“Do you know—do you know what he is doing now?”
“Doing now?” He stared at her blankly. “What on earth do you mean? He’s been dead for months; killed in the campaign in East Africa—only decent thing he ever did in his life. Why?”
Daphne never stirred. She stood quite still, staring at the painted gate. Then she said, very carefully: “Someone thought—someone thought that they had seen him—quite lately.”
Robin laughed comfortingly. “No use looking so scared about it, my blessed child. Perhaps they did. The War Office made all kinds of ghastly blunders; it was a quick step from ‘missing in action’ to ‘killed.’ And he probably would have been jolly glad of a chance to drop out quietly and have everyone think he was done for.”
Daphne never took her eyes from the gate. “Yes,” she said quietly, “I suppose he would. Will you get my basket, Robin? I left it by the beehive. There are some cushions that belong in the East Indian room, too. The south door is open.”
When he had gone, she stood shaking for a moment, listening to his footsteps die away, and then she flew to the gate, searching the twilight desperately with straining eyes. There was no one there—no one at all—but then the turn in the lane would have hidden him by now. And suddenly terror fell from her like a cloak.
She turned swiftly to the brick wall, straining up, up on tiptoes, to lay her cheek against its roughened surface, to touch it very gently with her lips. She could hear Robin whistling down the path, but she did not turn. She was bidding farewell to Green Gardens—and the last adventurer.
DELILAH
“But what is she like?” asked O’Hara impatiently. “Man alive, you’ve seen her, haven’t you? Sat next to her at dinner at the Embassy last night, didn’t you? Well, then, for the love of the Saints, what’s the creature like?”