"That, my dear Pest, is how love came to me."
I frowned in an endeavor to pierce his apparently superficial dismissal of the subject.
"Don't you intend to marry her?" I said.
"Marry her?" He laughed, but there was little mirth in the sound. "Does a jester marry?" His eyes hardened, and there was a new ring to his voice. "Who am I to take a wife? A poseur, a flâneur, in a world of men, I stand discredited beside the poorest workman whose toil brings in a pittance for his wife and kiddies. England is calling for men—for men, I say." He brought his fist with a crash on the table. "What can I offer her—my parlor accomplishments? My minstrel's mummery that shudders at the sight of a sword? Can I blow bubbles in a world where hearts are breaking?"
There were tears in his voice, but his eyes were flashing furiously.
"Hexcuse me." A man had stepped up to us, wearing the armlet of a recruit. His face was oddly familiar, but I could not recall it until a light was switched on just behind him, and I recognized the pumpkin-faced man of Christmas Eve.
"I just thought of 'ow I'd like for to tell you as I've been took for the Army O.K."
We shook his hand and wished him the best of luck.
"Funny thing, sir, as 'ow the 'ole bloomin' time I was planning to sign hup I was a-thinkin' of you and that there fiddle. 'You wouldn't like to meet 'im,' I kind o' sez to myself, 'and you not in the harmy, you wouldn't,' I sez."
"Instead of which," smiled Norman, all trace of his intensity gone, "I am the one who is the slacker."