"Isn't she splendid?" murmured little Miss Dale, who had burrowed her way to Muriel's side through the crowd like a small mole. "So brave! Not a tear! Like all these splendid, heroic women, whom one reads about in the papers. I never knew what it was to be so proud of my country before."
The wind uplifted for a moment Daisy's brave, blue cloak. She seemed to float, borne high upon a wave of heroism. Dickie's red, comely face leaned towards her from the carriage window.
"A symbol of Womanhood," murmured Miss Dale tearfully.
The whistle blew. A feeble, fragmentary cheer rose from the watchers on the platform as the train moved slowly, cleaving a line between the moving faces at the windows, and the crowd that stood below. And still Daisy waited, her small figure bent sturdily against the wind, looking at Dickie, while all Marshington looked at her. It was her moment. Then she was no longer Daisy Weathergay of the neat little house in the Avenue. She had become a symbol of womanhood, patient and heroic as the patient heroism of Nature itself.
"And there's dear Phyllis Marshall Gurney," continued Miss Dale. "She does look nice in her uniform, doesn't she? So splendid of her to have taken on this work in Kingsport, isn't it? But of course, after her terrible experiences in Germany——"
The train swept round the corner into the darkness. The tension of the watching crowd snapped suddenly. Muriel became aware of Connie at her side. Connie's eyes were fixed in front of her. Her breath came in low, gasping sobs. Her cheeks had flamed from white to crimson, and the hand that held her handkerchief was quivering.
"Connie," whispered Muriel. "They are only going to Aldershot."
A sudden suspicion seized her lest Connie's mercurial affection should have lighted for the moment upon Dickie Weathergay. But Connie laughed softly.
"Look at the little fool, Daisy! I bet she isn't half enjoying herself. Knows that she makes a pretty picture and that half Marshington is watching her. Thinks she's the only girl interested in this war." Her voice was thick and fierce.
Muriel watched her with wonder. But, then, Connie was always giving way to unaccountable emotions, and to-night Muriel also felt weary and sad, because her heart ached where it had no right to ache, for this was Daisy's war. Daisy to-night was the symbol of those heroic women who all over Europe were giving their men to die for an ideal, and suffering a thousandfold all the possibilities of suffering in war. Muriel, who could dream at night of unimaginable horrors, whose thoughts followed to Belgium the fleeting whispers of atrocity, who heard hammering through her tired brain the old woman's words, "War's bloody hell," Muriel had no right nor claim upon this war. She envied those wives and sisters with that envy of suffering which can burn most potently of all.