As they strolled up to each other and met midway in the big public room, in the fraction of time that passed before their hands touched I heard him draw a hard, quivering breath and let it out in a long sigh. That breath was a suppressed cry of trouble and of acquiescence.
Then (I could have blessed him for it) he twinkled.
Viola said, "What have you been up to?"
And Jimmy, "I say, I like that! What are you doing here? Have you come to look at the Belfry?"
"No. I've come to look at you!" She put her hand on his shoulder.
He said, "That's a jolly rig-out you've got," and that was all.
The General and the two Colonels came forward and were presented to Mrs. Jevons; and Mr. Walter Furnival ("one of our war-correspondents") was presented to the General and the two Colonels. They saluted Madame; they begged Madame to accept their profoundest congratulations; they regretted that Madame had not been present just now when they were drinking her husband's health.
And the old General (the one with the white hair and imperial) informed her that Monsieur her husband had a very poor opinion of the Belgian Army.
"He has saved the lives of three Belgian officers and I do not know how many Belgian soldiers—and he says that it is nothing!"
And the stout, florid Colonel, who had been trying to look young and rakish ever since he had turned and caught sight of Viola, suggested that "Perhaps, if he had saved your British, he would not have said that it was nothing."