The Romantic Part 22

Instantly she saw that John had lied, and instantly she backed his lie.

She hated McClane thinking she had failed; but anything was better than his knowing the truth.

John and McClane picked up the stretcher and went on quickly. Charlotte walked beside the Flamand with her hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

Again her pity was like love.

From the top of the village she could see the opening of the lane. Down there was the house with the tall green door where the dead man was. John had _said_ he was dead.

Supposing he wasn't? Or supposing he was still warm and limp like the boy at Melle? She must know; it was a thing she must know for certain, or she would never have any peace. And when the Flamand was laid out on McClane's table, while McClane dressed his wound, she slipped down the lane and opened the green door.

The man lay on a row of packing cases with his feet parted. She put one hand over his heart and the other on his forehead under the lock of bloodstained hair. He was dead: stiff dead and cold. His tunic and s.h.i.+rt had been unb.u.t.toned to ease his last breathing. She had a queer baffled feeling of surprise and incompleteness, as if some awful sense in her would have been satisfied if she had seen that he had been living when John had said that he was dead. To-day would then have been linked on firmly to the other day.

John stood at the top of the lane. He scowled at her as she came.

"What do you think you're doing!" he said.

"I went to that house--to see if the man was dead."

"You'd no business to. I told you he was dead."

"I wanted to make sure."

That evening she had just gone to her room when somebody knocked at her door. McClane stood outside, straddling, his way when he had got something important on hand. He asked if he might come in and speak to her for a minute.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and he sat on Gwinnie's, elbows crooked out, hands planted on wide parted knees; he leaned forward, looking at her, his face innocent and yet astute; his thick, expressionless eyes clear now and penetrating. He seemed to be fairly humming with activity left over from the excitement of the day. He was always either dreamy and withdrawn, or bursting, bursting with energy, and at odd moments he would drop off suddenly to sleep with his chin doubled on his breast, recovering from his energy. Perhaps he had just waked up now to this freshness.

"Look here," he said. "You didn't break down. That man wasn't too heavy for you."

"He was. He was an awful weight. I couldn't have carried him a yard."

"That won't do, Charlotte. I _saw_ you take him on your back."

She could feel the blood rising up in her face before him. He was hurting her with shame.

He persisted, merciless. "It was Conway who broke down."

She had tears now.

"n.o.body knows," he said gently, "but you and me.... I want to talk to you about him. He must be got away from the Front. He must be got out of Belgium."

"You always wanted to get him away."

"Only because I saw he would break down."

"How could you tell?"

"I'm a psychotherapist. It's my business to tell."

But she was still on the defensive.

"You never liked him."

"I neither like nor dislike him. To me Conway is simply a sick man. If I could cure him--"

"Can't you?"

"Not as you think. I can't turn his cowardice into courage. I might turn it into something else but not that. That's why I say he ought to go home. You must tell him."

"I can't. Couldn't Billy tell him?"

"Well, hardly. He's his commandant."

"Can't _you_?"

"Not I. You know what he thinks about me."

"What?"

"That I've got a grudge against him. That I'm jealous of him. You thought it yourself."

"Did I?"

"You did. Look here, I say--I wanted to take you three into my corps. And you'd have been sent home after the Berlaere affair if I hadn't spoken for you. So much for my jealousy."

"I only thought you were jealous of John."

"Why, it was I who got him sent out that first day."

"_Was_ it?"

"Yes. I wanted to give him his chance. And," he added meditatively, "I wanted to know whether I was right. I wanted to see what he would do."

"I don't think it now," she said, reverting.

"_That's_ all right."

He laughed his brief, mirthless laugh, the a.s.sent of his egoism. But his satisfaction had nothing personal in it. He was pleased because justice, abstract justice, had been done. But she suspected his sincerity. He did things for you, not because he liked you, but for some other reason; and he would be so carried away by doing them that he would behave as though he liked you when he didn't, when all the time you couldn't for one minute rouse him from his immense indifference. She knew he liked her for sticking to her post and for taking the wounded man on her back, because that was the sort of thing he would have done himself. And he had only helped John because he wanted to see what he would do. Therefore she suspected his sincerity.

But, no; he wasn't jealous.

"And now," he went on, "you must get him to go home at once, or he'll have a bad break-down. You've got to tell him, Charlotte."

She stood up, ready. "Where is he?"

"By himself. In his room."

She went to him there.