“Why?”
“We are tolerably safe, I suppose, in any case; but to get back without the treaty would be rather a bad blow for our prestige, of course. All the old troubles would begin again, and England would become a laughing-stock——”
“I see,” said Georgia. “Dick, you must go.”
“All right,” said Dick, gruffly, restored to composure by the decision with which she spoke; “but why?”
“For England’s sake—for honour’s sake,” she replied. Dick looked at her in some alarm. Had the greatness of the crisis, which for the moment had unmanned himself, turned her brain, or could she really find comfort in fine language at such a time? He did not know the sustaining power which is contained for a woman in a phrase of the kind. It gives her something to lean upon, as she repeats it to herself with a determination to be worthy of it.
“You are sure you don’t mind, Georgie?” he asked in his blundering way.
“Oh no; I am not likely to mind, am I?” she said, with a sudden fierceness in her voice. “Do you want to break my heart, Dick?”
A sob broke from her lips, but she choked it down as he put his arm round her, and he only felt her hands fondling his rough coat-sleeve. “If you do that, I can’t go,” he muttered.
“Then I won’t,” said Georgia, with an effort; but she held his arm tightly as he returned to the rest.
“We may as well get things settled,” he said. “Where is this horse of yours, Anstruther?”