‘Have you heard the news?’ she asked, looking up at the worn young face with its late sprung growth of silky beard.
‘What news?’ he asked.
‘The news about yourself,’ she answered.
‘News about myself?’ said Polson. ‘What news is there about me?’
‘You don’t know?’ cried Irene, recoiling from him a little with clasped hands and sparkling eyes. ‘Is it going to be my good luck to tell you? You don’t know any news about yourself?’
‘I don’t know any news about myself,’ he answered; ‘since I was bowled over on Christmas morning at Sevastopol, I haven’t had a chance of hearing any, I’ve had your voice and this dear little hand about me all the time—I’ve known that.’
‘And you don’t know?’ she asked him, ‘you don’t know what’s waiting for you when you get back to England?’
A cloud fell upon him at the question. ‘I don’t know, dear,’ he answered. ‘I don’t know what’s waiting for me when I get back to England. But I do know that I’m a bit of a fool and a bit of a scoundrel to forget the reason why we said good-bye. I was so glad to see you again that it came natural to forget. And you’ll forgive me sooner than I shall forgive myself.’
‘Wait one minute, Polson,’ said Irene. ‘Here is a letter from papa. So soon as you can recover you are to be invalided home, and the gem of the letter is—do you guess? Do you guess? You are recommended by the Commander-in-Chief for the Victoria Cross. Here it is.’ And she read, dancing on tiptoe. ‘“Our young friend, Polson, has magnificently distinguished himself, having rescued under heavy fire a wounded officer, whose name I have not yet been able to discover. But the gallant action was seen by the Chief, who was there in person, and who has told me that he has seen nothing more splendid in the whole course of his career.”’
With that, she hid her face upon his breast again, and he folded his arms about her in a sort of stupor.