“That's nothing,” said Barry. “When I see you here at your unending work, it makes me feel more and more like a slacker.”
“Wait for me here a moment,” she said, and hurried away to return shortly in such a glow of excitement as even her wonted calm and self-restraint could not quite hide.
“I'm going to drive you to Etaples to-morrow in my car. I know the matron and some of the nurses in the American hospital there.”
“You don't mean it,” said Barry, “but are you sure it's not a terrible bore for you? I am much afraid that I have been a nuisance to you, and you have been so very, very good to me.”
“A bore!” she cried, and the brown eyes were wide open in surprise. “A bore, and you a Canadian! Why, you are one of my brothers' friends, and besides you seem to me a friend of our family. My uncle Howard, you know, told me all about you. Besides,” she added in a voice of great gentleness, “you remember, I promised.”
Barry caught her hand.
“I wish I could tell you all I feel about it, but somehow I can't get the words.”
She allowed her hand to remain in his for a moment or two; then withdrawing it, said hurriedly, with a slight colour showing in her cheeks:
“I think I understand.” Then changing her tone abruptly, and dropping into the business-like manner of a V. A. D., she said, “So, we'll go to-morrow. It will be a splendid run, if the day is fine. We had better start by nine o'clock to give us a long day.” Then, as if forgetting she was a V. A. D., she added with a little catch in her voice, “Oh, I shall love it!”
The day proved to be fine,—one of those golden days of spring that have given to the land its name of “sunny France.” It was a day for life and youth and hope. A day on which war seemed more than ever a cruel outrage upon humanity. But across the sunniest days, across the shining face of France, and across their spirits, too, the war cast its black shadow. They both, however, seemed to have resolved that for that day at least they would turn their eyes from that shadow and let them rest only where the sun was shining.