Nan looked away. Miss Greta seemed not to have heard the exclamation, seemed to see nothing.
Some recruits for the army came lumping along, out of step, a sorry enough crew, pasty-faced, undersized, in ill-fitting, shabby, civilian clothes.
The china-blue eyes that had "gone blind" in front of raided German shops were full of vision before this mockery of militarism. As she looked out upon the human refuse for which war had found a use at last, the subtle pity in Miss Greta's face asked as plain as words, "What chance have these poor deluded 'volunteers' against the well-drilled German, fed and fashioned for war?"
The station at last! As Napier helped Miss Greta out, the front of her ulster swung heavily against his leg. "Sovereigns!" he said to himself.
The station was already densely crowded. While Napier and Madge mounted guard over Behemoth and the lesser luggage, Julian and Nan, with Miss Greta between them, disappeared in the crush.
When the reconnoitering party reappeared, Singleton was with them, porters at his beck, in his hand Miss Greta's ticket, passport, and German and Dutch money to the value of twenty pounds. He met the chief inspector as if by appointment, near the luggage, that loomed so important by contrast with that of other travelers.
To Miss Greta--although in her ugly ulster she looked less a person of consequence than she might--was plainly accorded a special consideration. Mr. Singleton was there to see to that. He could not, to be sure, prevent some respectful interrogation as to the money, etc., she was taking out of the country, some perfunctory examination of luggage.
The only anxious face in the group was Nan's. Miss Greta, calm as a May morning, her round eyes trustingly raised to the inspector's face, with eighty to ninety pounds in English gold on her coat, and how much more elsewhere who should say, offering her purse and keys. "One is an American lock. I may have to help you with that," she said sweetly.
Napier half-turned his back on them, but he stood so that he could keep an eye on the stricken face above the long cardboard box which Nan was carrying as if it were an infant. Through the din Greta's innocent accents reached him. "Nobody ever told me! Oh, dear, my poor little savings!" When Nan turned her tear-filled eyes away from the group about Behemoth, Napier joined her.