When at last he went back to the compartment, Karen was sitting up, twisting her hair into shape.
"Do you feel rested?" he asked cheerfully, seating himself beside her.
She was still busy with her hair, but her eyes remained on him.
"Can I do anything for you? Do you need anything?" he asked.
"I seem to need almost everything!" she protested, "including a bath and a clergyman. Oh, Kervyn, _what_ a wedding journey! Is there anything about me that resembles a bride? And I'm not even that, yet--just a crumpled, soiled, disreputable child!"
"You are absolutely adorable just as you are!"
"No! I am unspeakable. And I want to be attractive to you. I really can be very nice-looking, only you never saw me so----"
"I haven't had any clothes since I first met you!" she said excitedly. "You know I can scarcely bear it to have you think of me this way. Will I have time to buy a gown in Antwerp? How long will it take us to marry each other? Because, of course, I shall not let you ride away with your regiment until you are my husband."
She flushed again, and the tears sprang to her eyes. It was plain that her nerves had given way under the long strain.
"Kervyn! Only yesterday war meant almost nothing to me. And look at me now!--look at the girl you saw in England only a few days ago!--a woman today!--a wife tomorrow, please God--and the fear of this war already overwhelming me."
She brushed the starting tears from her eyes; they filled again. She said miserably: "We women all inherit sorrow, it seems, the moment our girlhood leaves us. A few days ago I didn't know what it was to be afraid. Then you came. And with you came friendship. And with friendship came fear--fear for _you_!... And then, very swiftly, love came; and my girlhood was gone--gone--like yesterday--leaving me alone in the world with you and love and war!"
"This world war is making us all feel a little lonely," he said. "The old familiar world is already changing under our bewildered eyes. It is a totally new era which is dawning; a new people is replacing the inhabitants of earth, born to new thoughts, new ideals, new ambitions.
"I think the old tyranny is already beginning to pass from men's souls and minds; the old folk-ways, the old and out-worn terrors, the tinselled dogmas, the old false standards, the universal dread of that absolute intellectual freedom which alone can make a truly new heaven and a new earth.