They filed in, to find a table laden and glittering; in the centre a huge cake, bearing the greeting, “Good Luck!” with a silken Union Jack waving proudly. Norah whispered to her father, and then ran away. She returned, presently, dragging the half-unwilling cook-lady.
“It’s against all my rules!” protested the captive.
“Rules be hanged!” said Jim cheerfully. “Just you sit there, Miss de Lisle.” And the cook-lady found herself beside Colonel West, who paid her great attention, regarding her, against the evidence of his eyes, as a Tired Person whom he had not previously chanced to meet.
“My poor, neglected babies!” said Mrs. Hunt tragically, as twelve strokes chimed from the grandfather clock in the hall. Wally and Norah, crowned with blue and scarlet paper caps, the treasure of crackers, were performing a weird dance which they called, with no very good reason, a tango. It might have been anything, but it satisfied the performers. The music stopped suddenly, and Mr. Linton wound up the gramophone for the last time, slipping on a new record. The notes of “Auld Lang Syne,” stole out.
They gathered round, holding hands while they sang it; singing with all their lungs and all their hearts: Norah between Jim and Wally, feeling her fingers crushed in each boyish grip.
“Then here’s a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie’s a hand o’ thine.”
Over the music her heart listened to the booming of the guns across the Channel. But she set her lips and sang on.
It was morning, and they were on the station. The train came slowly round the corner.
“I’ll look after him, Nor.” Wally’s voice shook. “Don’t worry too much, old girl.”