ttoevo about a week, he was at the Cross watching the sun,
like a crimson flower, sink behind the dim grey forest. The Nestor, in
the evening mist, was a golden shadow under the hill. This beauty
made him melancholy. He was wishing passionately, as he stood there,
for work, hard, dangerous, gripping work. He did not know that that
was to be the last idle minute of his life. Hearing a step on the path
he turned round to find Semyonov at his side.

"Lovely view, isn't it?" said Semyonov, watching him.

"Lovely," answered Trenchard.

Semyonov sat down on the little stone seat beneath the Cross and
looked up at his rival. Trenchard looked down at him, hating his
square, stolid composure, his thick thighs, his fair beard, his
ironical eyes. "You're a _beastly_ man!" he thought.

"How long are you going to be with us, do you think?" asked Semyonov.

"Don't know--depends on so many things."

"Why don't you go back to England? They want soldiers."

"Wouldn't pass my eyesight."

"When are they going to begin doing something on the other Front, do
you think?"

"When they're ready, I suppose."

"They're very slow. Where's all your army we heard so much about?"

"There's a big army going to be ready soon."

"Yes, but we were told things would begin in May. It's only the
Germans who've begun."

"I don't know; I've seen no English papers for some weeks."

There was a pause. Semyonov smiled, stood up, looked into Trenchard's
eyes.

"I must go to England," he said slowly, "after the war. Marie Ivanovna
and I will go, I hope, together. She told me to-day that that is one
of the things that she hopes we will do together--later on."

Trenchard returned Semyonov's gaze. After a moment he said:

"Yes--you would enjoy it." He waited, then added: "I must be walking
back now. I'm late!" And he turned away to the house.

CHAPTER VII

ONE NIGHT

Marie Ivanovna herself spoke to me of Semyonov. She found me alone
waiting for my morning tea. We were before the others, and could hear,
in the next room, Molozov splashing water about the floor and crying
to Michail, his servant, to pour "_Yestsho! Yestsho!" "Yestsho!
Yestsho!_"--"Still more! Still more," over his head.

She stood in the doorway looking as though she hated my presence.

"The others have not arrived," I said. "It's late to-day."

"I can see," she answered. "Every one is idle now."

Then her voice changed. She came across to me. We talked of
unimpor