"Oh, fit to burst!"
"And you will be ordering people about and others will be ordering you about," she continued, returning to the mischievous vein. "I shall have to make another cartoon of how our newest subaltern looked to himself the first time he had on his uniform and how he felt when the general came to inspect his battery for the first time."
Just then it occurred to Helen that she had talked enough; but it had not occurred to her to tell him that she had put her name down on a list which would ensure her wearing a uniform and working in a hospital—she who dreaded the sight of blood. No, this was her business. Now she took up her book again with a sense of relief, and settled well down in the corner of the seat, as if to make herself as small as possible. She held the book well up, her lowered lashes just showing above the cover's edge.
Phil glanced up from his artillery cramming at times to find her still reading, or, if she were looking away from the page, it was out of the window, unconscious of his presence. At such moments her eyes would open wide as some object interested her vividly, most vividly for an instant, seeing pictures, making pictures, always. A fine nobility about the forehead; indeed, a beautiful forehead, with its rich, dark eyebrows under the crowning glory of the hair that seemed to hold the particles of sunlight that filtered through the glass, and small, delicately-shaped ears set close to the head. There was more in that head than he had ever guessed. Only a small part of its infinite variety came out of the fingers' ends on to white paper.
Why he did not know, but the scene under the tree came into his mind. Her abounding sense of humour could not resist the trick when he was making that serious, patternlike lover's speech which he swore he would never make again in the same way. She had had the best of many jokes on him, whether the irresistible mood of mischief possessed her to make a cartoon or to draw him gazing lovelorn into Henriette's face. For it had not occurred to him what she thought must be so palpable—the true character of that "Yes," which excoriated her whenever she was with him alone.
He glanced at the drawing on the open page at his side, took it up to look at it again, amazed afresh at its quality and atmospheric reality, and put it down without attracting her attention. She was happy; she had succeeded in the one thing she cared for. It was pleasant to be there opposite her in her triumph on this September day, flying past English hedges, thinking of many things, including the destiny that had sent him to Europe on a holiday to become a soldier; and it was with a touch of regret that he noted a landmark which told him that the train was drawing into Truckleford. She slipped the book back in her bag and the face he saw was that of the plain Helen, singularly dull and lifeless till she drew a sigh and in her eyes appeared a peculiar light, as she explained:
"Here we are at last!"
Mrs. Sanford, as well as the vicar and Henriette, was on the platform to welcome him; but Madame Ribot had found the weather quite too warm for walking. Henriette waved her hand as she smiled her welcome when the train ran past them. The vicar took Phil's hand in his and held it affectionately in a long clasp; and Mrs. Sanford flushed when he kissed her.
"We are very proud!" she murmured. "But we fear that we have done wrong in not trying to prevent it."
"But his father said 'Yes, by Jehovah!'" put in the vicar. He did not tell Phil that he was having that telegram framed to hang under the portrait of the ancestor.