“Oh—but you weren’t as sure as that!” Fanny tried to withdraw her hand.
But Cary held it fast. “No, I wasn’t sure, not by a darned sight. I’m not sure yet—except of one thing. And that’s if you send me away to-night not sure I’ll go to pieces with unhappiness and my work’ll run a fair chance of going to pieces too. Heaven knows when I’ll see you again, with the scrap getting hotter all the time. I don’t mean to play on the pathetic, but—well—you know as well as I do that this is war-time—and I’m green with jealousy of every doughboy who’ll see you from now on——”
He hardly knew what he was saying now. The violinist had begun to play again. The boys on the grass had fallen silent. The torches flared and fell and flared again in the light breeze which had suddenly sprung up. In a minute more he must go; he must run no risk of making the car-load of officers wait for him.
Fanny lifted her face and spoke to him in a whisper. “Cary, will you promise me—that you’ll never—go back to the old—ways?”
“Oh, I’d like to promise you!” he whispered back eagerly. “I want to. That will make it surer than sure—if I can promise you. I do promise you—on my honour—and before—God.”
They stood a moment in silence again, then Cary flung his arms around her and felt hers come about his neck.
“I want to promise you something, too,” her voice breathed in his ear. “I’ll never, never face an audience like this without—remembering that you might be in it. And I’ll play—as you would like me to. Didn’t I—to-night—without knowing?”
“Oh, my dear!” How could she have known, and given him what he wanted most? “Yes, you did—bless you! And I’ll trust you, as you’ll trust me. Oh, I didn’t know how much I loved you, till you said that. Fanny—we were meant for each other—I know we were!”
Every man has said it, and Cary was as sure as they. Perhaps he was right—as right as they. Anyhow, as he went away, he was gloriously happy in the thought that though those hundreds on the grass might thrill with pleasure as the girl with the scarlet feather came out to sing them her farewell song, not one of them all could know as he did, that behind the enchanting gayety beat a real heart, one that belonged only to a certain war-correspondent, already many miles away! Surely, if she could trust him, he could trust her, and mutual trust, as all the world knows, is the essential basis for every human relation worth having. On this basis, then, was this new relation established; and the augury for the future was one on which to count with hope—even with confidence.