyes of the police. That was the sort of an escape that appealed to him--something simple, something obvious and then--to the woods and fields by night--they'd never catch him there. He knew that game.
But Zoya Rochal bothered him. With convalescence had come a desire for cigarettes and companionship. She was now quite reconciled to her situation and except for the fear of Von Stromberg which she continually expressed, seemed to be suffering no great hardship. It was perhaps unfortunate that Rowland thought of Tanya and Matthias Markov, followed them in his mind's eye in their long pilgrimage to the Boden See, for Zoya Rochal was clever and with returning spirits discovered the restraint in his manner which was so different from that to which she had been accustomed.
"Mon pauvre Philippe," she said at last, with a smile at the lighted candle, "you are never quite contented unless you are shooting somebody. Come, let us be happy. I am getting very strong. See, I move my arm easily. Tomorrow, tonight even, I should be able to go away with you."
"Tomorrow! But you were to wait for Matthias Markov!" he said in surprise.
"Pouf! It is precisely because of Herr Markov that I do not propose to wait. Herr Markov is--well--a friend of my girlhood---- But one outgrows one's early associations, n'est-ce pas? He is very kind, but oh! so tiresome." She gave an expressive shrug and frowned. "I do not like to look back. I might be turned into a pillar of salt. The future is difficult enough without thinking of the mistakes of one's past."
She cared for nothing, thought of nothing--but herself. But whatever his own opinion, Rowland had no curiosity, no wish to encourage confidences that might be painful. He knew what she was....
"Escape?" he questioned. "That is easily said. But how?"
"That we shall walk forth, arm in arm, mon ami, take a train like a newly wedded couple and be off----"
"And be arrested at the Bahnhof----?"
"The chance is worth taking----"