"Bad luck!"
"It is, rather. I hate anybody's knowing about it; that's why I said I'd stay behind and lock up. I knew it was going to happen, and I didn't want any one to be there."
"I'm sorry. I thought it was the raid that had upset you, and that you might be going to faint."
"Nothing so romantic," said Miss Jones regretfully.
But her regrets were as nothing to those of the Hostel when they learnt what had happened.
It was impossible to conceal it from them, since the window of the ground-floor bedroom had been open, and Mrs. Potter and Miss Marsh, leaning from it, and listening eagerly, had heard every word of Captain Trevellyan's final discourse to Miss Jones, and her repeated assurances of being now completely restored.
They flew into the hall to meet her.
"Gracie dear, what has happened to you? Tony was in such a state when she found you hadn't come in with her and the others."
"Was it that beastly raid upset you?"
Grace once more repudiated the raid with as much energy as she could muster.
"You look as white as a sheet, dear! Come into the sitting-room."
Every one was in the sitting-room, including those first back from the Canteen, and the pseudo-invalids who, having been in bed when the raid began, felt that only tea could enable them to face the night, and had hurried down in search of it.
"Oh, Gracie, there you are! I was just going back to see what had become of you," said Tony.
"Miss Vivian's cousin brought her home!" giggled Mrs. Potter. "You know, the Staff Officer one. She's been awfully upset, poor Grace! Turned quite faint, didn't you, dear?"
"But you were so brave!" cried Tony, aghast. "You were all right all the time the raid was on. You didn't mind a bit!"
"Came over you afterwards, I expect, didn't it?" said Miss Delmege kindly. "It's often the case. I'm always perfectly cool myself when anything happens—I was tonight—but I generally suffer for it afterwards. Reaction, I suppose. When I came downstairs after it was all over I was simply shaking, wasn't I, Mrs. Bullivant?"
"Now, it's a funny thing," remarked Miss Henderson, without giving any one time to dwell upon Miss Delmege's personal reminiscences—"it's a funny thing, but I simply didn't feel the least bit of fear. Not for myself, you know. I just thought, well, I hope mother doesn't see any of this—she's got a bit of a heart, you know—but I didn't seem to feel a bit as though I was in any kind of danger myself. Not a bit."
"Now, just sit down, child, and drink up this tea," said Mrs. Bullivant to Grace. "You've not a scrap of colour in your face."
"I'm really all right now, thank you very much," Grace told her as she took the tea gratefully. "And it wasn't anything to do with the raid."
Everybody looked rather disappointed.
"Aren't you well, then, dear? I do hope it isn't another case of influenza."
"I bet I know!" suddenly cried Tony. "It was doing up that man's hand upset you, wasn't it? He cut himself somehow in the excitement and was bleeding like a fountain, poor fellow! I thought you looked rather squeamish while you were doing it, poor thing! but I never thought of its bowling you over like this. Are you one of those people who faint at the sight of blood?"
"I didn't faint," said Grace mildly.
"Jolly near it, I expect, judging by your face now," said Tony critically. "Poor old dear!"
"Did Miss Vivian's cousin come back to find you?" asked Miss Delmege sharply.
"He came into the kitchen while I was still there, and afterwards he helped me to lock up."
"Afterwards?"
A tinge of colour crept into Miss Jones's face.
"I'm afraid you won't think I rose to the occasion at all," she said deprecatingly. "It always does make me rather ill to see blood, though I know it's idiotic, and it was the soldier's hand, not the air-raid a bit, I didn't mind that at all."
"What happened? Were you hysterical?" demanded Miss Delmege, with an inexplicable touch of umbrage in her refined little voice.
"Certainly not," said Grace emphatically. "If you really want to know, I was just sick over the sink."
Miss Jones's damaging revelation horrified the Hostel, no less than the crude manner of its avowal.
"Well," said Miss Henderson, "you really are the limit, Gracie—and a bit over."
"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bullivant kindly. "How dreadful for you! Miss Vivian's cousin and all, too! But, still, it was better than an absolute stranger, perhaps."
"I don't see how you're ever going to face him again, though—really I don't," giggled Tony.
"Poor man! so awful for him, too," minced Miss Delmege. "He must have been too uncomfortable for words."
"Not he," Miss Marsh told her with sudden defiance. "He brought poor Gracie home, and delighted to have the chance. Come on, Gracie, let's go to bed. You look done for."
She had grown very fond of her room-mate, in spite of all that she regretfully looked upon as an absence of propriety in her conduct; and when they were outside the sitting-room door, she said, without troubling to lower her voice: "Don't you mind their nonsense, dear. You couldn't help it, and that Delmege has only got the pip because she hadn't the chance of being brought home by Miss Vivian's cousin herself."
And when they got upstairs she "turned down" Gracie's bed for her, and put her kettle on to the gas-ring, and brought her an extra hot-water bottle.
"There! Good-night, dear, and don't you worry. I think it was splendid of you to tell the truth. Lots of girls would have fibbed, and said they'd fainted, or something highfaluting of that nature. I should myself."
"Thank you so much. You are nice to me," said Grace warmly. She did not look upon the affair herself as being more than a merely unfortunate incident, but she knew that Miss Marsh regarded it as an overwhelming scandal, and was proffering consolation accordingly.
Miss Marsh bent over the bed and tucked her in. "I'll turn out the gas, and you must go straight to sleep. It's frightfully late. And look here, Gracie, when we're alone together up here, I'd like you to call me Dora, if you will. It's my name, you know."
X
"That settles it," said Char. "If this sort of thing is going to happen, I must be there. With no definite organization, there might be a panic next time an air-raid takes place. According to Mrs. Willoughby, every one made a dash for the basement, as it was. Women are such fools when one leaves them to themselves!"
It was part of Char's policy always to disparage her own sex. It threw into greater relief the contrast which she knew to exist between herself and the majority of women-workers.
She was speaking to Miss Bruce, but, rather to her annoyance, Lady Vivian came into the room in time to overhear her.
"Surely the basement was the most sensible place to dash for?" she inquired, never able to resist an opportunity of attacking her offspring's arrogantly expressed opinions. "As for your being there, in my opinion, it's a very good thing you weren't. You'd only have drilled the poor things out of their senses, which would have taken up more valuable space in the basement."
"I should not have been in the basement," returned Char superbly.
"Then you might have been blown into bits, my dear, unless, as Director of the Midland Supply Depôt,