ing to enlist!"

"Enlist!" she said.

"Yes. Silly ass not to ask for a commission!" said Jimphy.

Boltt burbled about the priceless privilege of youth. If only he were a
youngster once again!...

They drank their tea, while Jimphy discoursed on the war. Henry had
entered Cecily's house with a feeling of alarm, wondering whether she
would be friendly to him, wondering whether he would be able to look
into her eyes and not care ... and now he knew that he did not care.
There was something incredibly unfeeling and trivial about Cecily,
something ... vulgar. While the world was still reeling from the shock
of the War, she was arranging to be photographed with mittens that she
had not made and could not make. The portrait would be reproduced in the
_Daily Reflexion_ under the title of "Lady Cecily Jayne Does Her Bit."
... But she was beautiful, undeniably she was beautiful. As he looked at
her, she raised her eyes, conscious perhaps of his stare, and smiled at
him....

"She'd smile at anybody," he said to himself. "If she had any feeling at
all for me, she'd be angry with me!"

She came to him. "I wish you'd tell Gilbert to come and see me," she
said, sitting down beside him.

"Very well," he answered, "I will!"

"I'm sure he'll look awfully nice in khaki. And I should love to see him
saluting Jimphy. He'll have to do that, you know, if he's a private...."

8

He got away as soon as he could decently do so, and went back to
Bloomsbury. "That isn't England," he told himself, "that mitten-making,
posturing crew!" and he remembered the great queues of men, standing
outside Scotland Yard, struggling to get into the Army, and suffering
much discomfort in the effort.

"Perhaps," he said to himself, "Gilbert's at home now. I wonder if he
managed to get in!"

A man and a woman were standing at the corner of a street, talking, and
he overheard them as he passed.

"'Illoa, Sarah," the man said, "w'ere you goin', eih?"

"Goin' roan' the awfices," she answered, "to see if I kin get a job o'
charin'!"

"Gawblimey!" said the man, laughing at her.

"Well, you got to do somethink, 'aven't you? No good sittin' on your
be'ind an' 'owlin' because there's a war on, is there?"

There was more of the spirit of England in that, Henry thought, than in
Cecily's mitten-making....

Gilbert was not at home when he reached the Bloomsbury boarding-house.
"Still trying, I suppose," Henry thought.

There was a telegram for him.