'Excuse me, old man, but I don't quite understand you.'
He looked at me steadily for a few seconds, and then went on quietly, 'I fancy there is no need to tell you about that.'
'And yet you stand by and see Springfield carry her off before your eyes, and Springfield is a rotter.'
'Yes, that's just what he is. But he can't harm her yet.'
'What do you mean by "yet"?'
'I can't put it into words, Luscombe. My first impulse when I saw them together just now was to go to the table and denounce him,—to warn her against him. But it would have been madness. The time is not yet come.'
'Meanwhile, he will marry her,' I said.
'No, he won't. I am afraid he has fascinated her, and I am sure he means to marry her,—I saw it down in Devonshire. But there is no danger yet; the danger will come by and by,—when or how I don't know. It will come, and I must be ready for it. I will be ready, too. Meantime, I have other things to think about. I am worried, my friend, worried.'
'What is worrying you?'
'I am going back to duty to-morrow, but from what I can hear I am to be treated as a special case. My colonel has said all sorts of kind things about me, I find. But that's not what I am thinking about now. This war is maddening me,—this constant carnage, with all the misery it entails. You asked me some time ago what I thought about the things we had seen,—what my impressions were, and I told you that I could not co-ordinate my ideas, could not look at things in their true perspective. I say, Luscombe, Admiral Beatty was right.'