“We have,” replied the man somberly, “and mine’s at the front!”
The girl shook her head.
“No!” she said. “Henceforward it’s where the Chief sends you!”
Desmond set his jaw obstinately.
“I may have been a Secret Service agent by accident,” he answered, “but I’m a soldier by trade. My place is in the fighting-line!”
“The Secret Service has its fighting-line, too,” Barbara replied, “though the war correspondents don’t write about it. It never gets a mention in despatches, and Victoria Crosses don’t come its way. The newspapers don’t publish its casualty list, though you and I know that it’s a long one. A man slips quietly away and never comes back, and after a certain lapse of time we just mark him off the books and there’s an end of it. But it’s a great service; and you’ve made your mark in it. The Chief wants men like you. You’ll have to stay!”
Desmond was about to speak; but the girl stopped him. “What do you and I matter,” she asked, “when the whole future of England is at stake! If you are to give of your best to this silent game of ours, you must be free with no responsibilities and no ties, with nothing that will ever make you hesitate to take a supreme risk. And I never met a man that dared more freely than you!”
“Oh, please...” said Desmond and got up.
He stood gazing seawards for a while.
Then he glanced at his watch.