"By himself. In his room."
She went to him there.
He was sitting at his little table. He had been trying to write a letter,
but he had pushed it from him and left it. You could see he was absorbed
in some bitter meditation. She seated herself at the head of his bed, on
his pillow, where she could look down at him.
"John," she said, "you can't go on like this--"
"Like what?"
He held his head high; but the excited, happy light had gone out of his
eyes; they stared, not as though they saw anything, but withdrawn, as
though he were contemplating the fearful memory of his fear.
And she was sorry for him, so sorry that she couldn't bear it. She bit
her lip lest she should sob out with pain.
"Oh--" she said, and her pain stopped her.
"I don't know what you're talking about--'going on like this.'
I'm--going--on."
"What's the good? You've had enough. If I were you I should go home. You
know you can't stand it."
"What? Go and leave my cars to Sutton?"
"McClane could take them."
"I don't know how long McClane signed on for. _I_ signed on for the
duration of the war."
"There wasn't any signing on."
"Well, if you like, I swore I wouldn't go back till it was over."
"Yes, and supposing it happens again."
"What _should_ happen again?"
"What happened this afternoon.... And it wasn't the first time."
"Do you _know_ what happened?"
"I _saw_ what happened. You simply went to pieces."
"My dear Charlotte, _you_ went to pieces, if you like."
"I know that's what you told Mac. And _he_ knows how true it is."
"Does he? Well--he shan't have my ambulances. You don't suppose I'm
going to let McClane fire me out of Belgium?... I suppose he put you up
to this...."
He stood up as a sign to her to leave him. "I don't see that there's
anything more to be said."
"There's one thing." (She slid to her feet.) "_You_ swore you'd stick
till the war's over. _I_ swore, if I had to choose between you and the
wounded, it shouldn't be you."
"You haven't got to choose. You've only got to obey orders...."
His face stiffened. He looked like some hard commander imposing an
unanswerable will.
"... The next time," he said, "you'll be good enough to remember that I
settle what risks are to be taken, not you."
Her soul stiffened, too, and was hard. She stood up against him with her
shoulder to the door.
"It sounds all right," she said. "But the _next time_ I'll carry him on
my back all the way."
* * * * *
She went to bed with her knowledge. He funked and lied. The two things
she couldn't stand. His funk and his lying were a real part of him. And
it was as if she had always known it, as if all the movements of her mind
had been an effort to escape her knowledge.
She opened her eyes. Something hurt them. Gwinnie, coming late to bed,
had turned on the electric light. And as she rolled over, turning her
back to the light and to Gwinnie, her mind shifted. It saw suddenly the
flame leaping in John's face. His delight in danger, that happiness he
felt when he went out to meet it, happiness springing up bright and new
every day; that was a real part of him. She couldn't doubt it. She knew.
And she was left with her queer, baffled sense of surprise and
incompleteness. She couldn't see the nature of the bond between these two
realities.
That was his secret, his mystery.