“I want to speak to you, Major!” she faltered distressfully.
He flung away his cigar, and invited her in.
“If you weren’t the Commanding Officer, it wouldn’t be so hard. There must be moments when you are not; couldn’t I claim one of those?”
The Major deliberated. “Perhaps I’d better tell you that I have just become acquainted with what I believe you have come to disclose.”
“You mean about Mr. Adams?” she cried. “Oh, nobody knew that he was here, but me—and I have not breathed it to a soul.”
“One other person knew, for he has just reported to me the exact time that Adams left the village, and with whom he spent his time while here.”
“He spent it with me,” Julie doggedly declared. “He was lonely, going mad under that monster at Dao. He wanted to see civilization again. This was what meant civilization to him. Doesn’t that seem awful, after what he has stuck through?”
“But would he risk his life, to say nothing of his commission, for such an impulse?” Some thought, some intimation that projected from the mind of the unknown person who had seen Adams and herself, stretched back of the Major’s words. Julie’s unpleasant experiences of late had commenced to sharpen her wits. The Major’s informant, it was clear, had had something horrid to say. The kiss! The disappearing figure of that man—who could he have been! She began to be frightened. Glancing up, she saw that the Major perceived photographically all that was in her mind.
She cast about desperately in her thought. The Major’s conservatism must be won over, if one of her spirit’s company were to be saved from disgrace. It was useless to try to penetrate the understanding of this grim, practical man with the things Adams had poured out to her on the log that evening in the thicket; idle to deal in symbols with the soldier before her. Well, there was always the final, smashing conventional fact!
“Mr. Adams and I,” she faltered, groping for the word, “had an understanding. It was for that that he risked his life—for me. I met him at Dao, and we had corresponded. Oh, please try to find him!” she cried.