Part 33 (1/2)
”At least you'll let me have your friends.h.i.+p--to take back with me.”
She looked at him, startled. ”Oh, you are going back?”
”I may get my orders any day. There are things I can be doing over there.”
Some day she was to see him ”over there,” to see him against a background of fire and flame and smoke, to see him transfigured by heroism, and she was to remember then with an aching heart this moment when he had told her that he loved her.
It was dark when Derry brought Jean home. There had been a sunset and an afterglow, and a twilight, and an evening star to ravish them as they rode, to say nothing of the moon--they came to the Doctor's door quite dizzy with the joy of it.
Derry was loath to leave. ”Can't we all go to a play tonight?” he asked Jean's father. ”You and Miss Bridges and the two of us?”
”Certainly not. Jean has done enough to-day. She isn't made of iron.”
”She is made of fire and dew,” Derry flung at him, lightly.
”Heavens, has it come to that? Well, she is still my daughter. I won't have her ill on my hands.”
”But, Daddy!”
”You are to have a quiet dinner with me, my dear, and go to bed--and young Lochinvar may call for you in the morning--”
Young Lochinvar was repentant. ”I didn't think it would tire her.”
”Henceforth you will have to think.”
”I know, sir.”
He was so meek that the Doctor melted. ”Run along and say 'Good-bye'
to her. I'll give you ten minutes.”
They wanted ten eternities. But there was, of course, tomorrow. They comforted themselves with that.
At dinner, the Doctor spoke of Derry's father. ”All real danger is past, but he will have to be careful.”
”When is Hilda coming back?”
”She told me last night that she'd rather stay until there was no further need for a nurse. The General hates a change, and he has asked her to stay.”
”Does she like it?”
”She is very comfortable.”
”Derry says that his father is an old dear.”
”He would think so, naturally.”
There were things about the General's case which were troubling Dr.
McKenzie, and of which he could not speak. The old man had, undoubtedly been given something to drink on Thanksgiving Day.