He would have
laid his last tribute at her unconscious feet and gone out in fire and
thunder.
He had actually joined the box-office queue when Rufus Cosgrave found him.
Rufus had been running hard and he was out of breath, and his blue eyes
had a queer, strained look, as though they had wanted to cry and had not
had the time. And on his dead-white face the freckles stood out,
ludicrously vivid.
"Oh, I say, Robert, where have you been? I waited and waited for you.
And then I went round to your place--and Miss Forsyth said she didn't know
and she seemed awfully worried--and--and--oh, I say--you're not going
again, are you?"
Robert nodded calmly. But his heart had begun to beat thickly with the
premonition of disaster.
"Yes, I am."
"You might have told me--oh, I say, do listen--do come out a minute--I'm
in an awful hole--there's going to be an awful row--I'm--I'm so beastly
scared----"
He was shivering. He did not seem to know that people were looking at
him. His voice was squeaky and broken. He tugged at Robert's sleeve.
"Oh, I say--do come----"
Robert looked ahead of him. It meant losing his place. Instead of being
so close to her that he could smell the warm, sweet scent of her as she
passed, he would have to peer between peopled heads, and she would be a
far-off vision to him. And yet, oddly enough, it did not occur to him to
refuse. He stood out, and they walked together towards the dark, huddled
army of caravans beyond the tents.
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