Next evening I went into Lady Meryon’s flower-scented drawing-room. The
electric fans were fluttering and the evening air was cool. Five or
six pretty girls and as many men made up the party--Kitty Meryon the
prettiest of them all, fashionably undressed in faint pink and crystal,
with a charming smile in readiness, all her gay little flags flying in
the rich man’s honour. I am no vainer than other men, but I saw that.
Whatever her charm might be it was none for me. What could I say to
interest her who lived in her foolish little world as one shut in a
bright bubble? And she had said the wrong word about young Fitzgerald--I
wanted Vanna, with her deep seeing eyes, to say the right one and adjust
those cruel values.
Governesses dine, it appeared, only to fill an unexpected place, or make
a decorous entry afterward, to play accompaniments. Fortunately Kitty
Meryon sang, in a pinched little soprano, not nearly so pretty as her
silver ripple of talk.
It was when the party had settled down to bridge and I was standing out,
that I ventured to go up to her as she sat knitting by a window--not
unwatched by the quick flash of Lady Meryon’s eyes as I did it.
“I think you hypnotize me, Miss Loring. When I hear anything I
straightway want to know what you will say. Have you heard of
Fitzgerald’s death?”
“That is why we are not dancing tonight. Tomorrow the cable will reach
his home in England. He was an only child, and they are the great people
of the village where we are the little people. I knew his mother as one
knows a great lady who is kind to all the village folk. It may kill her.
It is travelling tonight like a bullet to her heart, and she does not
know.”
“His father?”
“A brave man--a soldier himself. He will know it was a good death and
that Harry would not fail. He did not at Ypres. He would not here. But
all joy and hope will be dead in that house tomorrow.”
“And what do you think?”
“I am not sorry for Harry, if you mean that. He knew--we all know--that
he was on guard here holding the outposts against blood and treachery
and terrible things--playing the Great Game. One never loses at that
game if one plays it straight, and I am sure that at the last it was joy
he felt and not fear. He has not lost. Did you notice in the church
a niche before every soldier’s seat to hold his loaded gun? And the
tablets on the walls; “Killed at Kabul River, aged 22.”--“Killed on
outpost duty.”--“Murdered by an Afghan fanatic.” This will be one memory
more. Why be sorry.”