Macgillivray in a sharp voice asked my meaning.
“He’s in a funk ... of something. Oh, I don’t mean he’s a coward. A man in his trade wants the nerve of a buffalo. He could give us all points in courage. What I mean is that he’s not clean white all through. There are yellow streaks somewhere in him.... I’ve given a good deal of thought to this courage business, for I haven’t got a great deal of it myself. Not like Peter, I mean. I’ve got heaps of soft places in me. I’m afraid of being drowned for one thing, or of getting my eyes shot out. Ivery’s afraid of bombs—at any rate he’s afraid of bombs in a big city. I once read a book which talked about a thing called agoraphobia. Perhaps it’s that.... Now if we know that weak spot it helps us in our work. There are some places he won’t go to, and there are some things he can’t do—not well, anyway. I reckon that’s useful.”
“Ye-es,” said Macgillivray. “Perhaps it’s not what you’d call a burning and a shining light.”
“There’s another chink in his armour,” I went on. “There’s one person in the world he can never practise his transformations on, and that’s me. I shall always know him again, though he appeared as Sir Douglas Haig. I can’t explain why, but I’ve got a feel in my bones about it. I didn’t recognise him before, for I thought he was dead, and the nerve in my brain which should have been looking for him wasn’t working. But I’m on my guard now, and that nerve’s functioning at full power. Whenever and wherever and howsoever we meet again on the face of the earth, it will be ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’ between him and me.”
“That is better,” said Macgillivray. “If we have any luck, Hannay, it won’t be long till we pull you out of His Majesty’s Forces.”
Mary got up from the piano and resumed her old perch on the arm of Sir Walter’s chair.
“There’s another blind spot which you haven’t mentioned.” It was a cool evening, but I noticed that her cheeks had suddenly flushed.
“Last week Mr Ivery asked me to marry him,” she said.