“I am merely dressing the burns, Madame Obosky,” said the other, coldly. “I have done as much for the other poor fellows who--”
“I know, I know,” broke in the Russian, smiling. “You must not be offend with me if I speak your language so badly.”
“It strikes me you speak it most acceptably,” interposed Percival.
“What is your name?” she asked abruptly. “I have heard you called the stowaway. No one has speak your name to me.”
“It is a pretty name,” said she, dubiously. “But surely you do not approve of me to call you Percival so quick. What is the other name, the name I am to--”
“That's the trouble with a name like mine. It sounds so beastly informal when you leave off the Mister, and it sounds as if you'd been a servant in the family for at least one generation if you stick it on. If you could only call me Monsieur Percival, or Senor Percival, or even Herr Percival, it wouldn't seem so bad, but Mister Percival,--well, it's pretty soft, isn't it, Miss Clinton?”
“Please hold your hand still, Mr. Percival,” ordered the girl. She smiled up at the puzzled dancer. “His name is Mr. Percival, Madame Obosky. That's the poor creature's last name.”
“Oh, I see. Then even you, Mademoiselle, may not call him Percival?”
“You see, she's known me such a very short time,” explained the subject of these remarks.
For a few moments Madame Obosky watched the bandaging process in silence. When she spoke again it was to say:
“You are so skilful, so gentle, Mademoiselle. I am taking a lesson in gentleness from you.”
“It is quite simple, Madame. I am very awkward. I have had no experience. But if we ever live to see home again, I shall prepare myself at once for work in France. We are needed over there. We will be needed more than ever, now that America has gone in. Our own soldiers are over there, God bless them.”
“You may thank your God that you do not live in a land of soldiers, Mademoiselle. If you did, you would not be so eager to nurse them back to life. Do I shock you? Voila! When you train a boy to be a soldier, as the boys are trained in my country and in Germany, you make an animal of him,--and not a very nice animal at that. You nurse him back to life and strength and in return for your kindness he outrages you, and goes his way rejoicing. No, I do not like the soldiers.”