The Profiteers | Page 6

of people who would give you a handsome cheque to hear Mr. Wingate's answer to that question."
"Any one may hand over the cheque, then," Wingate interposed smilingly, "because my answer to Miss Baldwin is prompt and truthful. I do not know."
"Of course," Lady Amesbury complained, "if you are going to introduce a commercial element into my party--well, why don't you and Maurice, Roger, go and dance about opposite one another, and tear up bits of paper, and pretend to be selling one another things?--Hooray, I can see some people beginning to move! I'll go and speed them off the premises."
She hurried away. Sarah drew a sigh of relief.
"Somehow or other," she confessed, "I always feel a sense of tranquility when my aunt has just departed."
Josephine rose to her feet.
"I think I shall go," she decided, "while the stock of taxicabs remains unexhausted."
"If you will allow me," Wingate said, "I will find you one."
Their farewells were a little casual. They were all, in a way, intimates. Only Kendrick touched Wingate on the shoulder.
"Shall I see you in the City to-morrow?" he asked.
"About eleven o'clock," Wingate suggested, "if that is not too early. There are a few things I want to talk to you about."
"Where shall I send my card?" Sarah called out after him.
"The Milan Hotel," he replied, "with terms, please."
She made a little grimace.
"Terms!" she repeated scornfully. "An American generally pays what he is asked."
"On the contrary," Wingate retorted, "he pays for what he gets."
"Your address?" Wingate asked, as he handed Josephine into a taxicab.
"Dredlinton House, Grosvenor Square," she answered. "You mustn't let me take you out of your way, though."
"Will you humour me?" he asked. "There is something I want to say to you, and I don't want to say it here. May we drive to Albert Gate and walk in the Park a little way? I can find you another taxi the other side."
"I should like that very much," she answered.
They spoke scarcely at all during their brief drive, or during the first part of their walk in the Park. Then he pointed to two chairs under a tree.
"May we sit here?" he begged, leading the way.
She followed, and they sat side by side. He took off his hat and laid it on the ground.
"So one of the dreams of my life has been realised," he said quietly. "I have met Sister Josephine again."
She was for a moment transformed. A delicate pink flush stole through the pallor of her cheeks, her tired eyes were lit with pleasure. She smiled at him.
"I was wondering," she murmured. "You really hadn't forgotten, then?"
"I remember," he told her, "as though it were yesterday, the first time I ever saw you. I was brought into ��taples. It wasn't much of a wound but it was painful. I remember seeing you in that white stone hall, in your cool Sister's dress. After the dust and horror of battle there seemed to be nothing in that wonderful hospital of yours but sunlight and white walls and soft voices. I watched your face as you listened to the details about my case--and I forgot the pain. In the morning you came to see how I was, and most mornings afterwards."
"I am glad that you remember," she murmured.
"I have forgotten nothing," he went on. "I think that those ten days of convalescence out in the gardens of your villa and down by the sea were the most wonderful days I ever spent."
"I love to hear you say so," she confessed.
"Out there," he continued, "the whole show was hideous from beginning to end, a ghastly, terrible drama, played out amongst all the accompaniments which make hell out of earth. And yet the thing gripped. The tragedy of Ypres came and I escaped from the hospital."
"You were not fit to go. They all said that."
"I couldn't help it," he answered. "The guns were there, calling, and one forgot. I've been back to England three times since then, and each time one thought was foremost in my mind--'shall I meet Sister Josephine?'"
"But you never even made enquiries," she reminded him. "At my hospital I made it a strict rule that our names in civil life were never mentioned or divulged, but afterwards you could have found out."
He touched her left hand very lightly, lingered for a moment on her fourth finger.
"It was the ring," he said. "I knew that you were married, and somehow, knowing that, I desired to know no more. I suppose that sounds rather like a cry from Noah's Ark, but I couldn't help it. I just felt like that."
"And now you probably know a good deal about me," she remarked, with a rather sad smile. "I have been married nine years. I gather that you know my husband by name and repute."
"Your husband is associated with