“I don’t want to return yet,” she said, and the look she gave him was half-beseeching, half-imperious. “Let us walk around a little. You don’t mind, do you?”
Mind! What was he not willing to pay for every additional moment that gave him her gracious presence!
He did not—he could not—answer, but he instantly turned and with her on his arm, walked in the opposite direction. There was too much crowding upon the floor for comfortable walking; mechanically, without intention on his part, he made his way to the entrance to the great conservatory and they passed in.
“I suppose this is the last place I should seek,” he said, at last finding speech and scarce knowing what he was saying.
“Why?” she asked archly.
“A soldier, you know, seldom cares to revisit the scene of a reverse,” he said.
“I have read somewhere,” she answered demurely, “that all great soldiers seek to retrieve a reverse, and Captain Mortimer, it is said, is a great soldier.”
“I thank you for the compliment,” he answered with some embarrassment; “but I fear you are amusing yourself at my expense.”
“One doesn’t amuse oneself,” she answered gravely, “at the expense of those who wear that Order,” and she touched lightly with her gloved finger-tips the Columbia Cross glittering upon his breast. “You must tell me some day the story of how that was won,” she continued in a low voice. “I’d like to hear the details from your own lips.”
“I fear narration is not my strong point,” he answered, again evincing embarrassment. “Besides,” he added hastily, “the credit of that affair really belonged most largely to the dearest fellow on earth—my comrade, Ralph Swords.”