How is that?"
"Yes, but . . . I should be willing--pray don't think that" . . . said
Lieutenant O., answering the implied suspicion; "but as there may be a
raid or some movement, I must go to bed early."
The adjutant stood up, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets,
started to go across the grounds. His face assumed its ordinary
expression of coldness and pride, which I admired in him.
"Won't you have a glass of mulled wine?" I asked him.
"That might be acceptable," and he came back to me; but Guskof politely
took the glass from me, and handed it to the adjutant, striving at the
same time not to look at him. But as he did not notice the tent-rope, he
stumbled over it, and fell on his hand, dropping the glass.
"What a bungler!" exclaimed the adjutant, still holding out his hand for
the glass. Everybody burst out laughing, not excepting Guskof, who was
rubbing his hand on his sore knee, which he had somehow struck as he
fell. "That's the way the bear waited on the hermit," continued the
adjutant. "It's the way he waits on me every day. He has pulled up all
the tent-pins; he's always tripping up."
Guskof, not hearing him, apologized to us, and glanced toward me with a
smile of almost noticeable melancholy, as though saying that I alone
could understand him.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133