On and on went David’s voice; Concha, looking across from the billiard-table, whispered to Arnold, “No one talks so much really as a ‘strong, silent man.’”
“Yes; it was a queer time—the War. Things happened then that people had come to look upon as impossible—as old wives’ tales. But you’ll hardly meet a fellow who has been through the War who hasn’t either himself had some queer sort of experience, or else had a chum who has. It was a queer time ... there—there ... were things....”
“Be a sportsman—double the black!” shouted Rory from the billiard-table.
Teresa, sitting silent in her corner, found herself muttering:
Then old songs waken from enclouded tombs;
Old ditties sigh about their fathers’ graves;
Ghosts of melodious prophecyings rave
Round every spot where trod Apollo’s foot;
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
Where long ago a giant battle was....