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As Kitty had said, it was a beautiful day, and they sat on a seat in Queen’s Walk, and saw the white clouds going over the high houses. The lilac buds were turning from gold to green, and on the grass the sunlight came and went. The windows of the houses would glimmer and grow dark, like eyes, smiling or serious.

And it seemed to Alex St. George that the anguish of the young year was less greenly poignant, and that the air was warmer, and that under this open, April sky the girl beside him was even more pleasant to behold. Her very littleness appealed to him, her glow, her perfect skin. Yet, though physically she was like ripe and wholesome fruit, she was more to him than a mere sensuous image.

For he was out of love with himself, and when a man is out of love with himself his desire to be loved becomes urgent and childlike. He wanted to give and to receive devotion. He knew now that he had been out of love with himself for the last two years, ever since the Somme had begun to swallow men, and he had seen other fellows go out, while he had accepted safety. He had accepted it too easily, just as he had accepted the domination of his mother. Yet, deep down in him, there had been inward conflict, repressed, but simmering below the surface, awaiting its chance to emerge, and when the chance had come he had found himself a potential coward. It had shocked him. He had allowed himself to be wrapped up in a sense of security. The doctors had found him fit, or fit enough to bear a share in the last ruthless winnowing. And then fear had come, and self-questionings, and a dread of his own fear, and a sense of shame. What if he failed out there, and found himself a martial misfit, a shirker, a rotter?

“You wouldn’t sit on this seat with me if you knew.”

But she was sitting there as though it had become the one place in the world for her.

“How do you know?”

“I—must—tell you.”

He felt that he had to tell her, to put himself right with her, to strip off those years of shame, and begin anew. For he was ashamed of them, though he had been officially secure. He had not been able to tell his mother. He had begun to be aware of harbouring a vague feeling of resentment against his mother.

“Will you listen?”

“I’m here to listen.”

He glanced at her serious and attentive face. She was looking up at the houses. He saw the white line of her throat, and her firm little chin.

“You’ll despise me.”

“No, not if you tell me.”

His eyelids flickered. Why—if he told her—would she think differently? Would it make things different—between them? And already she had for him a strange nearness,—a something—.

“I have been serving for more than three years. I wasn’t supposed to be fit. They didn’t send me out.”

“Well, wasn’t that their business?”

“Yes,—but I ought not to have let myself get stuck at home. Coddled and protected. And then when they did push me out—I seemed to get panic. And I couldn’t tell anybody,—not even my mother.”

He watched her face. What a glowing face she had! It was so firm and yet so soft. And that honey-coloured hair of hers seemed to emit a kind of light from under the brim of her little black hat.

Turning her head, and looking him straight in the eyes, she asked—

“Why couldn’t you tell your mother?”

“Why—?—O—well, there are some people you don’t tell things to.—But I oughtn’t to discuss my mater—.”

“Quite right. But now that you are going out—.”

She paused on the last word, as though prompting him.

“Isn’t it—final? When one realizes that a thing has got to be—.”

He nodded.

“I think I want some one to believe in me.”

She made a little movement as of drawing near to him. She understood that he wanted to feel some one near him, or she guessed it. They had known each other less than three hours, and yet the surprising knowledge had come to her that she could care—as Kitty—Mrs Sarah’s daughter might be expected to care. It would be a very determined caring.

“Supposing some one did believe—?”

“If some one could—!”

“Or if you believe that some one could.”

“You couldn’t.”

“You haven’t asked me.”

Impulsively he touched her arm.

“If you could—. I wouldn’t mind.—You must think me such a weak beast—.”

“I don’t. You’ve had the pluck to tell me this. I suppose it cost you something.”

And suddenly she stood up.

“Let’s walk. Walking’s good.”

They wandered across the Green Park. Ten inches shorter than young St. George she walked along the middle of the path, looking straight before her as though some objective had come into view and she meant to reach it. The sunlight played upon the fronts of the Piccadilly houses. She knew her Green Park and her St. James’s, and her Hyde Park as a London child knows them, but to-day they seemed both smaller and more spacious. The noise of the traffic was confusedly impersonal. As for Mr Alex St. George she was aware of him as a shy, freckled, rather loose-limbed boy loping along beside her like a dog that had suddenly attached itself. She was not at all conscious of him as a young man whose mother had a house in Cardigan Square, or any difference there might be in their social positions or their worldly wealth. He was the eternal boy in trouble, her counterpart, her contrast, wilting where she was sturdy, yet not without a sensitive courage of his own. She was thinking of his mother, and his refusal to discuss his mother, his mother who was always so right. So Mrs St. George was that sort of woman! Already Kitty’s square little chin was setting itself towards an inward confronting of Mrs St. George.

Arriving at Hyde Park Corner, they stood by the railings while a line of traffic passed.

“Let’s go and look at the Serpentine.”

“Yes,—let’s. I used to sail boats there.”

“And you wore a sailor suit?”

“I did. Now, we can get across.”

He put out a shepherding arm that curved close to her but did not touch her, and on the other side she gave him a serious and upward smile.

“You are more all right than you think you are.”

“No,—I’m not. Unless—.”

“Unless what?”

He prevaricated.

“Let’s get across to the other side of the Row.”

“Unless what?” she repeated.

He looked beyond the trees into the hazy London distance.

“Supposing I can’t believe in myself,—unless—?”

“Some one else believes?”

“That’s it. A pretty shameful confession.”

“But aren’t we all more or less like that? Some more, some less. How do you like the hat I’m wearing?”

He glanced at her hat.

“It seems just—the—hat.”

“Sure?”

“Quite.”

“Well,—that makes me feel good friends with my hat. You see?”

He smiled down at her.

“I say,—you are rather extraordinary. You seem to get right at things.”

“I’m older than you are.”

“I wonder?”

“Twenty-four.”

“So am I.”

“Well, we’ll leave it at that. I have been working for six years.”

“Must you?”

“Must I! I like it. Up at half-past six and cooking the breakfast. Ours is a cheerful place. How did you like my mother?”

“Immensely.”

“Everybody does. She’s a dear. Had a pretty tough fight for it,—you know, keeping and educating two girls after my father died.”

“What was your father?”

“A doctor in the East End. He didn’t leave much money. But we do pretty well these days.”

“I’m glad.”

He was looking at her more and more attentively, and with a growing and inward delight that grew out of the misery of the last few days like a young plant out of the soil. Wasn’t she unique; wasn’t the whole adventure unique? But he did not think of it as an adventure. He had a natural seriousness. He was one of those young souls who must look up to something or to somebody, a lovable lad, quite without side, and still very young. In civil life he would be full of enthusiasms for a book, or a play, or a landscape, and at this moment in his life his enthusiasm had discovered Kitty. She was worth it, but how much worth it she was he did not yet know. Nor was he merely a nice lad who fell into love and out of it with dreadful facility. Chance had brought her to him at a moment when he had felt so out of love with himself that his own service revolver had suggested a weak way out. In a way she drew him as a capable and warm-hearted young nursemaid draws a troubled and too-sensitive child.

They were standing by the Serpentine, watching the wind and the sunlight upon the water, when he asked her a question.

“I say,—may I call you Kitty?”

“I think so.”

“Thanks awfully. And would you let me take you out to lunch?”

“But doesn’t your mother expect you back to lunch?”

Instantly a clouded look came into his eyes.

“I don’t want to go back there yet. I want to feel alive.”