It sounded familiar. He read on to the end:
“And here and there a scarlet memory.”
He suddenly remembered. Dorothy. McCall. McCall had scribbled the poem on an old envelope. Robert remembered lending it to him—in the hospital. But—yes, he had been right all the time. By a sort of instinct. He undressed, turned off the lights and raised the shades. The moonlight lay like a river of silver across the shadowy lawn. A world of illusion and of beauty. Tomorrow, he said, he would ask Margaret to set the day. They should be married as quickly as possible.
XXI
The next morning Robert awoke only after he had been called three times. The sun was shining brightly into his window and he realized that it was past the family breakfast hour. He lay in bed thinking of what he would do, found that he was still in bed and stretched leisurely. As long as he was late for breakfast he might as well be still later. He suddenly remembered his resolve to see Margaret and induce her to set their wedding as soon as possible.
Of course, he could not with propriety visit her this morning, after having seen her only a few hours before. He would wait until afternoon. In the meantime he must straighten those papers.
As his eyes fell upon the old envelope again he had an impulse to tear it, another to send it to McCall, and a third, which he followed, to keep it with his other records. He would keep it with certain other letters, as a woman might keep old rose petals—not to bloom again, but to remind one of the past.
He noticed a card, which he had at first mistaken for the postal ordering him to report at Plattsburg. Now he saw it was a white card with the words “Non Silba Sed Anthra” in large letters on the top line. “Non Silba Sed Anthra?” Where had that come from? Let’s see. That was Latin. Anyway, he knew what two of the words meant. He went to the bookcase and pulled out his Latin dictionary. There it was.
Now he remembered. That fat man had given it to him. Oh, yes, Jarvis. He picked up the card and read it:
“Sir, six thousand men who are preparing for eventualities have their eyes upon you. You are being weighed in the balance!