She brought a bright colored sweater and he helped her into it, still with his mouth set and his eyes a trifle sunken. All about there were laughing groups of men in uniform. Outside, the parade glowed faintly in the dusk, and from the low barrack windows there came the glow of lights, the movement of young figures, voices, the thin metallic notes of a mandolin.
“How strange it all is,” Delight said. “Here we are, you and father and myself—and even Jackson. I saw him to-day. All here, living different lives, doing different things, even thinking different thoughts. It's as though we had all moved into a different world.”
He walked on beside her, absorbed in his own thoughts, which were yet only of her.
“I didn't know you were here,” he brought out finally.
“That's because you've been burying yourself. I knew you were here.”
“Why didn't you send me some word?”
She stiffened somewhat in the darkness.
“I didn't think you would be greatly interested, Graham.”
And again, struggling with his new humility, he was silent. It was not until they had crossed the parade ground and were beyond the noises of the barracks that he spoke again.
“Do you mind if I talk to you, Delight? I mean, about myself? I—since you're here, we're likely to see each other now and then, if you are willing. And I'd like to start straight.”