“Oh, yes!” Fanny’s eyes met his straightforwardly. She was made up for the stage but he didn’t mind that, because he knew it had to be. “It was so strange to see him, in uniform. He’s looking every inch a soldier, isn’t he?—even though he’s not one.”
“I’m not so sure he isn’t. Yes, he’s great—and you’re greater! It’s all in the nature of things that he should come over and do his bit, but you could hardly have been expected to do yours.”
“Why not? Just because I’ve always been a frivolous thing, is that any reason why I shouldn’t sober down now and be useful?”
Cary smiled. “You don’t look exactly sobered down, you know,” he told her, glancing from the dashing scarlet feather in the little cap set at an angle on her blonde head, to the high-heeled scarlet slippers on her pretty feet.
“Oh, but I am. I’m giving myself more seriously to being a little fool than I ever did to trying to seem wise.”
“And in doing it, you’re wisest of all!” Cary exulted. “Fanny—I’ve something to tell you. I wouldn’t have been sure once, whether it was something that would give you pleasure to hear or not, but—yes—I’m fairly sure now. You knew—you must have known, what I used to be, though you didn’t see much of me till that was pretty well over. I want you to know that—it’s all over now. I’ve had every sort of test, as you may imagine, since I left Jane—and Mr. Black, and Doctor Burns—the people who stood by me when I was down—and I haven’t given in once. Perhaps I will give in, some day, but I don’t think it. You see—I can’t disappoint them. And—I’d like to think—you care too whether—I make good.”
A great burst of applause came from the ranks upon the grass, followed by a roar of laughter. Cary drew Fanny a step or two farther away, though they two were already in deep shadow, made the deeper by contrast with the circle of radiance cast by the torches.
“Of course, I care,” she answered, and he strained his eyes in the darkness in the effort to see her face. “Cary, I want you to know that—ever so many things look different to me, over here. I—perhaps you won’t believe it, but it’s true—absolutely true—that when I face an audience like that one out there I feel like—almost like—a mother to those boys. And I just want to—be good to them—and help them forget the hard things they’ve seen, for a little while.”
He could have laughed aloud, at the idea of ever hearing anything like this from the lips of Fanny Fitch. Yet, somehow, he could not doubt that there was truth in the astonishing words, and it made him very happy to hear them. There had been that in her performance, as he had observed, which gave strong colour to this point of view. Certainly, the experience of being close to the heart of the great struggle was doing strange things to everybody. Why should it not have worked this miracle with her?
“Fanny—” he felt for her hand, and took it in both his, while he stooped lower to speak into her face,—“do you know that you and I are a lot alike? It’s supposed to be that people who are alike should steer clear of each other, but I’m not so sure. You and I are always keyed-up to a pitch of adventure—we like it, it’s the breath of life to us. I can understand it in you—you can, in me. Why shouldn’t we go after it—together? Why couldn’t we make a wonderful thing of our lives, doing things together? Why, if I could have made an airman, for instance—as I’d have liked mightily to do if I hadn’t been a newspaper man and had my job cut out for me—I can imagine your being ready to go up with me and take every chance with me—you could be just that sort of a good fellow. And even on the every-day, plain ground—why, dear—if you cared——”