She gave you a fourth feather to add to our three. I am
sorry."
There was a silence of some length, and then Feversham replied slowly:--
"For my part I am not sorry. I mean I am not sorry that she was present
when the feathers came. I think, on the whole, that I am rather glad.
She gave me the fourth feather, it is true, but I am glad of that as
well. For without her presence, without that fourth feather snapped from
her fan, I might have given up there and then. Who knows? I doubt if I
could have stood up to the three long years in Suakin. I used to see you
and Durrance and Willoughby and many men who had once been my friends,
and you were all going about the work which I was used to. You can't
think how the mere routine of a regiment to which one had become
accustomed, and which one cursed heartily enough when one had to put up
with it, appealed as something very desirable. I could so easily have
run away. I could so easily have slipped on to a boat and gone back to
Suez. And the chance for which I waited never came--for three years."
"You saw us?" said Trench. "And you gave no sign?"
"How would you have taken it if I had?" And Trench was silent. "No, I
saw you, but I was careful that you should not see me.
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