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"Are We Downhearted? No!"
by
“What did I tell you?” cried the girl who had given Edith her flowers. “She has found him. See, he has lost his arm. Look out–catch him!”
But he did not faint. He went even whiter, and looking at Edith he touched his empty sleeve.
“As if that would make any difference to her!” said the girl, who was in black. “Look at her face! She’s got him.”
Neither Edith nor the boy could speak. He was afraid of unmanly tears. His dignity was very dear to him. And the tragedy of his empty sleeve had her by the throat. So they went out together and the crowd opened to let them by.
* * * * *
At nine o’clock that night Lethway stormed through the stage entrance of the theatre and knocked viciously at the door of Mabel’s dressing room. Receiving no attention, he opened the door and went in.
The room was full of flowers, and Mabel, ready to go on, was having her pink toes rouged for her barefoot dance.
“You’ve got a nerve!” she said coolly.
“Where’s Edith?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. She ran away, when I was stinting myself to keep her. I’m done. Now you go out and close that door, and when you want to enter a lady’s dressing room, knock.”
He looked at her with blazing hatred.
“Right-o!” was all he said. And he turned and left her to her flowers.
At exactly the same time Edith was entering the elevator of a small, very respectable hotel in Kensington. The boy, smiling, watched her in.
He did not kiss her, greatly to the disappointment of the hall porter. As the elevator rose the boy stood at salute, the fingers of his left hand to the brim of his shabby cap. In his eyes, as they followed her, was all that there is of love–love and a new understanding.
She had told him, and now he knew. His creed was still the same. Right was right and wrong was wrong. But he had learned of that shadowy No Man’s Land between the lines, where many there were who fought their battles and were wounded, and even died.
As he turned and went out two men on crutches were passing along the quiet street. They recognised him in the light of the doorway, and stopped in front of him. Their voices rang out in cheerful unison:
“Are we downhearted? No!”
Their crutches struck the pavement with a resounding thump.