Two hours later the bride and the bridegroom, the two happiest people in London, drove away from the Iretons' rooms in Clarges Street. Hadassah and Michael Ireton watched them until the taxi was out of sight. As they turned into the hall, with something very like tears in their eyes—for even in the happiest marriages there is the quality of tears—Michael put his arms round his wife and drew her to him. As she looked up into his rugged face, his eyes more than his words said:
"We know how they feel, dearest! God bless them! Such happiness makes one weep in these days."
Hadassah pressed her dark head against his coat-sleeve. He held her closely; each day she was more precious in his sight.
"They are worthy of each other." His voice broke. "Really, when one sees such happiness, one says to oneself, even if they have only a fortnight together, it is a great deal, a wonderful thing."
Hadassah looked at her husband searchingly. "Somehow I've no fear for
Michael—have you?"
Michael Ireton thought before he answered. "No, I don't think I have."
"There is a certain something about some people that makes one either afraid or not afraid for them—the men going to the Front, I mean. For Michael Amory I haven't any fear. I can't explain why—it's not that he will save himself by caution." She laughed.
"I know," her husband said. "Michael seems extraordinarily lucky. He told me a few things last night, of the escapes which he daren't tell Margaret, ghastly adventures. I'm afraid he's awfully rash. Like all Irishmen, when his blood's up, he hasn't any conception of the danger he's facing. He has the super-bravery of the Celt, and all his recklessness."
"I just hope that as a married man he will keep that supernatural nerve. A wife often destroys it."
"I know," Michael Ireton said. "One sees it so often—No wife, no danger—a wife at home, more caution, less nerve."