She shook her head with a touch of scorn, and he saw with relief that, for some difficult-to-understand reason, she was now no longer as afraid of him as she had been.
'Is he very badly wounded?' she asked in the clear, grave voice which already kindled his heart.
'He has very badly wounded been, but now on the way to recovery is,' said the Herr Doktor decidedly. He felt more at ease with this serious, beautiful maiden now that they were discussing his patient. 'What the Prince requires rest and care and quiet is. There could not a better place for him than your Red Cross barge be. Perhaps will you me allow with your doctor the arrangements to discuss?' His eyes sought uncertainly the man in the background, the thin, frightened-looking old man dressed in seedy black. Could this be a French physician?
Even while speaking he had edged cautiously down the plank footway. 'Have I your gracious permission to advance?' he asked politely.
And she bent her head.
A moment later he was standing close to her, gazing with an earnest, conciliating gaze into her sad blue eyes. She looked pale and worn, but it was only the transitory pallor and fatigue of youth unaccustomed to the strain of anxiety, and the wear of work and sorrow.
'We have no doctor,' she said and, sighing, looked away. 'My father, who is a doctor, would be here were it not that'—her voice broke suddenly—'he was terribly wounded—wounded when himself tending the wounded!'
'Sorry am I to hear that!' exclaimed the Herr Doktor, and he was indeed sorry. 'But who attends the eighteen men you tell me you on this barge have?'
'I attend them,' she said, and a little more colour came into her face. 'I and my two friends whom you see here. Most of them were only slightly wounded, but we have three serious cases.'
'Perhaps you will allow me to visit them, and see how helpful I to your three serious cases may be?' He spoke deferentially, and the rigid lines in which her soft mouth was set relaxed.