Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/84

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA "Yes, Casimir will be at the front," said Sophy, a ring of excitement hardly suppressed in her voice.

"If he should be killed!" murmured Marie, throwing her arms out in a gesture of lamentation.

"You bird of ill omen! He'll come back covered with glory."

The two spent a quiet day together, Sophy helping Marie in her homely tasks. Zerkovitch's campaigning kit was overhauled—none knew how soon orders for an advance might come—his buttons put on, his thick stockings darned. The hours slipped away in work and talk. At six o'clock they went out and dined at a small restaurant hard by. Things seemed very quiet there. The fat waiter told them with a shrug:

"We sha'n't have much noise here to-night—the lads will be over there!" He pointed across the river.

"They'll be over there most of the night—on the grands boulevards. Because it's war, madame. Oh, yes, it's war!" The two young women sipped their coffee in silence. "As a lad I saw 1830. I was out in the streets in 1851. What shall I see next?" he asked them as he swept his napkin over the marble table-top. If he stayed at his post, he saw many strange things; unnatural fires lit his skies, and before his doors brother shed brother's blood.

The friends parted at half-past seven. Marie hoped her husband would be returning home soon, and with news; Sophy felt herself due in the Rue de Grenelle. She reached the house there a little before eight. The concierge was not in his room; she went up-stairs unseen, and passed into the drawing-room. The inner door leading to the room Lady Meg occupied stood open. Sophy called softly, but there was no answer. She walked towards the door and wag about to look into the room, thinking that perhaps 66