"You"--Christine turned to a third and to a fourth and fifth--"you were
Rosie Lorrayne; you, Adela Dupré; you, Susie Campbell. You were all in
Society; you were all young and beautiful and happy. Now for the men."
She turned to them. The sailor named Jack gazed upon her with eyes of
admiration. The other men, startled at first by the apparition of the
tresses, had relapsed into listlessness. They hardly looked up as she
addressed them.
First she pointed to the sailor.
"Your name--"
"I remember my name," he said. "I have not forgotten so much as
our friends. Sailors talk more with each other, and remember. I am
named John Carera, and I was formerly first-cousin to Lady Mildred.
Cousin"--he held out his hand--"have you forgotten your cousin? We used
to play together in the old times. You promised to marry me when you
should grow up."
Lady Mildred gave him her hand.
"It is so long ago--so long ago," she murmured; but her eyes were
troubled. She had begun to remember the things put away and forgotten
for so long.
"You"--Christine turned to another--"were Geoffrey Heron. You were
Captain in a Cavalry Regiment. You will remember that presently, and a
great deal more. You"--she turned to another--"were Laurence de Heyn,
and you were a young Lawyer, intending to be a Judge. You will remember
that, in time. You"--she turned to another--"were Jack Culliford; and
you were a Private Secretary, intending to go into Parliament, and
to rise perhaps to be Prime Minister. And you"--she turned to the
last--"were Arnold Buckland, already a Poet of Society. You will all
remember these things before long. Lastly, you all belonged to the
people who were born rich, and never used to have any care or anxiety
about their daily bread. Nor did you ever do any work, unless you
chose."
"It is so long ago," said Lady Mildred--her face was brighter
now--"that we have forgotten even that there ever were gentlefolk."
"It is not strange," said Christine, "that you should have forgotten
it. Why should you remember anything? We are only a herd, one with
another; one not greater, and one not less, than another. Now that
you know your names again and remember clearly, because I have
told you"--she repeated the information for fear they should again
forget--"who and what you were, each of you--you will go on to remember
more."
"Oh, what good? What good?" asked Lady Mildred.
"Because it will rouse you from your lethargy," said the girl,
impetuously. "Oh, you sit in silence day after day; you walk alone; you
ought to be together as you used to be, talking, playing. See! I have
read the books; your lives were full of excitement. It makes my heart
beat only to read how the men went out to fight, daring everything, for
the sake of the women they loved."
"The men love us no longer," said Lady Mildred.
"If the brave men fell--" But here all faces, except the sailor's,
turned pale, and they shuddered. Christine did not finish the sentence.
She, too, shuddered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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