Part 28

A familiar gurgling sound roused him from his devotions, and turning his head he saw his young neighbour in the garb of a nurse, standing on the path behind him. “She has dropped from heaven,” he thought for all nurses are angels.

And, taking off his hat, he said:

“You surprised me at a moment of which I am not ashamed; I was communing with Beauty. And behold! Aurora is with me.”

“Say, rather, Borealis,” said the young lady. “I was so fed-up with hospital that I had to have a scamper before turning in. If you're going home we might go together?”

“It would, indeed, be a joy,” said Mr. Lavender. “The garb of mercy becomes you.”

“Do you think so?” replied the young lady, in whose cheeks a lovely flush had not deepened. “I call it hideous. Do you always come out and pray to that tree?”

“I am ashamed to say,” returned Mr. Lavender, “that I do not. But I intend to do so in future, since it has brought me such a vision.”

And he looked with such deferential and shining eyes at his companion that she placed the back of her hand before her mouth, and her breast rose.

“I'm most fearfully sleepy,” she said. “Have you had any adventures lately—you and Samjoe?

“Samjoe?” repeated Mr. Lavender.

“Your chauffeur—I call him that. He's very like Sam Weller and Sancho Panza, don't you think, Don Pickwixote?

“Ah!” said Mr. Lavender, bewildered; “Joe, you mean. A good fellow. He has in him the sort of heroism which I admire more than any other.”

“Which is that?” asked the young lady.

“That imperturbable humour in the face of adverse circumstances for which our soldiers are renowned.”

“You are a great believer in heroics, Don Pickwixote,” said the young lady.

“What would life be without them?” returned Mr. Lavender. “The war could not go on for a minute.”

“You're right there,” said the young lady bitterly.

“You surely,” said Mr. Lavender, aghast, “cannot wish it to stop until we have destroyed our common enemies?”

“Well,” said the young lady, “I'm not a Pacifist; but when you see as many people without arms and legs as I do, heroics get a bit off, don't you know.” And she increased her pace until Mr. Lavender, who was not within four inches of her stature, was almost compelled to trot. “If I were a Tommy,” she added, “I should want to shoot every man who uttered a phrase. Really, at this time of day, they are the limit.”

“Aurora,” said Mr. Lavender, “if you will permit me, who am old enough—alas!—to be your father, to call you that, you must surely be aware that phrases are the very munitions of war, and certainly not less important than mere material explosives. Take the word 'Liberty,' for instance; would you deprive us of it?”

The young lady fixed on him those large grey eyes which had in them the roll of genius. “Dear Don Pickwixote,” she said, “I would merely take it from the mouths of those who don't know what it means; and how much do you think would be left? Not enough to butter the parsnips of a Borough Council, or fill one leader in a month of Sundays. Have you not discovered, Don Pickwixote, that Liberty means the special form of tyranny which one happens to serve under; and that our form of tyranny is GAS.”

“High heaven!” cried Mr. Lavender, “that I should hear such words from so red lips!”

“I've not been a Pacifist, so far,” continued the young lady, stifling a yawn, “because I hate cruelty, I hate it enough to want to be cruel to it. I want the Huns to lap their own sauce. I don't want to be revengeful, but I just can't help it.”

“My dear young lady,” said Mr. Lavender soothingly, “you are not—you cannot be revengeful; for every great writer and speaker tells us that revengefulness is an emotion alien to the Allies, who are merely just.

“Rats!”

At this familiar word, Blink who had been following their conversation quietly, threw up her nose and licked the young lady's hand so unexpectedly that she started and added:

“Darling!”

Mr. Lavender, who took the expression as meant for himself, coloured furiously.