"Dearest, so you've got back—I heard the trap!"
"Yes; can you come?"
"In a minute. The connecting door to the school is locked, but I made Bill Jack lend me his key."
"Right-O!"—and I waited breathlessly for Doris.
I daresay such a proceeding as this may strike the ultra-proper with dismay. But we loved each other, there was no harm in it, and, besides, what the deuce were we to do? It was the only way we could meet at all, and even then, it only happened now and again.
The door of my sitting-room opened without a sound and Doris entered. Doris's hair is dark red, and, when it is down, it reaches almost to her heels. Titian red, I believe, is the right name for it, though I'm sure I don't know why. Her eyes are dark blue, like the blue on the wing of a freshly killed mallard—I am not good at this sort of thing, but she is a ripper. Directly she had closed the door, which she did noiselessly, she saw from my face what had happened. I felt a rotten tout, I can tell you, to stand there, chucked again.
"Well, here I am," I said, "returned empty, declined with thanks, His Majesty having no use for my services! Same old game, Doris dear, and if they lose the war now, they can't blame me!" I spoke bitterly, but lightly also; yet when Doris put her arms round my neck and I held her close, when I could feel warm tears upon my cheek, I was as near breaking down as I have ever been in my life.
"Never mind, Johnny darling, never mind," she whispered, "I love you just the same—you've always got me—and it isn't your fault. You've tried as hard as you possibly can to go."
She could only stay a quarter of an hour; it wasn't safe longer. Marjorie was keeping cave, for the sisters occupied the same room. I told her everything as shortly as I could, and with a sigh, we both agreed that we must make the best of it. She wanted me to go, she longed for me to go, I knew that. What patriotism there was in Morstone House School was confined to the boys and to the Doctor's stepdaughters. Upjelly himself seemed to take very little interest in the conflagration of the world, or, if he did, he never showed it. But I knew as well as I knew anything that Doris would rather have had me go to the Front and get a bullet through my head than that I should stay at home; which, I may remark, is the right sort of girl.
"Well," she said at length, "let us hope the Germans invade us—it will be somewhere about here, I suppose, if they do—and then you can have a smack at them with your single eight-bore, Johnny; that would be something, wouldn't it?"