The girl’s face became sombre and she bent her dark eyes on the snow as they walked.
All the world was humming and throbbing with the thunder of the Russian guns. Flakes continually dropped from vibrating pine trees. A pale yellow haze veiled the sun.
Suddenly Miss Dumont lifted her head:
“If anything ever happens to part me from my friend,” she said, “I hope I shall die quickly.”
“Are you and she so devoted?” he asked gravely.
“Utterly. And if we can not some day take the vows together and enter the same order and the same convent, then the one who is free to do so is so pledged.... I do not think that the Empress will consent to the Grand Duchess Marie taking the veil.... And so, when she has no further need of me, I shall make my novitiate.... There are soldiers ahead, Mr. Estridge. Is it the woman’s battalion?”
He, also, had caught sight of them. He nodded.
“It is the Battalion of Death,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s see what they look like.”
The girl-soldiers stood about carelessly, there in the snow among the silver birches and pines. They looked like boys in overcoats and boots and tall wool caps, leaning at ease there on their heavy rifles. Some were only fifteen years of age. Some had been servants, some saleswomen, stenographers, telephone operators, dressmakers, workers in the fields, students at the university, dancers, laundresses. And a few had been born into the aristocracy.