But that was as difficult of answer as Andy's other question,—and Rod was too deeply involved in a personal problem of his own, a conflict between two powerful sets of feelings, to consider Andy's psychological impasse. They had another drink and went about their separate affairs.
For another forty-eight hours Rod stirred uneasily about the town. He met his father by chance, talked with him briefly. He spent a little time each day in one or the other of two clubs in which he held membership. He and Mary went once to dinner at the home of a classmate, married now and frankly unsettled by the war cloud. He met other young men he knew. He missed a great many others, but he knew where they were. He heard the one thing discussed in clubs, in hotels, on the streets. People lived the war in public and private. Rod wondered if they dreamed about it in their sleep, as he sometimes did.
Between himself and Mary a singular constraint had arisen. It was as if some impalpable substance enfolded them, sealing their lips upon things they both felt and feared but could not embody in speech. Where the unspoken thought had scarcely needed words, so perfect an accord of mind had they attained, now each was locked in a separate chamber of his soul, brooding inscrutably, wordlessly even when they sat knee to knee by their room window or lay wide-eyed in the night, flesh touching flesh, mute in the face of an ache to speak and be understood.
Rod came in one evening after dusk. Mary had begun to dress for dinner. She sat on the edge of their bed, hair down, a silver slipper hanging idly from one hand. She looked at Rod when he came in, a silent question, almost an appeal, and then her eyes dropped to the floor.
"Dorothy is over from Victoria," she said tonelessly. "She telephoned half an hour ago. Charlie has been offered a commission. She's planning to go east with him and later across to London."
Rod sat down beside her, put his arms about her. His fingers stroked her thick, soft hair.
"I have to go," he said quietly. "I've hammered it out for myself. I can't keep out of it."
She laid her face against his breast. Her arms pressed tightly about him. A little shudder shook her.
"Oh, Rod, Rod," she whispered. "I can't bear it. I've seen it coming. We've just begun to live. And I'm going to have a baby."
He sat holding her close. She did not cry. She clung to him silently. The slow heave of her bosom, the occasional shiver, that desperate struggle for calmness, made him ache.