She looked at me, and perhaps that reminded her of something.
"Forgive my familiarity," she said. "John Crondall spoke of you as Dick Mordan. It's rather a way we have—out there."
I do not remember my exact reply, but it earned me the friendly short name from her for the future; and, with England tumbling about our ears, for aught we knew, that, somehow, made me curiously happy. But it was none the less with a sigh of relief that I handed her in at the outer door of the mansions in which their flat was situated. We paused for a moment at the stairs' foot, the first moment of privacy we had known that evening, and the last, I thought, with a recollection of Mrs. Van Homrey waiting in the flat above.
I know I was deeply moved. My heart seemed full to bursting. Perhaps the great news of that day affected me more than I knew. But yet it seemed I had no words, or very few. I remember I touched the sleeve of her dress with my finger-tips. What I said was:
"You know I am—you know I am at your orders, don't you?"
And she smiled, with her beautiful, sensitive mouth, while the light of grave watching never flickered in her eyes.
"Yes, Dick; and thank you!" she said, as we began to mount the stairs.
Yet I was still the assistant editor of The Mass—Clement Blaine's right hand.