Jim Horton had a glimpse of the color that ran like a flame up Moira's throat to her brow but he glanced quickly away and busied himself with a buckle at his belt.
"I want to thank you, Miss Newberry," he said soberly, "for all that you've done for me. I'll never forget."
"Nor I, Lieutenant Horton. But you're in better hands than mine now. A week or so and you'll be as strong as ever."
"I've never felt better in my life," he replied.
They moved toward the conveyance, shook hands with the nurse, and with Harry's baggage (which had just been sent down from regimental headquarters) upon the box beside the rubicund and rotund cocher, they drove out of the gates and toward the long finger of the Eiffel Tower which seemed to be beckoning to them across the blue haze above the roof tops.
Neither of them spoke for a moment. In the ward, in the convalescent rooms or even in the grounds of the hospital, Moira had been a visitor with a mission of charity and cheer. Here in the fiacre the basis of their relationship seemed suddenly and quite mysteriously to change. Whether Moira felt it or not he did not know, for she looked out of her window at the passing scene and her partly averted profile revealed nothing of her thoughts. But the fact that they were for the first time really alone and driving to Moira's Paris apartment gave him a qualm of guilt on account of the impossible situation that he had created. He had, he thought, shown her deep gratitude and respect—and had succeeded in winning the friendship that Harry had perhaps taken too much for granted. It had given Jim Horton pleasure to think that Moira now really liked him for himself alone, and the whole-heartedness of her good fellowship had given him every token of her spirit of conciliation. She had had her moods of reserve before, like the one of her present silence, but the abundance of her vitality and sense of humor had responded unconsciously to his own and they had drawn closer with the artless grace of two children thrown upon their own resources. And now, here in the ramshackle vehicle, for the first time alone, Jim Horton would have very much liked to take her by the hand (which lay most temptingly upon the seat beside him) and tell her the truth. But that meant Harry's disgrace—the anguish of her discovering that such a friendship as this with her own husband could never be; for in her eyes Jim Horton had seen her own courage and a contempt for all things that Harry was or could ever hope to be. And so, with an effort he folded his arms resolutely and stared out of his window.
It was then that her voice recalled him.
"Can't you smell that goose, Harry dear?" she said.
He flashed a quick smile at her.
"Just can't I!" he laughed.