“Yes, we did. You are a born comforter, dearest. But I believe it is my love for you that is making a coward of me. What if—if I lost you before this horrible war is over?”
“Now—now—now!” adopting a rallying tone, although thrilled to the heart by her words. “You must not indulge in these fancies or my bright and winsome Clare will be quite somebody else. I shall have to call Peters to cheer you up. See how he is keeping those jokers in a roar over there.”
This was a fact, but not an accident. Peters, ever watchful where his idolised friend was concerned, had gathered together quite a crowd, a little way apart, and was clearly regaling it with abundant humour—which he possessed—and this with the sole intent that these two should have a little time together uninterrupted.
“Yes, he can be very entertaining,” said Clare. “And I like him so much. Do you know, darling, he simply adores you.”
“I know he does his level best to make me beastly conceited.”
“He told me how you risked your life to save his during the retreat on the Shangani.”
“Did he, confound him! Then it was a distinct act of mutiny, for he’s under strict orders to let that well-worn chestnut be forgotten. I’ll have him put under arrest for disobedience to orders, since by popular vote I seem to have been put in command here.”
“But you weren’t in command here when he told me, so you can’t come down upon him. How’s that?” and she laughed brightly.
“In that case I suppose I can’t,” he allowed, rejoicing greatly that she had shaken off her vein of depression. “But you know, dearest, that sort of thing was done over and over again during that very Shangani business, for one, by other men, and nobody thought of making a fuss about it. It was taken quite as a matter of course, and naturally it genuinely annoys me when Peters tries to make a sort of scissors and paste-pot hero of me.”
“I shall claim the right to reserve my own opinion, all the same,” she declared with mock loftiness. “By the way, who is Mr Peters? He seems something of a mystery.”