I don’t think I heard the words, but I traced them on their lips.  They parted.  Sir Anthony descended from the platform and gave his arm to Mrs. Boyce.  Lady Fenimore still clung to Boyce.  Winterbotham came next, bearing the two caskets, which had been lying neglected on the table.  The sparse company followed down the empty hall.  Marigold signalled to the porter and they hoisted down my chair.  Betty, who had lingered during the operation, walked by my side.  Being able now to propel myself, I dismissed Marigold to a discreet position in the rear.  Betty, her face still slightly flushed, said: 

“I’m waiting for congratulations which seem to be about as overwhelming as snow in August.  Don’t you think I’ve been extraordinarily good?”

“Do you feel good?”

“More than good,” she laughed.  “Christianlike.  Aren’t we told in the New Testament to forgive our enemies?”

“‘And love those that despitefully use us?’” I misquoted maliciously.  A sudden gust of anger often causes us to do worse things than trifle with the text of the Sermon on the Mount.

She turned on me quickly, as though stung.  “Why not?  Isn’t the sight of him maimed like that enough to melt the heart of a stone?”

I replied soberly enough.  “It is indeed.”

I had already betrayed my foolish jealousy.  Further altercation could only result in my betraying Boyce.  I did not feel very happy.  Conscious of having spoken to me with unwonted sharpness, she sought to make amends by laying her hand on my shoulder.

“I think, dear,” she said, “we’re all on rather an emotional edge to-day.”

We reached the front door of the hall.  At the top of the shallow flight of broad stairs the little group that had preceded us stood behind Boyce, who was receiving the cheers of the troops—­soldiers and volunteers and the Godbury School Officers’ Training Corps—­ drawn up in the Market Square.  When the cheers died away the crowd raised cries for a speech.

Again Boyce spoke.

“The reception you have given my mother and myself,” he said, “we refuse to take personally.  It is a reception given to the soldiers, and the mothers and wives of soldiers, of the Empire, of whom we just happen to be the lucky representatives.  Whole regiments, to say nothing of whole armies, can’t all, every jack man, receive Victoria Crosses.  But every regiment very jealously counts up its honours.  You’ll hear men say:  ’Our regiment has two V.C.s, five D.S.O.s, and twenty Distinguished Conduct Medals.’ and the feeling is that all the honours are lumped together and shared by everybody, from the Colonel to the drummer-boys.  And each individual is proud of his share because he knows that he deserves it.  And so it happens that those whom chance has set aside for distinction, like the lucky winners in a sweepstake, are the most embarrassed people you can imagine, because everybody is doing everything that they did every day in the week.