It had kept her from even
a passing interest in another man. She had even felt a Somewhat ironic
gratitude to him and his indifference, for all the forces of her nature,
deprived of their natural outlet, went into her literary work, informing it
with an arresting and a magnetic vitality. She had believed herself to be
without hope, but in the remote feminine fastnesses of her nature she had
hoped, even dreamed--when she had the time. That was not often. Her life,
except when at her desk with her literary faculty turned loose, had been
practical to excess.
She would have offered her services in any case to one of the warring
allies, no doubt of that; the tremendous adventure would have appealed to
her quite aside from the natural desire to place her high accomplishment as
a nurse at the disposal of tortured men. Nevertheless she was quite aware
that she went to the British Army with the distinct hope of meeting
Gathbroke again; quite as, under the cloak of travel, she would have gone
to England long since had she not been swindled by Mortimer.
Until she found him insensible, apparently at the point of death, after the
terrible disaster of March, nineteen-eighteen, she had only heard of him
once: when she read in the _Times_ he had been awarded the D.S.O.
She knew then where he was and maneuvered to get back to France. She found
him sooner than she had dared to hope.
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