At the first triumphal arch, where a white stone marked the extreme limit of Horstwyk, the simple reception commenced. It had been distinctly arranged that only the returning soldier was to be honored as such. The Burgomaster’s welcoming speech, therefore, was all glory and gunpowder, and could hurt no one, not even Ursula, though she might have drawn her own conclusions, had that been necessary, from the silence which had attended her solitary drive to the station. Loud cries of “Long live the Baron!” now resounded on all sides; they broke out afresh as the carriage halted by the church, where the school-children sang a couple of patriotic anthems, and the Dominé, wearing his Cross of the Legion of Honor, held a second discourse. The village band having played a military march, the carriage drove off to the Horst. It was unattended, a sore point with the tenantry, whose proposal to get up a mounted guard of honor had been met by Gerard’s unhesitating rebuff.
Everybody he cared about (and a good many other people) had assembled to welcome him on the Manor-house lawn. The Van Trossarts were there, and the Van Troyens; and Helena, a fond though fitful mother, had brought her baby girl. A big luncheon was served in the house for the guests, and another outside for the members of the committee and the numerous village notables. Ursula sat calculating the cost all through her father’s toast, which was necessarily rather a repetition of his speech, a glorification of bravery, secular and religious. Nobody could doubt that Gerard was utterly miserable.
Nor could any one ignore the delight of the Dowager. She stood by her son’s side, bowed yet beaming, all through the sweltry afternoon. It was her feast-day. She drank in with eagerly upturned countenance the unceasing flow of banal compliments, seeming to derive some personal satisfaction from the clumsy praises of the peasantry. For, after luncheon, while the children’s sports were in progress, the returned warrior endured a congratulatory levee. Farmer after farmer came up, red-hot with clumsy good feeling; farmer after farmer remarked:
“Now, Jonker, you’ve kept up the honor of Horstwyk, say.”
Gerard, rousing himself, found a kind word of recognition and interest for each. Ursula, as she watched him from afar, saw on the altered features the old smile.
Once she drew near to him suddenly. “How much you must have suffered!” she said. “I had no idea—I—”
He looked at her gravely.
“Not as much as you,” he answered. “I would not have exchanged my fight for yours.”
“Gerard, you do not mean that,” she said, quickly, avoiding his gaze. “Now that you see the old place again, after all these months, you are glad it is still there, still—ours. You would not willingly now have lost a rood of it. Say so—say so, now.”
Her voice grew desperately pleading.