She heard him through until the end, questioning eagerly, then aware of the dreadful significance of his news, forgetting for the moment her own animosities, her own questionable position in the greater peril of her country—and his. His country and hers at war against the world!
"Russia has won victories against Austria—in Galicia?" she urged.
"Yes—the Cossacks already are approaching Lemberg——"
"Lemberg!"
"They are less than two hundred kilometers from us at the present moment."
"And will they come—here?"
"I hope not," he said with a slow smile. "But Schloss Szolnok is hardly equipped to resist a siege of modern ordnance."
"And you—why are you here?"
The ingenuousness of her impetuous question seemed to amuse him.
"I?" he said. "I am here because—well, because you—because I had no other place to go."