"You are going to wait for Julian?"
"What else is possible?" She hung her head. "He and the others, they've depended on me. Well, they must not any more. And when he comes,"—her breast heaved as she brought it out,—"I shall tell him something else."
"Tell Julian! What shall you tell Julian?"
The lifted eyes were swimming.
"That it's you. That to see you go without me breaks my heart."
"Nan!" he cried and pulled himself up with an effort that brought the blood into his face. Other passengers, arriving late, for all their own agitation at the prospect of some hitch in getting themselves and their baggage on board, stared back over their shoulders at the leave-taking out in the street.
Napier flung a "Wait!" to the cabman, and held his watch in one hand. "Come," he said and took Nan by the arm. He walked her a little way from the dock entrance.
"I think," he went on gravely, "I wouldn't tell Julian. You see, Nan, you've got to consider that I mayn't be coming back." He didn't look at her. "What's the use of telling Julian? Isn't there enough misery in the world without adding to it?"
"That's what Julian and I think," she said, blurring her words. "Enough misery in the world without war. You never cared about that old misery as Julian did. And that's what makes it so—so—not to be borne that you should feel you have to go and meet the new horror out there."
"Well, I do feel like that," he said.