“How do you mean, hit it off?”

“Oh well, she thought he didn’t come up quick enough with a stretcher, and she pitched into him.”

“But he was dead beat.  Done.  Couldn’t she see that?”

“No.  I don’t suppose she could.  She was a bit excited.”

“She was horrible.”  Now that Mrs. Rankin was back safe she hated her.  She knew she hated her.

“A bit cruel, perhaps.  All the same,” he said, “she was magnif—­”

The lift had come hissing and wailing up behind him.  The orderly stood in it, staring at Sutton’s back, obsequious, yet impatient.  She thought of the wounded men in the theatre downstairs.

“You mustn’t keep them waiting,” she said.

He stepped back into the lift.  It lowered him rapidly.  His chin was on a level with the floor when his mouth tried again and succeeded:  “Magnificent.”

And she knew that she had followed him out to near him say that John had been magnificent, too.

Gwinnie was looking in at the messroom door and saying “Do you know where Charlotte is?” Mrs. Rankin’s voice called out, “I think you’ll find her in Mr. Conway’s bedroom.”  One of the chauffeurs laughed.  Charlotte knew what they were thinking.

Gwinnie failed to retort.  She was excited, shaken out of her stolidity.

“Oh, there you are!  I’ve got something ripping to tell you.  Not in here.”

They slouched, with their arms slung affectionately round each other’s waists, into their own room.  Behind the shut door Gwinnie began.

“The Colonel’s most frightfully pleased about Berlaere.”

“Does he think they’ll hold it?”

“It isn’t that.  He’s pleased about you.”

“Me?”

“You and John.  What you did there.  And your bringing back the guns.”

“Who told you that?”

“Mac.  The old boy was going on to him like anything about you last night.  It means you’ll be sent out every time.  Every time there’s anything big on.”

“Oh-h!  Let’s go and tell John....  I suppose,” she added, “that’s what was the matter with Mrs. Rankin.”

She wondered whether it had been the matter with Billy Sutton too; if he too were jealous and afraid.

That night Mrs. Rankin told her what the Colonel really had said:  “’C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas—­la Croix Rouge.’  If you’re all sent home to-morrow it’ll serve you jolly well right,” she said.

But somehow she couldn’t make it sound as if he had been angry.

X

She waited.

John had told her to stay there with the wounded man up the turn of the stable yard while he went for the stretcher.  His car, packed with wounded, stood a little way up the street, headed for Ghent.  Sutton’s car, with one of McClane’s chauffeurs, was in front of it, ready; she could hear the engine purring.

Instead of going at once for the stretcher John had followed Sutton into the house opposite, the house with the narrow grey shutters.  And he had called to her again across the road to wait for him.