“Pretty well,” he said. “One still needs courage—even in peace.”
He laughed a little as he spoke, but I knew that his laughter was the camouflage of hidden trouble, at which he had hinted in his letters to me.
We could not have much talk that evening. The groups shifted and re-shifted. The best thing was when Eileen sang “The Gentle Maiden” as on a night in Lille. Brand, standing near the door, listened, strangely unconscious of the people about him.
“It’s good to hear that song again,” I said.
He started, as though suddenly awakened.
“It stirs queer old memories.”
It was in Eileen’s own house that Brand and I renewed a friendship which had been made in a rescued city where we had heard the adventure of this girl’s life.