And the next day, as if nothing had happened, he was excited and eager to set out. He could sleep off his funk in the night, like drink, and get up in the morning as if it had never been. He was more immune from memory than any drunkard. He woke to his romance as a child wakes to the renewed wonder of the world. It was so real to him that, however hardly you judged him, you couldn't think of him as a humbug or a hypocrite…. No. He was not that. He was not that. His mind truly lived in a glorious state for which none of his disgraceful deeds were ever done. It created a sort of innocence for him. She could forgive him (even after yesterday), she could almost believe in him again when she saw him coming down the hall to the ambulance with his head raised and his eyes shining, gallant and keen.
They were to go to Berlaere. Trixie Rankin had gone on before them with
Gurney, McClane's best chauffeur. McClane and Sutton were at Melle.
They had not been to Berlaere since that day, the first time they had gone out together. That time at least had been perfect; it remained secure; nothing could ever spoil it; she could remember the delight of it, their strange communion of ecstasy, without doubt, without misgiving. You could never forget. It might have been better if you could, instead of knowing that it would exist in you forever, to torment you by its unlikeness to the days, the awful, incredible days that had come afterwards. There was no way of thinking that John had been more real that day than he had been yesterday. She was simply left with the inscrutable mystery of him on her hands. But she could see clearly that he was more real to himself. Yesterday and the day before had ceased to exist for him. He was back in his old self.
There was only one sign of memory that he gave. He was no longer her lover; he no longer recognised her even as his comrade. He was her commandant. It was his place to command, and hers to be commanded. He looked at her, when he looked at her at all, with a stern coldness. She was a woman who had committed some grave fault, whom he no longer trusted. So masterly was his playing of this part, so great, in a way, was still his power over her, that there were moments when she almost believed in the illusion he created. She had committed some grave fault. She was not worthy of his trust. Somewhere, at some time forgotten, in some obscure and secret way, she had betrayed him.
She had so mixed her hidden self with his in love that even now, with all her knowledge of him, she couldn't help feeling the thing as he felt it and seeing as he saw. Her mind kept on passing in and out of the illusion with little shocks of astonishment.
And yet all the time she was acutely aware of the difference. When she went out with him she felt that she was going with something dangerous and uncertain. She knew what fear was now. She was afraid all the time of what he would do next, of what he would not do. Her wounded were not safe with him. Nothing was safe.
She wished that she could have gone out with Billy; with Billy there wouldn't be any excitement, but neither would there be this abominable fear. On the other hand you couldn't let anybody else take the risk of John; and you couldn't, you simply couldn't let him go alone. Conceive him going alone—the things that might happen; she could at least see that some things didn't.
It was odd, but John had never shown the smallest desire to go without her. If he hadn't liked it he could easily have taken Sutton or Gwinnie or one of the McClane men. It was as if, in spite of his hostility, he still felt, as he had said, that where she was everything would be right.
And it looked as if this time nothing could go wrong. When they came into the village the firing had stopped; it was concentrating further east towards Zele. Trixie's ambulance was packed, and Trixie was excited and triumphant.
Her gestures waved them back as useless, much too late; without them she had got in all the wounded. But in the end they took over two of them, slight cases that Trixie resigned without a pang. She had had to turn them out to make room for poor Gurney, the chauffeur, who had hurt himself, ruptured something, slipping on a muddy bank with his stretcher.