"Why," the girl asked, with her candid eyes on her host, "if the Government believed that, why was Lord Kitchener calling for a hundred thousand men?"
"Oh, that—that was to show the Germans what they had to expect if they didn't come to their senses."
While the dessert was going round, she got up, with a look at the clock and an apology. It was understood that she had an engagement.
"Always an emergency in these days," Sir William mocked pleasantly at the Women's Corps. "Gavan, see they get her a taxi, will you?"
The footman's whistle grew fainter as Napier helped her into her coat. They hadn't been alone since those hurried moments on the platform after Greta had gone. Something now in her slight awkwardness as she struggled with her coat, her increased anxiety to be off ("I ought to have gone ten minutes ago. I can always find a cab quicker than a footman") gave Napier a feeling that he had misinterpreted her avoidance. Not the new Greta-born distrust of him, but distrust of herself. His heart rose at that quick conviction. Rogers wouldn't be long, he reassured her, and then: "I wish he might, or, rather, I wish I hadn't to go back to the House with Sir William. I'd take you wherever it is you are going." He stopped suddenly.
"Would you? Would you really? That's what I've been longing to ask. You wouldn't sit dumb, helpless, like me if once you'd heard Julian—"
"I'm under the impression that I have 'heard Julian.'"
"No! no! not just arguing with you. I mean at one of the meetings."
"I see. Where I can't answer back."
"And now you're looking like that!" She turned away with nervous abruptness, but he had interposed between her and the doorknob.