"Part of her body and soul was lying done to death in some field—or by some roadside," said the Duchess. "She could not pray—she could only cry out. I can hear her, 'Oh, Lord Jesus!'"
Later came the morning when the changed George came to say good-bye. He was wonderfully good-looking in his khaki and seemed taller and more square of jaw. He made a few of the usual young jokes which were intended to make things cheerful and to treat affectionate fears lightly, but his good-natured blue eye held a certain deadly quiet in its depths.
His mother and Kathryn were with him, and it was while they were absorbed in anxious talk with the Duchess that he walked over to where Robin sat and stood before her.
"Will you come into the library and let me say something to you? I don't want to go away without saying it," he put it to her.
The library was the adjoining room and Robin rose and went with him without any comment or question. Already the time had come when formalities had dropped away and people did not ask for trivial explanations. The pace of events had become too rapid.
"There are a lot of chances when a man goes out—that he won't come back," he said, still standing after she had taken a place in the window-seat he guided her to. "There are not as many as one's friends can't help thinking—but there are enough to make him feel he'd like to leave things straight when he goes. What I want you to let me say is, that the minute I had made a fool of myself the night of the dance, I knew what an ass I had been and I was ready to grovel."
Robin's lifted face was quite gentle. Suddenly she was thinking self-reproachingly, "Oh, poor boy—poor boy!"
"I flew into a temper and would not let you," she answered him. "It was temper—but there were things you didn't know. It was not your fault that you didn't." The square, good-natured face flushed with relief, and George's voice became even slightly unsteady.
"That's kind of you," he said, "it's kind and I'm jolly grateful. Things mean a lot just now—with all one's people in such a state and trying so pluckily to hide it. I just wanted to make sure that you knew that I knew that the thing only happened because I was a silly idiot and for no other reason. You will believe me, won't you, and won't remember it if you ever remember me?"
"I shall remember you—and it is as if—that had never happened at all."
She put out, as she got up, such a kind hand that he grasped it almost joyously.
"You have made it awfully easy for me. Thank you, Miss Lawless." He hesitated a second and then dropped his voice. "I wonder if I dare—I wonder if it would be cheek—and impudence if I said something else?"
"Scarcely anything seems cheek or impudence now," Robin answered with simple sadness. "Nothing ordinary seems to matter because everything is of so much importance."
"I feel as if what I wanted to say was one of the things that are important. I don't know what—older people—or safe ones—would think about it, but—" He broke off and began again. "To us young ones who are facing—It's the only big thing that's left us—in our bit of the present. We can only be sure of to-day—"
"Yes—yes," Robin cried out low. "Only to-day—just to-day." She even panted a little and George, looking into her eyes, knew that he might say anything, because for a reason she was one of the girls who in this hour could understand.
"Perhaps you don't know where our house is," he said quite quickly. "It is one of those in the Square—facing the Gardens. I might have played with you there when I was a little chap—but I don't think I did."
"Nobody did but Donal," she said, quickly also. How did she know that he was going to say something to her about Donal?
"I gave him the key to the Gardens that day," he hurried on. "I was at the window with him when he saw you. I understood in a minute when I saw his face and he'd said half a dozen words to me. I gave him my key. He has got it now." He actually snatched at both her hands and gripped them. It was a grip and his eyes burned through a sort of sudden moisture. "We can't stay here and talk. But I couldn't not say it! Oh, I say, be good to him! You would, if he had only a day to live because some damned German bullet had struck him. You're life—you're youngness—you're to-day! Don't say 'No' to anything he asks of you—for God's sake, don't."
"I'd give him my heart in his two hands," gasped Robin. "I couldn't give him my soul because it was always his."
"God take care of the pair of you—and be good to the rest of us," whispered George, wringing her hands hard and dropping them.
That was how he went away.
A few weeks later he was lying, a mangled object, in a field in Flanders. One of thousands—living, laughing, good as honest bread is good; the possible passer-on of life and force and new thinking for new generations—one of hundreds of thousands—one of millions before the end came—nice, healthy, normal-minded George, son and heir of a house of decent nobles.
CHAPTER V
And still youth marched away, and England seemed to swarm with soldiers and, at times, to hear and see nothing but marching music and marching feet, though life went on in houses, shops, warehouses and offices, and new and immense activities evolved as events demanded them. Many of the new activities were preparations for the comfort and care of soldiers who were going away, and for those who would come back and would need more care than the others. Women were doing astonishing work and revealing astonishing power and determination. The sexes mingled with a businesslike informality unknown in times of peace. Lovely girls went in and out of their homes, and from one quarter of London to another without question. They walked with a brisk step and wore the steady expression of creatures with work in view. Slim young war-widows were to be seen in black dresses and veiled small hats with bits of white crape inside their brims. Sometimes their little faces were awful to behold, but sometimes they wore a strained look of exaltation.
The Dowager Duchess of Darte was often absent from Eaton Square. She was understood to be proving herself much stronger than her friends had supposed her to be. She proved it by doing an extraordinary amount of work. She did it in her house in Eaton Square—in other people's houses, in her various estates in the country, where she prepared her villagers and tenants for a future in which every farm house and cottage must be as ready for practical service as her own castle or manor house. Darte Norham was no longer a luxurious place of residence but a potential hospital for wounded soldiers; so was Barons Court and the beautiful old Dower House at Malworth.
Sometimes Robin was with her, but oftener she remained at Eaton Square and wrote letters and saw busy people and carried out lists of orders.
It was not every day or evening that she could easily find time to go out alone and make her way to the Square Gardens and in fact it was not often to the Gardens she went. There were so many dear places where trees grew and made quiet retreats—all the parks and heaths and green suburbs—and everywhere pairs walked or sat and talked, and were frankly so wholly absorbed in the throb of their own existences that they had no interest in, or curiosity concerning, any other human beings.
"Ought I to ask you to come and meet me—as if you were a little housemaid meeting her life-guardsman?" Donal had said feverishly the second time they met.
A sweet flush ran up to the roots of her hair and even showed itself on the bit of round throat where her dress was open.
"Yes, you ought," she answered. "There are no little housemaids and life-guardsmen now. It seems as if there were only—people."
The very sound of her voice thrilled him—everything