"Dashed bad luck to get it on her wedding dress, though, I've heard superstitious folks say—but what rotten nonsense to talk like this to you! Of course, there's nothing in it."
"I'm not sure how Di would feel if she knew. But I feel as if a drop of Eagle March's blood would be like the blood of the prince in a fairy story I used to love. Just the faintest smear of it brought fortune for the heroine and all her family," I said. "Di doesn't know. I didn't tell what I saw. And would you believe this, Tony? My noble brother-in-law pretends to believe that Eagle got up the whole scene, like a plot in that melodrama you were talking about. I suppose he'd like Di to think that Eagle bribed the livery people to send nervous horses and a weak coachman, and that he hired a motor cyclist to swing round the corner on a cue at the right instant, in order that he himself might play the gallant hero. Rather elaborate! But that shows how a man judges another by what he would do in his place! Isn't it a proof that the El Paso affair was a plot—a plot Sidney accuses Eagle of revenging in this wild way?"
"That's quite a neat suggestion," said Tony, smiling an "indulge-the-poor-child" smile which made me want to box his ears—though not hard. "I don't think you need be afraid, though," he hurried on, to calm me. "Vandyke won't openly accuse March of anything more, I guess, unless in the bosom of his family where it won't do much harm. If he dealt out any 'plot' talk of that sort, he'd make himself a laughing-stock, and he wouldn't stand for that. He'll just try to forget the whole business, and help other folks to forget—cut it out."
"It will be better for him!" I said, as fiercely as a small dog growling in the kennel of a big one. "But Di and Sidney, too, both accuse me of being in the 'plot.' They say I knew Eagle was in England, and secretly invited him to the wedding. I haven't even heard from him since we came back from America."
"Haven't you?" Tony's face brightened. "Well, I shall never cease wondering what brought March to the church, till I know—which may be never. Unless you tell me when you hear."
"If I hear!"
"I guess you're sure to sooner or later. He must know now that he was recognized. No use hiding his head in the sand! He'll want to explain why he—er—well, sort of intruded."
"No, he wouldn't need to explain," I reiterated. "What's the use of friendship, if it doesn't understand and take things for granted? And—if Eagle never writes, I shall know he doesn't want me to seek him. So I won't do that, even though he has been hurt for us, and maybe is suffering."
"You're a soldier," Tony complimented me. "March would be just the man to appreciate that if he could hear you now."
"I believe he would understand me as I understand him," I said. "Still it is hard not to know if he's badly hurt."