They dined in the great restaurant belonging to the hotel. He was still vastly pleased with himself as he marched up the crowded room with Joan upon his arm. He held himself upright and talked and laughed perhaps louder than an elderly gentleman should.
"Swaggering old beggar," he must have overheard a young sub. mutter as they passed. But he did not seem to mind it.
They lingered over the meal. Folk was a brilliant talker. Most of the men whose names were filling the newspapers had sat to him at one time or another. He made them seem quite human. Joan was surprised at the time.
"Come up to my rooms, will you?" he asked. "There's something Iwant to say to you. And then I'll walk back with you." She was staying at a small hotel off Jermyn Street.
He sat her down by the fire and went into the next room. He had a letter in his hand when he returned. Joan noticed that the envelope was written upon across the corner, but she was not near enough to distinguish the handwriting. He placed it on the mantelpiece and sat down opposite her.
"So you have come to love the dear old chap," he said.
"I have always loved him," Joan answered. "It was he didn't love me, for a time, as I thought. But I know now that he does."He was silent for a few moments, and then he leant across and took her hands in his.
"I am going," he said, "where there is just the possibility of an accident: one never knows. I wanted to be sure that all was well with you."He was looking at the ring upon her hand.
"A soldier boy?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered. "If he comes back." There was a little catch in her voice.
"I know he'll come back," he said. "I won't tell you why I am so sure. Perhaps you wouldn't believe." He was still holding her hands, looking into her eyes.
"Tell me," he said, "did you see your mother before she died. Did she speak to you?""No," Joan answered. "I was too late. She had died the night before. I hardly recognized her when I saw her. She looked so sweet and young.""She loved you very dearly," he said. "Better than herself. All those years of sorrow: they came to her because of that. Ithought it foolish of her at the time, but now I know she was wise.
I want you always to love and honour her. I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't right."She looked at him and smiled. "It's quite easy," she answered. "Ialways see her as she lay there with all the sorrow gone from her.
She looked so beautiful and kind."
He rose and took the letter from where he had placed it on the mantelpiece. He stooped and held it out above the fire and a little flame leaped up and seemed to take it from his hand.
They neither spoke during the short walk between the two hotels.
But at the door she turned and held out her hands to him.
"Thank you," she said, "for being so kind--and wise. I shall always love and honour her."He kissed her, promising to take care of himself.
She ran against Phillips, the next day, at one of the big stores where she was shopping. He had obtained a commission early in the war and was now a captain. He had just come back from the front on leave. The alternative had not appealed to him, of being one of those responsible for sending other men to death while remaining himself in security and comfort.
"It's a matter of temperament," he said. "Somebody's got to stop behind and do the patriotic speechifying. I'm glad I didn't.
Especially after what I've seen."
He had lost interest in politics.
"There's something bigger coming," he said. "Here everything seems to be going on much the same, but over there you feel it.
Something growing silently out of all this blood and mud. I find myself wondering what the men are staring at, but when I look there's nothing as far as my field-glasses will reach but waste and desolation. And it isn't only on the faces of our own men. It's in the eyes of the prisoners too. As if they saw something. Afunny ending to the war, if the people began to think."Mrs. Phillips was running a Convalescent Home in Folkestone, he told her; and had even made a speech. Hilda was doing relief work among the ruined villages of France.
"It's a new world we shall be called upon to build," he said. "We must pay more heed to the foundation this time."She seldom discussed the war with her father. At the beginning, he had dreamed with Greyson of a short and glorious campaign that should weld all classes together, and after which we should forgive our enemies and shape with them a better world. But as the months went by, he appeared to grow indifferent; and Joan, who got about twelve hours a day of it outside, welcomed other subjects.
It surprised her when one evening after dinner he introduced it himself.
"What are you going to do when it's over?" he asked her. "You won't give up the fight, will you, whatever happens?" She had not known till then that he had been taking any interest in her work.
"No," she answered with a laugh, "no matter what happens, I shall always want to be in it.""Good lad," he said, patting her on the shoulder. "It will be an ugly world that will come out of all this hate and anger. The Lord will want all the help that He can get.""And you don't forget our compact, do you?" he continued, "that Iam to be your backer. I want to be in it too."She shot a glance at him. He was looking at the portrait of that old Ironside Allway who had fought and died to make a nobler England, as he had dreamed. A grim, unprepossessing gentleman, unless the artist had done him much injustice, with high, narrow forehead, and puzzled, staring eyes.
She took the cigarette from her lips and her voice trembled a little.
"I want you to be something more to me than that, sir," she said.
"I want to feel that I'm an Allway, fighting for the things we've always had at heart. I'll try and be worthy of the name."Her hand stole out to him across the table, but she kept her face away from him. Until she felt his grasp grow tight, and then she turned and their eyes met.