Part 29 (1/2)

”You'll dine with us, Arthur,” she said simply. ”I'll not tell them a word of our adventures till you are present.”

”You could have heard a pin drop,” was the excited comment of the flapper sister when endeavouring subsequently to thrill another girl with the sensation created by Irene's quiet words. Literally, this trope was not accurate, because the station was noisier than usual.

Figuratively, it met the case exactly.

Lady Glas...o...b..ry, a gray-haired woman with wise eyes, promptly emulated the action of the British army during the retreat from Mons, and ”saved the situation.”

”Of course you'll stay with us, too, Captain Dalroy,” she said with pleasant insistence. ”Like Irene, you must have lost everything, and need time to refit.”

Dalroy murmured some plat.i.tude, lifted his hat, and only regained his composure after two narrow escapes from being run over by taxis while crossing Northumberland Avenue.

A newsboy tore past, shouting in the vernacular, ”Great Stand by Sir John French.”

Dalroy was reminded of Smithy, and s.h.i.+ney, and Corporal Bates. He saw again Jan Maertz waving a farewell from the quai at Ostend. He wondered how old Joos was faring, and Leontine, and Monsieur Pochard, and the cure of Verviers.

Another boy scampered by. He carried a contents bill. Heavy black type announced that the British were ”holding” Von Kluck on the Marne.

Dalroy's eyes kindled. _His_ work lay _there_. When the soldier's task was ended he would come back to Irene.

CHAPTER XV

”CARRY ON!”

After a few delightful days in London, Dalroy walked down Whitehall one fine morning to call at the War Office for orders. Irene went with him.

He expected to be packed off to France that very evening, so the two meant making the utmost of the fast-speeding hours. The Intelligence Department had a.s.similated all the information Dalroy could give, had found it good, and had complimented him. As a Bengal Lancer, whose regiment was presumably in India, he would probably be attached to some cavalry unit of the Expeditionary Force; from being an hunted outlaw, with a price on his head, he would be quietly absorbed by the military machine. Very smart he looked in his khaki and brown leather; Irene, who one short week earlier deemed _sabots en cuir_ the height of luxury, was dressed _de rigueur_ for luncheon at the Savoy.

Many eyes followed them as they crossed Trafalgar Square and dodged the traffic flowing around the base of King Charles's statue. An alert recruiting-sergeant, clinching the argument, pointed out the tall, well-groomed officer to a lanky youth whose soul was almost afire with martial decision.

”There y'are,” he said, with emphatic thumb-jerk, ”that's wot the British army will make of you in a couple of months. An' just twig the sort o' girl you can sort out of the bunch. c.o.c.k yer eye at _that_, will you?”

Thus, all unconsciously, Irene started the great adventure for one of Kitchener's first half-million.

She was not kept waiting many minutes in an ante-room. Dalroy reappeared, smiling mysteriously, yet, as Irene quickly saw, not quite so content with life as when he entered those magic portals, wherein a man wrestles with an algebraical formula before he finds the department he wants.

”Well,” she inquired, ”having picked your brains, are they going to court-martial you for being absent without leave?”

”I cross to-night,” he said, leading her toward the Horse Guards'

Parade. ”It's Belgium, not France. I'm on the staff. My appointment will appear in the gazette to-morrow. That's fine, but I'd rather----”

Irene stopped, almost in the middle of the road.

”And you'll wear a cap with a red band and a golden lion, and those ducky little red tabs on the collar! Come at once, and buy them! I refuse to lunch with you otherwise.”

”A man must not wear the staff insignia until he is gazetted,” he reminded her.

”Oh!” She was pathetically disappointed.

”But, in my case,” he went on, ”I am specifically ordered to travel in staff uniform, so, as I leave London at seven o'clock----”

”You can certainly lunch in all your glory,” she vowed. ”There's an empty taxi!”