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On the way back to Dorking it was agreed between them that Alex owed part of his last evening to his mother.

“She will be wondering,—Kitty.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing. I just said that I should be out most of the day.”

Half-way down the steep hill from Wootton Hatch, and under the bare boughs of the beeches, he caught his wife suddenly and held her close.

“Kitty,—I wish—.”

She showed more gentleness than passion. Passion exhausts. The finer tenderness burns with a steady flame.

“This war can’t last much longer. I’ll write to you every day.”

He kissed her, and stood at gaze.

“I’m thinking of to-morrow. You will be at Victoria?”

“Of course.”

“And if my mother comes—? Shall I tell her—? You two left alone on the platform. What do you think?”

“If she comes—tell her.”

“I will,” he said.

But for him the unshadowed delight of the day had passed. The dusk seemed to rise about him. She felt his increasing silence, a tenderness that was poignant and inarticulate, and in an empty carriage of the homeward train they sat very close, holding hands. His eyes had that troubled and widely open look as he stared out of the window at the moving landscape, while she,—more and more conscious of his young sadness—became more and more maternal and protective. She sat with one little fist clenched. That creamy face of hers with its glow of colour seemed to express an indomitable obstinacy. It was Kitty against the world-war, against death, against fear, against everything. Her sturdy vitality seemed to sit up and confront fate and all fate’s possible mischances. She had the look of a very determined child, clutching a beloved toy and refusing to relinquish it. She squared her chin at the unknown.

She became wilfully cheerful.

“I have three hundred pounds saved. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be thinking about furniture.”

Pathetic reality! They clung to it, both of them. They began to plan, as though the constructing of that plan gave them a little sense of security. It was a sand-castle raised by two children on the edge of the thundering deep.

“We’ll get a little flat. I could go on working, Alex, while you are making your job.”

“I couldn’t let you do that.”

“Why not? It will be our show. One thing this war has done, it has blown away a lot of humbug.”

“You are perfectly wonderful.”

“But—about our flat—?”

They talked of it as they walked across St. James’s Park with the sunset glowing behind them. They might have been picking flowers on the edge of a battle-field. Then, the houses overshadowed them in the darkening streets, a little moan of anguish sounded in the heart of each.

“If only it could be now!”

No. 7 Vernor Street surprised them. The shutters were up; Mrs Sarah had understanding; she had shut up her house for the evening against the khaki crowd. Upstairs supper was laid. Alex St. George found himself kissing Mrs Sarah, and feeling a little hot about the eyes. Dark Corah gave him a languid, kind hand, and had nothing to say. Kitty had gone to take off her hat.

After supper and its wilful animation, he found himself taking a cheerful leave. Again he kissed Mrs Sarah,—there was something comforting in kissing that solid woman,—and shaking hands with the languid, kind Corah. He and Kitty were outside on the landing, and the door was closed. He was aware of Mrs Sarah talking behind that door like a sympathetic and smothering orchestra.

Husband and wife clung together.

“I want something before I go—.”

“Yes, dear,” and her voice was full of soothing consent.

“I want to see your room. May I? Just for a minute. Where you sleep, you know. I’d like to be able to think—.”

She took him up to her room. It was like herself, small and compact and wholesome, with no frills, but smelling of some perfume. An oak-framed bed stood behind the door, with a blue nightdress-case on the pillow. There were no dresses or hats to be seen, nothing but two pairs of little shoes placed neatly side by side under the dressing-table. Kitty was a tidy person. The blind was down; and she had drawn the heavy blue curtains across the window.

“O,—my darling—!”

She closed the door, and turned off the light. They lay on the bed together, his head against her throat, her arms round him. She could feel him trembling.

“Kitty,—I can’t—somehow—not now. I feel it wouldn’t be—. O, my dear, my dear.”

She stroked his head.

“You are not selfish, laddie.”

“O,—yes, I am. But I don’t want anything now—but—just—you—.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes it makes one happier to hold back. You have put some grit into me.”

“You’re fine, my dear,” she said, “you’re fine.”

So there was no consummation of their marriage in the ultimate sense. He gave her something greater by not taking when she was ready to give. They just lay close in each other’s arms, and kissed, and made a passionate, dear murmuring, and then suddenly he drew apart and stood up and, holding her hand, kissed the ring on it.

“Kitty,—I’m strong now. I shall—think—of all you have done to me.”

She caught his head in her warm arms and held him so for a moment, as though protecting him and praying over him.

“Things will be all right.”

She went down the stairs with him and out into the street. They held hands. She walked as far as the hat shop at the corner of Vernor Street, and they stood for a moment under an unlighted lamp.

“To-morrow, Kitty.”

“To-morrow.”