The Father's room opened to his dressing-room, approachable from the corridor as well. Thither she tiptoed, to find the door ajar. Slipping in, she stood behind a curtain which hung in the doorway between dressing and bedrooms. There was no door, so she heard very clearly. Father Constantine was talking; she caught the sound of her own name.
"It is not safe for Miss Burton to remain here," he said in his slow, correct English, for the Major had no other tongue. "I have told her so more than once. So has the Countess; and also the Count. But she refuses to listen. She knows how much we value her excellent work with wounded and refugees. But perhaps you can persuade her. Neither the Countess nor her son can insist; it would look as though they wanted to get rid of her."
Major Healy was loath to interfere. He sat, like a giant in repose, by the little chaplain's bed, listening politely, but secretly wishing himself downstairs with the Count, whom he found more interesting every time they talked together. Father Constantine's message had interrupted a long argument not entirely disconnected with big-game shooting. Healy was a keen sportsman himself, and found it very interesting to swap stories with Ian, who did not know the Rockies, but did know the Caucasus and even Cashmere, where he had spent a long-remembered holiday with young Ralph Burton two years ago.
"Well," he said, in slow sonorous tones, his blue eyes watching the snowstorm that raged outside the sealed double window. "Miss Burton looks as if she could take care of herself. I hear that the Grand Duke promised to give warning if the place gets unsafe."
This was not at all what Father Constantine wanted.
"I received the wounds they cover in a fight which took place in the kitchen between the Grand Duke's soldiers and Prussian Hussars. Neither the Duke nor the Kaiser sent to warn me that a fight would be in the kitchen, which I entered by chance without any idea the Russians had come to the rescue. It was a very good thing they did come because, as you know, grain and potatoes are worth a dozen old men's skulls nowadays."
"Oh--don't say that," protested the major politely.
"Let us put it in this way. What would have happened if Miss Burton and not myself had gone into the kitchen?"