“Don’t apologize,” I said, smiling; “I am always glad to have old days and old friends recalled. Usually it does not shake me even to talk about father—it’s a pleasure to think people remember him. In the first part of this evening I had not quite recovered from my arrest. But Richard is himself again now. I haven’t forgotten how to be happy, and I’m going to enjoy this opera.” And I did enjoy it.
Mrs. Warren took me to my train in her carriage; and there he met us to say good-by to me, and to tell me that he would see that I had a pass to Norfolk in a day or two. They both saw me comfortably seated, and after farewells were said and he had seen his wife to her carriage he stepped back on the cars with a handful of flowers for me.
“Is there nothing,” he asked, “nothing that I can do for you? If you are ever in any trouble when I can help you, won’t you let me know?”
I bowed my head.
“And Bobby—if there is ever anything I can do for your child, you will let me know?”
“Good-by,” he said, “it is good to meet old friends and find that neither time nor war changes them. Good-by—we shall see you again some day.”
Isabelle was very happy when I told her that Dick was safe, and now that it was over she regretted having sent me into such dangers and tribulations.
“I ought to have gone,” she said. “I could have taken the oath, you see, if they had asked me. And then, well, papa is known there, but—I couldn’t ask papa to help Dick. He wouldn’t have done anything for him.”
CHAPTER XXII
WITH DAN AT CHARLOTTESVILLE
Milicent always came as a soul comes.