"I suppose not," she said, forcing herself to be as matter-of-fact as Captain Ross had been.
"Two and a half minutes; well, it seemed a week, at least. Absolutely. It always seems a week till I come down.... Down, down, down—I seemed to have time to think ... no end of things. I yelled out to my observer.... That's why I always shout in those dreams of mine.... I was falling, falling; and calling out to my observer, trying to make him hear. He was killed."
"Was he?" she responded gently—not too gently, lest he should melt.
"Yes! He was dead before we came down. Jolly good chap, my observer. (Ross knew him.) Ferris, his name was. The first time we went up together over the Boche lines, I remember his saying to me: 'Now, when you hear a dog bark, don't take any notice; it's only Archie!'"
Here the ghost of a smile seemed hovering about the young flyer's face. Mrs. Cartwright did not speak; but surely the warm sympathy that flowed from her caught him in some restoring current. His voice grew less strained with every sentence.
"It's—it's a funny thing how fond one gets of one's observer; the man one's always with. Each of you depending so much on the other, I suppose; being for it together, always together. You've no idea what pals one gets. I—I sometimes think there can be nothing like it. We were pals; I was sick; they'd done him in——"
Mrs. Cartwright nodded; listening to the husky English boy's voice, that seemed to fill this room of a sleeping, silent French hotel, and hearing also in her heart that immortal plaint of the young fellow-soldier mourning down the ages—"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan...."
"D'you know, I sometimes think there can be nothing else in the world as good as just friendship. To be absolute friends with some other fellow," young Awdas said presently; shyly, but earnestly looking into the woman-face so near him. Without speaking a word, Mrs Cartwright was encouraging him to talk on and on. Yes; let him talk—of Friendship or the Differential Calculus, if he liked; anything, rather than let him be haunted again by this useless, this unreasoning Remorse that he had been the death of five other brave men—or by this dream of falling, falling. He talked on, sitting up; taking his hands at last from her (badly-marked) arms and clasping them about his knees.
"Absolute friends," he mused. "Understanding everything the other chap means, or doesn't mean. Not minding if he's ratty sometimes; being ratty yourself if you want to, and going off on your own, knowing it'll be all right whenever you come back. Good times or rotten times, always with him. Not seeing each other for ages, perhaps. Then finding him just the same. Caring for all the things you're keenest about; barring the same things. I don't think it could be ever exactly like that with a girl."
"Never," murmured Mrs. Cartwright; "the girl will be more to you or less to you, but not the same."