She drew back her head, looking him through and through.
“Peter, it's the child in you that I love. You're so much a man, and they all think of you as a man, man--all your training to be a man--and yet it's the child that a woman's heart sees and wants to preserve for her own.”
“Do you see much of Moritz Abel?” he asked.
“Yes.... It was he who found you for me.”
Peter was watching her red lips now. It was like that morning in her room, the tall flowers between. He did not hear what she was saying. The room was dim. Samarc's face was turned from them. One man in a near cot flung his arms about his head wearily, but his eyes were toward the wall.... He caught her in his arms and loved the beauty of earth in her face.
“I can't forget you. I want you as you are,” he repeated in tumult. “I want you here in the world--as you are now! We'll stand for what we can't help. There's no use fighting the end if it comes. The greatest thing here to a man will be the greatest thing after he's dead--that's clear enough. But I haven't had you here--only a few minutes. I want the winter stillness _on earth_--in the woods--not in some paradise yet.”
“Hush--I want it too. Oh, you can never know how much!... I had better go now--”
“Not until I know all about you. To-morrow is to be the big day of the battle. All may be changed. If it's a Russian victory, this is our last night in Judenbach--”
“Yes, for a little, but I shall watch how the day fares, so I can hurry back.”
“To-day--we were just a stone's throw apart. I was in that building down the street--the amputation cases.”
“Not the house where those cries come from?”
“Yes, we work there. Moritz Abel, Fallows, Poltneck, the singer, and others.... This morning I thought I could not bear to live. It was as you told him--about yourself. You see we had no anesthesia, except for cases of life or death--among the officers.”
“And you came to me from a day like that?” he asked unsteadily, his passion blurred, even the beauty of it. The chance of her living had suddenly darkened.
“It was like coming home,” she whispered. “...In Warsaw before your day--sometimes crossing the Square in the darkness--I used to think what it would mean to come to a house of happiness, after a long cruel day. It seemed too far from me; sometimes even farther than now. When I came in here to-night, and heard your voice--I knew what it would mean to come home. We must not ask too much. Many have never known what has been given to us--in these few minutes.”