The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army — Part 33

So for this reason as well as others Nona found herself attracted by the young Russian officer. He seemed very simple, much younger than an American of the same age. At this time Michael Orlaff must have been about twenty-three. But Nona was wise enough to discover that he was not so simple and direct as she had first believed him. A Russian does not readily betray either his deeper thoughts or his deeper feelings. The young Russian lieutenant would not even speak of the war nor his own part in it. Yet Nona guessed from her own observation and from certain unconscious information that he was one of the favorite younger officers of the Russian general in command of the Grovno fortifications.

So a number of weeks passed, until now and then Nona Davis almost forgot the war and her original reasons for being in her present strange position. No one brought her papers; Barbara's and Mildred's letters contained little war news. The truth was possibly being concealed from them, or else there was no way of their discovering it.

So Nona was at least spared the anxiety of knowing that the victorious German hosts were drawing nearer and nearer the fortress of Grovno. Like stone houses built by children the other ancient Russian forts had fallen before his "Excellenz von Beseler," the victor of Antwerp, who was known as the German battering ram.

Even when Sonya opened her eyes, after weeks of an almost fatal illness, and asked for news of the war, Nona was unable to tell her.

Then as the days of Sonya's convalescence went by she would not let her talk of it. Always war is a more terrible thing to girls and women than it is to boys and men. But ever since their first acquaintance Nona had realized that the horror of it went deeper into Sonya's consciousness than any person she had yet seen. It must be the war that had aged her so in the past year.

So the Russian woman and the American girl spoke of everything else. Sonya told of her own life and of Nona's mother when they were little girls. They had both been allowed to go away to college. It was in school that they imbibed their revolutionary ideas. No wonder that their families never forgave them!

Sonya was dressed and sitting in her chair the day when the summons finally came for her arrest.