“Oh, you’ll be all right long before we want to go out,” was his wife’s cheerful response. But there was a shadow in her eyes.
Wally did not notice any shadow. He had hero-worshipped Major Hunt in his first days of soldiering, when that much-enduring officer, a Mons veteran with the D.S.O. to his credit, had been chiefly responsible for the training of newly-joined subalterns: and Major Hunt, in his turn, had liked the two Australian boys, who, whatever their faults of carelessness or ignorance, were never anything but keen. Now, in his delight at meeting his senior officer again, Wally chattered away like a magpie, asking questions, telling Irish fishing-stories, and other stories of adventures in Ireland, hazarding wild opinions about the war, and generally manifesting a cheerful disregard of the fact that the tired man opposite him was not a subaltern as irresponsible as himself. Somehow, the weariness died out of Major Hunt’s eyes. He began to joke in his turn, and to tell queer yarns of the trenches: and presently, indeed, the whole party seemed to be infected by the same spirit, so that the old walls of the Cheshire Cheese echoed laughter that must have been exceedingly discouraging to the ghost of Dr. Johnson, if, as is said, that unamiable maker of dictionaries haunts his ancient tavern.
“Well, you’ve made us awfully cheerful,” said Major Hunt, when dinner was over, and they were dawdling over coffee. “Stella and I were feeling rather down on our luck, I believe, when you appeared, and now we’ve forgotten all about it. Do you always behave like this, Miss Linton?”
“No, I have to be very sedate, or I’d never keep my big family in order,” said Norah, laughing. “You’ve no idea what a responsibility they are.”
“Haven’t I?” said he. “You forget I have a houseful of my own.”
“Tell me about them,” Norah asked. “Do you keep them in order?”
“We say we do, for the sake of discipline, but I’m not too sure about it,” said Mrs. Hunt. “As a matter of fact, I am very strict, but Douglas undoes all my good work. Is it really true that he is strict in the regiment, Mr. Jim?”
Jim and Wally shuddered.
“I’d find it easier to tell you if he wasn’t here,” Jim said. “There are awful memories, aren’t there, Wal?”
“Rather!” said Wally feelingly. “Do you remember the day I didn’t salute on parade?”