"I hadn't heard."
"He's a big man, Graham. We're going to hear from him. Only--I thought
he looked tired when I saw him last. Somebody ought to look after him a
bit." He was patiently untangling himself from Elinor's rope. "You
know there are two kinds of people in the world: those who look after
themselves and those who look after others. That's your father--the
last."
Graham's face clouded. How true that was! He knew now, as he had not
known before. He was thinking clearly those days. Hard work and nothing
to drink had clarified his mind, and he saw things at home as they
really were. Clayton's infinite patience, his strength and his
gentleness. But he only said: "He has had a hard year." He raised his eyes and looked at the chaplain.
"I didn't help him any, you know, sir."
"Well, well, that's all over now. We've just one thing to think of,
and that's to beat those German devils back to Berlin. And then burn
Berlin," he added, militantly.
The last Graham saw of him, he was dragging Elinor down the road, and a
faint throaty humming came back, which sounded suspiciously like "Where
do we go from here, boys? Where do we go from here?"
Candidate Spencer took great pains with his toilet that afternoon. He
polished his shoes, and shaved, and he spent a half hour on some ten
sadly neglected finger-nails. At retreat he stood at attention in the
long line, and watched the flag moving slowly and majestically to
the stirring bugle notes. Something swelled almost to bursting in his
throat. That was his flag. He was going to fight for it. And after that
was done he was going to find some girl, some nice girl--the sort, for
instance, that would leave her home to work in a hostess house. And
having found her, he would marry her, and love and cherish her all his
life. Unless, of course, she wouldn't have him. He was inclined to think
she wouldn't.
He ate very little supper that night, little being a comparative term,
of course. And then he went to discover Delight. It appeared, however,
that she had been already discovered. She was entirely surrounded by
uniforms, and Graham furiously counted a colonel, two majors, and a
captain.
"Pulling rank, of course!" he muttered, and retired to a corner, where
he had at least the mild gratification of seeing that even the colonel
could not keep Delight from her work.
"Silly asses!" said Graham, again, and then she saw him. There was no
question about her being pleased. She was quite flushed with it, but a
little uncomfortable, too, at Graham's attitude. He was oddly humble,
and yet he had a look of determination that was almost grim. She filled
in a rather disquieting silence by trying to let him know, without
revealing that she had ever been anything else, how proud she was
of him. Then she realized that he was not listening, and that he was
looking at her with an almost painful intensity.