They looked long into each other's faces. “You were wonderful as you spoke of your friend. Did you know that, Peter?”
He turned away deprecatingly.
“Forgive me. Of course you didn't know.”
“...And you meant to come all the time?” he asked at last.
“Yes.”
“I should have known it.... That day—that day across the siding—why, Berthe, it was almost more than I could stand. I had just been thinking of you.”
“We were like two spirits who hadn't earned the right to be together,” she said.
“I'm afraid it's dangerous now,” he answered. “One mustn't have a whim, other than to extinguish the enemy. The army is afraid of itself. All day—”
Though he checked himself, she knew his thought.
“Yes, all day, they murdered white-browed men in the court below.”
“Berthe—”
“Yes.”
“I want you to guard your life—as if it were mine—just that.”
All surroundings were melting away from them. She had never seen him like this.... Even Samarc could not hear their whispers.
“You came like an angel, Berthe,—all I ever want of an angel. I tell you I am proud.”
“Of what, Peter?”
“That I had sense enough to go a second time to the Square at Warsaw.”
“I'm glad, too.... If we were only in the winter stillness—”
They were silent. Samarc's hand came up to Peter, and drew him close. It was clear that he could not bear the woman to hear his struggle for speech. “Tell her about Spenski,” came to Peter's ears in the lipless mouthing.
Berthe saw that Peter was ghostly white, as he lifted his head. She thought it had to do with what the wounded man said.
Peter began at random, gathering his thoughts on the wing. Nothing hurt him in quite the same way as that suggested havoc under the bandage. He steadied himself, and talked of the little lens-maker. Strength came from the joy he was giving Samarc.... It seemed that they were quite alone. He told of the night of stars, of the little man's superb sensitiveness.... She bent to Samarc at last.
“You wanted him to tell me?”
He nodded. There was something intensely pathetic in it all. Her eyes were full of light.
“The story thrills me,” she whispered. “Oh, this is very far from a hopeless world. What I have seen to-day—even the fortitude of infamous men—manhood, black and white—the war within the war. Don't you see, all Russia is out here in the wilderness casting forth her demon? We must not mind blood nor death—for the result means the life or death of the world's soul!”
Once she would have seemed very far and remotely high to Peter Mowbray.... They had drawn a little apart from the cot.
“What made you so white?” she asked.
“It's my weakness. We rode together for days and quartered together. He was so clean-cut. It's the way his words come. And he seems so utterly bereft without the little man.”
She pressed his hand in understanding.
“Berthe, do you sleep? Do you take food? Are you well? Are they good to you? Can you live through?”
“Yes, and what of you?”
“All is quite well with me. I can endure anything with the hope of taking you home afterward.”
“We must be ready to give up that, too. It is hard; it's our ordeal—but if the end should appear, we must find strength to look it in the face. These are the times for heroics. Every real emotion that I have ever known is a lie—if those who love each other well enough to love the world—do not pass on. Why, Peter, you said the same to him—speaking of his friend and Moritz Abel, 'Do you think the good God would let such men die so easily, if it weren't all right?'”
“Did I say that?”
She drew back her head, looking him through and through.
“Peter, it's the child in you that I love. You're so much a man, and they all think of you as a man, man—all your training to be a man—and yet it's the child that a woman's heart sees and wants to preserve for her own.”
“Do you see much of Moritz Abel?” he asked.
“Yes.... It was he who found you for me.”
Peter was watching her red lips now. It was like that morning in her room, the tall flowers between. He did not hear what she was saying. The room was dim. Samarc's face was turned from them. One man in a near cot flung his arms about his head wearily, but his eyes were toward the wall.... He caught her in his arms and loved the beauty of earth in her face.
“...Peter, we must forget ourselves!”
“I can't forget you. I want you as you are,” he repeated in tumult. “I want you here in the world—as you are now! We'll stand for what we can't help. There's no use fighting the end if it comes. The greatest thing here to a man will be the greatest thing after he's dead—that's clear enough. But I haven't had you here—only a few minutes. I want the winter stillness on earth—in the woods—not in some paradise yet.”
“Hush—I want it too. Oh, you can never know how much!... I had better go now—”
“Not until I know all about you. To-morrow is to be the big day of the battle. All may be changed. If it's a Russian victory, this is our last night in Judenbach—”
“You will go out to the fronts?”
“Yes, for a little, but I shall watch how the day fares, so I can hurry back.”
“To-day—we were just a stone's throw apart. I was in that building down the street—the amputation cases.”
“Not the house where those cries come from?”
“Yes, we work there. Moritz Abel, Fallows, Poltneck, the singer, and others.... This morning I thought I could not bear to live. It was as you told him—about yourself. You see we had no anesthesia, except for cases of life or death—among the officers.”
“And you came to me from a day like that?” he asked unsteadily, his passion blurred, even the beauty of it. The chance of her living had suddenly darkened.
“It was like coming home,” she whispered. “...In Warsaw before your day—sometimes crossing the Square in the darkness—I used to think what it would mean to come to a house of happiness, after a long cruel day. It seemed too far from me; sometimes even farther than now. When I came in here to-night, and heard your voice—I knew what it would mean to come home. We must not ask too much. Many have never known what has been given to us—in these few minutes.”
“We must not ask too much,” he repeated.
She saw that he had a vivid picture of her day in that house of amputations, that the picture had stunned him.
“But, Peter, I have seen such courage to-day. It was a revelation. All that I had seen of isolated courage before in the world—all was there to-day, and ten times more, there in the blood and torture. And Poltneck sang to them—sang to the maimed and limbless—sang through the probings—with the sound of the cannon in the distance and more wounded coming in. He sang of home and Fatherland—even of the old Fatherland. The many love the old still; it is only the few who love the dream of the new.... We must not ask too much. The new spirit is being born into the world. This war is greater than we dream of. In Warsaw I could see only the evil, but here—under everything—is the humble and the heroic in man. Hate and soldiery are just the surface. That which is beneath will be above—”
She was far from him now; the white flame in her face. He saw that he could only go on through the days and work and wait and trust in the God he had told Samarc to trust in. How easily—without an impress of memory, he had said that; and how heroic to accomplish—for mere man.
He did not answer—just looked at her. He saw her turn and smile. Moritz Abel was standing there.
“I cannot tell you—what it meant to me to see you two standing so,” he said. “And this place of quiet—you two and your paradise!... Let me see, it occurred to me to suggest—”
He found himself reluctant to finish. He had spoken lightly as if to propose that they would be more comfortable in another room—but his thoughts concerned the volleys in the court. They knew it.
“The staff knows me rather well,” said Mowbray. “I was counting on that, but one cannot be sure—”
“There has been no secret,” she said. “Will you come in the morning before the columns go out?”
“Yes, it will be early.”
“I'll be watching. If not—he will be there to tell you why.”
Peter turned to the poet. “Watch over her—won't you?”
“You honor me, Mr. Mowbray. All that I can do—be very sure of.”
She went to Samarc's cot and took his hand. Peter saw her face differently, as she leaned. It was one of the mysteries that her tenderness was the face of one woman, her sorrow another.
“Good-by—good-night.”
.... A little later Peter found himself with Samarc's hand in his. He had been sitting by the cot watching the war within the war, head bowed on his free hand. It was a struggle of white and black—of knights and kings, plumes and horses, white and black.... Now the wounded man seemed sending messages through his hand. The lamps were low.
“It's been the day of days, Samarc,” Mowbray said. “You brought me something that I needed very much. I wish I could do as much for you. Let me know, won't you, if I can?... Yes, I'll be right here through the night—”
He heard the tread of soldiers in the hollow-sounding court below—clanking before he breathed. It was just a change of sentries, perhaps.
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