She lifted, on Olwen's blouse, the tiny pin-on watch which was one of her friend's wedding presents. Then she exclaimed, "What have you got tied around here?"
Golden did not recognize any similarity between this sachet of pink-and-mauve and the sun-faded ribbon trifle she had picked up on Biscay beach. But Olwen smiled as she tucked into the place the mascot that she wore and always would wear, even had she read that letter which her Uncle held would shatter any belief in that "magic." The old scientist summed her up as faultily as if he, too, had set out to be the finest judge, etc....
"Golden," she said, "if I tell you about this, will you promise not to laugh?"
And as they walked along to the hospital, she gave to her friend the outlines of the story which you have just read ... so far as she knew them herself.
Golden, listening, smiled above her leopard-skins. "Do you think all these things would not have happened just as they did happen without the wearing of a Charm?"
Olwen, with happy dreams in her eyes, did not reply.
After a pause her friend went on, softly, "When I look at you," she said, "and when I look at your Fergus, and at my Jack, and at any one else who is lovely and loving ... why, of course I believe there's a Charm really, though it just can't be anything you could make up out of a pinch of powder and a bit of ribbon. A Charm? Why, the world's full of it! Didn't it send me over the sea to my Bird-boy? Didn't it bring your men from Canada and France to you? Didn't it let us all meet in a country that was sweet and friendly, though none of ours? Didn't it work——why, all the time?"
"Sometimes——Often—Half the time," suggested Olwen, "it is supposed to make such mistakes. It takes the wrong people...."
"We hear of those, just because they're the exceptions, I guess," smiled her buoyant friend. "We aren't so talked about, we with the happy love stories, that the Charm has worked!... Olwen, it's making stories now for each of those splendid boys we saw go marching by, and for each of the pretty girls who wishes them Luck. It never stops!... But you can't see it. You can't hold it. You can only feel it is——"
"But then what is it?" Olwen asked. "What is it in itself?"