Pandemonium! Everybody was dancing. The flags were dancing. Men and women on the sidewalk were dancing. Soldiers were dancing—English soldiers and American soldiers, French soldiers and Belgian soldiers, Portuguese and Japanese and Italian soldiers—lame soldiers and legless soldiers and armless soldiers—ill soldiers and well soldiers. Sailors were dancing—English sailors and American sailors, French sailors and Italian sailors and Japanese sailors. The very houses were dancing: floods of white paper came dancing down out of the dancing houses. Their own car was dancing: her cushions were dancing: they could feel her engine dancing. They themselves were dancing: they could feel their hearts dancing inside them: the blood was dancing in their veins, dancing and dancing. . . .
But late that Armistice Day afternoon when the five sat knee-to-knee in the closed and motionless car—Hyde Park trees at its windows, rain tapping on its taut roof; when they poured the dancing wine of Francis’ forethought from gold-foiled bottle-neck and clinked brimmed glasses in token of civilization’s triumph over the Beast; when the Weasel, speaking solemnly as though he were proposing the King’s Health on guest-night, gave them: “Our men, God bless them, our splendid, splendid men!”—then Beatrice and Patricia could have sworn that they saw the tears of their own hearts reflected not only in their lovers’ eyes, but in the hard blue eyes of Brigadier General Douglas Stark, Royal Field Artillery.
THE END
The characters of Peter Jameson and his wife Patricia were originally conceived in Stockholm, Sweden, one night in June, 1912. Their story was finally brought to fruition at The Old Barn, Oxfordshire, England, in November, 1919.
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.
Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.
Inconsistency in accents has been retained.