"He must be an awful swell," said Doggie.
She replied with some heat. "He hasn"t changed the least little bit in the world."
Doggie shook his head. "No one can go through it, really go through it, and come back the same."
"You don"t insinuate that Oliver hasn"t really gone through it?"
"Of course not, Peggy dear. They don"t throw M.C."s about like Iron Crosses. In order to get it Oliver must have looked into the jaws of h.e.l.l. They all do. But no man is the same afterwards. Oliver has what the French call _panache_----"
"What"s _panache_?"
"The real heroic swagger--something spiritual about it. Oliver"s not going to let you notice the change in him."
"We went to the Alhambra, and he laughed as if such a thing as war had never been heard of."
"Naturally," said Doggie. "All that"s part of the _panache_."
"You"re talking through your hat, Marmaduke," she exclaimed with some irritation. "Oliver"s a straight, clean, English soldier."
"I"ve been doing my best to tell you so," said Doggie.
"But you seem to be criticizing him because he"s concealing something behind what you call his _panache_."
"Not criticizing, dear. Only stating. I think I"m more Oliverian than you."
"I"m not Oliverian," cried Peggy, with burning cheeks. "And I don"t see why we should discuss him like this. All I said was that Oliver, who has made himself a distinguished man and will be even more distinguished, and, at any rate, knows what he"s talking about, doesn"t worry his head with social reconstruction and all that sort of rot. I"ve come here to talk about you, not about Oliver. Let us leave him out of the question."
"Willingly," said Doggie. "I never had any reason to love Oliver; but I must do him justice. I only wanted to show you that he must be a bigger man than you imagine."
"I"m glad to hear you say so," cried Peggy, with a flash of the eyes.
"I hope it"s true."
"The war"s such a whacking big thing, you see," he said with a conciliatory smile. "No one can prophesy exactly what"s going to come out of it. But the whole of human society ... the world, the whole of civilization, is being stirred up like a Christmas pudding. The war"s bound to change the trend of all human thought. There must be an entire rearrangement of social values."
"I"m sorry; but I don"t see it," said Peggy.
Doggie again wrinkled his brow and looked at her, and she returned his glance stonily.
"You think I"m mulish."
She had interpreted Doggie"s thought, but he raised a hand in protest.
"No, no."
"Yes, yes. Every man looks at a woman like that when he thinks her a mule or an idiot. We get to learn it in our cradles. But in spite of your superior wisdom, I know I"m right. After the war there won"t be a bit of change, really. A duke will be a duke, and a costermonger a costermonger."
"These are extreme cases. The duke may remain a duke, but he won"t be such a little tin G.o.d on wheels. He"ll find himself in the position of a democratic country gentleman. And the costermonger will rise to the political position of an important tradesman. But between the two there"ll be any old sort of flux."
"Did you learn all this horrible, rank socialism in France?"
"Perhaps, but it seems so obvious."
"It"s only because you"ve been living among Tommies, who"ve got these stupid ideas into their heads. If you had been living among your social equals----"
"In Durdlebury?"
She flashed rebellion. "Yes. In Durdlebury. Why not?"
"I"m afraid, Peggy dear," he said, with his patient, pleasant smile, "you are rather sheltered from the war in Durdlebury."
She cried out indignantly.
"Indeed we"re not. The newspapers come to Durdlebury, don"t they? And everybody"s doing something. We have the war all around us. We"ve even succeeded in getting wounded soldiers in the Cottage Hospital. Nancy Murdoch is a V.A.D. and scrubs floors. Cissy James is driving a Y.M.C.A. motor-car in Calais. Jane Brown-Gore is nursing in Salonika.
We read all their letters. Personally, I can"t do much, because mother has crocked up and I"ve got to run the Deanery. But I"m slaving from morning to night. Only last week I got up a concert for the wounded.
Alone I did it--and it takes some doing in Durdlebury, now that you"re away and the Musical a.s.sociation has perished of inanition. Old Dr.
Flint"s no earthly good, since Tom, the eldest son--you remember--was killed in Mesopotamia. So I did it all, and it was a great success. We netted four hundred and seventy pounds. And whenever I can get a chance, I go round the hospital and talk and read to the men and write their letters, and hear of everything. I don"t think you"ve any right to say we"re out of touch with the war. In a sort of way, I know as much about it as you do."
Doggie in some perplexity scratched his head, a thing which he would never have done at Durdlebury. With humorous intent he asked:
"Do you know as much as Oliver?"
"Oliver"s a field officer," she replied tartly, and Doggie felt snubbed. "But I"m sure he agrees with everything I say." She paused and, in a different tone, went on: "Don"t you think it"s rather rotten to have this piffling argument when I"ve come all this long way to see you?"
"Forgive me, Peggy," he said penitently; "I appreciate your coming more than I can say."
She was not appeased. "And yet you don"t give me credit for playing the game."
"What game?" he asked with a smile.
"Surely you ought to know."
He reached out his hand and took hers. "Am I worth it, Peggy?"
Her lips twitched and tears stood in her eyes.
"I don"t know what you mean?"
"Neither do I quite," he replied simply. "But it seems that I"m a Tommy through and through, and that I"ll never get Tommy out of my soul."
"That"s nothing to be ashamed of," she declared stoutly.
"Of course not. But it makes one see all sorts of things in a different light."
"Oh, don"t worry your head about that," she said, with pathetic misunderstanding. "We"ll put you all right as soon as we get you back to Durdlebury. I suppose you won"t refuse to come this time."
"Yes, I"ll come this time," said Doggie.
So he promised, and the talk drifted on to casual lines. She gave him the mild chronicle of the sleepy town, described plays which she had seen on her rare visits to London, sketched out a programme for his all too short visit to the Deanery.