Part 14 (1/2)
”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 n.o.body 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. _That_ is 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 pa.s.sion.
”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.