“Thank you, sir, I'll be glad to come. But I am leaving Mr. Spencer soon.”
“Leaving!”
“Going back to the army, sir.”
In the back of his mind the rector had been depending on Jackson, and he felt vaguely irritated.
“I'm sorry to hear it. I'd been counting on you.”
“Very sorry, sir. I'm not leaving immediately.”
“I sometimes think,” observed the rector, still ruffled, “that a man's duty is not always what it appears on the surface. To keep Mr. Spencer—er—comfortable, while he is doing his magnificent work for the Allies, may be less spectacular, but it is most important.”
Jackson smiled, a restrained and slightly cynical smile.
“That's a matter for a man's conscience, isn't it, sir?” he asked. And touching his cap again, moved off. Doctor Haverford felt reproved. Worse than that, he felt justly reproved. He did not touch the Gains of War that afternoon.
In the gymnasium he found Delight, captaining a basket-ball team. In her knickers and middy blouse she looked like a little girl, and he stood watching her as, flushed and excited, she ran round the long room. At last she came over and dropped onto the steps at his feet.