‘Put your cap on, Polson,’ she said composedly. ‘You will catch cold.’
The touch of womanly solicitude, small as it was, moved him. He obeyed her, and stood, still looking across the square, until he had mastered a suspicious clicking in the throat.
‘You need have no fear of me, Polson,’ Irene said. ‘Speak out all your mind.’
‘Well, dear, it’s this. We’ve been comrades ever since I helped you to learn to ride your first pony. We’ve always been the very best of friends, and only last night I was going to ask for something more. You don’t mind hearing me out, Irene?’
‘No. Let us speak plainly. Let us understand each other.’
‘Well, you see, everything went last night with a clean sweep by the board. I thought I was safe for a commission. I’d been brought up to expect a handsome fortune.’ He spoke in a level tone, as if he had been reading uninteresting matter from a book. ‘All that is changed and everything is changed with it. I’m a penniless private of dragoons, and our ways in the world are wide apart. For old time’s sake I should be very sorry to believe that you’d ever forgot me altogether, but if you’ll try to bring yourself to think of me as trying to be cheerful in a humble station, as remembering you always in my heart of hearts, and never forgetting the distance that divides us—if you’ll try to think of me as always honouring myself because I was once your friend’—He was forced to pause, but he went on again, level-voiced and monotonous as before—‘If you’ll try to think of me as learning to be cheerful for your sake, not as a moaning, broken-hearted chap—which I don’t mean to be at all—but just doing my work, you know, and thinking about you like an affectionate poor relation might—why, then, in—in time you’ll get to feel the parting less.’
‘Have you finished, Polson?’ ‘Yes, dear. That’s about all, I think. You see, I know you, Irene. You’ll grizzle if you think I’m grizzling. That’s your nature. You can’t bear to think of a canary bird in pain.’
‘And that is all?’
‘Yes, dear. That’s all.’
‘I shall never forget you, dear. I shall never forget you, and I shall never change. If you had asked me to be your wife before these things happened I should have said “Yes,” and I should have been proud and happy. But, Polson, this is why I thank God for having brought us together just this once. I want you to remember that in this war names will be heard of that never were known before. Yours may be one of them.’