She had tears now.
"Nobody knows," he said gently, "but you and me.... I want to talk to
you about him. He must be got away from the Front. He must be got out
of Belgium."
"You always wanted to get him away."
"Only because I saw he would break down."
"How could you tell?"
"I'm a psychotherapist. It's my business to tell."
But she was still on the defensive.
"You never liked him."
"I neither like nor dislike him. To me Conway is simply a sick man. If I
could cure him--"
"Can't you?"
"Not as you think. I can't turn his cowardice into courage. I might turn
it into something else but not that. That's why I say he ought to go
home. You must tell him."
"I can't. Couldn't Billy tell him?"
"Well, hardly. He's his commandant."
"Can't _you_?"
"Not I. You know what he thinks about me."
"What?"
"That I've got a grudge against him. That I'm jealous of him. You thought
it yourself."
"Did I?"
"You did. Look here, I say--I wanted to take you three into my corps. And
you'd have been sent home after the Berlaere affair if I hadn't spoken
for you. So much for my jealousy."
"I only thought you were jealous of John."
"Why, it was I who got him sent out that first day."
"_Was_ it?"
"Yes. I wanted to give him his chance. And," he added meditatively, "I
wanted to know whether I was right. I wanted to see what he would do."
"I don't think it now," she said, reverting.
"_That's_ all right."
He laughed his brief, mirthless laugh, the assent of his egoism. But his
satisfaction had nothing personal in it. He was pleased because justice,
abstract justice, had been done. But she suspected his sincerity. He did
things for you, not because he liked you, but for some other reason; and
he would be so carried away by doing them that he would behave as though
he liked you when he didn't, when all the time you couldn't for one
minute rouse him from his immense indifference. She knew he liked her for
sticking to her post and for taking the wounded man on her back, because
that was the sort of thing he would have done himself. And he had only
helped John because he wanted to see what he would do. Therefore she
suspected his sincerity.
But, no; he wasn't jealous.
"And now," he went on, "you must get him to go home at once, or he'll
have a bad break-down. You've got to tell him, Charlotte."