Part 100

"He has got out of hand lately. One can't keep a husband in a proper state of subjection who may be brought home to one a corpse at any hour of the day." Her laugh jangled harshly, and broke in the middle. "The soil of Gueldersdorp being so uncommonly favourable just now to the production of weeds of the widow's description."

"It grows other things." His eyes were very kind. "Brave, helpful, unselfish women, for instance."

"There is one!"

She indicated the tall, black-robed figure of the Mother with a quick gesture of her little jewelled hand.

"And here is another." He touched her sleeve lightly with a finger-tip.

"Brave.... Helpful." Her voice was choky. "Do you think I shall ever forget the hindrance I have been to you? Didn't I lose you your Boer spy?"

"Granted you did." His moustache curved cheerfully at the corners. "But that's Ancient History, and look what you brought back!"

"A unit of the despised majority who is thoroughly convinced of her own superfluousness. Hannah Wrynche, with the conceit so completely taken out of her that she feels, say, like a deflated balloon; Hannah Wrynche, who believed herself born to be a War Correspondent, and has come down to scribbling gossipy paragraphs for a little siege newspaper printed in a damp cellar."

He laughed.

"Collectors will pay fancy prices for copies of that same little siege newspaper, at auctions yet to be."

"I've thought of that," she confessed. "But, oh! I could make it so much more spicy if you'd only give me a freer hand."

His hazel eyes had a smile in them. "I know you think me an editorial martinet."

"You blue-pencil out of my poor paragraphs everything that's interesting."

"No personalities shall be published in a paper I control."

"The Reading Public adore personalities and puerilities."

"They can go to the Daily Whale for them, then."

"Isn't that rather a personal remark?"

"Let me say that if you are occasionally personal, you are never, under any circumstances, anything but clever."

"Thank you. But, oh! the difference between what I am and what I aspired to be!"

"And, ah! the difference between what I have done and what I meant to do!" he said.

Her black eyes flashed. "You have never really felt it. Achievement with you has never hit below the mark. You, of all men living, are least fitted to enter into the rueful regrets and dismal disillusions of a Hannah Wrynche."

"Hannah Wrynche, who is content to do a woman's work and fill a woman's place; Hannah Wrynche, who has atoned for a moment of ambitious--shall I say imprudence?--splendidly and nobly, has no reason to be rueful or regretful. Don't shake your head. Do you think I don't know what you are doing, day after day, to help and cheer those poor fellows at the Convalescent Hospital?"

Her eyes were full of tears. "You make too much of my poor efforts. You underestimate the effect of praise from you."

"I said very little in the last cipher despatch that got through to Colonel Rickson at Malamye, but what I did say was very much to the purpose, believe me."

She gasped, staring at him with circular eyes of incredulity. "You've mentioned--me--in your despatches. ME?"

"Just so!" he said, and left her groping for the ridiculous little gossamer handkerchief to dry the tears of pride and gratitude that were tumbling down her cheeks.

XLI

"Clang--clang--clang!"