de Warrenne, ex-Sandhurst cadet, proclaimed coward and wretched neurotic decadent before the pained, disgusted eyes of his county, kicked out by his guardian … a disgrace to two honoured names. … "The Adjer handed it over. Thought I was the biggest Damn here, I suppose," Trooper Peerson replied without looking up from his plate. "Practical silly joke I should think. No one here with such a l_oath_some, name as Dam, of course," but Trooper Punch Peerson had his philosophic "doots". He, like others of that set, had heard of a big chap who was a marvel at Sandhurst with the gloves, sword, horse, and other things, and who had suddenly and marvellously disappeared into thin air leaving no trace behind him, after some public scandal or other…. But that was no concern of Trooper Punch Peerson, gentleman….
With a wary eye on Peerson, Dam lay on his bed, affecting to read a stale and dirty news-sheet. He saw him slip something beneath his pillow and swagger out of the barrack-room. Anon no member of the little band of gentleman-rankers was left. Later, the room was empty, save for a heavily snoring drunkard and a busy polisher who, at the shelf-table at the far end of the room, laboured on his jack-boots, hissing the while, like a groom with a dandy-brush.
Going to Peerson's bed, Dam snatched the letter, returned to his own, and flung himself down again—his heart pumping as though he had just finished a mile race. Lucille had got a letter to him somehow. Lucille was not going to drop him yet—in spite of having seen him a red-handed, crop-haired, "quiff"-wearing, coarse-looking soldier…. Was there another woman in the world like Lucille? Would any other girl have so risen superior to her breeding, and the teachings of Miss Smellie, as to do what she thought right, regardless of public scandal…? But he must not give her the opportunity of being seen talking to a soldier again—much less kissing one. Not that she would want to kiss him again like that. That was the kiss of welcome, of encouragement, of proof that she was unchanged to him—her first sight of him after the débâcle. It was the unchecked impulse of a noble heart—and the action showed that Miss Smellie had been unable to do it much harm with her miserable artificialities and stiflings of all that is natural and human and right…. Should he read the letter at once or treasure it up and keep it as a treat in store? He would hold it in his hand unopened and imagine its contents. He would spin out the glorious pleasure of possession of an unopened letter from Lucille. He could, of course, read it hundreds of times—but he would then soon know it by heart, and although its charm and value would be no less, it would merge with his other memories and become a memory itself. He did not want it to become a memory too soon.
The longer it remained an anticipation, the more distant the day when it became a memory….
With a groan of "Oh, my brain's softening and I'm becoming a sentimentalist," he opened the letter and read Lucille's loving, cheering—yet agonizing, maddening—words:—
"My Own Darling Dam,
"If this letter reaches you safely you are to sit down at once and write to me to tell me how to address you by post in the ordinary way. If you don't I shall come and haunt the entrance to the Lines and waylay you. People will think I am a poor soul whom you have married and deserted, or whom you won't marry. I'll show up your wicked cruelty to a poor girl! How would you like your comrades to say 'Look out, Bill, your pore wife's 'anging about the gates' and to have to lie low—and send out scouts to see if the coast was clear later on? Don't you go playing fast and loose with me, master Dam, winning my young affections, making love to me, kissing me—and then refusing to marry me after it all! I don't want to be too hard on you (and I am reasonable enough to admit that one-and-two a day puts things on a smaller scale than I have been accustomed to in the home of my fathers—or rather uncles, or perhaps uncles-in-law), and like the kind Tailor whom the Haddock advertises (and like the unkind Judge before whom he'll some day come for something) I will 'give you time'. But it's only a respite, Mr. de Warrenne. You are not going to trifle with my young feelings and escape altogether. I have my eye on you—and if I respect your one-and-twopence a day now, it is on the clear understanding that you share my Little All on the day I come of age. I will trust you once more, although you have treated me so—bolting and hiding from your confiding fiancée.
"So write and tell me what you call yourself, so that I can write to you regularly and satisfy myself that you are not escaping me again. How could you treat a poor trusting female so—and then when she had found you again, and was showing her delight and begging to be married and settled in life—to rush away from her, leaving her and her modest matrimonial proposals scorned and rejected! For shame, Sir! I've a good mind to come and complain to your Colonel and ask him to make you keep your solemn promises and marry me….
"Now look here, darling, nonsense aside—I solemnly swear that if you don't buy yourself out of the army on the day I come of age (or before, if you will, and can) I will really come and make you marry me and I will live with you as a soldier's wife. If you persist in your wrong-headed notion of being a 'disgrace' (you!) then we'll just adopt the army as a career, and we'll go through all the phases till you get a Commission. I hope you won't take this course—but if you do, you'll be a second Hector Macdonald and retire as Lieutenant-General Sir Damocles de Warrenne (K.C.B., K.C.M.G., K.C.S.I., D.S.O., and, of course, V.C.), having confessed to an alias. It will be a long time before we should be in really congenial society, that way, darling, but I'm sure I should enjoy every hour of it with you, so long as I felt I was a comfort and happiness to you. And when you got your Commission I should not be a social drag upon you as sometimes happens. Nor before it should I be a nuisance and hindrance to you and make you wish you were 'shut of the curse of a soldier'. I could 'rough it' as well as you and, besides, there would be no 'roughing it' where you were, for me. It is here that I am 'roughing it,' sitting impotent and wondering what is happening to you, and whether that terrible illness ever seizes you, and whether you are properly looked after when it does.
"Now, just realize, dearest Dam—I said I would wait twenty years for you, if necessary. I would and I will, but don't make me do it, darling. Realize how happy I should be if I could only come and sew and cook and scrub and work for you. Can you understand that life is only measurable in terms of happiness and that my happiness can only be where you, are? If you weren't liable to these seizures I could bear to wait, but as it is, I can't. I beg and beseech you not to make me wait till I am of age, Dam. There's no telling what may happen to you and I just can't bear it. I'm coming, if I don't hear from you, and I can easily do something to compel you to marry me, if I come. You are not going to bear this alone, darling, so don't imagine it. We're not going to keep separate shops after all these years, just because you're ill with a trouble of some kind that fools can't understand.
"Now write to me at once and put me in a position to write to you in the ordinary way—or look out for me! I'm all ready to run away, all sorts of useful things packed—ready to come and be a soldier's girl.
"You know that I do what I think I'll do—you spoke of my 'steel-straight directness and sweet brave will' in the poem you were making about me, you poor funny old boy, when you vanished, and which I found in your room when I went there to cry, (Oh, how I cried when I found your odds and ends of verse about me there—I really did think my heart was 'broken' in actual fact.) Don't make me suffer any more, darling. I'm sure your Colonel will be sweet about it and give us a nice little house all to ourselves, now he has seen what a splendid soldier you are. If you stick to your folly about 'disgrace' I need not tell him our names and Grumper couldn't take me away from you, even if he ever found out where we were.
"I could go on writing all night, darling, but I'll only just say again I am going to marry you and take care of you, Dam, in the army or out of it.
"Your fiancee and friend,
"Lucille Gavestone."
Dam groaned aloud.
"Four o' rum 'ot, is wot you want, mate, for that," said the industrious self-improver at the shelf-table. "Got a chill on yer stummick on sentry-go in the fog an' rine las' night…. I'd give a 'ogs'ead to see the bloke who wrote in the bloomin' Reggilashuns 'nor must bloomin' sentries stand in their blasted sentry-boxes in good or even in moderate-weather' a doin' of it 'isself in 'is