"No," he said, when I had sketched out plans for the evening. "Rather not, if it's all the same to you, go to a theatre, and, unless you're keen on it, we won't go up to town and have dinner. I'd prefer to just sit here on this sofa, and gaze at Miss Weston."
"That won't be very amusing for you."
"Seem to have got out of the habit of laughing. Takes a bit of an effort, in these days, for me to smile. But I don't want anything better than to hear you talk, and chat to you, and find you contradicting me. And," as I placed a cushion under his head, "how's the nephew, and how are the people in Gloucester Place, and how's everybody?"
He admitted, later, that he paid but a small compliment to me by falling asleep as I was chatting to him. "Where's my manners?" he asked self-reproachfully. Before this, I had put a screen near the sofa, and if anyone came in the shop, warned them to speak quietly. I set the kettle on the fire in the back room, induced a passing lad to buy for me a two-ounce packet of the Quartermaster-Sergeant's favourite tobacco. His pipe rolled out of his pocket as he turned in his sleep, and I filled it, placed it ready for him, with matches at hand.
I proposed to tell him of my fears regarding Muriel Hillier and my nephew, and to mention that Herbert was shortly coming up on the retarded leave. I thought of explaining that Muriel had changed but that it was not clear the change was permanent. My Quartermaster-Sergeant had just awoke, and was once more blaming himself for inattention to the rules of etiquette, when William Richards appeared at the doorway.
"Bit of a railway accident, Mary Weston," he announced, shortly. "Your nephew, the officer chap, is I am sorry to say in it!"
CHAPTER XVI
It was the way of things in the long months of the war that in addition to news from abroad, one was called upon to receive information concerning events at home, and when it happened that both were of a serious and alarming nature, one was almost knocked down by the double blow. One generally managed to get up again before ten was counted, but for the moment, the effect was staggering. I could have wished for no better companions than Cartwright and William Richards, and they proved the more useful when my brother-in-law Millwood arrived, a broken and a tearful man, unable to offer any suggestion or to join in the conference which, once I had recovered, took place; he went into the back room, and gripping the top of his head with both hands moaned and wailed. All the cheeriness which he was able, at public meetings, to communicate to his audience, had gone. I opened the door with the idea of giving a word of sympathy.