it had done to him; he
said, because you'd mind it more. I told him it wasn't the sort of thing
you'd mind most."

"It isn't the sort of thing it's any good minding. I don't suppose I
minded more than the other chaps. If anything had happened to you, or
him, or Eliot, I'd have minded that."

"I know. That's what I told him. I knew you'd come through."

"Eliot was dead right about Colin. He knew he wouldn't. He ought never
to have gone out."

"He wanted so awfully to go. But Eliot could have stopped him if it
hadn't been for Queenie. She hunted and hounded him out. She told him he
was funking. Fancy Colin funking!"

"What's Queenie like?"

"She's like that. She never funks herself, but she wants to make out
that everybody else does."

"Do you like Queenie?"

"No. I hate her. I don't mind her hounding him out so much since she
went herself; I _do_ mind her leaving him. Do you know, she's never even
tried to come and see him."

"Good God! what a beast the woman must be. What on earth made him marry
her?"

"He was frightfully in love. An awful sort of love that wore him out and
made him wretched. And now he's afraid for his life of her. I believe
he's afraid of the war ending because then she'll come back."

"And if she does come back?"

"She may try and take Colin away from me. But she shan't. She can't take
him if he doesn't want to go. She left him to me to look after and I
mean to stick to him. I won't have him frightened and made all ill again
just when I've got him well."

"I'm afraid you've had a very hard time."

"Not so hard as you think."

She smiled a mysterious, quiet smile, as if she contemplated some happy
secret. He thought he knew it, Anne's secret.

"Do you think it's funny of me to be living here with Colin?"

He laughed.

"I suppose it's all right. You always had pluck enough for anything."

"It doesn't take pluck to stick to Colin."

"Moral pluck."

"No. Not even moral."

"You were always fond of him, weren't you?"

That was about as far as he dare go.

She smiled her strange smile again.

"Yes. I was always fond of him.... You see, he wants me more than
anybody else ever did or ever will."

"I'm not so sure about that. But he always did get what he wanted."

"Oh, does he! How about Queenie?"

"Even Queenie. I suppose he wanted her at the time."

"He doesn't want her now. Poor Colin."

"You mustn't ask me to pity him."

"Ask you? He'd hate you to pity him. I'd h