lacing his boots, or at some other
unromantic moment. And in that case he said he could lie to Anonyma and
your cousin vicariously through the War Office, which would write to
them about Glory, and Duty, and Thanks Due. But he wanted me to write to
you, and tell you how it happened, and tell you that death was just an
ordinary old thing, no more romantic than anything else, without a
capital letter, and that one died as one had lived--in a little ordinary
way--and that there was no such thing as Glory between people who didn't
lie to each other. I am telling you all this from my notes. I should
never have thought of any of it for myself, as you know. I hope you
don't mind."

"No," said Jay. She heard what he said, yet she was not listening. Her
mind was listening to things heard a very long time ago. She heard
herself and Kew in confidential chorus, saying those laboriously simple
prayers that Anonyma used to teach them. She heard again the swishing
that their feet used to make in the leaves of Kensington Gardens. Kew's
was the louder swish by right. She thought of him as an admirable big
brother of eight, with a round face and blunt feet and very hard hands.
She heard the comfortable roar of the nursery fire, and the comfortable
sound of autumn rain baffled by the window; she saw the early winter
breakfast by lamplight, and the red nursery carpet that had an oblong
track worn away round the table by the frequent game of "Little Men
Jumping." She heard the voice of Kew clamouring against the voice of Nana
because he would not eat his bacon-fat. On those days there was a horrid
resurrection at luncheon of the bacon-fat uneaten at breakfast.

"As it happened," continued Mr. Morgan, no longer white, but very red,
"he wasn't killed in an advance, or anything grand. He told me to tell
you, so I am telling you. He was killed by a sniper while he was setting
a trap of his own invention to catch the rats as they came over the
parapet. He was shot in the chest very early yesterday morning, and he
lived about four hours. He was not in much pain, he even laughed a little
once or twice to think he should have lived and died so consistently. He
told me that he had never seen a moment's real romantic fighting; he had
never once felt patriotic or dramatic or dutiful, he said. He wandered a
little, I think, because he seemed worried about the rats that might be
caught in the trap he had set. He seemed to mix up the rats and the
Boche