“I will not take command of the army,” he said, letting the words fall one by one. “I am not fit to do it. I should only bring disaster on all of us. I have too much at stake to risk it. It would be better if Thomas Wells were to take command.” He stopped and waited, defiant and sullen. The Canadian made one sharp movement, then folded his gown more closely around him, so as still further to hide his face, and sat on impassively.
Henry Watkins was at him at once, eagerly arguing that there was little hope, but that what there was lay in his hands. Jeremy looked around as though he were seeking some way of escape. He felt very weary and alone. He didn’t want to argue: it was a waste of time and pains since his mind was made up, and neither the most urgent nor the most persuasive reasoning could change it. But while Henry Watkins talked and he countered in stubborn monosyllables, he was watching sidelong, with an unnamed, unadmitted apprehension, the Speaker’s resolved and quiet face. Suddenly Henry Watkins ceased and threw up his hands in a gesture of despair. Then the Speaker rose, walked away, and, without a word, tugged sharply at the bell-pull. A servant immediately answered the summons, and in his ear the old man delivered a long whispered order. The servant bowed and went out, and the Speaker returned to his seat. All the others looked at him curiously, but maintained the silence which had fallen on them.
Then Jeremy involuntarily broke out, “What have you done? What have you sent for?”
“I have sent for my daughter,” the Speaker answered steadily. “It is time for her to be called into our counsels.”
3
Jeremy’s muscles jerked and quivered at the Speaker’s announcement, but he said nothing. His mouth set more firmly, a frown came on his forehead, and his hands, thrust under his folded arms, were so tightly clenched that he had a sensation of pain in the knuckles. Behind this appearance of resolution his thoughts were plaintive and resentful. He repeated over and over again in his mind, “I will not give way. I must not give way. Why will they be such fools?” The more he considered it the more certain he became that he was not competent to command an army. He could not do it, he told himself, and at the same time look properly after his guns. Besides, he was modest in a hard-headed way; and he refused to believe that he had the qualities which are necessary in great military commanders. The fact that he most passionately desired that they should win the coming battle only made him more determined to refuse this absurd proposal. As he sat silent in the ring of silent men he felt injured and aggrieved, and his temper grew with every moment more obstinate.
The conversation did not revive after the Speaker’s interruption, for a sense of expectation filled the room and kept it in abeyance. Presently the old man rose statelily from his chair and, moving to the window, thrust out his head and leant his arms on the sill. By doing so he broke the tension a little; and Jeremy got up and went to the table to look for a cigar, walking self-consciously and feeling that all these people regarded him with dislike. When he had found a cigar and lit it, he shrank from going back to his seat and facing them again. He lingered at the table, where he had discovered some papers of his own relating to the guns; and these made an excuse with which he could pretend to busy himself. He was vaguely conscious somewhere just within the blurred edge of his vision that John Hammond had gone over to Thomas Wells and was talking to him in a subdued voice. The Canadian answered seldom and briefly, and their words floated past his ears in a faint confusion of sound. Then John Hammond grew louder and more urgent and the Canadian exclaimed morosely:
“I have no patience....”
John Hammond insisted; and, in spite of himself, Jeremy turned his head sideways to listen.
“It would be better to be beaten,” he heard Thomas Wells say, almost under his breath but with a vicious intensity, “than be led by a vampire risen God knows how from the grave!” A disagreeable thrill passed through him; but before he could stir the door by his side opened softly and the Lady Eva stood motionless on the threshold. She was wearing a furred robe, like Thomas Wells’s; but it was less ample and hung on her more gracefully. Her fair hair fell in two long plaits, loose at the ends, down her back, and her eyes, though they shone with excitement, yet showed that she had just risen from sleep. As Jeremy silently regarded her, she glanced down and pulled the hem of the robe across to hide her bare ankles.