thoughtful--'how people care for poetry
nowadays! A few years ago, one never heard of people--ordinary
people--_buying_ poetry, new poetry--or reading it. But I know a shop in
Manchester that's just full of poetry--new books and old books--and the
shop-man told me that people buy it almost more than anything. Isn't it
funny? What makes them do it? Is it the war?'

Sarratt considered it, while making a smooth path for a gorgeous green
beetle through the bit of turf beside him.

'I suppose it's the war,' he said at last. 'It does change fellows. It's
easy enough to go along bluffing and fooling in ordinary times. Most men
don't know what they think--or what they feel--or whether they feel
anything. But somehow--out there--when you see the things other fellows
are doing--when you know the things you may have to do yourself--well----'

'Yes, yes--go on!' she said eagerly, and he went on, but reluctantly,
for he had seen her shiver, and the white lids fall a moment over her
eyes.

'--It doesn't seem unnatural--or hypocritical--or canting--to talk and
feel--sometimes--as you couldn't talk or feel at home, with life going
on just as usual. I've had to censor letters, you see, darling--and the
letters some of the roughest and stupidest fellows write, you'd never
believe. And there's no pretence in it either. What would be the good of
pretending out there? No--it's just the pace life goes--and the
fire--and the strain of it. It's awful--and _horrible_--and yet you
wouldn't not be there for the world.'

His voice dropped a little; he looked out with veiled eyes upon the lake
chequered with the blue and white of its inverted sky. Nelly
guessed--trembling--at the procession of images that was passing through
them; and felt for a moment strangely separated from him--separated and
desolate.

'George, it's dreadful now--to be a woman!'

She spoke in a low appealing voice, pressing up against him, as though
she begged the soul in him that had been momentarily unconscious of her,
to come back to her.

He laughed, and the vision before his eyes broke up.

'Darling, it's adorable now--to be a woman! How I shall think of you,
when I'm out there!--away from all the grime and the horror--sitting by
this lake, and looking--as you do now.'

He drew a little further away from her, and lying on his elbows on the
grass, he began to read her, as it were, from top to toe, that he might
fix every detail in his mind.

'I like that littl