Missing | Page 9

for his last few words--'God bless you, dear.' But had she cared for him enough in return?--had she really tried to understand him? Some vague sense of the pathos of age--of its isolation--its dumb renouncements--gripped her. If he had only lived longer! He would have been so proud of George.
She roused herself.
'You did really make up your mind--_then_?' she asked him, just for the pleasure of hearing him confess it again.
'Of course I did! But what was the good?'
She knew that he meant it had been impossible to speak while his mother was still alive, and he, her only child, was partly dependent upon her. But his mother had died not long after Nelly's father, and her little income had come to her son. So now what with Nelly's small portion, and his mother's two hundred and fifty a year in addition to his pay, the young subaltern thought himself almost rich--in comparison with so many others. His father, who had died while he was still at school, had been a master at Harrow, and he had been brought up in a refined home, with high standards and ideals. A scholarship at Oxford at one of the smaller colleges, a creditable degree, then an opening in the office of a well-known firm of solicitors, friends of his father, and a temporary commission, as soon as war broke out, on his record as a keen and diligent member of the Harrow and Oxford O.T.C.'s:--these had been the chief facts of his life up to August 1914;--that August which covered the roads leading to the Aldershot headquarters, day by day, with the ever-renewed columns of the army to be, with masses of marching men, whose eager eyes said one thing only--'_Training_!--_training_!'
The war, and the causes of the war, had moved his nature, which was sincere and upright, profoundly; all the more perhaps because of a certain kindling and awakening of the whole man, which had come from his first sight of Nelly Cookson in the previous June, and from his growing friendship with her--which he must not yet call love. He had decided however after three meetings with her that he would never marry anyone else. Her softness, her yieldingness, her delicate beauty intoxicated him. He rejoiced that she was no 'new woman,' but only a very girlish and undeveloped creature, who would naturally want his protection as well as his love. For it was his character to protect and serve. He had protected and served his mother--faithfully and well. And as she was dying, he had told her about Nelly--not before; only to find that she knew it all, and that the only soreness he had ever caused her came from the secrecy which he had tenderly thought her due.
But for all his sanity and sweet temper there was a hard tough strain in him, which had made war so far, even through the horrors of it, a great absorbing game to him, for which he knew himself fitted, in which he meant to excel. Several times during the fighting that led up to Neuve Chapelle he had drawn the attention of his superiors, both for bravery and judgment; and after Neuve Chapelle, he had been mentioned in despatches. He had never yet known fear in the field--never even such a shudder at the unknown--which was yet the possible!--as he had just been conscious of. His nerves had always been strong, his nature was in the main simple. Yet for him, as well as for so many other 'fellows' he knew, the war had meant a great deal of this new and puzzled thinking--on problems of right and wrong, of 'whence' and 'whither,' of the personal value of men--this man, or that man. By George, war brought them out!--these personal values. And the general result for him, up to now,--had he been specially lucky?--had been a vast increase of faith in his fellow men, yes, and faith in himself, modest as he was. He was proud to be an English soldier--proud to the roots of his being. His quiet patriotism had become a passion; he knew now in what he had believed.
Yes--England for ever! An English home after the war--and English children. Oh, he hoped Nelly would have children! As he held her pressed against him, he seemed to see her in the future--with the small things round her. But he did not speak of it.
She meanwhile was thinking of quite other things, and presently she said in a quick, troubled voice--
'George!--while you are away--you don't want me to do munitions?'
He laughed out.
'Munitions! I see you at a lathe! Dear--I don't think you'd earn your keep!' And he lifted her delicate arm and tiny hand, and looked at them with scientific curiosity. Her frail build was a constant wonder and pleasure