“I suppose the man who carries the flag always gets 'potted,' as they say. But somebody must carry it.”
Glory felt her tears gathering.
“It's a pity that I have to go before you, Glory.”
She shook her head to keep the tears from flowing, and then answered gaily: “Oh, that's only as it should be. I want a little while to think it all out, you know, and then—then I'll pass over to you, just as we fall asleep at night and pass from day to day.”
And then he lay back with a sigh and said, “Well, I have had a happy end, at all events.”
XVI.
The day had been fine, with a rather fierce sun shining until late in the afternoon, and long white clouds lying motionless in a deep blue sky, like celestial sand-banks in a celestial sea. But the tender and tempered splendour of the evening had come at length, with the sun gone over the housetops to the northwest, and its solemn afterglow spreading round, like the wings of angels sweeping down. London was unusually quiet after the roar and turmoil of the day. The great city lay like a tired ocean. And like an ocean it seemed to sleep, full of its living as well as its dead.