"Oh, several things." From where they sat they could see Nan Ellis under the trees at the entrance to the park, and Wildfire flying back and forth through the air—as Nan urged the swing.
Napier remembered that, in all the heady talk before and during luncheon, Julian had hardly looked at the girl. When she spoke he didn't hear. Napier sat now studying his friend. "Don't say I didn't warn you. There's one person who'll be precious tired of all this war-talk if it goes on."
Julian lifted absent eyes. "Nan? Not a bit of it. You don't know Nan. Whenever I stray to personal affairs, it's, 'Come and show me on the map where Luxemburg is,' and, 'Just where have they crossed the French border?'"
"I suppose you're not by any chance so taken up telling her where the Germans are in France that you don't know whereabouts you are with America?"
He didn't know. He'd been waiting till he could see his way clear to detach the girl from Miss Greta. And then this appalling business—
Napier's silence seemed to convey to Julian some hint of an unspoken arraignment. She had written to her mother, he said, in extenuation. "Yes, about me. She is devoted to her mother. Yes, I've been thinking it over. You see, the Germans—"
"God bless my soul! Let's leave the Germans to stew in their own juice an hour or two!" Gavan got up and walked back and forth in front of the two garden chairs and of the man left sitting there. More than by any previous extravagance of Julian's, some of the things he said at luncheon had angered Napier. They fairly made Sir William choke. They were of a character to make Sir James Grant incline to choke the speaker. That was the knowledge which opened the door to the fear that clutched at Napier—fear of himself. Fear of the temptation revealed in this growing conviction of his, that if he let Julian drift on the new tide that was sweeping in, it would carry him away, far beyond the securities, the privileges of a favored son of the old order. Almost certainly it would carry him away from Nan Ellis. Whether an illusion or not, Napier felt that he had only to sit there in the other chair and do nothing, to see Julian blindly "do for" himself. As he walked up and down, Napier discoursed upon woman.
"You mean," Julian said, with the air of the docile disciple receiving a brand-new doctrine, "you mean that, in spite of feeling sure of her—bless her!—you think I ought to get something definite settled this afternoon?"
"You certainly ought to find out where you stand. You can't let it drift." He knew that what he really meant was that he couldn't. He got up and walked away toward the loch.
On his way back, Julian was coming with that nervous step to meet him. Well, he'd spoken to her. She admitted she was fond of him. "But I don't want to marry you," she had said. "I told her," he went on, "that I couldn't believe that. Fortunately for me, for I didn't see how I could bear it. 'You don't want to marry anybody just now?' I suggested. And what on earth do you think she said?"