He thought of it now. He saw himself again looking up at the bristling cliffs that were to be rushed, whence the Afridis were pouring their deadly fire. He saw himself measuring with his eye the saddle of precipitous slope that had to be crossed, devoid of cover and strewn with the bodies of dead Ghurkas. Of the actual crossing, with sixty Rangers behind him, he had little or no recollection. He had passed under the hail of bullets as through perils in a dream. As in a dream, too, he remembered seeing his men, when he turned to cheer them on, go down like nine-pins—throwing up their arms and staggering, or twisting themselves up like convulsive cats. It was grotesque rather than horrible; he felt himself grinning inwardly, as at something hellishly comic, when he reached the group of Ghurkas huddled under the cavernous shelter of the cliff. Then, just as he threw himself on the ground, panting like a spent dog and feeling his body all over to know whether or not he had been wounded, he saw poor Private Vickerson out in the open, thirty yards from the protection of the wall of rock. While the other Rangers to a man were lying still, on the back with the knees drawn up, or face downward, with the arms outstretched, or rolled on the side as though they were in bed, Vickerson was rising on his hands and dragging himself forward. It was one of Ashley's most vivid recollections that Vickerson's movements were like a seal's. They had the drollery of a bit of infernal mimicry. It was also a vivid recollection that when he ran out to the soldier's aid he had his first sensation of fear. The bullets whizzed so thick about him that he ran back again. It was an involuntary running back, as involuntary as snatching his fingers out of a fire. He could remember standing under the rock, and, as Vickerson did not move, half hoping he were dead. That would put an end to any further attempts to save him. But the soldier stirred again, propping himself with both hands and pulling his body onward for a few inches more. Again Ashley ran out into a tempest of iron and fire and over ground slippery with blood. He could still feel himself hopping back, as a barefooted boy who has ventured into a snow-storm hops back into the house. A third time he ran out, and a fourth. At the fourth he distinctly worded the thought which had been at the back of his mind from the beginning, "I shall get the V.C. for this." He tried to banish the unworthy suggestion, but it was too strong for him. Over the cliffs, and out of the clouds, and from beyond the horizon, he felt the unseen eyes of England upon him, inciting him to such a valor that at the fifth attempt he dragged in his man.
He came out of this reverie, which, after all, was brief, to find the gentle tones in which Olivia had made her astounding revelations still in his ears; while she herself sat expectant, and resigned. He knew she was expectant and resigned and that she had braced her courage for the worst. With many men, with most men, to do so would have been needful. In the confusion of his rapid summaries and calculations it was a pleasurable thought that she should learn from him, and through him and in him, that it was not so with all. The silence which at first was inadvertent now became deliberate as—while he noted with satisfaction that he had not overstated to himself the exquisite, restrained beauty of her features, her eyes, her hair, her hands, and of the very texture and fashion of her clothing—he prolonged the suspense which was to be the prelude to his justifying once again the dowager countess's good opinion. It was to his credit as a brave man that he could nerve himself for this with his eyes wide open—wider open than even Mrs. Fane's—to to the consequences that might be in store for him.
XIII
shley had the tact, sprung of his English instinct for moderation, not to express his good intentions too directly. He preferred to let them filter out through a seemingly casual manner of taking them for granted. Neither did he attempt to disguise the fact that the strangeness incidental to meeting again, in trying conditions and under another sky, created between himself and Olivia a kind of moral distance across which they could draw together only by degrees. It was a comfort to her that he did not try to bridge it by anything in the way of forced tenderness. He was willing to talk over the situation simply and quietly until, in the course of an hour or two, the sense of separation began to wear away.
The necessity on her part of presenting Ashley to her father and offering him lunch brought into play those social resources that were as second nature to all three. It was difficult to think the bottom could be out of life while going through a carefully chosen menu and drinking an excellent vin de Graves at a table meticulously well appointed. To escape the irony of this situation they took refuge in the topics that came readiest, the novelty to Ashley of the outward aspect of American things keeping them on safe ground till the meal was done. It was a relief to both men that Guion could make his indisposition an excuse for retiring again to his room.
It was a relief to Olivia, too. For the first time in her life she had to recognize her father as insupportable to any one but herself and Peter Davenant. Ashley did his best to conceal his repulsion; she was sure of that; he only betrayed it negatively in a tendency to ignore him. He neither spoke nor listened to him any more than he could help. By keeping his eyes on Olivia he avoided looking toward him. The fact that Guion took this aversion humbly, his head hanging and his attention given to his plate, did not make it the less poignant.
All the same, as soon as they were alone in the dining-room the old sense of intimacy, of belonging to each other, suddenly returned. It returned apropos of nothing and with the exchange of a glance. There was a flash in his eyes, a look of wonder in hers—and he had taken her, or she had slipped, into his arms.
And yet when a little later he reverted to the topic of the morning and said, "As things are now, I really don't see why we shouldn't be married on the 28th—privately, you know," her answer was, "What did you think of papa?"