Two or three days later Jack called to say good-bye.
“I’m off to France this week,” he explained, “and I shan’t have another
chance. I wanted to see you once more before--before crossing Channel.”
The Sentimentalist was in her own little morning-room busy with the
week’s household accounts. She pushed aside all the tradesmen’s books
and bills, and rose from her chair.
“Oh, Jack!” she said half whisperingly, and again, “Oh, Jack!” Then
suddenly: “Let us go out in the garden! We can’t talk here!”
She took up her hat which had been lying on a table near her, and threw
a fleecy wool scarf over her shoulders. It was a brilliant day, despite
the wintry season, and a few red leaves still clinging to the trees made
flashes of colour against the clear grey-blue of the sky.
“How’s Dad?” Jack asked, with a show of interest. “And ‘The
Deterioration of Language Invariably Perceived’?”
She laughed rather tremulously. “Oh, just the same! Dad is not very
well, I’m afraid. He says the war worries him so.”
“Worries him? Oh, by Jove! What has _he_ got to worry about?”
“Nothing, really! But that’s just why he worries!”
They were now in the leafless rosery, walking side by side under
intertwined boughs of thorns. Jack gave a quick comprehensive glance
around him.
“Looks rather different to what it did in summer,” he said.
The fair woman at his side looked up quickly.
“Ah, yes!” she murmured. “Everything is changed!”
“No, it isn’t!” he replied briskly. “_You’re_ not changed--and _I’m_ not
changed! You’ve got a touch of the ‘blues,’ dear little lady! It’s that
old V.A.D. commandant, I bet!”
“Oh, no! No, indeed; I don’t mind her snappy ways a bit! The wounded
boys make up to me for all her tantrums!”
“I should hope they did!” said Jack, approvingly. “I say! If I get
wounded I’ll try and get sent here, and you’ll nurse me!”
She smiled, but there was a rising of tears in her throat and she could
not speak. Jack saw just how she felt, and bravely repressed his own
emotion.
“You won’t mind seeing my father now and then?” he went on. “He said the
other day that he would take it kindly if you’d look in at the cottage
sometimes--”
“I will, certainly!” she interrupted, eagerly. “But is he really going
to stay down here all winter?”
“I think so! He’s a queer old chap and likes his own way of living,” and
Jack smiled. “But his heart’s in the right place! He said the other
day, ‘I’d rather feed the robins here, than dine at the Savoy!’ That’s
him all over!”
“Is he--is he sorry you’re going?” she asked.
“If he is, he doesn’t show it!” Here the young fellow laughed cheerily.
“Oh, he’s game, I can tell you! He told me he was giving me away like a
pound of tea!--thoughts running on the American war of independence, I
suppose!”
He laughed again, but she was very silent and serious. They had left the
rosery, now the thornery, and were walking in a thick little coppice of
fir-trees, where occasional gleams of the near river shone through. On a
sudden impulse he stopped, and taking her face between his two hands
turned it up to him.
“Dear little ‘rose-lady,’” he said, huskily, “say ‘God bless you, Jack!’
before I go!”
“Oh, I _do_ say it!” she answered, sobbingly. “I do say it, and I pray
it every night and morning! Jack, dear, believe me I do!”
Somehow or other he had his arms round her,--he had none of the
Philosopher’s doubts or hesitations,--and he drew her fondly to him.
“You dear!” he whispered. “But I won’t have you cry! No tears!--or
you’ll make a real coward of me! And just now I want to be a hero--for I
think, I really do think you care for me,--just a little!”
She was silent, but she put the tiniest little flutter of a kiss on the
hand that was nearest to her lips. He thrilled to that caress with all
the warm ardour of a Romeo, and releasing her from his hold, drew
himself up with an air of joy and pride.
“Now I’m worth twice what I was a minute ago!” he said. “And if I were a
sneak, I should ask you to engage yourself to me straight away! But I
won’t. You shall not be bound to a man who may be marked down by a Boche
sniper before the month is out. No, dear! But you know I love you!--and
you know I want to marry you!--when the war is over!”
“And you’ll wait till then?” she asked, suddenly with the prettiest air
of pique and wonder.
He looked at her, and his heart beat quickly.
“I’ll try to!” he answered. “Unless you tempt me too far!”
Some further development of this situation might have occurred had not
the sudden apparition of a misshaped “Homburg” hat and weedy-looking
overcoat startled them away several paces from each other.
“Don’t let me intrude!”--and the Philosopher, slowly approaching, spoke
in the mildest and most mellifluous of accents--“I have been taking a
stroll by the river,--and you--dear me, yes!--it _is_ you!” Here he
surveyed Jack with a kind of quizzical tolerance--“I should hardly have
known you in khaki had I met you by chance anywhere else!”
“I daresay not!” replied Jack airily. “It makes a fellow so much
better-looking.”
The Philosopher smiled.
“You think so? Ah! Well,--possibly our ideas do not coincide. I cannot
admit that mud-colour is becoming to any face or figure. And when are
you off?”
“This week.” The reply was brief and blunt.
The Philosopher nodded blandly.
“So soon? And no doubt you are full of pleasurable anticipation? When
one is young and has nothing very important to do, the idea of killing
Germans must be more thrilling than an invitation to a grouse moor!”
The Sentimentalist looked pained and vexed--she was about to speak, but
a glance from Jack silenced her.
“Quite so!” he agreed, amicably. “I’d rather kill Germans than grouse
any day!”
“I envy you your humane ideas!” said the Philosopher, smiling. “Allow me
to wish you a safe journey to France and all the excitement you want
when you get there! It’s a great thing to be a defender of the Empire--a
_ve-ry_ great thing!--for those who consider the Empire worth defending!
To a scholar and student of history, all empires are alike,--one is no
worse and no better than the other, and the well-balanced man would as
soon fight for Germany as Britain. Both are arrogant powers,--and it
entirely depends on which sort of arrogance one prefers--military or
commercial. But I forgot!--you are not British--you are American! Being
so, I rather wonder you should fight at all!”
“It _is_ curious, isn’t it!” and Jack treated him to a broad smile and a
glance which took in the battered “Homburg” hat, the weedy coat, and the
large boots of the learned man. “But--it amuses me!”
Something in the flash of the young man’s eyes--a lightning gleam of
boldness and mirth--struck with an unusual force through the leathery
consciousness of the Philosopher and made him feel uncomfortable just
for a moment. He knew well enough what this voluntary soldier was
prepared to meet,--the roar of guns, the crash of shells, the flying
bombs, each instrument carrying death where it fell--and the light
dismissal of danger in the phrase “It amuses me”--did for a brief
interval move the student of many books to a sense of reluctant
admiration as well as regret that he, too, was not young enough to fling
a defiance at the hurling blows of the enemy. But, as a matter of fact,
he had never been truly “young”--for even as a boy his utter
self-absorption had set him apart from his fellows. At college, his
aloofness had gained him many a “ragging,” though certain dry-as-dust
professors thought they foresaw the ripening of “genius” in his
unnatural self-satisfaction,--a mistake of course, and not the first by
any means that dry-as-dust professors have made in their estimation of
their students. There was not a touch of “genius” in him,--there was
only a very great ability, chiefly shown in the absorption of other
people’s ideas. Just now he took a couple of minutes to recover from the
slight rap Jack had unconsciously given to his carefully balanced
mentality--then he said, suavely and graciously--
“It is fortunate for the country that it can find young men who are
willing to be ‘amused’ by fighting for a cause which is not their own,”
and a small, grim smile furrowed his features. “In fact, I consider the
war a positive godsend to the youth of both sexes--a godsend, I tell
you! It makes a clearance of the useless under the name of ‘patriotism’
and it gives the idle--especially idle women--something to do.”
“Do you know any idle women?” Jack asked. “I’ve never met one.”
The Philosopher glared at him.
“Never met one?” he echoed, ironically. “Good heavens, where have you
lived? Idle women swarm in every town and village--positively swarm--”
“No, they don’t,” interrupted Jack brusquely. “I’d just like you, sir,
to do one day of a woman’s house-work!--you would not have much time for
thought! Rich or poor she’s on the go and the grind all
through!--especially if she has a husband and children to look after.
And if not,--why, my spinster aunt out in California hasn’t an idle
moment!”
“Wonderful!” and the Philosopher looked like a fluffy owl in the rain
with its head on one side. “What does she--the spinster aunt--do, for
example?”
Jack laughed, happily.
“What does she _not_ do!” he exclaimed. “She makes all the preserves and
sweets--mends the stockings--works in the garden--nurses sick
neighbours--looks after orphan children--but there!--you wouldn’t be
interested!”
“No, I’m afraid not!” and the Philosopher shook his head, gravely.
“Preserves and sweets _do_ appeal to me--but I prefer them manufactured
rather than home produced,--and as for the rest of her energies, I
think they might be better employed. However, we will not argue! I take
off my hat to you”--here he suited the action to the word--“as a
remarkable young man who has never met an idle woman! And I hope you
will have all the amusement you expect in France!”
He made a kind of salute which comprehensively included the
Sentimentalist as well as Jack and paced slowly on his way. Not till he
was well out of hearing did Jack give vent to his feelings. He caught
the little hand of the “rose-lady” conveniently near his own and give it
an ardent squeeze.
“Promise me!” he said. “You _have_ promised me;--but promise me again
that you will not marry that cynical, selfish, mocking, old brute! He
hasn’t an ounce of real feeling in his composition!”
She smiled rather sadly.
“Dear Jack, I shall not marry anybody!” she answered. “Certainly not
this ‘clever’ man! I’m afraid you’re right--he has no feeling--only the
other day he heard of the death of one of his oldest friends and all he
said was, ‘Dear me! I shall miss him rather when I want a game at
bowls!’”
“Don’t say you won’t marry anybody,” said Jack, “because, please heaven,
you’ll marry _me_! Won’t you? But there!--I won’t bind you!”
She said nothing; only her blue eyes had wells of sweetness in them in
which a poet might ask love to drown. He held her hand a little
closer--and drew himself up straightly with a resolute air.
“I must go now,” he said. “Good-bye, dear! I won’t bother you to think
of me or write to me--or any trouble of that sort--”
“Oh, Jack! It won’t be a trouble!”
“It might be!” and he set his lips hard. “The only thing I _do_ ask is
that you go and see my old Dad sometimes and let him come to see you.
He’ll have all my news--field service post cards and everything--”
He paused. The winsome face of the Sentimentalist was uplifted--her lips
were parted and tremulous--there were tears on her golden-brown lashes.
In a reckless moment, not thinking of anything but carried away by the
emotion of his soul, he caught her to his heart and kissed her once,
twice, thrice, passionately.
“Forgive me!” he whispered. “I can’t help it! God bless you, dear!
Good-bye!”
He turned with almost lightning suddenness, plunged through the
brushwood by the river and disappeared.
“Jack!” she called, plaintively.
There was no answer. He had gone. She stood for a moment,--pained,
bewildered, and yet thrilled by the fervour of that lover’s kiss,--the
first she had ever known. How abruptly he had left her!--it was perhaps
the best way--and yet,--would she ever see him again. The tears welled
up suddenly and fell down her cheeks.
“Oh, Jack!” she murmured, brokenly. “It _is_ hard! You need not go
really!--it is your own choice!--and I--I am so lonely!”