“I believe we’re going by your boat,” said Lady John.
“That will be delightful,” Eric answered.
The babble of voices rose and swelled until the chairman wound his way back to Eric’s side and led him into the dining-room. Detachment changed for a moment to antagonism as he walked between the long whispering rows: warm waves of scent beat upon his cheeks; before, behind and on either side he felt the magnetism of a thousand eyes drawing him out of his self-sufficiency and assailing his frozen reserve. As quickly as his companion would allow, he walked on, looking stiffly ahead, to the seat of honour. There, while the rigid, whispering rows broke up and poured in at his heels, he looked idly at the men and women who made up a world which he had left for ever. It was difficult to see all the tables and impossible to count his hosts; but the printed plan shewed him name after honoured name; New York political, New York a night’s lodging for itinerant diplomacy, New York literary and artistic, New York rich, New York fashionable and New York merely curious had crowded into the great room; and his health was to be proposed by Nelson Millbank, who had been ambassador in London when Eric was still unborn. Through the flowers, over the little Stars and Stripes and the Union Jacks fluttering between the vases he tried to identify those who were nearest to him. Every one seemed to be looking in his direction; and, to escape their eyes, he turned to his neighbour.
“America’s always been uncommonly good to me, Mr. Millbank,” he said, “but I’ve never had anything of this kind before.”
“You will shew your gratitude by coming back,” was the answer, “though we feel that the indebtedness lies the other way.”
“I’m leaving you from necessity and not choice.”
“For leisure—and for more plays, we hope. And what psychological material, Mr. Lane! Had I your genius and your youth... The convulsion’s as great, when you turn a soldier into a civilian, as when you turn a civilian into a soldier. It will be your privilege to capture and preserve for us the impression of a world in travail. A man gets his discharge papers one morning—and finds himself with an old life to take up or a new life to make....”
“Yes. I’ve been thinking of that for some time,” said Eric, half to himself. “Though I’m not a soldier... It’s all right if he himself has changed with the world around him; in peace the individual moves more quickly than the mass, but in war the mass moves more quickly than the individual.”
He stroked his chin thoughtfully and looked up to find the woman opposite him leaning forward with a faint air of diffidence and a question in embryo.
“There’s no old life for women to take up, is there?” she asked, plucking up courage, but evidently disconcerted by the clear ascendancy of her own voice.