LVIII
In the house where Nadia was lodged with the two other Russian ladies, Bertram was able to have some private talk with her before taking the boat next morning down the Volga.
“I’ve come to say good-bye,” he said. “For a few weeks at least. Afterwards—”
She looked up at him with a smile, as she sat sewing at a table. She was making herself a linen coat such as doctors wear in the wards.
“Afterwards, my friend—?”
He was silent for a little while, thinking deeply of many things—of all his life, and the meaning of it, and the hope of it.
“Perhaps it’s too soon to talk of afterwards. When I come back we will arrange something.”
“What kind of thing?” she asked.
“Our life together,” he said simply.
She rose, and let her linen drop, and took his hands.