“Jealousy?”
“Why, yes,” said Eileen. “Imagine me, an Irish girl, all soppy with emotion at the first sight of English khaki (that’s a fantastic situation anyhow!), after four years with the grey men, and then finding that the first khaki tunic she meets holds the body of a man she knew as a boy, when she used to pull his hair! And such a grave heroic-looking man, Wicky! Why, I felt like one of Tennyson’s ladies released from her dark tower by a Knight of the Round Tower. Then you went away and married a German Gretchen! And all my doing, because if I hadn’t given you a letter to Franz you wouldn’t have met Elsa. So when I heard the news, I thought, ‘There goes my romance!’”
“Daddy” Small laughed again, joyously.
“Say, my dear,” he said, “you’re making poor old Wickham blush like an Englishman asked to tell the story of his V.C. in public.”
Brand laughed, too, in his harsh, deep voice.
“Why, Eileen, you ought to have told me before I moved out of Lille.”
“And where would maiden modesty have been?” asked Eileen, in her humorous way.
“Where is it now?” asked the little doctor.
“Besides,” said Brand, “I had that letter to Franz von Kreuzenach in my pocket. I don’t mind telling you I detested the fellow for his infernal impudence in making love to you.”
“Sure now, it was a one-sided affair, entirely,” said Eileen, exaggerating her Irish accent, “but one has to be polite to a gentleman that saves one’s life on account of a romantic passion. Oh, Wickham, it’s very English you are!”