Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/150

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA Its furniture was simple, almost rude, its massive walls quite bare save for some pieces of ancient armor. Narrow slits, deep-set in the masonry, served for windows and gave a view of the city and of the country round on every side; they showed the seething throng on the north wall and on the quays; the distant sound of a thousand voices struck the ear.

Zerkovitch and his wife were with the Prince, seated over a simple meal, at which Sophy joined them. Marie had watched Sophy's entrance and the Prince's greeting closely; she marked Sophy's excitement betrayed in the familiar signal on her cheek. But the journalist was too excited on his own account to notice other people. He was talking feverishly, throwing his lean body about, and dashing his hands up and down; he hardly paused to welcome the newcomer. He had a thousand plans by which the Prince was to overcome and hold down Slavna. One and all, they had the same defect; they supposed the absence of the danger which they were contrived to meet. They assumed that the soldiers would obey the Commandant, even with the sound of the rifles which had shot Mistitch fresh in their ears.

The Prince listened good-humoredly to his enthusiastic but highly unpractical adherent; but his mind did not follow the talk. Sophy hearkened with the eagerness of a novice—and he watched her face. Marie watched his, remembering how she had prayed Sophy not to come to Slavna. Sophy was here—and Fate had thrown her across the Prince's path. With a woman's preference for the personal, Marie was more occupied with this situation than with the temper of the capital or the measures of the Prince.

At last their host roused himself, and patted Zerkovitch's shoulder indulgently. 132