The Playground of Satan Part 23

"You've been in bed!"

Father Constantine coughed.

"That is why. You have no idea, Countess, how supremely indifferent a young woman is towards a dozing patient. And I doze a good deal nowadays. Ian, dear boy, comes to see me. And so does the Miss."

Minnie had to restrain an impulse to go in and shake her patient. She heard footsteps outside, then Ian's voice at the old man's door.

"Is Major Healy here?" he asked.

"He is checking those American potatoes with the Miss," the priest answered.

"Oh! I'll come for a chat later on." And off he went.

Minnie could hear the Countess and the priest giggle. They were still enjoying their joke when came another rap. The surgeon this time.

Minnie went up to the ward, bursting with indignation at the priest's duplicity. The idea of his "foxing" when she supposed him sound asleep!

She thought it very deceitful of him.

Healy was a conscientious man. Though very busy that evening, he found time to redeem his promise to Father Constantine, and talk to Minnie.

She cut him short with:

"Yes. The old tower has spoilt one of the best specimens of architecture left in Poland, and the old priest's head has been smashed without either the Kaiser or the Grand Duke warning him. And I shall get my head broken unless I go home at once."

He fairly gasped.

"How on earth----" he began.

"I've heard it before. I expect that Father Constantine has asked you to help him. I shouldn't wonder if he asked you what the American government would say if my head gets broken. Looking at you and knowing your personal sympathies with the Allies, I suppose you think I am able to take care of myself."

"Well, as you mention it----"

He gave her an appreciative glance. She was good-looking and he admired her "s.p.u.n.k," to say nothing about her bright eyes and rosy cheeks.

Taking courage, she went on gaily:

"And the priest probably used his old joke about his head being harder than a woman's."

"He did say----"

"Major Healy, I appreciate your kindness, but I'm not going home for any of these arguments, which I've heard before. You may have some of your own up your sleeve, if so----"

"I hadn't thought of any, but----"

"No, you've been so busy that you trusted to the old ones. It would take something better to send me back to London."

"There's Moscow," he mentioned. "It's nearer and quite safe." He rather liked the idea of having her as traveling companion. She would be entertaining and was good to look upon.

"Nor Moscow either."

"Warsaw?"

"Not even Warsaw. I'm going to stop here, where I'm wanted."

He laughed. "I don't know but what you're right. You can always get away when things look bad."

He returned to his blankets and potatoes, so Minnie heard no more of the matter from him. But Father Constantine was quite nasty about it. Next afternoon, at the hour of his siesta, he summoned his old servant and made him read the newspaper. Then he insisted on learning how to knit.

In future, when he wanted a nap, he saw that the door was locked, saying that visitors at that time disturbed him. He gave a pretty shrewd guess that his room was about the only place where Minnie could talk quietly to Ian these busy days, and meant to put a stop to the meetings. He was by no means so simple as he looked.

Major Healy sought her to say good-bye, on the afternoon of his departure. He waited till she had gone up to one of the large bedrooms she called her ward. He thought he could talk more freely there than before his host or hostess. His ideas about Minnie had changed in these few days, since he sat, bored and eager to get away, by the old chaplain's bed, and listened to his talk of broken heads.

"You're doing splendid work here," he said, when she had shown him a couple of her convalescent patients. "But I think you're too near the firing line."

"So is the Countess," she returned gaily. He did not speak for a moment. He had a habit of pondering beforehand that suited his big stature and heavy build. He was interested in her. She happened to be the first young woman he had met for weeks who spoke his own language.

Relief work in a devastated country did not allow for social intercourse and he realized what a pleasant little break Ruvno had made for him.

"The Countess?" he echoed, looking at his cigar. "I guess the Countess is hanging on to a piece of herself. The Count tells me her family has been here for eight centuries. I hadn't realized what that meant till I talked to them. It means that the family was looking at this landscape, tilling this land and fighting for it when the Indians camped where my home is and the Norman king reigned over _yours_. So I expect she'd as soon die as leave it any other way."

"Yes--that's true," agreed Minnie.

"But you've only been here a few months," he went on. "It's not part of your bones."

"I've these," she said, looking round the room, which was peopled with peasant women and children, injured by Prussian sh.e.l.ls or gases, whilst working in their fields. "I can't leave them."

He lowered his voice and bent over her, though not one of those suffering, frightened souls could understand what he said. "I've talked things over with the Count. It's plain enough that they're not going to leave this old house of theirs even if the Germans come for good.

That's their look-out. If I were in their shoes I'd probably do the same thing. The Germans will have to burn them out. But you're not a Pole--Miss Burton. If they catch you here, they'll give you a pretty bad time of it."

Her eyes flashed.

"I'm going to stay all the same," she said firmly. "The Russians aren't beaten yet."

He gave a slow gesture of despair.

"It's going to be a long party and the Germans 'll make another push for Warsaw soon. You're right in their road here."

He looked at her, a little pleadingly. He hated the thought of leaving her in the midst of this desolation, possibly a prey to German "Kultur."

He had not noticed anything to make him suspect that Ian, rather than wounded refugees, was in her mind when she refused to leave. He had not seen the two together. Ian was busy all day long outside the house, she in the wards. His admiration for her grew.

"Haven't you any family?" he asked.

"One brother with the Fleet and another in Flanders."

"That's a family to be proud of," he said warmly. "D'you hear from them?"

"Not since the Dardanelles were closed. Will you take a couple of letters for me?"

"That I will. And I'll see you get the answers. I'm going to Petrograd next week--then to France. I'll be back here next spring. Meanwhile, there are other men doing the work. Tell your brothers to send through our office in Moscow. Here's the address." He produced a card, then a pencil. "On the back I'll write mine, in Paris, where you'll always get me." He scribbled a couple of lines and handed her the card. "Now you keep that and don't forget to let me know, either there, or through our Moscow office, when you want anything."

"Thanks awfully. I'll take great care of the card and will fetch the letters for my brothers. They are ready."

He followed her and waited in the corridor. When she came back he said, hesitatingly: