"Eva has gone to visit Miss Flaherty for the afternoon," Nikolai answered softly in English. To soothe his daughter in a tongue that was not their own did not come naturally, but he hoped that, in spite of her distress, she would appreciate the gesture: he was consoling her in a way made more intimate by the fact that Ustinya could not understand it.

He hoped that neither woman could hear his heart breaking at Petra's distress.

"She also...had some difficulty adjusting to the news, and thought it best to leave, to clear her head."

'Had all but stormed out' would have been decidedly more accurate, but decidedly less comforting.