THE SECRET VICTORY
CHAPTER ONE
VIGIL
“Though your wife ran away with a soldier that day,
And took with her your trifle of money;
Bless your heart, they don’t mind—they’re exceedingly kind—
They don’t blame you—as long as you’re funny!”
W. S. Gilbert: “The Family Fool.”
Roused by a report of peace hardly less deafening than the crash of war four and a half years earlier, the winter garden of the Majestic hummed like a vast and airless beehive. On the long sofas by the walls, in deferential clusters round some slow-voiced, arm-chair oracle and in wavering groups at one moment distinct and at another herded together, everybody who could find room between the crowded tables and the obtrusive palm-tubs eagerly volleyed question and answer, contributing his pennyworth of gossip and retiring with his pound of rumour.
No one in New York had seriously doubted that Germany would accept the armistice terms; but, until they were signed, the talk of private dinners and public celebrations remained half-hearted. Now that the invitations had been discharged, no one knew what to do next. One group of lean, sagacious officers debated how soon they would be demobilized and restored to their businesses; a harassed parliament of women exchanged acid confidences about the apartments which they had taken when their husbands came to New York for the war; a second and a younger group of officers deplored the untimely cessation of hostilities before they had seen any fighting.