VIIThe Ruvno family had finished supper. There were no servants in the room. Father Constantine was in bed, worn out with the excitement of the night before; and Joseph was still lying low. Martin, the old butler, waited on him; none of the other servants knew he was in the house. All they heard was that a Cossack officer who wished to be quiet had been given the blue guest-room. He had a nasty wound in his hand; but Father Constantine, who was something of a surgeon, said he could treat it without calling in the Russian Red Cross doctor who looked after the wounded. So the four, the Countess, Ian, Vanda and Minnie, were all alone in the room.Ian had been unusually taciturn during the simple evening meal which replaced the elaborate dinners of peaceful days, and after several attempts to make him talk the others let him alone. Somebody had brought a batch of papers from Warsaw and he seemed to be absorbed in them. Minnie, whose intentions were good, though unfortunate, began the trouble by saying she supposed there would be a wedding soon.Ian looked up at once. He had been listening all the time. Minnie scented trouble, because of a gleam in his eyes, and was sorry she had spoken. But it was too late now."Whose wedding?" he asked."Why, mine, of course," put in Vanda.He thrust aside the paper and took a cigarette from a large box at his mother's elbow, set it alight and began to walk up and down the large room. He remained in shadow for several seconds; there was no electric light in Ruvno and they were obliged to economize in oil in these difficult times. He passed and repassed under the one lamp and they noticed that each time he emerged out of the shadows he looked graver, more determined to perform some unpleasant task. Vanda had grown as pale as when the priest told her Joseph was sentenced to death. Minnie, ever watchful, thought she had changed greatly of late; she used to think her commonplace and dull; but not now. She, too, followed Ian with her eyes.At last he spoke. And there was all the authority of the head of the house in look, tone and manner."Vanda, you cannot marry him, now.""Why?"He stopped before her, the table between them, the light shining on his large, well-shaped head. He was calm, his voice low; yet great emotion lay beneath."Why did Rennenkampf sentence him to death?"You could have heard a pin drop in that vast room. All knew the answer, but none had the courage to give it, least of all Vanda, white to the lips, shaking with nervous excitement."Think of it," said Ian, almost in a whisper. "And on Ruvno soil."Quivering in every nerve, she sprang to her feet, her face transformed by passion, indignation, a desire to defend her absent lover."It is false!" she whispered hoarsely. "I swear it is false! He never came to spy! He came because they were near; he wanted to see me. His regiment was ordered to France. He could not bear to leave without seeing me, without explaining. He meant to wait by the lake till nightfall, then creep nearer. But some Jews saw him and told a company of sappers, who caught him. How could he tell why he was there, how could he get us in ill report with Rennenkampf? Oh! it is so plain I wonder you haven't all guessed it long ago. And if you don't believe me go and ask him.""I believe you believe that," he admitted. "But others won't."She turned to her aunt, asking for championship. The Countess caressed her, but her hazel eyes were firm as Ian's."Joseph must clear himself," she said."But he has!""To you ... but not to those who know he went back to fight for Germany."Vanda urged no more, but sat down again, her elbows on the white cloth, the picture of dejection. In England, grown-up sons and daughters do much as they please. But here, things were different. Even Minnie knew that Vanda would not marry against Ian's will, because he was the head of her family and the family has an overwhelming moral power in Poland. Each family, whether that of a prince or a peasant, is a little community in itself, with laws and traditions which no member can break without incurring the opposition and anger of the whole. This spirit of family discipline, which has largely disappeared in politically free countries, is, if anything, stronger amongst the Poles since they lost their political freedom, more than a century ago. The reason is simple. Each family is a little unit of social and political resistance, which for generations has been fighting for religion, language and national customs ... and in unity is strength.Minnie sat quiet as a mouse. They had forgotten her. A servant came to clear the table, handed tea, and disappeared.Ian sat down again, between Vanda and his mother. Minnie had moved to a shadowy end of the long table. None of them gave her a thought from the moment she mooted Vanda's marriage till the end of their discussion. She had started it; but there her part ended. They were all three under the big lamp, and every line, every change of expression showed clearly. She kept eyes and ears open.Ian lighted another cigarette. He was nervous; drank some tea and began playing with his spoon, squeezing the slice of lemon left at the bottom of the cup.As he glanced up at the clock there was a pained look in his face. Honor told Minnie she ought to leave the room. But curiosity held her. This love affair of another woman was partly hers as well."I want to see him before he goes to sleep," Vanda said. "Have you anything to say?"He pulled himself together and began:"When Joseph obeyed that call to go home I approved. I even warned Roman against the possible consequences of disobedience.""Well?""That was before I knew what this war meant, before Kalisz, Liège, Louvain.""Joseph loathes all those atrocities as much as any of us..." she broke in."Yes. That is a double reason why he ought never to have gone on wearing a Prussian uniform.""The German soldiers don't know what really happens----" she began, then stopped, knowing the argument would not hold. Joseph was no ignorant peasant."I understand his confusion of mind in the beginning," pursued Ian. "We all had it. But afterwards----""He would have been shot," she cried. "It's all very well to talk like that when we're in Ruvno. But when your superior officer gives an order, and you disobey, what happens? We're not all heroes, ready to die for an idea in cold blood. Battle is different.""But we must all try to be honest--with ourselves," he said, and with sincerity; for he found honesty hard that night.Her bright eyes challenged him and she opened her lips to speak; but he silenced her with a gesture."He disapproved the Prussians. Yet he stopped with them.""He has left them," she retorted."Yes. But before he can be honest with himself, or with the family, he must work out the promise he made when Roman helped him to escape.""The Russians have not been any too good to us in the past," she objected."You know it is not a question of Russian, but of right. He can go to France. But I'll have nobody in my family who ends his fighting record in a Prussian uniform."Vanda sprang up and faced him."You talk a lot about honesty to-night," she cried scornfully. "And now I'll begin. I would not say one word against this decision if I thought you were honest, too. I hated to think of Joseph with the Prussians as much as anybody. But that is not the honest reason why you won't let Father Constantine marry us to-morrow, here in Ruvno.Thatis only a pretext.""Vanda!" protested the Countess."A pretext," she repeated firmly. "Look at him! Look how nervous and insincere he has been all the evening! Do you know why, Aunt Natalie? I will tell you. Because he is the dog in the manger.""Vanda!" repeated her horrified aunt.None of them had thought the girl capable of such words. For a moment she looked the incarnation of passion."Let him deny it!" she retorted.He looked up, his face flushed; but he was less nervous than a few minutes earlier.She turned to her aunt."You see," she said. "He says nothing. He can't deny it.""I don't wish to," he said quietly.Minnie knew she ought to have tiptoed from the room. But the scene held her. It was not the novelty of seeing Vanda in a rage, nor the novelty of hearing Ian's avowal of love. It was because she felt her own sentence lay in their hot words."I don't understand," said the Countess, much troubled. "Surely you can deny your lack of honesty?""Yes, I can deny that."There was a pause. Then he went on: "Just now I asked myself if I was being entirely honest"--he looked at Vanda--"with you. All day I have been asking myself, I was afraid I could not be. But after searching myself I think that, whatever my feelings about you--you personally----"He stopped. There was no mistaking the nature of his feelings towards her. They were written on his face, shone from his eyes."I--I have been honest in this," he concluded."We are seldom honest with ourselves," she put in."I have tried to be. I believe I have succeeded. And Vanda, on my honor, I believe that, even if I--even had I never given you more than a cousinly thought since--since it was too late, I'd be against your marrying Joseph till he has redeemed his promise to fight on the right side."She leaned towards him, forgetful even of her aunt now, full of thoughts for Joseph, of him alone."Do you know," she said in low, passionate tones, "that there were years, yes, long years, when I loved you, would have died for you; would have followed you barefooted to Siberia rather than be parted from you? And you took no more account of me than of this table. What was I? The little orphan cousin. A bit of furniture in your house. Nothing more.""Vanda! How unjust!" cried his mother.She took no notice; I don't think she heard."You talk about honesty," she went on. "Take it; bare, ugly truth that few people can tell one another with impunity. Whilst I was giving you every thought, you guessed my devotion, accepted it, put it on a mental shelf to leave or to take down and use, according to how life worked out for you....""Oh--what injustice!" said his mother again. This time she heard the reproach; all she said was:"Let me speak, Auntie." Then, to him: "Yes, as things suited you ... you looked on my devotion, my foolish, dumb devotion, as something to fall back upon, if, when the time came for you to marry, you found nobody you liked better. Oh--I knew you so well.... And through you, I know men. I have not watched your face all these years, day by day, meal by meal across this table, in vain. Here, in Ruvno, buried in the country, I have studied life, in your face, through your words, through the change which has come over you when you knew that both Joseph and Roman wanted me.""But why bring----" began his mother. Vanda silenced her."Because we are out for honesty." Then to him: "Why do you come to me now, when I have learned to forget you, to look at you with indifference, killed the love I had for you after many silent struggles? Why do you try to make Joseph so honest to himself when I want him more than anything else in the world? Why do you step in now?"Her voice broke; she stopped. As for Ian, the scales had at length fallen from his eyes; he saw his past folly clearly enough; and it was too late. In her "now" lay much meaning."You're unjust. I'm not so mean as you think ... or so selfish," he said gently.She wiped her eyes, damp with unshed tears, but said no more. It seemed that her passion had worn itself out in those burning words she flung at him a moment before. Once again she was the quiet, unobtrusive Vanda, who did many things for other people's comfort and did not always get appreciation.He took up an illustrated paper, turned over its pages without seeing them, furtively glanced at his mother, who gave him a look of deep sympathy, then left the room.He did not blame her for this outburst; bore her no bitterness. The indictment belonged to him and he admitted it. But in a way it soothed him to think that she had cared for him once. And it had taken him all this time, all the events of the past few weeks, to teach him what love meant, that passion he had almost dreaded, never cultivated, because he liked a quiet even life, free from emotion. When her hot words fell on his ears they opened up visions to which he had been blind so long. Yes; he cared no longer to deceive himself. He did love her; not as Roman loved women, but in his own way, shyly, hesitatingly, with affection of slow growth that had taken deep root. At last he was honest with himself, admitted the fullness of his folly. It maddened him to think that all the time, whilst he let things drift because he was too comfortable to plunge into the depths of emotion yet untasted; whilst he, in his blindness, let chances drift by, enjoying to the full that pleasant, uneventful life which had been swept away in war's hurricane forever, whilst he could have given her all the comforts and joys of his wealth; whilst he, ignorant of his own heart, not heartless as she said, but selfish, procrastinating, basked in the sunshine of peace and security--all that time her proud bruised heart had fought against the love he held of no account but longed for now with an intensity which left him sore, wondering, almost indignant at his new capacity for passion.Pacing his office, he remembered that he could not even give her the generous dowry he had planned a few weeks ago. For the moment he had forgotten his financial troubles. Hastily he opened the big safe which stood in the room, took out account books and deed boxes, made rough calculations. He could give her the paltry sum of twenty thousand roubles, unless the Prussians advanced more rapidly than he expected and seized the remainder of his invested wealth. It was a fifth of what he had planned for her when he took that rapid ride to Warsaw, with Roman at the wheel.He put back his papers, locked the safe and sought the blue guest-room.He found Joseph sitting by a round table on which a lamp burned. Martin had put away the Cossack uniform and given him one of Ian's dressing-gowns. His hand was bandaged; but except for that he bore no trace of having passed through the experience of war since he last used that room. Yet Ian's feelings towards him had greatly changed. Before, he deemed him rather a prig, but a successful man, a distant relative who would never give him any trouble but in whom he felt no particular interest; not one he would have chosen for friend; but a man he tolerated as a cousin, with whom he had played, quarreled, learnt, and taken punishment in the long years of childhood.But now, he hated him; hated him for Vanda's sake, for Roman's, for his coming to Ruvno in Prussian uniform, for his letting Roman risk life to save him from a death which, after all, was the consequence of his own conduct. But he determined to master his feelings and get over the meeting without an open quarrel.Joseph welcomed him with unusual warmth, and this, too, he resented, as he resented his handsome nose and white, even teeth."I was hoping you would come," he said. "Tell me all that's happened since this awful war started.""I won't sit. I've work downstairs."Joseph gave him a keen look; the tone was ominous."You want to know what I was doing on Ruvno soil yesterday.""Vanda told me your explanation.""Explanation! It was the truth."Ian's gray eyes were bright with hostility as he said:"She has just told me you want to get married at once. I don't approve.""Indeed!" this sarcastically. "Why?"Ian paused for a moment. It was getting harder and harder for him to say what he wanted without saying too much, without betraying himself. He took up the open book that lay on the table, glanced at its title, laid it down again. Joseph made no attempt to help him out. The air was full of tension. The least unguarded word would start a quarrel. And neither of them wanted that."For one reason," he began at length, "I don't like her to leave home without a rag to her back." He remembered the sables and fine linen he had seen at Warsaw for her, and Joseph wondered why he frowned."The date was fixed for the end of this month," the bridegroom reminded him."I know. If not for the war, mother would have had the things ready for her. But you know what sort of life we've been leading since you were here last."Joseph nodded. He noticed for the first time that his cousin had aged in those few weeks; there were lines on his face and gray hairs round the temples that ought not to have been there."And then there's her dowry," he went on. "Mother talked it over with you, before.""She said something about it. I said I wanted nothing. She gave me to understand that you insisted.""I did. I had planned for sixty thousand roubles ...then. I haven't got it, now."He took up a paper-knife, inspected it, balanced it on the palm of his hand, put it down again, and sought his words. It had been so easy and so comforting to talk to Roman last night, to tell details of his losses, discuss possibilities, hopes and fears for the future. And to Roman's brother he could scarcely open his lips for bare business. Not only did his animosity grow with every thought; but all the while he was cursing his folly, and Vanda's words of an hour ago, her: "Why do you step innow?" rang in his ears. He was burning to mar this marriage, had one pretext, at least, on his side. Yet, he must be fair, honest with himself and with them. Joseph noticed his embarrassment and misinterpreted it. He thought: "He was always a bit close-fisted, now he's mad with the grief of losing his forest and crops." Joseph, too, had his troubles. Last night, when death had been near, he promised to fight against Prussia with a light heart. He did not regret it. He was prepared to do his duty, to atone for blind obedience to the Kaiser's call of two months back. He had been miserable ever since the scales fell from his eyes, showing him the real issues of the war. But this step meant beggary. Everything he possessed was invested within the limits of the German Empire. Prussia would very soon hear of him, would set a price upon his head, seize his estates and his money. After the war, he would perhaps get them back. That depended on how things went, on which side won. During the evening, thinking over his position, he remembered his aunt's talk of Vanda's dowry with relief. At the time, he had pooh-poohed the idea of taking anything from Ruvno. It had pleased his vanity to marry a portionless maid and give her all. But things were different now. He had counted on Vanda having enough to live upon until the war ended. He knew broadly what Ruvno was worth in peace time, and Ian's news shocked him."My dear Ian, I'd no idea you'd suffered so heavily. From the little I saw of Ruvno yesterday things looked pretty bad, especially the forests. But I comforted myself that you could fall back on your investments," he said warmly."The Vulcan Sugar Refinery, where I was heavily involved, went the first week of the war," Ian explained stiffly. He wanted none of this man's sympathy. "It was in the Kalisz Province, and you know what happened there. I've a certain amount in a hardware factory in Warsaw, now making field kitchens for the Russian Government. It's paying fifteen per cent. I can't sell out or make over all that stock, much as I'd like to for Vanda's sake. There's Mother to think of, if we have to bolt, and food to buy if we don't. I've a lot of starving peasants on my hands.""Of course, of course," Joseph rejoined, "I shouldn't think of letting you do any such thing.""I can manage fifteen thousand roubles. It would have seemed nothing, for Vanda, two months back. It means two thousand, seven hundred and fifty roubles a year. But it would keep the wolf from the door if--if anything happened to either of us. But if the Prussians get to Warsaw, that goes, too.""Sell out in time.""I'd lose half the capital--and where to invest the remainder? The rouble is dropping, foreign investments are out of the question."Joseph was silent. Ian went on:"But nowadays we've got to take chances. And Vanda will never want for what I--I mean Mother and I can share with her. But there's the other reason against your marriage, now.""What's that?" His handsome face grew cold again. Ian did not answer at once; the old struggle between honesty and hatred was going on within his heart. He decided to let his foe decide."Put yourself in my place," he began huskily. "You come here, a prisoner, in a German uniform. You're all but shot as a spy. Let's not go into the whys and wherefores. But would you, in my place, let Vanda marry Roman, if the things happened that have happened to you, till he had redeemed his promise to fight on the right side?"Joseph got up and faced his cousin."You're the head of the family, I'll not go against your decision," he said quietly."I don't want to decide.""But why?""I'd rather not say."Joseph gave a little laugh. "We may as well be frank with each other and have it out."Ian made a gesture of dissent."Frankness is brutal," he said hastily. "It leaves rancor ... and I want to be fair.""I suppose you despise me for letting Roman take my place, last night," said Joseph bitterly.Ian was silent. The other watched his face, but could read little there; his own had flushed."It's easy to talk here." He glanced round the comfortable room. "But it was infernally hard to die, like that, and so easy for Roman to get past. He had brought tools with him.""Yes," said Ian. "He unpicked the lock.... But there was...""There was what?""Oh, nothing." A sudden wave of passion was coming over him. He could trust himself no longer. He felt that, unless he escaped from the room he would hurl all the bitterness of his soul against Joseph, expose his deep wound to that cold gaze. He made for the door."Stop!" said the other peremptorily. He looked back, his hand on the door."Sleep on it," he muttered and would have passed out, but Joseph was beside him, his sound hand grasping his shoulder."I have made up my mind.""Ah--and what----?""You're right. After the war--if I'm alive.""No need for that. In six months.""Then in six months we'll get married. I'll tell Vanda." He put out his hand. Ian wrung it and left the room without another word.VIIIIan had no morbid intention of brooding over his troubles, sentimental or material. He was going to fight the one as he was already fighting the other, as he struggled against the starvation and disease which threatened the neighborhood, or against the difficulties of plowing and sowing within range of German guns.He went into his mother's dressing-room that night with the firm intention of forgetting the evening's events as soon as possible, and her greeting helped him."What do you think?" she said. "Vanda wants to go to Warsaw and nurse, instead of stopping with us."He looked at her with tired eyes."If she wants to, let her. I expect she's right."Then he told her the gist of his talk with Joseph. She listened with disapproval. She would never forgive Joseph's successful wooing."I think he ought to wait till after the war," was her verdict. "What is the use of their marrying when he has nowhere to live and nothing to live on? Let us hope they will both think better of it once they settle down again."And there the matter ended, so far as talk went. She had great hopes that her boy would "take to" Minnie. England would be a very good port in the ever growing storm for him. Of herself she did not think at all. What was left for her if Ruvno went? She busied herself about getting Vanda off, wrote to friends in Warsaw who found a vacancy for her in one of the hospitals which Polish women had started for the Russian wounded. She would be at least as safe there as in Ruvno and Ian would be all the better when she was away. Her own dreams had once been bent on a match between them. But things had changed since then and she wanted Ian to forget that which he could not win.So she hastened on the day when the girl was to leave the house for work in Warsaw. Ian must drive her to the station because he had nobody left whom he could trust with one of the young, half-broken-in horses that alone remained of his famous stables. One afternoon in November thebryczkastood ready before the front door. It was one he used to use for going round the estate, simple and light, the body of basket-work plaited close and flat, and varnished over. The shafts were longer than one sees in western Europe where roads are better than east of the Vistula; but it went safely over ruts and holes which a closer-harnessed cart would not have taken at all. It was the only vehicle he had left except a heavy closed carriage which needed at least four horses to pull; stables and coach-house had been emptied of their best by several relays of requisitioning commissions.Vanda, a little pale, slim even in her fur coat, said good-bye to the rest of the family at the front door. The Countess hugged her in silence, not trusting her voice. Who knew what might happen before they met again! Father Constantine gave her his blessing, after much advice about the evils and pitfalls of Warsaw, though his patroness reminded him that she was going to live with an old friend and would be quite safe. Minnie kissed her and wished her good luck, half sorry, half relieved to see her rival leave the field. Joseph was upstairs. They all agreed he had better not be seen by the servants. When his hand was well enough to hold a rein he would ride to Sohaczev at night and take steps to join the Russian army.Ian helped her to the high seat in front. Martin put her baggage into the space at the back. Off they went, down the avenue and out into the road, hardened with a sharp frost which had broken up the warm autumn weather.It would have been hard for them to talk had they felt in the mood for it. The young horse shied a good deal and demanded all Ian's attention. He was glad of it. He Had no wish for commonplaces and could not say what was in his heart; so they went on in silence, bumping a good deal over the road, never too good, now cut up with war traffic, Vanda clinging to her seat to save herself from being pitched out when the horse grew more restive than usual, or rattled over a particularly bad stretch of road.Their way lay through the country which war had so far spared. The heaviest losses lay to the north-west, where the Prussians were trying to break through on their way to Warsaw. A good many trenches had been made here, too, ready for the Russian troops to fall back upon; but there was not that stamp of utter desolation which already lay on the land nearer Plock. They passed very few troops or supplies; the day had been fine and transport correspondingly risky. Business on the road began at night. He had an odd fancy that they were going for one of those jaunts he and she had taken many a time before in the same little cart, when he wanted to try a young horse; that the space behind their seat carried no baggage but a sporting gun and game bag, and she wore no nurse's apron under her coat. It seemed, as she sat by him, sometimes to touch him as the cart jolted her, that recent barriers had never been, that there was neither Joseph, nor war nor ruin, that only the old free comradeship was there, mellowed into love. And he felt that they were boy and girl again, he home from school, she proud and glad to be with him, that they were driving on forever, into eternity, into the steel-blue horizon which stretched ahead of him on the straight, open road, without care or strife, always to be together, forgetful of the world, sufficient to each other, wanting nothing, asking nothing, blended into one mind and one heart, clear and limpid as the afternoon air of the northern autumn.Never had those versts to the bare wooden station seemed so short. As they passed the slatternly town, then the long, poplar-lined avenue, he wondered of what she was thinking, if she regretted the past, would be content to put back the years and live without Joseph, only with him. But he was far to shy to share his fancy. What was the good? He did not even trust himself to search her face, lest he find there tears for his hated rival, whom she might never see again.As he pulled up and helped her out, giving the reins to a ragged Jew who replaced the sturdy ostler of other days, he was relieved to see the Canon, who lived in the town. The good man was full of complaints, and looked to the two young people for sympathy, if not redress. Rennenkampf's men had looted his poultry yard, he said, stealing half a dozen very fine capons as well."They stole them forhim, Count," he whispered, as they made their way through a crowd of soldiers to the waiting-room, two Jews following with the luggage. "They denied it till I threatened to excommunicate them all, including my housekeeper, who ought to have looked after the fowls better but is no good when she sees a soldier around. I excommunicated the General, too.""What did he say?" asked Vanda."Well, Countess, I'm ashamed to say he roared with laughter," returned the indignant ecclesiastic. "But my housekeeper was so frightened that she spoilt the dinner, which was one good thing, for Rennenkampf had to eat it. I'm going up to Warsaw and I'll complain about it. I sha'n't have a thing left if the men go on like this. But you, Count, can help me up there. You know your way about.""I'm sorry, but I'm not going," he said. "My cousin is. I've come to see her off."The Canon then asked Vanda a dozen questions about her plans and kept them both busy answering him till the tickets were bought and Ian had found places in the crowded train for them, glad to give her into the priest's care, for he noticed many admiring glances shot at her by a varied collection of Russian officers in the waiting-room.For one moment they were alone. The Canon found a friend and began to tell him about the capons; the little platform, shadowy even in peace time, with its scanty lamps, was quite dark now except for feeble spots of light that came from the railway carriages, from those candles stuck into lanterns which the railway people thought good enough to travel by. Ian took courage, and said as he kissed her hand:"Ruvno is your home. If you don't like Warsaw come back at once.""Oh, Ianek," she faltered. "Forgive me, for the other night. I was mad.... I didn't know what I was saying.""There's nothing to forgive," he stammered. Then, impulse flung restraint to the winds; he caught her in his arms, kissed her face, hair, lips, clasped her to him with all his strength, in a delirium of love, longing and remorse. He knew not what words poured forth from the bottom of his soul, nor how long he held her thus: never remembered how she got into the train, how he said good-bye to the Canon and got back to hisbryczka. He only knew that it was dark as his horse sped homewards, without a glance at things that had made him restive on the way out; that he found calm and strength in the familiar ebon sky, glimmering with silver stars, put this new-born madness from him, checked each recurrent thought of her, fixed his mind savagely on refugees, potatoes, corn and fuel, till the white heat of his passion had cooled.Joseph went away a few days later; thus the last link was snapped, he thought. And they heard no more of him for a long time, except that he finally managed to get a commission in a Cossack regiment, which went to the Carpathians. Vanda wrote to the Countess and the priest, content with messages for Ian; and he did the same in return. She was nursing in the Cadets' College, turned into a military hospital, and said she liked the work. But her aunt detected homesickness in her letters.When he let a thought dwell on her at all, Ian felt thankful she was not in Ruvno. For in the middle of November they began to live in the cellars. They were in the danger zone for a fortnight. The Prussians took Kosczielna, a few versts off, so that their shells as well as the Russians' sometimes burst near the house. Ruvno became an inferno of din and the inmates often wondered that it did not crumble about their heads. In their underground retreat they had a certain amount of coal and coke, so that their quarters though dampish, were not so bad as they might have been. A neighboring village fared worse than they did; not a cottage remained. The villagers dug themselves into the earth and lived like rabbits, elected an elder, whom they obeyed, and who ruled the little community as some of his ancestors must have ruled over as primitive a settlement many hundreds of years before. No sooner had petty officials, in the pay of the Russian government, fled before the roar of German guns than they organized their village life underground in a thoroughly sensible way. Having eaten up the little food which was left after the Prussians looted them in passing, they subsisted chiefly on roots and the scanty game yet to be had, and the sparrows and crows. Ian sent them rations every week, but could not be too liberal because he had his own villages to think of. Their worst plight was that they could hope for neither summer wheat nor potatoes of their own; they had no sooner finished the winter sowings than the Russian soldiers came and dug trenches through their land. They had no seed left, and when Ian gave them some, the rain washed most of it away. So those at Ruvno felt they were not so desperately unlucky after all.Yet they had their troubles. One night the two armies who have made Poland their battlefield, seemed to have gone mad. For twelve hours there was a ceaseless uproar of heavy artillery, and the earth beneath them shook as if troubled by an endless earthquake. They gathered in one end of the cellars, where Father Constantine had fitted up a rough chapel, and prayed together for their own salvation and the Russians' victory. Towards morning, when they were chanting a hymn, such a thunderous noise broke over their heads that what had gone before seemed like some childish pastime. The earth rocked as if to swallow them in her entrails. They stopped singing, and waited for death. A woman shrieked, but none could hear her; only the lines of her open mouth and the horror on her face told them what she was doing. Szmul, the Jewish factor, his lank hair disheveled, his arms spread out with distended hands and fingers, rushed in and threw himself on to the ground, rolling in terror and shrieking continually. They had but one lamp for economy's sake, so that their little chapel, like those the early Christians used in Rome, was full of shadows. The Countess and Ian, after one horrified, questioning gaze at the Cross on the little altar, returned to their prayers, like the stout hearts and good Christians they were. She told her beads. Minnie, who had been standing at the back, ran towards Father Constantine with moving lips, but who could hear words when pandemonium was let loose? The peasants hugged their weeping children the closer and prayed for mercy. The priest, for one, felt sure his last hour was come, that God had summoned them as He had summoned so many thousands during the past few months. And so he said the prayers for the passing of souls, holding up the Cross, that all might see this symbol of eternal life.They did not know how long they stood thus because people lose count of time when on the brink of eternity. But gradually the earth ceased to quiver, the tempest of bursting shells died down to an occasional boom. And they knew that the Almighty had seen fit to spare them through another night. Ian was the first to speak."They have brought down the house," he said to his mother. She nodded, but said nothing."Oh, woe unto Israel! Woe is me," wailed Szmul, squatting on his hams and moaning as the hired mourners at a Jewish funeral. Father Constantine told him to control himself or leave the chapel; and the calmer ones managed to comfort the others. Many peasants who had not cellars large enough for shelter were living down there with them. Szmul, whose hovel had no cellar at all, brought his numerous family. On the whole, they behaved splendidly during this night of anxiety and fear, when it seemed as if every stone in Ruvno had been brought about their ears.The bombardment went on for hours; there was nothing to do but wait till it died down; only then could they go up and see what had happened. In days of ordinary activity the shells fell heaviest between seven at night and eight in the morning; then came a quiet hour when they managed to get some air, clean the cellars and examine damage done to house and village during the night. Between nine and ten, the "orchestra," as they called it, began again and went on till noon, when both Prussians and Russians paused for a meal. If the household was careful to dodge chance shells they had another two hours of liberty; if the Russians meant to begin before their regular time they let them know by a signal, to which Ian held the secret. The Russians' dinner-hour was Ruvno's busy time. Those peasants who had nothing left to eat came for rations; Ian had every detail of the daily round in clock-work order. The management of a large property like Ruvno, with its twenty farms and sixty square versts of forest land, was good training for him. Each man and woman living in the cellars had an appointed task, and Ian, the Countess, Minnie and Father Constantine saw that it was done. Their great trouble was to keep the cellar refuge in a moderately sanitary condition, because the peasants, none too clean in their houses, had no idea of the danger they ran from infectious diseases. Here, Minnie was invaluable. They escaped fevers; one child died of bronchitis, which was very bad when they took her to the cellar, her parents' cottage and shop having been razed to the ground by a shell. Things were in a worse state down in the village, where Father Constantine and the two ladies had daily fights with filth and ignorance whilst the heavy guns were resting. They could not make the peasants see that they were packed so much closer together, and subject to greater privations, they had to be far more careful than in better days. By one o'clock the rooms and park became dangerous, though they could dodge the shells between the house and the village till dusk, if they remembered the dead angles. But night fell early, and the rule was for all to answer roll-call in the passage between the two main cellars at half-past two. Ian called the names unless busy outside, or in the house; and then the old priest replaced him.After that the weariness began. Though the family did what they could to keep the fifty refugees--peasants, children and Jews--amused, time hung heavy on their hands. They took down all the furniture they could, and kept their feet warm with carpets. But they used straw for the peasants and Jews because they could burn it when dirty. Father Constantine always said Szmul and his family were the filthiest people he ever saw; it was a trial to have them; but they put up with it, and had to own that the Jew, with his wretched Polish and his funny stories, kept the others amused.Ian could not give them work that needed a good light, because he had to be careful with oil and sit in semi-darkness most of the evening. But he and the Countess read to them and told them stories; they also sang hymns and Polish patriotic songs, of which they never tired. One or two, who escaped from the massacres at Kalisz, told their experiences, and the villagers never tired of listening to that, either. Like children, they loved to hear a story repeated over and over again.Father Constantine managed to write up his diary, though candles were so precious. As they always kept one small lamp in the chapel he wrote there. It was colder than near the stove, but he had both his fur coats on, besides a pair of felt boots in which he used to hunt when younger. When his fingers got numbed he blew on them and rubbed them till the blood circulated. Many of the people went there to say their prayers and he would do what he could for them before they left again.When the Russians and Prussians stopped for breakfast after that dreadful night they all spent in the chapel, Ian called up as many men as there were picks and shovels, took a pick himself and led the way up to the house. He demurred about Father Constantine's going; but he soon settled that. During the night they had decided that they must dig a way into the air through the ruins of the house.They left the Countess in great anxiety about Ruvno, which had grown gray and mellow in sheltering brave men and beautiful women; and Father Constantine, who was not born there, loved it so dearly that to lose it meant to lose heart and courage. He felt that, going up the steps. And the peasants who followed Ian up were heavy-hearted, too; he and his forebears had always been good masters, generous in the days of serfdom, fair and square with the soccage, and living on their land ten months a year, unless they went to fight for their country.They reached the stone entry which led from pantry to cellar and looked round. A wintry sun came through a hole in one wall, but the others were unhurt. With a shout of joy Ian threw down his pick and bolted over the debris, through the hole, which had swallowed up the door as well. Father Constantine followed as fast as his joints allowed, helped by Baranski, the village carpenter. They were both beyond the climbing age; so, by the time they reached the courtyard, the others had disappeared. So far, Ruvno looked as though it stood; but they noticed several new holes."Where's the tower gone?" cried Ian, pointing westwards. True enough, the tower had vanished; from where they stood it looked clean cut off, but on going nearer they saw that the front floor and part of the stairway remained, a dejected ruin. The falling masonry had struck the west wing. The cellar chapel was right underneath, which accounted for the fearful noise they heard in the night."The tower can be rebuilt--but the west wing is done for," he said ruefully.When Father Constantine saw the tears gather in those clear eyes his own grew dim. The bombardment had destroyed the oldest part of the house, built when the first lord of Ruvno came home from the Crusades; it, and the moat, were all that the centuries had left of the original building. The rest was added on at various times. But the west wing was Ruvno's pride. Weakened by age, it could not stand the weight of the falling tower, and now lay in hopeless ruins. It housed many relics, too heavy to remove to Warsaw; and they had perished with it.Everybody had come up from below, some vainly trying to rescue a few of the relics from the ruins, when Szmul rushed up in great excitement. He had quite recovered from last night's experience, and boasted to all who would listen that he had not turned a hair, but slept all night."The Grand Duke is coming--make way for the Grand Duke," and he took off his cap, so as to be all ready for the important visitor.The others looked up. A motor car was coming up the drive. It was easy to recognize the tall, spare figure, which towered over the other officers. The Countess dried her eyes and walked towards the entry. Ian left the pile of rubbish; Minnie followed him. Father Constantine stood a little apart; it did not amuse him to talk to important people; he preferred to watch, and listen."Bon jour, Comtesse," the Grand Duke said, and kissed her hand. Then he shook hands with Ian, saluted Minnie, and smiled at the priest. "I have good news for you at last. We have retaken Kosczielna after a heavy bombardment and a bayonet attack. The Germans have fallen back on Kutno."Kosczielna practically belonged to the Countess, the little town being part of her dowry and, though her husband did his best to give it away to the Jews, she managed to save it. She looked at her ruined west wing and sighed."I would rather have lost the town," she remarked."I can believe you," he agreed. "The town is full of Jews--and that was the most beautiful part of your house. Never mind, Countess, we will drive them over the frontier one of these days and you can build up again.""Is the fight over?" asked Minnie."Yes. In any case it has gone over there." He pointed westwards. "Ruvno is safe now.""There," she said triumphantly, looking at the Countess. "What did I tell you?""I must be off," said the Grand Duke. "I thought you would like to know you can come above ground once more." He turned to the little group of peasants who had come up. "And you, my children, can go back to the village again." Then, to Ian, in French: "I will let you know when there is fresh danger." And he went off as suddenly as he came.The news cheered them all greatly. For Father Constantine, there was a little cloud on the horizon; he meant to talk it over with the Countess and hear what she could advise. So, when they had settled in the rooms that were still without holes, he sought her out. He knew they would be able to talk undisturbed. Ian was looking after some men he had told off to fill up the gaps in an outer wall; and Minnie was looking after Ian."Countess," he began, "don't you think it would be safer if that English Miss went away?"Though this was his first reference to the pursuit of Ian, she knew what he meant."Yes; but she won't go.""There is an American Relief man about," he said. "He is sure to hear about the distress in the Vola, and he can't reach that without passing here. Naturally, seeing the damage done to the house, he would call."Her hazel eyes, still beautiful in shade and expression, twinkled merrily."But we don't want relief yet," she said."True, but when he sees the damage done and hears that there is an English girl living here he will be willing to take her to Warsaw ... or to England. I think I would not mention Warsaw to him. He probably has never heard of it. So he can take her further off.""Minnie won't listen ... she is brave.""Brave! She stops here for Ian."She was silent for a moment. Father Constantine knew she had fallen under the girl's charm. He admitted the charm; but did not want a foreigner to rule in Ruvno."She is a good girl ... and her people are of an old family. Her mother...""She is a heretic," he said firmly. "Ruvno has never had such a thing.""She might consent to enter the True Church." The Countess was an incurable optimist."And a foreigner."She laughed. "Why, Father, Minnie would love the sort of life we live in times of peace ... she would not always be wanting to gad about to Paris and Monte Carlo, like so many young women.""Do you mean to say that you will encourage her?" he asked in horror. "How about the little Princess whose father would be only too----""I don't mean to say anything, or encourage anybody," she replied. "But I can't turn Minnie out of doors now that the Grand Duke says Ruvno is safe.""The ruined tower looked such a good pretext," he said ruefully."And it failed.""I would not consent to Ian's marrying a heretic," she went on. "Besides, he would not want to.""He would not. I know him better than that..." The Poles have suffered so much for their faith that they put it side by side with their country. With them to say a man is Catholic means that he is neither Russian nor Jew, but a Pole."I don't see that Ian is very keen about her anyway," she said after a pause."In the cellar----""We have done with the cellar for the moment. It is no good meeting trouble half way. Cellar or no cellar, I should only be drawing his attention to her if I warned him. Men are blind till you open their eyes. And then they are mules."Father Constantine knew her tone; it was final. So he took his leave, and ordered all the Jews in the village to keep their ears open for news of the American Relief man and report when he came to the neighborhood.
VII
The Ruvno family had finished supper. There were no servants in the room. Father Constantine was in bed, worn out with the excitement of the night before; and Joseph was still lying low. Martin, the old butler, waited on him; none of the other servants knew he was in the house. All they heard was that a Cossack officer who wished to be quiet had been given the blue guest-room. He had a nasty wound in his hand; but Father Constantine, who was something of a surgeon, said he could treat it without calling in the Russian Red Cross doctor who looked after the wounded. So the four, the Countess, Ian, Vanda and Minnie, were all alone in the room.
Ian had been unusually taciturn during the simple evening meal which replaced the elaborate dinners of peaceful days, and after several attempts to make him talk the others let him alone. Somebody had brought a batch of papers from Warsaw and he seemed to be absorbed in them. Minnie, whose intentions were good, though unfortunate, began the trouble by saying she supposed there would be a wedding soon.
Ian looked up at once. He had been listening all the time. Minnie scented trouble, because of a gleam in his eyes, and was sorry she had spoken. But it was too late now.
"Whose wedding?" he asked.
"Why, mine, of course," put in Vanda.
He thrust aside the paper and took a cigarette from a large box at his mother's elbow, set it alight and began to walk up and down the large room. He remained in shadow for several seconds; there was no electric light in Ruvno and they were obliged to economize in oil in these difficult times. He passed and repassed under the one lamp and they noticed that each time he emerged out of the shadows he looked graver, more determined to perform some unpleasant task. Vanda had grown as pale as when the priest told her Joseph was sentenced to death. Minnie, ever watchful, thought she had changed greatly of late; she used to think her commonplace and dull; but not now. She, too, followed Ian with her eyes.
At last he spoke. And there was all the authority of the head of the house in look, tone and manner.
"Vanda, you cannot marry him, now."
"Why?"
He stopped before her, the table between them, the light shining on his large, well-shaped head. He was calm, his voice low; yet great emotion lay beneath.
"Why did Rennenkampf sentence him to death?"
You could have heard a pin drop in that vast room. All knew the answer, but none had the courage to give it, least of all Vanda, white to the lips, shaking with nervous excitement.
"Think of it," said Ian, almost in a whisper. "And on Ruvno soil."
Quivering in every nerve, she sprang to her feet, her face transformed by passion, indignation, a desire to defend her absent lover.
"It is false!" she whispered hoarsely. "I swear it is false! He never came to spy! He came because they were near; he wanted to see me. His regiment was ordered to France. He could not bear to leave without seeing me, without explaining. He meant to wait by the lake till nightfall, then creep nearer. But some Jews saw him and told a company of sappers, who caught him. How could he tell why he was there, how could he get us in ill report with Rennenkampf? Oh! it is so plain I wonder you haven't all guessed it long ago. And if you don't believe me go and ask him."
"I believe you believe that," he admitted. "But others won't."
She turned to her aunt, asking for championship. The Countess caressed her, but her hazel eyes were firm as Ian's.
"Joseph must clear himself," she said.
"But he has!"
"To you ... but not to those who know he went back to fight for Germany."
Vanda urged no more, but sat down again, her elbows on the white cloth, the picture of dejection. In England, grown-up sons and daughters do much as they please. But here, things were different. Even Minnie knew that Vanda would not marry against Ian's will, because he was the head of her family and the family has an overwhelming moral power in Poland. Each family, whether that of a prince or a peasant, is a little community in itself, with laws and traditions which no member can break without incurring the opposition and anger of the whole. This spirit of family discipline, which has largely disappeared in politically free countries, is, if anything, stronger amongst the Poles since they lost their political freedom, more than a century ago. The reason is simple. Each family is a little unit of social and political resistance, which for generations has been fighting for religion, language and national customs ... and in unity is strength.
Minnie sat quiet as a mouse. They had forgotten her. A servant came to clear the table, handed tea, and disappeared.
Ian sat down again, between Vanda and his mother. Minnie had moved to a shadowy end of the long table. None of them gave her a thought from the moment she mooted Vanda's marriage till the end of their discussion. She had started it; but there her part ended. They were all three under the big lamp, and every line, every change of expression showed clearly. She kept eyes and ears open.
Ian lighted another cigarette. He was nervous; drank some tea and began playing with his spoon, squeezing the slice of lemon left at the bottom of the cup.
As he glanced up at the clock there was a pained look in his face. Honor told Minnie she ought to leave the room. But curiosity held her. This love affair of another woman was partly hers as well.
"I want to see him before he goes to sleep," Vanda said. "Have you anything to say?"
He pulled himself together and began:
"When Joseph obeyed that call to go home I approved. I even warned Roman against the possible consequences of disobedience."
"Well?"
"That was before I knew what this war meant, before Kalisz, Liège, Louvain."
"Joseph loathes all those atrocities as much as any of us..." she broke in.
"Yes. That is a double reason why he ought never to have gone on wearing a Prussian uniform."
"The German soldiers don't know what really happens----" she began, then stopped, knowing the argument would not hold. Joseph was no ignorant peasant.
"I understand his confusion of mind in the beginning," pursued Ian. "We all had it. But afterwards----"
"He would have been shot," she cried. "It's all very well to talk like that when we're in Ruvno. But when your superior officer gives an order, and you disobey, what happens? We're not all heroes, ready to die for an idea in cold blood. Battle is different."
"But we must all try to be honest--with ourselves," he said, and with sincerity; for he found honesty hard that night.
Her bright eyes challenged him and she opened her lips to speak; but he silenced her with a gesture.
"He disapproved the Prussians. Yet he stopped with them."
"He has left them," she retorted.
"Yes. But before he can be honest with himself, or with the family, he must work out the promise he made when Roman helped him to escape."
"The Russians have not been any too good to us in the past," she objected.
"You know it is not a question of Russian, but of right. He can go to France. But I'll have nobody in my family who ends his fighting record in a Prussian uniform."
Vanda sprang up and faced him.
"You talk a lot about honesty to-night," she cried scornfully. "And now I'll begin. I would not say one word against this decision if I thought you were honest, too. I hated to think of Joseph with the Prussians as much as anybody. But that is not the honest reason why you won't let Father Constantine marry us to-morrow, here in Ruvno.Thatis only a pretext."
"Vanda!" protested the Countess.
"A pretext," she repeated firmly. "Look at him! Look how nervous and insincere he has been all the evening! Do you know why, Aunt Natalie? I will tell you. Because he is the dog in the manger."
"Vanda!" repeated her horrified aunt.
None of them had thought the girl capable of such words. For a moment she looked the incarnation of passion.
"Let him deny it!" she retorted.
He looked up, his face flushed; but he was less nervous than a few minutes earlier.
She turned to her aunt.
"You see," she said. "He says nothing. He can't deny it."
"I don't wish to," he said quietly.
Minnie knew she ought to have tiptoed from the room. But the scene held her. It was not the novelty of seeing Vanda in a rage, nor the novelty of hearing Ian's avowal of love. It was because she felt her own sentence lay in their hot words.
"I don't understand," said the Countess, much troubled. "Surely you can deny your lack of honesty?"
"Yes, I can deny that."
There was a pause. Then he went on: "Just now I asked myself if I was being entirely honest"--he looked at Vanda--"with you. All day I have been asking myself, I was afraid I could not be. But after searching myself I think that, whatever my feelings about you--you personally----"
He stopped. There was no mistaking the nature of his feelings towards her. They were written on his face, shone from his eyes.
"I--I have been honest in this," he concluded.
"We are seldom honest with ourselves," she put in.
"I have tried to be. I believe I have succeeded. And Vanda, on my honor, I believe that, even if I--even had I never given you more than a cousinly thought since--since it was too late, I'd be against your marrying Joseph till he has redeemed his promise to fight on the right side."
She leaned towards him, forgetful even of her aunt now, full of thoughts for Joseph, of him alone.
"Do you know," she said in low, passionate tones, "that there were years, yes, long years, when I loved you, would have died for you; would have followed you barefooted to Siberia rather than be parted from you? And you took no more account of me than of this table. What was I? The little orphan cousin. A bit of furniture in your house. Nothing more."
"Vanda! How unjust!" cried his mother.
She took no notice; I don't think she heard.
"You talk about honesty," she went on. "Take it; bare, ugly truth that few people can tell one another with impunity. Whilst I was giving you every thought, you guessed my devotion, accepted it, put it on a mental shelf to leave or to take down and use, according to how life worked out for you...."
"Oh--what injustice!" said his mother again. This time she heard the reproach; all she said was:
"Let me speak, Auntie." Then, to him: "Yes, as things suited you ... you looked on my devotion, my foolish, dumb devotion, as something to fall back upon, if, when the time came for you to marry, you found nobody you liked better. Oh--I knew you so well.... And through you, I know men. I have not watched your face all these years, day by day, meal by meal across this table, in vain. Here, in Ruvno, buried in the country, I have studied life, in your face, through your words, through the change which has come over you when you knew that both Joseph and Roman wanted me."
"But why bring----" began his mother. Vanda silenced her.
"Because we are out for honesty." Then to him: "Why do you come to me now, when I have learned to forget you, to look at you with indifference, killed the love I had for you after many silent struggles? Why do you try to make Joseph so honest to himself when I want him more than anything else in the world? Why do you step in now?"
Her voice broke; she stopped. As for Ian, the scales had at length fallen from his eyes; he saw his past folly clearly enough; and it was too late. In her "now" lay much meaning.
"You're unjust. I'm not so mean as you think ... or so selfish," he said gently.
She wiped her eyes, damp with unshed tears, but said no more. It seemed that her passion had worn itself out in those burning words she flung at him a moment before. Once again she was the quiet, unobtrusive Vanda, who did many things for other people's comfort and did not always get appreciation.
He took up an illustrated paper, turned over its pages without seeing them, furtively glanced at his mother, who gave him a look of deep sympathy, then left the room.
He did not blame her for this outburst; bore her no bitterness. The indictment belonged to him and he admitted it. But in a way it soothed him to think that she had cared for him once. And it had taken him all this time, all the events of the past few weeks, to teach him what love meant, that passion he had almost dreaded, never cultivated, because he liked a quiet even life, free from emotion. When her hot words fell on his ears they opened up visions to which he had been blind so long. Yes; he cared no longer to deceive himself. He did love her; not as Roman loved women, but in his own way, shyly, hesitatingly, with affection of slow growth that had taken deep root. At last he was honest with himself, admitted the fullness of his folly. It maddened him to think that all the time, whilst he let things drift because he was too comfortable to plunge into the depths of emotion yet untasted; whilst he, in his blindness, let chances drift by, enjoying to the full that pleasant, uneventful life which had been swept away in war's hurricane forever, whilst he could have given her all the comforts and joys of his wealth; whilst he, ignorant of his own heart, not heartless as she said, but selfish, procrastinating, basked in the sunshine of peace and security--all that time her proud bruised heart had fought against the love he held of no account but longed for now with an intensity which left him sore, wondering, almost indignant at his new capacity for passion.
Pacing his office, he remembered that he could not even give her the generous dowry he had planned a few weeks ago. For the moment he had forgotten his financial troubles. Hastily he opened the big safe which stood in the room, took out account books and deed boxes, made rough calculations. He could give her the paltry sum of twenty thousand roubles, unless the Prussians advanced more rapidly than he expected and seized the remainder of his invested wealth. It was a fifth of what he had planned for her when he took that rapid ride to Warsaw, with Roman at the wheel.
He put back his papers, locked the safe and sought the blue guest-room.
He found Joseph sitting by a round table on which a lamp burned. Martin had put away the Cossack uniform and given him one of Ian's dressing-gowns. His hand was bandaged; but except for that he bore no trace of having passed through the experience of war since he last used that room. Yet Ian's feelings towards him had greatly changed. Before, he deemed him rather a prig, but a successful man, a distant relative who would never give him any trouble but in whom he felt no particular interest; not one he would have chosen for friend; but a man he tolerated as a cousin, with whom he had played, quarreled, learnt, and taken punishment in the long years of childhood.
But now, he hated him; hated him for Vanda's sake, for Roman's, for his coming to Ruvno in Prussian uniform, for his letting Roman risk life to save him from a death which, after all, was the consequence of his own conduct. But he determined to master his feelings and get over the meeting without an open quarrel.
Joseph welcomed him with unusual warmth, and this, too, he resented, as he resented his handsome nose and white, even teeth.
"I was hoping you would come," he said. "Tell me all that's happened since this awful war started."
"I won't sit. I've work downstairs."
Joseph gave him a keen look; the tone was ominous.
"You want to know what I was doing on Ruvno soil yesterday."
"Vanda told me your explanation."
"Explanation! It was the truth."
Ian's gray eyes were bright with hostility as he said:
"She has just told me you want to get married at once. I don't approve."
"Indeed!" this sarcastically. "Why?"
Ian paused for a moment. It was getting harder and harder for him to say what he wanted without saying too much, without betraying himself. He took up the open book that lay on the table, glanced at its title, laid it down again. Joseph made no attempt to help him out. The air was full of tension. The least unguarded word would start a quarrel. And neither of them wanted that.
"For one reason," he began at length, "I don't like her to leave home without a rag to her back." He remembered the sables and fine linen he had seen at Warsaw for her, and Joseph wondered why he frowned.
"The date was fixed for the end of this month," the bridegroom reminded him.
"I know. If not for the war, mother would have had the things ready for her. But you know what sort of life we've been leading since you were here last."
Joseph nodded. He noticed for the first time that his cousin had aged in those few weeks; there were lines on his face and gray hairs round the temples that ought not to have been there.
"And then there's her dowry," he went on. "Mother talked it over with you, before."
"She said something about it. I said I wanted nothing. She gave me to understand that you insisted."
"I did. I had planned for sixty thousand roubles ...then. I haven't got it, now."
He took up a paper-knife, inspected it, balanced it on the palm of his hand, put it down again, and sought his words. It had been so easy and so comforting to talk to Roman last night, to tell details of his losses, discuss possibilities, hopes and fears for the future. And to Roman's brother he could scarcely open his lips for bare business. Not only did his animosity grow with every thought; but all the while he was cursing his folly, and Vanda's words of an hour ago, her: "Why do you step innow?" rang in his ears. He was burning to mar this marriage, had one pretext, at least, on his side. Yet, he must be fair, honest with himself and with them. Joseph noticed his embarrassment and misinterpreted it. He thought: "He was always a bit close-fisted, now he's mad with the grief of losing his forest and crops." Joseph, too, had his troubles. Last night, when death had been near, he promised to fight against Prussia with a light heart. He did not regret it. He was prepared to do his duty, to atone for blind obedience to the Kaiser's call of two months back. He had been miserable ever since the scales fell from his eyes, showing him the real issues of the war. But this step meant beggary. Everything he possessed was invested within the limits of the German Empire. Prussia would very soon hear of him, would set a price upon his head, seize his estates and his money. After the war, he would perhaps get them back. That depended on how things went, on which side won. During the evening, thinking over his position, he remembered his aunt's talk of Vanda's dowry with relief. At the time, he had pooh-poohed the idea of taking anything from Ruvno. It had pleased his vanity to marry a portionless maid and give her all. But things were different now. He had counted on Vanda having enough to live upon until the war ended. He knew broadly what Ruvno was worth in peace time, and Ian's news shocked him.
"My dear Ian, I'd no idea you'd suffered so heavily. From the little I saw of Ruvno yesterday things looked pretty bad, especially the forests. But I comforted myself that you could fall back on your investments," he said warmly.
"The Vulcan Sugar Refinery, where I was heavily involved, went the first week of the war," Ian explained stiffly. He wanted none of this man's sympathy. "It was in the Kalisz Province, and you know what happened there. I've a certain amount in a hardware factory in Warsaw, now making field kitchens for the Russian Government. It's paying fifteen per cent. I can't sell out or make over all that stock, much as I'd like to for Vanda's sake. There's Mother to think of, if we have to bolt, and food to buy if we don't. I've a lot of starving peasants on my hands."
"Of course, of course," Joseph rejoined, "I shouldn't think of letting you do any such thing."
"I can manage fifteen thousand roubles. It would have seemed nothing, for Vanda, two months back. It means two thousand, seven hundred and fifty roubles a year. But it would keep the wolf from the door if--if anything happened to either of us. But if the Prussians get to Warsaw, that goes, too."
"Sell out in time."
"I'd lose half the capital--and where to invest the remainder? The rouble is dropping, foreign investments are out of the question."
Joseph was silent. Ian went on:
"But nowadays we've got to take chances. And Vanda will never want for what I--I mean Mother and I can share with her. But there's the other reason against your marriage, now."
"What's that?" His handsome face grew cold again. Ian did not answer at once; the old struggle between honesty and hatred was going on within his heart. He decided to let his foe decide.
"Put yourself in my place," he began huskily. "You come here, a prisoner, in a German uniform. You're all but shot as a spy. Let's not go into the whys and wherefores. But would you, in my place, let Vanda marry Roman, if the things happened that have happened to you, till he had redeemed his promise to fight on the right side?"
Joseph got up and faced his cousin.
"You're the head of the family, I'll not go against your decision," he said quietly.
"I don't want to decide."
"But why?"
"I'd rather not say."
Joseph gave a little laugh. "We may as well be frank with each other and have it out."
Ian made a gesture of dissent.
"Frankness is brutal," he said hastily. "It leaves rancor ... and I want to be fair."
"I suppose you despise me for letting Roman take my place, last night," said Joseph bitterly.
Ian was silent. The other watched his face, but could read little there; his own had flushed.
"It's easy to talk here." He glanced round the comfortable room. "But it was infernally hard to die, like that, and so easy for Roman to get past. He had brought tools with him."
"Yes," said Ian. "He unpicked the lock.... But there was..."
"There was what?"
"Oh, nothing." A sudden wave of passion was coming over him. He could trust himself no longer. He felt that, unless he escaped from the room he would hurl all the bitterness of his soul against Joseph, expose his deep wound to that cold gaze. He made for the door.
"Stop!" said the other peremptorily. He looked back, his hand on the door.
"Sleep on it," he muttered and would have passed out, but Joseph was beside him, his sound hand grasping his shoulder.
"I have made up my mind."
"Ah--and what----?"
"You're right. After the war--if I'm alive."
"No need for that. In six months."
"Then in six months we'll get married. I'll tell Vanda." He put out his hand. Ian wrung it and left the room without another word.
VIII
Ian had no morbid intention of brooding over his troubles, sentimental or material. He was going to fight the one as he was already fighting the other, as he struggled against the starvation and disease which threatened the neighborhood, or against the difficulties of plowing and sowing within range of German guns.
He went into his mother's dressing-room that night with the firm intention of forgetting the evening's events as soon as possible, and her greeting helped him.
"What do you think?" she said. "Vanda wants to go to Warsaw and nurse, instead of stopping with us."
He looked at her with tired eyes.
"If she wants to, let her. I expect she's right."
Then he told her the gist of his talk with Joseph. She listened with disapproval. She would never forgive Joseph's successful wooing.
"I think he ought to wait till after the war," was her verdict. "What is the use of their marrying when he has nowhere to live and nothing to live on? Let us hope they will both think better of it once they settle down again."
And there the matter ended, so far as talk went. She had great hopes that her boy would "take to" Minnie. England would be a very good port in the ever growing storm for him. Of herself she did not think at all. What was left for her if Ruvno went? She busied herself about getting Vanda off, wrote to friends in Warsaw who found a vacancy for her in one of the hospitals which Polish women had started for the Russian wounded. She would be at least as safe there as in Ruvno and Ian would be all the better when she was away. Her own dreams had once been bent on a match between them. But things had changed since then and she wanted Ian to forget that which he could not win.
So she hastened on the day when the girl was to leave the house for work in Warsaw. Ian must drive her to the station because he had nobody left whom he could trust with one of the young, half-broken-in horses that alone remained of his famous stables. One afternoon in November thebryczkastood ready before the front door. It was one he used to use for going round the estate, simple and light, the body of basket-work plaited close and flat, and varnished over. The shafts were longer than one sees in western Europe where roads are better than east of the Vistula; but it went safely over ruts and holes which a closer-harnessed cart would not have taken at all. It was the only vehicle he had left except a heavy closed carriage which needed at least four horses to pull; stables and coach-house had been emptied of their best by several relays of requisitioning commissions.
Vanda, a little pale, slim even in her fur coat, said good-bye to the rest of the family at the front door. The Countess hugged her in silence, not trusting her voice. Who knew what might happen before they met again! Father Constantine gave her his blessing, after much advice about the evils and pitfalls of Warsaw, though his patroness reminded him that she was going to live with an old friend and would be quite safe. Minnie kissed her and wished her good luck, half sorry, half relieved to see her rival leave the field. Joseph was upstairs. They all agreed he had better not be seen by the servants. When his hand was well enough to hold a rein he would ride to Sohaczev at night and take steps to join the Russian army.
Ian helped her to the high seat in front. Martin put her baggage into the space at the back. Off they went, down the avenue and out into the road, hardened with a sharp frost which had broken up the warm autumn weather.
It would have been hard for them to talk had they felt in the mood for it. The young horse shied a good deal and demanded all Ian's attention. He was glad of it. He Had no wish for commonplaces and could not say what was in his heart; so they went on in silence, bumping a good deal over the road, never too good, now cut up with war traffic, Vanda clinging to her seat to save herself from being pitched out when the horse grew more restive than usual, or rattled over a particularly bad stretch of road.
Their way lay through the country which war had so far spared. The heaviest losses lay to the north-west, where the Prussians were trying to break through on their way to Warsaw. A good many trenches had been made here, too, ready for the Russian troops to fall back upon; but there was not that stamp of utter desolation which already lay on the land nearer Plock. They passed very few troops or supplies; the day had been fine and transport correspondingly risky. Business on the road began at night. He had an odd fancy that they were going for one of those jaunts he and she had taken many a time before in the same little cart, when he wanted to try a young horse; that the space behind their seat carried no baggage but a sporting gun and game bag, and she wore no nurse's apron under her coat. It seemed, as she sat by him, sometimes to touch him as the cart jolted her, that recent barriers had never been, that there was neither Joseph, nor war nor ruin, that only the old free comradeship was there, mellowed into love. And he felt that they were boy and girl again, he home from school, she proud and glad to be with him, that they were driving on forever, into eternity, into the steel-blue horizon which stretched ahead of him on the straight, open road, without care or strife, always to be together, forgetful of the world, sufficient to each other, wanting nothing, asking nothing, blended into one mind and one heart, clear and limpid as the afternoon air of the northern autumn.
Never had those versts to the bare wooden station seemed so short. As they passed the slatternly town, then the long, poplar-lined avenue, he wondered of what she was thinking, if she regretted the past, would be content to put back the years and live without Joseph, only with him. But he was far to shy to share his fancy. What was the good? He did not even trust himself to search her face, lest he find there tears for his hated rival, whom she might never see again.
As he pulled up and helped her out, giving the reins to a ragged Jew who replaced the sturdy ostler of other days, he was relieved to see the Canon, who lived in the town. The good man was full of complaints, and looked to the two young people for sympathy, if not redress. Rennenkampf's men had looted his poultry yard, he said, stealing half a dozen very fine capons as well.
"They stole them forhim, Count," he whispered, as they made their way through a crowd of soldiers to the waiting-room, two Jews following with the luggage. "They denied it till I threatened to excommunicate them all, including my housekeeper, who ought to have looked after the fowls better but is no good when she sees a soldier around. I excommunicated the General, too."
"What did he say?" asked Vanda.
"Well, Countess, I'm ashamed to say he roared with laughter," returned the indignant ecclesiastic. "But my housekeeper was so frightened that she spoilt the dinner, which was one good thing, for Rennenkampf had to eat it. I'm going up to Warsaw and I'll complain about it. I sha'n't have a thing left if the men go on like this. But you, Count, can help me up there. You know your way about."
"I'm sorry, but I'm not going," he said. "My cousin is. I've come to see her off."
The Canon then asked Vanda a dozen questions about her plans and kept them both busy answering him till the tickets were bought and Ian had found places in the crowded train for them, glad to give her into the priest's care, for he noticed many admiring glances shot at her by a varied collection of Russian officers in the waiting-room.
For one moment they were alone. The Canon found a friend and began to tell him about the capons; the little platform, shadowy even in peace time, with its scanty lamps, was quite dark now except for feeble spots of light that came from the railway carriages, from those candles stuck into lanterns which the railway people thought good enough to travel by. Ian took courage, and said as he kissed her hand:
"Ruvno is your home. If you don't like Warsaw come back at once."
"Oh, Ianek," she faltered. "Forgive me, for the other night. I was mad.... I didn't know what I was saying."
"There's nothing to forgive," he stammered. Then, impulse flung restraint to the winds; he caught her in his arms, kissed her face, hair, lips, clasped her to him with all his strength, in a delirium of love, longing and remorse. He knew not what words poured forth from the bottom of his soul, nor how long he held her thus: never remembered how she got into the train, how he said good-bye to the Canon and got back to hisbryczka. He only knew that it was dark as his horse sped homewards, without a glance at things that had made him restive on the way out; that he found calm and strength in the familiar ebon sky, glimmering with silver stars, put this new-born madness from him, checked each recurrent thought of her, fixed his mind savagely on refugees, potatoes, corn and fuel, till the white heat of his passion had cooled.
Joseph went away a few days later; thus the last link was snapped, he thought. And they heard no more of him for a long time, except that he finally managed to get a commission in a Cossack regiment, which went to the Carpathians. Vanda wrote to the Countess and the priest, content with messages for Ian; and he did the same in return. She was nursing in the Cadets' College, turned into a military hospital, and said she liked the work. But her aunt detected homesickness in her letters.
When he let a thought dwell on her at all, Ian felt thankful she was not in Ruvno. For in the middle of November they began to live in the cellars. They were in the danger zone for a fortnight. The Prussians took Kosczielna, a few versts off, so that their shells as well as the Russians' sometimes burst near the house. Ruvno became an inferno of din and the inmates often wondered that it did not crumble about their heads. In their underground retreat they had a certain amount of coal and coke, so that their quarters though dampish, were not so bad as they might have been. A neighboring village fared worse than they did; not a cottage remained. The villagers dug themselves into the earth and lived like rabbits, elected an elder, whom they obeyed, and who ruled the little community as some of his ancestors must have ruled over as primitive a settlement many hundreds of years before. No sooner had petty officials, in the pay of the Russian government, fled before the roar of German guns than they organized their village life underground in a thoroughly sensible way. Having eaten up the little food which was left after the Prussians looted them in passing, they subsisted chiefly on roots and the scanty game yet to be had, and the sparrows and crows. Ian sent them rations every week, but could not be too liberal because he had his own villages to think of. Their worst plight was that they could hope for neither summer wheat nor potatoes of their own; they had no sooner finished the winter sowings than the Russian soldiers came and dug trenches through their land. They had no seed left, and when Ian gave them some, the rain washed most of it away. So those at Ruvno felt they were not so desperately unlucky after all.
Yet they had their troubles. One night the two armies who have made Poland their battlefield, seemed to have gone mad. For twelve hours there was a ceaseless uproar of heavy artillery, and the earth beneath them shook as if troubled by an endless earthquake. They gathered in one end of the cellars, where Father Constantine had fitted up a rough chapel, and prayed together for their own salvation and the Russians' victory. Towards morning, when they were chanting a hymn, such a thunderous noise broke over their heads that what had gone before seemed like some childish pastime. The earth rocked as if to swallow them in her entrails. They stopped singing, and waited for death. A woman shrieked, but none could hear her; only the lines of her open mouth and the horror on her face told them what she was doing. Szmul, the Jewish factor, his lank hair disheveled, his arms spread out with distended hands and fingers, rushed in and threw himself on to the ground, rolling in terror and shrieking continually. They had but one lamp for economy's sake, so that their little chapel, like those the early Christians used in Rome, was full of shadows. The Countess and Ian, after one horrified, questioning gaze at the Cross on the little altar, returned to their prayers, like the stout hearts and good Christians they were. She told her beads. Minnie, who had been standing at the back, ran towards Father Constantine with moving lips, but who could hear words when pandemonium was let loose? The peasants hugged their weeping children the closer and prayed for mercy. The priest, for one, felt sure his last hour was come, that God had summoned them as He had summoned so many thousands during the past few months. And so he said the prayers for the passing of souls, holding up the Cross, that all might see this symbol of eternal life.
They did not know how long they stood thus because people lose count of time when on the brink of eternity. But gradually the earth ceased to quiver, the tempest of bursting shells died down to an occasional boom. And they knew that the Almighty had seen fit to spare them through another night. Ian was the first to speak.
"They have brought down the house," he said to his mother. She nodded, but said nothing.
"Oh, woe unto Israel! Woe is me," wailed Szmul, squatting on his hams and moaning as the hired mourners at a Jewish funeral. Father Constantine told him to control himself or leave the chapel; and the calmer ones managed to comfort the others. Many peasants who had not cellars large enough for shelter were living down there with them. Szmul, whose hovel had no cellar at all, brought his numerous family. On the whole, they behaved splendidly during this night of anxiety and fear, when it seemed as if every stone in Ruvno had been brought about their ears.
The bombardment went on for hours; there was nothing to do but wait till it died down; only then could they go up and see what had happened. In days of ordinary activity the shells fell heaviest between seven at night and eight in the morning; then came a quiet hour when they managed to get some air, clean the cellars and examine damage done to house and village during the night. Between nine and ten, the "orchestra," as they called it, began again and went on till noon, when both Prussians and Russians paused for a meal. If the household was careful to dodge chance shells they had another two hours of liberty; if the Russians meant to begin before their regular time they let them know by a signal, to which Ian held the secret. The Russians' dinner-hour was Ruvno's busy time. Those peasants who had nothing left to eat came for rations; Ian had every detail of the daily round in clock-work order. The management of a large property like Ruvno, with its twenty farms and sixty square versts of forest land, was good training for him. Each man and woman living in the cellars had an appointed task, and Ian, the Countess, Minnie and Father Constantine saw that it was done. Their great trouble was to keep the cellar refuge in a moderately sanitary condition, because the peasants, none too clean in their houses, had no idea of the danger they ran from infectious diseases. Here, Minnie was invaluable. They escaped fevers; one child died of bronchitis, which was very bad when they took her to the cellar, her parents' cottage and shop having been razed to the ground by a shell. Things were in a worse state down in the village, where Father Constantine and the two ladies had daily fights with filth and ignorance whilst the heavy guns were resting. They could not make the peasants see that they were packed so much closer together, and subject to greater privations, they had to be far more careful than in better days. By one o'clock the rooms and park became dangerous, though they could dodge the shells between the house and the village till dusk, if they remembered the dead angles. But night fell early, and the rule was for all to answer roll-call in the passage between the two main cellars at half-past two. Ian called the names unless busy outside, or in the house; and then the old priest replaced him.
After that the weariness began. Though the family did what they could to keep the fifty refugees--peasants, children and Jews--amused, time hung heavy on their hands. They took down all the furniture they could, and kept their feet warm with carpets. But they used straw for the peasants and Jews because they could burn it when dirty. Father Constantine always said Szmul and his family were the filthiest people he ever saw; it was a trial to have them; but they put up with it, and had to own that the Jew, with his wretched Polish and his funny stories, kept the others amused.
Ian could not give them work that needed a good light, because he had to be careful with oil and sit in semi-darkness most of the evening. But he and the Countess read to them and told them stories; they also sang hymns and Polish patriotic songs, of which they never tired. One or two, who escaped from the massacres at Kalisz, told their experiences, and the villagers never tired of listening to that, either. Like children, they loved to hear a story repeated over and over again.
Father Constantine managed to write up his diary, though candles were so precious. As they always kept one small lamp in the chapel he wrote there. It was colder than near the stove, but he had both his fur coats on, besides a pair of felt boots in which he used to hunt when younger. When his fingers got numbed he blew on them and rubbed them till the blood circulated. Many of the people went there to say their prayers and he would do what he could for them before they left again.
When the Russians and Prussians stopped for breakfast after that dreadful night they all spent in the chapel, Ian called up as many men as there were picks and shovels, took a pick himself and led the way up to the house. He demurred about Father Constantine's going; but he soon settled that. During the night they had decided that they must dig a way into the air through the ruins of the house.
They left the Countess in great anxiety about Ruvno, which had grown gray and mellow in sheltering brave men and beautiful women; and Father Constantine, who was not born there, loved it so dearly that to lose it meant to lose heart and courage. He felt that, going up the steps. And the peasants who followed Ian up were heavy-hearted, too; he and his forebears had always been good masters, generous in the days of serfdom, fair and square with the soccage, and living on their land ten months a year, unless they went to fight for their country.
They reached the stone entry which led from pantry to cellar and looked round. A wintry sun came through a hole in one wall, but the others were unhurt. With a shout of joy Ian threw down his pick and bolted over the debris, through the hole, which had swallowed up the door as well. Father Constantine followed as fast as his joints allowed, helped by Baranski, the village carpenter. They were both beyond the climbing age; so, by the time they reached the courtyard, the others had disappeared. So far, Ruvno looked as though it stood; but they noticed several new holes.
"Where's the tower gone?" cried Ian, pointing westwards. True enough, the tower had vanished; from where they stood it looked clean cut off, but on going nearer they saw that the front floor and part of the stairway remained, a dejected ruin. The falling masonry had struck the west wing. The cellar chapel was right underneath, which accounted for the fearful noise they heard in the night.
"The tower can be rebuilt--but the west wing is done for," he said ruefully.
When Father Constantine saw the tears gather in those clear eyes his own grew dim. The bombardment had destroyed the oldest part of the house, built when the first lord of Ruvno came home from the Crusades; it, and the moat, were all that the centuries had left of the original building. The rest was added on at various times. But the west wing was Ruvno's pride. Weakened by age, it could not stand the weight of the falling tower, and now lay in hopeless ruins. It housed many relics, too heavy to remove to Warsaw; and they had perished with it.
Everybody had come up from below, some vainly trying to rescue a few of the relics from the ruins, when Szmul rushed up in great excitement. He had quite recovered from last night's experience, and boasted to all who would listen that he had not turned a hair, but slept all night.
"The Grand Duke is coming--make way for the Grand Duke," and he took off his cap, so as to be all ready for the important visitor.
The others looked up. A motor car was coming up the drive. It was easy to recognize the tall, spare figure, which towered over the other officers. The Countess dried her eyes and walked towards the entry. Ian left the pile of rubbish; Minnie followed him. Father Constantine stood a little apart; it did not amuse him to talk to important people; he preferred to watch, and listen.
"Bon jour, Comtesse," the Grand Duke said, and kissed her hand. Then he shook hands with Ian, saluted Minnie, and smiled at the priest. "I have good news for you at last. We have retaken Kosczielna after a heavy bombardment and a bayonet attack. The Germans have fallen back on Kutno."
Kosczielna practically belonged to the Countess, the little town being part of her dowry and, though her husband did his best to give it away to the Jews, she managed to save it. She looked at her ruined west wing and sighed.
"I would rather have lost the town," she remarked.
"I can believe you," he agreed. "The town is full of Jews--and that was the most beautiful part of your house. Never mind, Countess, we will drive them over the frontier one of these days and you can build up again."
"Is the fight over?" asked Minnie.
"Yes. In any case it has gone over there." He pointed westwards. "Ruvno is safe now."
"There," she said triumphantly, looking at the Countess. "What did I tell you?"
"I must be off," said the Grand Duke. "I thought you would like to know you can come above ground once more." He turned to the little group of peasants who had come up. "And you, my children, can go back to the village again." Then, to Ian, in French: "I will let you know when there is fresh danger." And he went off as suddenly as he came.
The news cheered them all greatly. For Father Constantine, there was a little cloud on the horizon; he meant to talk it over with the Countess and hear what she could advise. So, when they had settled in the rooms that were still without holes, he sought her out. He knew they would be able to talk undisturbed. Ian was looking after some men he had told off to fill up the gaps in an outer wall; and Minnie was looking after Ian.
"Countess," he began, "don't you think it would be safer if that English Miss went away?"
Though this was his first reference to the pursuit of Ian, she knew what he meant.
"Yes; but she won't go."
"There is an American Relief man about," he said. "He is sure to hear about the distress in the Vola, and he can't reach that without passing here. Naturally, seeing the damage done to the house, he would call."
Her hazel eyes, still beautiful in shade and expression, twinkled merrily.
"But we don't want relief yet," she said.
"True, but when he sees the damage done and hears that there is an English girl living here he will be willing to take her to Warsaw ... or to England. I think I would not mention Warsaw to him. He probably has never heard of it. So he can take her further off."
"Minnie won't listen ... she is brave."
"Brave! She stops here for Ian."
She was silent for a moment. Father Constantine knew she had fallen under the girl's charm. He admitted the charm; but did not want a foreigner to rule in Ruvno.
"She is a good girl ... and her people are of an old family. Her mother..."
"She is a heretic," he said firmly. "Ruvno has never had such a thing."
"She might consent to enter the True Church." The Countess was an incurable optimist.
"And a foreigner."
She laughed. "Why, Father, Minnie would love the sort of life we live in times of peace ... she would not always be wanting to gad about to Paris and Monte Carlo, like so many young women."
"Do you mean to say that you will encourage her?" he asked in horror. "How about the little Princess whose father would be only too----"
"I don't mean to say anything, or encourage anybody," she replied. "But I can't turn Minnie out of doors now that the Grand Duke says Ruvno is safe."
"The ruined tower looked such a good pretext," he said ruefully.
"And it failed."
"I would not consent to Ian's marrying a heretic," she went on. "Besides, he would not want to."
"He would not. I know him better than that..." The Poles have suffered so much for their faith that they put it side by side with their country. With them to say a man is Catholic means that he is neither Russian nor Jew, but a Pole.
"I don't see that Ian is very keen about her anyway," she said after a pause.
"In the cellar----"
"We have done with the cellar for the moment. It is no good meeting trouble half way. Cellar or no cellar, I should only be drawing his attention to her if I warned him. Men are blind till you open their eyes. And then they are mules."
Father Constantine knew her tone; it was final. So he took his leave, and ordered all the Jews in the village to keep their ears open for news of the American Relief man and report when he came to the neighborhood.