which had so long and
so nobly done its bit with headlines to win the war. No news whatever
came, of men blown up, to enliven the hush of the hot July afternoon, or
the sense of drugging--which followed Aunt Thirza's Sunday lunch. Some
slept, some thought they were awake; but Noel and young Morland walked
upward through the woods towards a high common of heath and furze,
crowned by what was known as Kestrel rocks. Between these two young
people no actual word of love had yet been spoken. Their lovering had
advanced by glance and touch alone.

Young Morland was a school and college friend of the two Pierson boys now
at the front. He had no home of his own, for his parents were dead; and
this was not his first visit to Kestrel. Arriving three weeks ago, for
his final leave before he should go out, he had found a girl sitting in a
little wagonette outside the station, and had known his fate at once.
But who knows when Noel fell in love? She was--one supposes--just ready
for that sensation. For the last two years she had been at one of those
high-class finishing establishments where, in spite of the healthy
curriculum, perhaps because of it, there is ever an undercurrent of
interest in the opposing sex; and not even the gravest efforts to
eliminate instinct are quite successful. The disappearance of every
young male thing into the maw of the military machine put a premium on
instinct. The thoughts of Noel and her school companions were turned,
perforce, to that which, in pre-war freedom of opportunity they could
afford to regard as of secondary interest. Love and Marriage and
Motherhood, fixed as the lot of women by the countless ages, were
threatened for these young creatures. They not unnaturally pursued what
they felt to be receding.

When young Morland showed, by following her about with his eyes, what was
happening to him, Noel was pleased. From being pleased, she became a
little excited; from being excited she became dreamy. Then, about a week
before her father's arrival, she secretly began to follow the young man
about with her eyes; became capricious too, and a little cruel. If there
had been another young man to favour--but there was not; and she favoured
Uncle Bob's red setter. Cyril Morland grew desperate. During those
three days the demon her father dreaded certainly possessed her. And
then, one evening, while they walked back together from the hay-fields,
she gave him a sidelong glance; and he