“I'm on strike already,” answered Andrews laughing.
The man noticed his accent, looked at him sharply a second, and turned back to the conversation, lowering his voice as he did so. Andrews drank down his coffee and left the bar, his heart pounding. He could not help glancing back over his shoulder now and then to see if he was being followed. At a corner he stopped with his fists clenched and leaned a second against a house wall.
“Where's your nerve. Where's your nerve?” He was saying to himself.
He strode off suddenly, full of bitter determination not to turn round again. He tried to occupy his mind with plans. Let's see, what should he do? First he'd go to his room and look up old Henslowe and Walters. Then he would go to see Genevieve. Then he'd work, work, forget everything in his work, until the army should go back to America and there should be no more uniforms on the streets. And as for the future, what did he care about the future?
When he turned the corner into the familiar street where his room was, a thought came to him. Suppose he should find M.P.'s waiting for him there? He brushed it aside angrily and strode fast up the sidewalk, catching up to a soldier who was slouching along in the same direction, with his hands in his pockets and eyes on the ground. Andrews stopped suddenly as he was about to pass the soldier and turned. The man looked up. It was Chrisfield.
Andrews held out his hand.
Chrisfield seized it eagerly and shook it for a long time. “Jesus Christ! Ah thought you was a Frenchman, Andy.... Ah guess you got yer dis-charge then. God, Ah'm glad.”
“I'm glad I look like a Frenchman, anyway.... Been on leave long, Chris?”
Two buttons were off the front of Chrisfield's uniform; there were streaks of dirt on his face, and his puttees were clothed with mud. He looked Andrews seriously in the eyes, and shook his head.
“No. Ah done flew the coop, Andy,” he said in a low voice.