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I want to bring back the old sense of understanding we once had. 'You haven't changed, said Van Derwater, an inscrutable smile playing about his mouth. 'You always had a habit of piercing people's moods, no matter what defence they put up. But if you want candour, I'll tell you frankly I am sorry you came here this evening.
They had just thrown back an assault, and Van Derwater had sent for his section commanders to advise an attack on the enemy in preference to waiting to be wiped out with no chance of successful resistance, when he heard a shout, and bullets spat over their heads. Turning swiftly about, they saw a tank lurching across the bridge.
He could only watch, through the mist, the figure of Gerard Van Derwater with its cloak of loneliness. He saw him look down at the message and break the seal of the envelope. He saw a flush of colour sweep into the pallid cheeks and then recede again. Still with the air of calmness and self-control, Van Derwater rose again to his feet. 'Gentlemen, he said.
The chairman made no attempt to rise, but by a subconscious unanimity of thought every eye was turned to the one man whose appearance had undergone no change. As if he had been listening to the legal presentation of an impersonal case, Gerard Van Derwater leaned back in his chair with the same courtly detachment he had shown from the beginning of the affair. 'Mr.
They said he had come to France wanting to be killed, but that no bullet could touch him. And even those who scoffed, when they saw him, unruffled and strangely solitary, moving about with almost ironic contempt of danger, wondered if there might not be some truth in the story. 'Major Van Derwater would like to speak to you right away, sir.
It was perhaps the formality of his bearing, the stiffness of his body from the hips, that gave him the air of one who belonged by right to a past and more ceremonious age. Although Van Derwater encouraged his guest, after the exchange of greetings, to talk of his voyage and its attendant experiences, Selwyn was aware that he was placing a cold impersonal wall between them.
He caught sight of Gerard Van Derwater with his impassive courtliness dominating a group of active but less impressive men; and behind them he saw Douglas Watson of Cambridge surrounded by a dozen guests; but he pleaded a headache to Forbes, and sought a secluded corner, where he remained until dinner was announced.
Beside him, lining the bank, every available man was on the alert, waiting the developments which would follow the raising of night's curtain. In the misty gray of dawn they looked fabulous in size, and indistinct. The night in January at the University Club in New York had marked a reconciliation between Selwyn and Van Derwater.
Men fought for the privilege of serving under him, and with their instinct for euphony and love of the bizarre gave him the name of 'Hell-fire. He gloried in the physical ascendancy of it all in the dangers in the discomforts. He was an instrument of revenge, a weapon without feeling. On the other hand, Van Derwater had undergone no appreciable change.
Van Derwater shrugged his shoulders, and taking a book from the table, idly studied its cover. 'Since the war began, he said, his tones calm and low, 'the United States has been trying to speak with one voice, the voice of a united people. It was the plain duty of every American to aid the Administration in that. Instead, what have we found?
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