Lorthiois?" he said quickly.

"You mean the French painter who used to hang about the Cafe Royal?"
Henry replied.

"Yes. He was killed the other day in France."

"I hadn't heard. Poor chap!"

"I think he showed extraordinary courage. He started off from London to
join the French Army ... all his friends dined him jolly well ... and
wished him good-luck, and so on, and then he went off. And a week later,
he turned up again with a cock-and-bull story about having been arrested
as a deserter. He said he'd escaped from prison and, after a lot of
difficulty and hardship, got back to England. But he hadn't done
anything of the sort. He'd funked it at the last. He got as far as
Dover, and then he turned back ... frightened. He stayed in London for a
while ... and then he tried again ... and this time he didn't funk it!
They say he was fighting splendidly when he was killed. Men have got the
V.C. for less heroic behaviour than that. He'd conquered himself. I used
to despise that fellow because he wore eccentric clothes and had his
hair cut in a silly fashion ... but I feel proud now of having known
him!"

2

Mary met him at Whitcombe, and they walked home, sending his trunk and
portmanteau on in the carriage with Widger. He had anticipated their
meeting with strange emotion, feeling as if he were returning to her
after a time of misunderstanding, richer in knowledge, more capable of
sympathy. He had not seen her since the first performance of "The Magic
Casement," and very much had happened to them since then. His desire for
Cecily seemed to have died. He had not troubled to visit her in London
... he could have found time to do so, had he been anxious to see her
... but he had not the wish. He had not written to her about Jimphy ...
he could not bring himself to do that ... and the thought that she might
wish to see him did not stir his mind. He felt for her what a man feels
for a woman he has loved, but now loves no more: neither like nor
dislike, but, occasionally, curiosity that did not last long. She moved
him as little as Sheila Morgan had done when he saw her in the field at
Ballymartin, big with child, watching her husband drilling.

"There are permanent things in one's life, and there are impermanent
things ... and you can't turn the one into the other," he thought to
himself, as the little branch railway drove down the Axe Valley. "I
wanted Cecily ... and then I didn't want her. There's no more to be said