No answer; the question evidently unintelligible.
She repeated it in French, lightly touching his cloak to arrest his attention.
Instantly a smile broke over the handsome mouth, and in the purest French he assured her that the fresh air was most agreeable, and begged pardon for annoying them with his troublesome cough.
“Not an invalid, I hope, sir?” said the major, in his bluff yet kindly voice.
“They tell me I can have no other fate; that my malady is fatal; but I still hope and fight for my life; it is all I have to give my country now.”
A stifled sigh and a sad emphasis on the last word roused the sympathy of the girls, the interest of the major.
He took another survey, and said, with a tone of satisfaction, as he marked the martial carriage of the young man, and caught a fiery glance of the half-hidden eyes,—
“You are a soldier, sir?”
“I was; I am nothing now but an exile, for Poland is in chains.”
The words “Poland” and “exile” brought up all the pathetic stories of that unhappy country which the three listeners had ever heard, and won their interest at once.