The Splendid Outcast. Gibbs George
is pretty cold-blooded with its information."
But the patient knew that Corporal Horton wasn't a prisoner. If he was missing, it was because he had gone to the rear – nothing less than a deserter. Nevertheless the information, even indefinite as it was, brought him comfort. He clung rather greedily to its very indefiniteness. In the eyes of the army or of the world "missing" meant "dead" or "prisoner," and until Harry revealed himself, the good name of the corporal of Engineers was safe. That was something.
And the information brought the wounded man abruptly to the point of realizing that he was now definitely committed to play the role he had unwittingly chosen. He had done his best to explain, but they hadn't listened to him. And when confronted with the only witnesses whose opinions seemed to matter (always excepting Harry himself), he had miserably failed in carrying out his first intentions. He tried to think of the whole thing as a joke, but he found himself confronted with possibilities which were far from amusing.
The slate-blue Irish eyes of Harry's war-bride haunted him. They were eyes meant to be tender and yet were not. Her fine lips were meant for the full throated laughter of happiness, and yet had only wreathed in faint uncertain smiles.
Barry Quinlevin was a less agreeable figure to contemplate. If Jim Horton hadn't read his letter to Harry he would have found it easier to be beguiled by the man's genial air of good fellowship and sympathy, but he couldn't forget the incautious phrases of that communication, and having first formed an unfavorable impression, found no desire to correct it.
To his surprise it was Moira who came the following week to the hospital at Neuilly on visitors' day. Jim Horton had decided on a course of action, but when she approached his bed, all redolent with the joy of out of doors, he quite forgot what he meant to say to her. In Moira, too, he seemed to feel an effort to do her duty to him with a good grace, which almost if not quite effaced the impression of her earlier visit. She took his thin hand in her own for a moment while she examined him with a kindly interest, which he repaid with a fraternal smile.
"Father sent me in his place," she said. "I've put him to bed with a cold."
"I'm so glad – " said Horton, and then stopped with a short laugh. "I mean – I'm glad you're here. I'm sorry he's ill. Nothing serious?"
"Oh, no. He's a bit run down, that's all. And you – you're feeling better?"
He liked the soft way she slithered over the last syllable.
"Oh, yes – of course."
All the while he felt her level gaze upon him, cool and intensely serious.
"You are out of danger entirely, they tell me. I see they've taken the bandage off."
"Yesterday," he said. "I'm coming along very fast."
"I'm glad."
"They promise before long that I can get out into the air in a wheel-chair."
"That will do you all the good in the world."
In spite of himself, he knew that his eyes were regarding her too intently, noting the well modeled nose, the short upper lip, firm red mouth and resolute chin, all tempered with the softness of youth and exquisite femininity. He saw her chin lowered slightly as her gaze dropped and turned aside while the slightest possible compression of her lips indicated a thought in which he could have no share.
"I have brought you some roses," she said quietly.
"They are very beautiful. They will remind me of you until you come again."
The sudden raising of her eyes as she looked at him over the blossoms was something of a revelation, for they smiled at him with splendid directness.
"You are improving," she laughed, "or you've a Blarney Stone under the pillow. I can't remember when you've said anything so nice as that at all."
He was thoughtful for a moment.
"Perhaps I have a new vision," he said at last. "The bullet in my head may have helped. It has probably affected my optic nerve."
She smiled with him.
"You really do seem different, somehow," she broke in. "I can't exactly explain it. Perhaps it's the pallor that makes the eyes look dark and your voice – it's softer – entirely."
"Really – !" he muttered, uncomfortably, his gaze on the gray blanket. "Well, you see, I suppose it's what I've been through. My eyes would seem darker, wouldn't they, against white, and then my voice – er – it isn't very strong yet."
"Yes, that's it," she replied.
Her eyes daunted him from his purpose a little, and he knew that he would have to use extreme caution, but he had resolved whatever came to see the game through. After all, if she discovered his secret, it was only what he had tried in vain to tell her.
"I'm sure of it," he went on. "When a fellow comes as near death as I've been, it makes him different. I seem to think in a new way about a lot of things – you, for instance."
"Me – ?" He fancied that there was a hard note in her voice, a little toss, scarcely perceptible, of the rounded chin.
"Yes. You see, you oughtn't ever to have married me. You're too good for me. I'm just a plain rotter and you – oh, what's the use?"
He paused, hoping that she would speak. She did, after a silence and a shrug.
"Father wanted it. It was one way of paying what he owed you. I don't know how much that was, but I'm still thinking I went pretty cheap." She halted abruptly and then went on coolly, "I didn't come here to be thinking unpleasant thoughts – or to be uttering them. So long as we understand each other – "
"We do," he put in eagerly, almost appealingly. "I want you to believe that I have no claim upon you – that my – my relations with Barry Quinlevin will have nothing to do with you."
"And if I fell in love with another man – That never seems to have occurred to either of you – "
He laughed her soberness aside. "As far as I'm concerned, divorce or suicide. I'll leave the choice to you."
He gained his purpose, which was to bring the smile to her lips again.
"Your wounds have inoculated you with a sense of humor, at any rate," she said, fingering the roses. "You've always been lacking in that, you know."
"I feel that I can laugh at them now. But it might have been better for you if I hadn't come out of the ether."
"No. I don't like your saying that. I haven't the slightest intention of falling in love with any man at all. I shan't be wanting to marry – really marry – " she added, coloring a little. "I've begun my work. It needed Paris again. And I'm going to succeed. You'll see."
"I haven't a doubt of it. You were made for success – and for happiness."
"Sure and I think that I was – now that you mention it," she put in quaintly.
"I won't bother you. You can be certain of that," he finished positively. And then cautiously, "Things have not gone well – financially, I mean?"
"No. And of course father's worried about it. Our income from Ireland has stopped coming – something about repairs, he says. But then, I suppose we will get it again some day. Dad never did tell me anything, you know."
Horton thought for a moment.
"He doesn't want to worry you, of course. And you oughtn't to be worried. Things will come out all right."
"I intend that they shall. Father always gave me the best when he had it. I'll see that he doesn't suffer now."
"But that's my job, Moira. We'll get some money together – some way – when I get out."
"Thanks. But I'm hoping to do a lot of painting. I've got one portrait to begin on – and it doesn't cost much in the Quartier."
Horton sat up in bed and looked out of the window.
"I'll get money," he said. "Don't you worry."
He saw her eyes studying him quietly and he sank back at once in bed out of the glare of the sunlight. He wondered if he had gone too far.