Page:Wounded Souls.djvu/272

 Susy Whincop gave a cry of "Is that Eileen?" and darted to her.

"It's myself," said Eileen, releasing herself from an ardent embrace, "and all the better for seeing you. Who's who in this distinguished crowd?"

"Old friends," I said, being nearest to her. "Four men who walked one day of history up a street in Lille, and met an Irish girl who had the worship of the crowd."

She took my hand and I was glad of her look of friendship.

"Four?" she said. "That's too good to be true. All safe and home again?"

It was astonishing that four of us should be there in a room in London with the girl who had been the heroine of Lille. But there was Fortune, and Daddy Small, and Brand, and myself.

The crowd gave us elbow-room while we stood round Eileen. To each she gave her hands—both hands—and merry words of greeting. It was only I, and she perhaps, who saw the gloom on Brand's face when she greeted him last and said,

"Is it well with you, Wickham?"

Her colour rose a little at the sight of him, and he was paler than when I saw him first that night.

"Pretty well," he said. "One still needs courage—even in Peace."

He laughed a little as he spoke, but I knew that his laughter was the camouflage of hidden trouble, at which he had hinted in his letters to me.

We could not have much talk that evening. The groups shifted and re-shifted. The best thing was when Eileen sang "The Gentle Maiden" as on a night in Lille. Brand, standing near the door, listened, strangely unconscious of the people about him.

"It's good to hear that song again," I said.