“You’re frightened,” the child continued in a passionate, low voice. “You think that people will talk about you and look down upon you. You oughtn’t to think about yourself. You ought to think only about him and his work. Nothing else matters.” She would not let him light the gas. “I have dined—in the train,” she explained. “Let us talk by the firelight.”!

The child shook her head. “She doesn’t understand,” she said. “And Papa won’t tell her. He says it would only hurt her and do no good.” The small hands were clenched. “I shall hate her if she spoils his life.” Madge thought that England, in particular, had been too much given up to luxury and pleasure. There had been too much idleness and empty laughter: Hitchicoo dances and women undressing themselves upon the stage. Even the working classes seemed to think of nothing else but cinemas and beer. She dreamed of a United Kingdom purified by suffering, cleansed by tears; its people drawn together by memory of common sacrifice; class antagonism buried in the grave where Duke’s son and cook’s son would lie side by side: of a new-born Europe rising from the ashes of the old. With Germany beaten, her lust of war burnt out, her hideous doctrine of Force proved to be false, the world would breathe a freer air. Passion and hatred would fall from man’s eyes. The people would see one another and join hands.

Suddenly its ticking ceased. It had become again a piece of lifeless mechanism. The hands pointed to six minutes past. Joan took off her hat and laid it aside. He was explaining to her things about the air service. It seemed he had had experience in flying—some relation of his with whom he had spent a holiday last summer. He did not answer; and they sat for a time in silence.