It had long been a dream of Judy’s to have her own cottage—shared, needless to say, with Noel—and if they could only get it built cheaply enough, there was a chance that it might be fulfilled. At any rate, they enjoyed planning it, and if it served no other purpose it put Chip at his ease with them—a thing she had prayed for.
Madame Claire guessed easily enough that he was on the way to falling in love with Judy, and that Judy herself was on the same road. She thought there was something very lovable about Chip, and felt sure that he was as gallant a soldier as he was a modest one. Major Stroud had more than hinted to Judy that his D.S.O. should have been a V.C. Madame Claire loved a good soldier, for she had a theory that to be a good soldier a man must be a great gentleman. And, like Judy, she felt the charm of the man of forty—the age that lies like a savory filling between what is callow in the young generation and outworn in the old.
His poverty had kept him out of touch with things. She guessed that if he danced at all, it would be in the stiff, uncompromising manner of the late nineties. He should learn the new ways. He wasn’t nearly old enough to think of himself as on the shelf.
Judy inquired about his injuries. Had the stiffness nearly gone? No, it was no good his saying that it had entirely gone, because she had noticed that he was limping slightly when he came in.
“That’s old age,” he said.
“Very well. Only don’t forget to limp the next time we meet. And what about your head?”
“Oh, quite recovered, thanks! That is, it aches a bit, of course, if I do much writing, but the doctor says that’s bound to be so for a while. Really,” he said, turning to Madame Claire, “I feel I owe my life to Miss Pendleton and her chauffeur. Any one else would have run gayly over me and gone on. I think it was such amazingly good luck that it happened to be that particular car.”
“I’m rather inclined to agree with you,” laughed Madame Claire. “Some day I’d like to hear something about your book. It sounds tremendously interesting. But what I’d like to know now is this. Are all your eggs in one basket? I mean, does this book occupy your whole time, or do you work on it when other occupations permit?”
“I’m afraid that … well, that not only are all my eggs in one basket, but that there’s only one egg. You see,” he explained, “I chucked the army in order to give all my time to it. It meant as much to me as that. To my mind, no one’s ever written scientifically enough about religions.”
“That may be, but I feel you need diversions. When people become so obsessed by one idea that they walk under omnibuses and into motor cars, it’s time for an antidote.”