t him against Alan or Uncle Stanley or even Dad.
Everything he does is so different; the way he walks, and the way he
stands drawn back into himself, like a stag, and looks out as if he were
burning and smouldering inside; even the way he smiles. Dad asked me
what I thought of him! That was only the second day. I thought he was
too proud, then. And Dad said: 'He ought to be in a Highland regiment;
pity--great pity!' He is a fighter, of course. I don't like fighting,
but if I'm not ready to, he'll stop loving me, perhaps. I've got to
learn. O Darkness out there, help me! And Stars, help me! O God, make
me brave, and I will believe in you forever! If you are the spirit that
grows in things in spite of everything, until they're like the flowers,
so perfect that we laugh and sing at their beauty, grow in me, too; make
me beautiful and brave; then I shall be fit for him, alive or dead; and
that's all I want. Every evening I shall stand in spirit with him at the
end of that orchard in the darkness, under the trees above the white
flowers and the sleepy cows, and perhaps I shall feel him kiss me again.
. . . I'm glad I saw that old man Gaunt; it makes what they feel more
real to me. He showed me that poor laborer Tryst, too, the one who
mustn't marry his wife's sister, or have her staying in the house without
marrying her. Why should people interfere with others like that? It does
make your blood boil! Derek and Sheila have been brought up to be in
sympathy with the poor and oppressed. If they had lived in London they
would have been even more furious, I expect. And it's no use my saying to
myself 'I don't know the laborer, I don't know his hardships,' because he
is really just the country half of what I do know and see, here in
London, when I don't hide my eyes. One talk showed me how desperately
they feel; at night, in Sheila's room, when we had gone up, just we four.
Alan began it; they didn't want to, I could see; but he was criticising
what some of those Bigwigs had said--the 'Varsity makes boys awfully
conceited. It was such a lovely night; we were all in the big, long
window. A little bat kept flying past; and behind the copper-beech the
moon was shining on the lake. Derek sat in the windowsill, and when he
moved he touched me. To be touched by him gives me a warm shiver all
through. I could hear him gritting his teeth at what Alan
said--frightfully sententious, just like a newspaper: 'We can't go in