"Told to!" echoed Cecily. "May I ask——"
"They told me at the Admiralty," explained Simple Simon, the King's
Messenger, "I was to call for despatches."
"Oh…" said Cecily, nodding her fair head, "I see. I confess I was a little puzzled … but that explains … and it was War-time, and you couldn't very well refuse, could you?" She surveyed him mercilessly. "They shoot people who refuse to obey orders in War-time, don't they—however distasteful or unpleasant the orders may be? You just had to come, in fact, or be shot … was that it?"
The victim winced.
"You don't understand," he began miserably. "There's a very important——"
Cecily interrupted with a little laugh.
"Oh, dear, oh, dear! Tony, if you're going to begin to talk about important matters"—the white hands made a little gesture in the gloom—"why, of course, I couldn't understand. And I'm quite sure they wouldn't ask you to do anything that wasn't really important…. Oh, Tony, you must have had a lot of terribly important things to do during the last two years: so many that you haven't had time to look up your old friends, or—or answer their silly letters even … at least," added Cecily, "so I've heard from people who—knew you well once upon a time."
The King's Messenger rose to his feet and began to walk slowly to and fro with his hands behind his back. Cecily watched the halting step of the man who three years before had been the hero of the Naval Rugby-football world, and found his outline grow suddenly misty.
"Listen," he said quietly. "I've got to tell you something. It's something I'd have rather not had to talk about…. And I don't know whether you'll altogether understand, because you're a woman, and women——"
"I know," said Cecily quickly. "They're just a pack of silly geese, aren't they, Tony? They've no intuition or sympathy or power of understanding…. They only want to be left in peace and not bothered or have their feelings harrowed…. They're incapable of sharing another's disappointment or sorrow, or of easing a burden or—or anything…."