“I wouldn’t mind,” Ruth said simply, “but I’ll not be here. I’m leaving Paris in the morning.”
“Ho! Where to?”
“I applied day before yesterday for field work and got it; so I’m going to Picardy.”
“That’s no address. What part?”
“Roisel.”
“Hmm!”
Was he evolving—she wondered—the fact that De Trevenac’s order to someone to go to Roisel had been delivered to her?
Gerry had not got that far. He was thinking that this strange girl, so unlike any other one whom he had known well, was evidently determined to watch for herself the outcome about Roisel. He was thinking, too, that Roisel was decidedly an inconvenient place for him to visit. To be sure, it was in that direction that Agnes Ertyle would be at work, for the hospital units, to which she was attached, were caring for casualties from the Fifth Army; but till she would be about that part of Picardy, he would have no errands likely to take him there. And he wished that he had; or that this girl would soon again be where he could see her.
The days when he could be free from duty were few and brief now; and with the swift onset of spring they were certain to be fewer. For tremendous movements—the most stupendous in all human history—were clearly imminent; men, and women too, were certain to be called upon to die in number beyond all past calculation.
Gerry Hull did not think of himself as one of those certain to die; neither did he think of himself as one likely to live. Long ago he had attained that new imbuement of being, independent of all estimates of continuance of self, which was content with disposing of the present hours as best might be. So he had been spending his hours, whenever possible, with Agnes Ertyle; his next distant day was to be with her. And heretofore there had been no other desire to disturb him.