"Bound to get in if she does," Gerty sounded rather rueful. "There isn't a constituency in England that wouldn't jump at the chance of electing her just now."
Josiah breathed hard while this obvious truth sank into his bones, but Mrs. Doctor assured Gerty that she was talking nonsense. Her father being frankly opposed to this pious opinion, Ethel appealed to her mother. Maria, alas, was in the position of a modest wether who has given birth to a superb young panther. She simply didn't know what to think, and by forlornly folding her hands on her lap gave mute expression to her feelings.
At the best, however, it was a futile discussion as Gerty was quick to realize. She turned the talk adroitly into other channels. "This morning," she said, "as I was walking along Queen's Road I had quite a shock. I met a blind man being led by an old woman. And who do you think it was?"
"It was Harold Nixey the architect. Such a pitiful object! Did you know, Josiah, that he is now quite blind?"
"How sad, how very sad!" said Ethel. "And he has done so well, so wonderfully well, in France."
Gerty considered it nothing less than a calamity--for an architect of all people. And for one who promised such great things.
Sally was apparently absorbed in talk with the Corporal, but she lifted her eyes quickly. "Blind, did you say? Harold Nixey?"
"Yes," said Gerty. "Such a grievous thing."
"Aye, it is that!" The voice of Josiah was heavy and somber.
Her father shook his head. "From what they tell me the sight is completely destroyed. I was with the lad yesterday." It was clear from Josiah's manner that he was moved by real feeling. "Wonderful pluck and cheerfulness. He knows he'll never draw another elevation, but he pretends to that old mother of his that he's going to get better--just to keep her going."
"And you say, Father"--it was the slow precise voice of Sally--"that he can't get better?"
"Not a dog's chance from what Minyard the eye doctor tells me. It's a gas those devils have been using." The Mayor sighed. "He's a good lad, is that. And he'd have gone far. Rose from nothing, as you might say, but in a year or two he'd have been at the top of the tree." Josiah, whose gospel was "getting on," again sighed heavily.