Changing Winds Part 86

... But she was beautiful, undeniably she was beautiful. As he looked at her, she raised her eyes, conscious perhaps of his stare, and smiled at him....

"She'd smile at anybody," he said to himself. "If she had any feeling at all for me, she'd be angry with me!"

She came to him. "I wish you'd tell Gilbert to come and see me," she said, sitting down beside him.

"Very well," he answered, "I will!"

"I'm sure he'll look awfully nice in khaki. And I should love to see him saluting Jimphy. He'll have to do that, you know, if he's a private...."

8

He got away as soon as he could decently do so, and went back to Bloomsbury. "That isn't England," he told himself, "that mitten-making, posturing crew!" and he remembered the great queues of men, standing outside Scotland Yard, struggling to get into the Army, and suffering much discomfort in the effort.

"Perhaps," he said to himself, "Gilbert's at home now. I wonder if he managed to get in!"

A man and a woman were standing at the corner of a street, talking, and he overheard them as he pa.s.sed.

"'Illoa, Sarah," the man said, "w'ere you goin', eih?"

"Goin' roan' the awfices," she answered, "to see if I kin get a job o'

charin'!"

"Gawblimey!" said the man, laughing at her.

"Well, you got to do somethink, 'aven't you? No good sittin' on your be'ind an' 'owlin' because there's a war on, is there?"

There was more of the spirit of England in that, Henry thought, than in Cecily's mitten-making....

Gilbert was not at home when he reached the Bloomsbury boarding-house.

"Still trying, I suppose," Henry thought.

There was a telegram for him. His father was ill again, "seriously ill"

was the message, and he was needed at home.

He hurriedly wrote a note to be given to Gilbert when he returned, in case he should not see him again, but before he had begun his packing, Gilbert came in.

"It's all right," he said. "I've joined. I've had a week's leave.... I'm d.a.m.ned tired!"

"My father's ill again, Gilbert. I've just had a telegram, and I'm going back to-night!..."

"I'm awf'lly sorry, Quinny!" Gilbert said, quickly sympathetic.

"I met Jimphy at Charing Cross. He's in khaki. He took me back to tea.

Cecily's making mittens!..."

"She would," said Gilbert.

"She told me to tell you to go and see her!"

"Did she, indeed?"

"You'll stay here, I suppose," Henry went on, "until you're called up?"

Gilbert nodded his head. "Let me know what happens to you afterwards, will you?"

"Righto!"

"I'll come back as soon as I can, Gilbert!"

THE SIXTH CHAPTER

1

Mr. Quinn died at Christmas. The old man, weakened by his long illness, had been stunned by the War, and when his second illness seized him, he made no effort to resist it. He would lie very quietly for a long while, and then a paroxysm of fury would possess him, and he would shake his fist impotently in the air. "If they wanted a war," he shouted once, "why didn't they go and fight it themselves. They were paid to keep the peace, and ... and!..."

He fell back on his pillow, exhausted, and when Henry, hurrying up the stairs to him the moment he heard the shout, reached him, he was gasping for breath. "It's all right, son!" he said when he had recovered himself. "It's all right!..."

"It's foolish of you, father, to agitate yourself like that," Henry said to him, putting his arms round him and lifting him into a more comfortable position.

"I can't help it, Henry, when I think of ... of all the young lads!...

By G.o.d, they'd no right to do it!..."

"Hush, father!..."

"They'd no right to do it! You'd think they were greedy for blood ...

young men's blood!" He pointed to an English newspaper lying on the floor. "Did you read that paper?" he said.

"Yes."

"Houndin' them into it," the old man went on. "Yellin' for young men! By G.o.d, I'd be ashamed ... parsons an' women an' old men that can't fight themselves, houndin' young men into it! If they'd any decency, they'd shut up...."

"All right, father!"

"The man that owns this paper ... whatshisname!..."

"It doesn't matter, does it? Lie still and be quiet!"

"I can't be quiet. Like a d.a.m.ned big monster, yellin' for boys to eat.

Has he any childher, will you tell me?..."

"I don't know, father!"

"Of course he hasn't. An' here he is, yelpin' in his d.a.m.ned rag every day, 'Fee-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a young man!' Why don't they shove him at the Front ... the very front!"

"You must keep quiet, father!"