He nodded. “One feels like that. It is only a small portion of a diary. I fancy he kept one very intermittently. Dick was never a writer. But the letter about von Schäde will interest you.”
Ruth stood with her eyes fixed on the small packet. “Could you tell me—would you mind—how it happened?” she said.
“A shell fell, burying some of his men. He went to help dig them out. Another shell fell on the same place. That was the end.”
She looked up. Her eyes shone.
“He was saving life, not taking it. Oh, I am glad.”
She put the packet into the pocket of her linen skirt, gave him a little smile, and slipped away almost as a wraith might slip. She wanted, suddenly and overpoweringly, to get back to Thorpe....
Lady Condor, enjoying, as was her frequent custom, a second tea, said quite suddenly, in the middle of a lament on the difficulty of obtaining reliable cosmetics, “That is a clever woman!”
Mr. Fothersley, who was honestly interested in cosmetics, tore his mind away from them and looked round.
“Who?” he asked.
“Miss Seer. I have been watching, after what you told me. You have not noticed? She has been in Roger’s study with him, only about ten minutes—yes—but she has done it without Nita knowing. Look, she is saying good-bye now. And dear Nita all smiles and quite pleasant. Nita was playing croquet of course but even then—— Perhaps it was just luck—but quite amazing.”