Rachel took his arm, still bewildered, and when standing before him with the teacup in her hand, she interrupted something he was saying, she knew not what, with, “That is not the Victoria Cross?”
“Then it is, like all the rest, a delusion,” he answered, in his usual impassive manner.
“And gained,” she continued, “by saving the lives of all those officers, the very thing I told you about!”
“You told me that man was killed.”
“Then it was not you!”
“Perhaps they picked up the pieces of the wrong one.”
“But if you would only tell me how you gained it.”
“By the pursuit of conchology.”
“Then it was yourself?” again said Rachel, in her confusion.
“If I be I as I suppose I be,” he replied, giving her his arm again, and as they turned towards the conservatory, adding, “Many such things have happened, and I did not know whether you meant this.”
“That was the reason you made so light of it.”
“What, because I thought it was somebody else?”
“No, the contrary reason; but I cannot understand why you let me go on without telling me.”
“I never interfere when a story is so perfect in itself.”
“But is my story perfect in itself?” said Rachel, “or is it the contrary?”
“No one knows less of the particulars than I do,” he answered. “I think your version was that it was an hospital tent that the shell came into. It was not that, but a bungalow, which was supposed to be out of range. It stood on a bit of a slope, and I thought I should have been able to kick the shell down before it had time to do mischief.”
“But you picked it up, and took it to the door—I mean, did you?” said Rachel, who was beginning to discover that she must ask Alick Keith a direct question, if she wished to get an answer, and she received a gesture of assent.
“I was very blind,” she said, humbly, “and now I have gone and insisted to poor Emily Grey that you never did any such thing.”
“Thank you,” he said; “it was the greatest kindness you could do me.”
“Ah! your sister said you had the greatest dislike to hero worship.”
“A natural sense of humbug,” he said. “I don’t know why they gave me this,” he added, touching his cross, “unless it was that one of the party in the bungalow had a turn for glorifying whatever happened to himself. Plenty of more really gallant things happened every day, and were never heard of, and I, who absolutely saw next to nothing of the campaign, have little right to be decorated.”
“Ah!” said Rachel, thoughtfully, “I have always wondered whether one would be happier for having accomplished an act of heroism.”
“I do not know,” said Alick, thoughtfully; then, as Rachel looked up with a smile of amazement, “Oh, you mean this; but it was mere self-preservation. I could hardly even have bolted, for I was laid up with fever, and was very shaky on my legs.”
“I suppose, however,” said Rachel, “that the vision of one’s life in entering the army would be to win that sort of distinction, and so young.”
“Win it as some have done,” said Alick, “and deserve what is far better worth than distinction. That may be the dream, but, after all, it is the discipline and constant duty that make the soldier, and are far more really valuable than exceptional doings.”
“People must always be ready for them, though,” said Rachel.
“And they are,” said Alick, with grave exultation in his tone.
Then, after a pause, she led back the conversation to its personal character, by saying. “Do you mean that the reception of this cross was no gratification to you?”
“No, I am not so absurd,” he replied; but he added sadly, “That was damped quite otherwise. The news that I was named for it came almost in the same breath with that of my father’s death, and he had not heard I was to receive it.”
“Ah! I can understand.”
“And you can see how intolerable was the fuss my good relations made with me just when the loss was fresh on me, and with that of my two chief friends, among my brother officers, fellows beside whom I was nobody, and there was my uncle’s blindness getting confirmed. Was not that enough to sicken one with being stuck up for a lion, and constantly poked up by the showwoman, under pretext of keeping up one’s spirits!”
“And you were—I mean were you—too ill to escape?”
“I was less able to help myself than Miss Williams is. There had been a general smash of all the locomotive machinery on this side, and the wretched monster could do nothing but growl at his visitors.”
“Should you growl very much if I introduced you to Emily Grey? You see it is a matter of justice and truth to tell her now, after having contradicted her so flatly. I will wait to let you get out of the way first if you like, but I think that would be unkind to her; and if you ever do dance, I wish you would dance with her.”
“With all my heart,” he answered.
“Oh, thank you,” said Rachel, warmly.
He observed with some amusement Rachel’s utter absence of small dexterities, and of even the effort to avoid the humiliation of a confession of her error. Miss Grey and a boy partner had wandered into the conservatory, and were rather dismally trying to seem occupied with the camellias when Rachel made her way to them, and though he could not actually hear the words, he knew pretty well what they were. “Emily, you were right after all, and I was mistaken,” and then as he drew near, “Miss Grey, Captain Keith wishes to be introduced to you.”
It had been a great shock to Rachel’s infallibility, and as she slowly began working her way in search of her mother, after observing the felicity of Emily’s bright
