Smoke, earth, and blood had worked their will upon me. My left hand, from which two fingers were missing, was swathed in blackened bandages. My right coat-sleeve had been cut off by a good-natured fellow who had bandaged the flesh wound in my arm to stop its bleeding. My eyes glinted dully in a black face, with curious white fringes round them, where their moisture had penetrated my skin of smoked dirt. And here was I walking beside Constance Grey!
Then I realized, for the first time, that Constance herself bore many traces of these last few terrible days. In some mysterious fashion her face and collar seemed to have escaped scot free; but her dress was torn, ragged, and stained; and the intense weariness of her expression was something I found it hard to bear.
"I was on My Knees and Kissing the Nerveless Hand"
Just then we met Wardle of the Sunday News, and he told us of the bread and soup distribution in the Standard office. Something warned me that Constance had reached the limit of her endurance, and, in another moment, she had reeled against me and almost fallen. I took her in my arms, and Wardle walked beside me, up a flight of stairs and into the office of the great newspaper. There I walked into the first room I saw—the sanctum of some managerial bashaw, for aught I knew—and placed Constance comfortably in a huge easy chair of green leather.
Wardle brought some water, for Constance was in a fainting state still; but I hurried him off again to look for bread and soup. Meantime I lowered Constance to the floor, having just remembered that in such a case the head should be kept low. Her face was positively deathly—lips, cheeks, all alike gray-white, save for the purple hollows under both eyes. One moment I was taking stock of these things, as a doctor might; the next I was on my knees and kissing the nerveless hand at her side, all worn and bruised and stained as it was from her ceaseless strivings of the past week. I knew then that, for me, though I should live a hundred years and Constance should never deign to speak to me again, there was but one woman in the world.
I am afraid Wardle found me at the same employ; but, though I remember vaguely resenting his fresh linen and normally smart appearance, he was a good fellow, and knew when to seem blind. All he said was:
"Here's the soup!"
He had brought a small wash-hand basin full to the brim, and a loaf of warm, new bread. As the steam of the hot soup reached me, I realized that I was a very hungry animal, whatever else I might be besides. It may have been the steam of the soup that rallied Constance. I know that within two minutes I was feeding her with it from a cracked teacup. It is a wonderful thing to watch the effect of a few mouthfuls of hot soup upon an exhausted woman, whose exhaustion is due as much to lack of food as need of rest. There was no spoon, but the teacup, though cracked, was clean, and I found a tumbler in a luxurious little cabinet near the chair one felt was dedicated to the Fleet Street magnate whose room we had invaded. A tumbler is almost as convenient to drink soup from as a cup, but requires more careful manipulation when hot. If the side of the tumbler becomes soupy, it can easily be wiped with the crumb of new bread.
Wardle seemed to be as sufficiently nourished as he was neatly dressed; but he found a certain vicarious pleasure, I think, in watching Constance and myself at the bowl. We sat on the Turkey carpet, and used the seat of the green chair as a table—a strange meal, in strange surroundings; but a better I never had, before or since. There was a physical gratification, a warmth and a comfort to me, in watching the colour flowing gradually back into Constance's face; a singularly beautiful process of nature I thought it. Presently the door of the room opened with a jerk, and a tallish man wearing a silk hat looked in.