Part 73 (2/2)

Derry's eyes wandered to Jean. ”All right,” he said with an effort.

The General's heart tightened. His son was his son. The little girl in silver and rose was in a sense an outsider. She had not known Derry throughout the years, as his father had known him. How could she care as much?

Yet she did care. He realized how Derry's coming had changed her. He heard her laugh as she had not laughed in all the weeks of loneliness.

She came up and stood beside Derry, and linked her arm in his and looked up at him with s.h.i.+ning eyes.

”Isn't he--wonderful?” she asked, with a catch of her breath.

”Oh, take her away,” the old gentleman said. ”Go and talk to her somewhere.”

Derry's face brightened. ”You don't mind?”

”Of course not,” stoutly. ”Bronson says that the rain has stopped.

There's probably a moon somewhere, if you'll look for it.”

Margaret went up to put the children to bed. Emily, promising to come back, withdrew to write a letter. The old man sat alone.

He limped into the blue room, and gazed indifferently around on its treasures. Once he had cared for these plates and cups--his quest for rare porcelains had been eager.

And now he did not care. The lovely glazed things were for the eye, not for the heart. He would have given them all for the touch of a loving hand, for a voice that grew tender--.

There was the patter of little feet on the polished floor.

Margaret-Mary in a diminutive blue dressing gown and infinitesimal slippers, with her curls brushed tidily up from the back of her neck and skewered with a hairpin, came over and laid her hand on his knee.

”Dus a 'itte 'tory?” she asked ingratiatingly. She adored stories.

He picked her up, and she curled herself into the corner of his arm.

Her mother found her there. ”Mother's naughty little girl,” she said, ”to run away--”

”Let her stay,” the General begged. ”Somehow my heart needs her tonight.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

SIX DAYS

Four days of Derry's furlough had pa.s.sed, four palpitating days, and now the hours that the lovers spent together began to take on the poignant quality of coming separation. Every moment counted, nothing must be lost, nothing must be left unsaid, nothing must be left undone which should emphasize their oneness of thought and purpose.

They read together, they walked together, they rode together, they went to church together. If they included the General in their plans it was because they felt his need of them, not theirs of him. They lived in a world created to survive for ten days and then to collapse like a p.r.i.c.ked bubble--

And it was because of the dread of collapse that Jean began to plan a structure of remembrance which should endure after Derry's departure.

”Darling,” she said, ”there are only six days--What shall we do with them?”

THE FIFTH DAY

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