'I thought you promised Cicely and me that you wouldn't attempt anything of the kind?'
'Not till I was fit.' Her voice trembled a little. 'But now I am—quite fit.'
'You should let your friends judge that for you,' he said gently.
'No, no, I can't. I must judge for myself.' She spoke with growing agitation. 'You have been so awfully, awfully good to me!—and now'—she bent forward and laid a pleading hand on his arm—'now you must be good to me in another way I you must let me go. I brood here too much. I want not to think—I am so tired of myself. Let me go and think about other people—drudge a little—and slave a little! Let me—it will do me good!'
His face altered perceptibly during this appeal. When he first came in, fresh from the frosty air, his fair hair and beard flaming in the firelight, his eyes all pleasure, he had seemed the embodiment of whatever is lusty and vigorous in life—an overwhelming presence in the little cottage room. But he had many subtler aspects. And as he listened to her, the Viking, the demi-god, disappeared.
'And what about those—to whom it will do harm?'
'Oh no, it won't do harm—to anybody,' she faltered.
'It will do the greatest harm!'—he laid a sharp emphasis on the words. 'Isn't it worth while to be just the joy and inspiration of those who can work hard—so that they go away from you, renewed like eagles? Cicely and I come—we tell you our troubles—our worries—our failures, and our successes. We couldn't tell them to anyone else. But you sit here; and you're so gentle and so wise—you see things so clearly, just because you're not in the crowd, not in the rough and tumble—that we go away—bucked up!—and run our shows the better for our hours with you. Why must women be always bustling and hurrying, and all of them doing the same things? If you only knew the blessing it is to find someone with a little leisure just to feel, and think!—just to listen to what one has to say. You know I am always bursting with things to say!'
He looked at her with a laugh. His colour had risen.
'I arrive here—often—full of grievances and wrath against everybody—hating the Government—hating the War Office—hating our own staff, or somebody on it—entirely and absolutely persuaded that the country is going to the dogs, and that we shall be at Germany's mercy in six months. Well, there you sit—I don't know how you manage it!—but somehow it all clears away. I don't want to hang anybody any more—I think we are going to win—I think our staff are splendid fellows, and the nurses, angels—(they ain't, though, all the same!)—and it's all you!—just by being you—just by giving me rope enough—letting me have it all out. And I go away with twice the work in me I had when I came. And Cicely's the same—and Hester. You play upon us all—just because'—he hesitated—'because you're so sweet to us all. You raise us to a higher power; you work through us. Who else will do it if you desert us?'