cle of warm light.

"Yes," he said. "Just us two ... Hark, Betty!" He held up his finger.

For a moment they listened to the infinitesimal noises of the night,
straining their ears in the stillness. The river wound past them with
a faint, sibilant sound like a child chuckling in its sleep; an owl
hooted somewhere in the far-off sanctuary of the trees. Betty drew her
breath with a little sigh that was no louder than the rustle of the
bat's wings overhead. The match burning on the grass beside them
flared suddenly and went out.

"You know," said the India-rubber Man presently, "I was thinking
to-night--up there, along the river--how good it all is, this little
old England of ours. I sat on a big boulder and watched a child in the
distance driving some cows across a meadow to be milked.... There
wasn't a leaf stirring, and the only sounds were the sleepy noises of
the river.... It was all just too utterly peaceful and good." The
India-rubber Man puffed his pipe in silence for a moment. "It struck
me then," he went on in his slow, even tones, "that any price we can
pay--any amount of sacrifice, hardship, discomfort--is nothing as long
as we keep this quiet peace undisturbed...." Again he lapsed into
silence, as if following some deep train of thought; the sound of the
donkey cropping the grass came from the other side of the bush.

"One doesn't think about it in that way--up there," he jerked his head
towards the North. "You just do your job for the job's sake, as one
does in peace-time. Even the fellows who die, die as if it all came in
the day's work." His mind reverted to its original line of thought.
"But even dying is a little thing as long as all this is undefiled."
He smoked in silence for a minute.

"Death!" he continued jerkily, as if feeling for his ideas at an
unaccustomed depth. "I've seen so much of Death, Betty: in every sort
of guise and disguise, and I'm not sure that he isn't only the biggest
impostor, really. A bogie to frighten happiness.... A turnip-mask
with a candle inside, stuck up just round some corner along the road of
life."

"You never know which corner it is, though," said Betty. She nodded
her head like a wise child. "That's why it's frightening--sometimes."

For a while longer they talked with their elbows on the table and their
faces very close, exchanging those commonplace yet intimate scraps of
philosophy which only two can share. Then the India-rubber Man fetched