General Alexis said a few words in Russian which the young soldier understood, but Mildred could not. For he attempted to shake his head, to whisper a denial, then smiling dropped his arms down by his sides.
Mildred made no effort to move forward to assist him, for she did not feel that she had a place in the little group at this moment. She merely watched and waited, trying to see clearly through the mist in her eyes.
The boy's broad chest, strong once as a young giant's, but now with a scarcely beating heart beneath it, quivered with what seemed a final emotion. The same instant General Alexis leaned down and pinned against the white cotton of his rough shirt the iron cross of all the Russias. Afterwards he kissed him as simply as a woman might have done.
That was all! So natural and so quiet it was, Mildred Thornton herself was hardly aware of the significance of the little scene she had just witnessed.
Here in a country where the gulf between the rich and the poor, the humble and the great was well nigh impassable, a single act of courage had bridged it.
What act of valor Peter had performed Mildred never knew. She only knew that it had called from his duties one of the greatest men in Europe, that he might by his presence and with his own hands show homage to the humblest of soldiers.
When the simple ceremony was over the boy lay quite still, scarcely noticing that his general knelt down beside his bed. For his eyes were almost closing.
Against the walls the other nurses and doctors stood quiet as wooden figures, while the wounded were hushed to unaccustomed silences.
Then the Russian priest began to intone in words which the American girl could not understand, but in a voice the most wonderful she had ever heard. His tones were those of an organ deep and beautiful, of great volume but without noise.
Ceasing, he lifted an ikon before the young soldier's dimming eyes, and pronounced what must have been a benediction.
The next moment the great stillness had entered the hospital chamber and the Russian boy with the iron cross above his heart lay in his final sleep.
All at once Mildred Thornton felt extraordinarily weary. Backward and forward she could see the big room rise and recede as though it had been an immense wave. The dim light was turning to darkness, when instinctively reaching out her hand touched the back of a chair. With this she steadied herself for the moment. Until now she had not known how tired she was from her vigil, nor how she had been moved by the scene she had just witnessed. After a little she would go to her own room and perhaps Nona or Barbara would be there. But she must wait until General Alexis and the priest had gone away.