Part 20 (1/2)

He made no pretence of misunderstanding her.

”Very,” he answered. ”If the great trial is coming, I want to fall back into the rank and file. Pus.h.i.+ng and splas.h.i.+ng is for peace times.”

”Oh, I understand that!” she cried.

These were the young days. The jealousies of Departments, the intrigues to pull this man down and put that man up, not because of his capacity or failure, but because he fitted or did not fit the inner politics of the Office, the capture of honours by the stay-at-homes--all the little miseries and horrors that from time immemorial have disfigured the management of wars--they lay in the future. With millions of people, as with this couple speeding among the uplands, the one thought was--the great test is at hand.

”You go up to London to-night, and it may be a long while before we see you,” said Joan. She brought the car to a halt on the edge of Duncton Hill. ”Look for luck and for memory at the Weald of Suss.e.x,” she cried with a little catch in her throat.

Fields and great trees, and here and there the white smoke of a pa.s.sing train and beyond the Blackdown and the misty slopes of Leith Hill--Hillyard was never to forget it, neither that scene nor the eager face and s.h.i.+ning eyes of Joan Whitworth against the blue and gold of the summer afternoon.

”You will remember that you have friends here, who will be glad to hear news of you,” she said, and she threw in the clutch and started the car down the hill.

CHAPTER XI

STELLA RUNS TO EARTH

”You have been back in England long?” asked Stella Croyle.

”A little while,” said Hillyard evasively.

It was the first week of September. But since his return from Rackham Park to London his days had been pa.s.sed in the examination of files of doc.u.ments; and what little time he had enjoyed free from that labour had been given to quiet preparations for his departure.

”You might have come to see me,” Stella Croyle suggested. ”You knew that I wished to see you.”

”Yes, but I have been very busy,” he answered. ”I am going away.”

Stella Croyle looked at him curiously.

”You too! You have joined up?”

Hillyard shook his head.

”No good,” he answered. ”I told you my lungs were my weak point. I am turned down--and I am going abroad. It's not very pleasant to find oneself staying on in London, going to a little dinner party here and there where all the men are oldish, when all of one's friends have gone.”

Stella Croyle's face and voice softened.

”Yes. I can understand that,” she said.

Hillyard watched her narrowly, but there was no doubt that she was sincere. She had received him with an air of grievance, and a hard accent in her voice. But she was entering now into a comprehension of the regrets which must be troubling him.

”I am sorry,” she continued. ”I never cared very much for women. I have very few friends amongst them. And so I am losing--every one.” She held out her hand to him in sympathy. ”But if I were a man and had been turned down by the doctors, I don't think that I could stay. I should go like you and hide.”

She smiled and poured out two cups of tea.

”That is a habit of yours, even though you are not a man,” Hillyard replied.

”What do you mean?”