They arrived home late. The family were at dinner.
"We've missed two courses," said Leonard gleefully; "the aunts must be raging."
"Shall I dress up?" said Marjorie.
"Good God!" answered Leonard, "I go to-morrow at five. Don't wear anything that will make them think we're going to sit round and converse with Aunt Hortense all the evening. I'm going up to say good-bye to the boy."
Marjorie found him there, stretched out on Herbert's little cot, completely covering the little mound under the pink coverlet.
"Don't you come near, Marjorie; I've got Leonard all to myself," cried Herbert, who, like all the others, was jealous of Marjorie, but did not scruple to show it.
"Ha-ha! Who's jealous now?" said Leonard, putting his head down on Herbert's. Marjorie lay down on the quilt at the foot of the bed. Her restless eyes watched a light from the driveway scurry across the bed and zig-zag over the faces of the two brothers. Like a sudden flame struck from a match it lit a metal object on the shelf over the bed. Ah, it looked grim and incongruous in that peaceful English nursery! Once it had been one among a golden sea of helmets, sweeping across a great plain like a river. The sun smote upon gleaming bayonets, passing with the eternal regularity of waves. Last autumn the world had shaken under the tread of the feet marching toward Paris.
The light clung to the glittering object, and then scudded away. Marjorie's eyes kept closing. Suddenly, and oh, so vividly, there came the memory of another garden; the cold, brooding stillness of the winter air, and the sun sifting through the diamond windows of the summer-house, and shining on the dancing letters of the lesson-book and on his yellow hair. Then she heard Leonard's laughter and was back again in the present. How could he laugh like that! It was because he was so young. They were all so young!
"Good night, old man," said Leonard, pulling himself up from Herbert's bed; "don't forget me."
Three times Herbert called him back, and when Leonard returned and stood beside him, the little boy wriggled apologetically.