‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve had an awfully good time. Oh, and it was a great success—Shakespeare, you know.’
Then a shadow seemed to pass over his face and his eyelids fluttered.
‘Now? Is it coming now?’ he said.
‘Yes, my darling,’ said she again, and kissed him.
Legs lay quite still for a moment with closed eyes. Then he quickly opened them again, and made as if he would raise his head.
‘Buck up, you two, won’t you?’ he said.
From outside there came the dim roar of London, and little noises crept about the room. But from the bed came no sound at all.
Two days afterwards we went down home again, arriving in the evening, and the body rested that night in his own room down here, to be taken next day to the churchyard, which the sun blesses more than any other place I have ever seen, and over which the grey Norman tower keeps watch. His last charge to us had been to ‘buck up,’ and I do not know how it was, but it seemed to us both as if he was still liking us to ‘buck up.’ So, in so far as we found it possible, we did what Legs wished us to do.
But to-night he would have been here, making the third of a merry table, and when the servants had come in for the last time, bringing us coffee, it was not possible not to remember that, and Helen rose. And when she spoke, her voice trembled.
‘Is it very foolish of me?’ she asked. ‘And do you think Legs will mind? But I feel as if I can’t face to-morrow, unless I go and look at the place where we shall put him. It is quite warm outside, Jack. Oh, let us go out and look at it. It will seem more natural then. I think I shall “buck up” better if I see it first.’