She reflected his good spirits. Ripping! He splashed and wallowed in the bath, singing lustily one of the songs out there:
"Ho, ho, ho, it's a lovely war!"
VI
But the three days at home were not to go on this singing note. They were marred by the discovery that his suspicion was well founded; she was bullying Effie. He began to notice it at once. Effie, with whom he had anticipated a lot of fun, was different: not nearly so bright; subdued; her eyes, not always, but only by occasional flashes, sparkling that intense appreciation of the oddities of life that had so much attracted him in her. Yes, dash it, Mabel was treating her in a rotten way. Bullying. No, it was not exactly bullying, it was snubbing, a certain acid quality always present in Mabel's voice when she addressed her,—that and a manner of always being what he thought of as "at her." The girl seemed to have an astonishing number of quite trivial duties to perform—trivial; there certainly was no suggestion of her being imposed upon as he had always felt Miss Bypass up at the vicarage was imposed upon, but Mabel was perpetually and acidly "at her" over one trivial thing or another. It was forever, "Miss Bright, I think you ought to be in the morning room, oughtn't you?" "Miss Bright, I really must ask you not to leave your door open every time you come out of your room. You know how I dislike the doors standing open." "Miss Bright, if you've finished your tea, there's really no need for you to remain."
He hated it. He said nothing, but it was often on the tip of his tongue to say something, and he showed that he intensely disliked it, and he knew that Mabel knew he disliked it. On the whole it was rather a relief when the three days were up and he went down to the Cadet battalion at Cambridge.
In March he came back, a second lieutenant; and immediately, when in time to come he looked back, things set in train for that ultimate encounter with life which was awaiting him.
The projected visit to town did not come off. While he was at Cambridge Mabel wrote to say that the Garden Home Amateur Dramatic Society was going to do "His Excellency The Governor" in aid of the Red Cross funds at the end of March. She was taking part, she was fearfully excited about it, and as rehearsals began early in the month she naturally could not be away. She was sure he would understand and would not mind.
He did not mind in the least. They were years past the stage when it would have so much as crossed his mind that she might give up this engagement for the sake of spending his leave on a bit of gaiety in town; he had only suggested the idea on her account; personally he much preferred the prospect of doing long walks about his beloved countryside now passing into spring.
VII
Arriving, he began at once to do so. He went over for one visit to the office at Tidborough. Not so much enthusiasm greeted him as to encourage a second. Twyning and Mr. Fortune were immersed in adapting the workshops to war work for the Government. Normal business was coming to a standstill. Now Twyning had conceived the immense, patriotic, and profitable idea of making aeroplane parts, and it was made sufficiently clear to Sabre that, so long away and immediately to be off again, there could be no interest for him in the enterprise.