“This is some day, Lucy, some day,” he murmured. “Have a muffin?” he suggested, about to help himself to another. “I seem to have got awfully hungry since you all arrived.”
“Put it on us, if you like, Larry,” said Bob. “Seeing you has certainly made me ravenous.”
“Go right ahead,” urged hospitable Janet. “They’re bringing out more toast now.”
“Marian made quite a hole in that last plateful,” said Bob. “Would you believe it, Lucy?”
“Oh, it’s wonderful here,” said Lucy suddenly. But with lingering uncertainty she added, almost afraid to be too happy, “I wish peace were here, though, Larry. I don’t feel sure of things.”
Captain Beattie overheard her and stopped describing a cricket field to William to exclaim, “Don’t say that, Lucy! Why, it’s a perfect time! Plenty of troubles will come with peace—I see them looming now. This is a sort of blessed intermission. We’ve finished the first act and needn’t yet begin the second.”
“More tea, Archie?” asked Alan. “You, Bob?” To Bob he added, “I haven’t half heard yet about Franz and Herr Johann. Got to hear it all, you know. I wish I’d been in at the killing. To think you were right about the Bolshies all the time, Bob, and I wouldn’t listen. I’m nothing but a silly ass.”
There was no end to the talk that went on around the tea-table. Twilight began to fall softly, and still everyone lingered in the warm summer air, while bees and beetles flitted by on their way home and one star twinkled from among the last sunset gleams.
Arthur Leslie asked Bob about his future in the Flying Corps. “Shall you stick to it, Bob, now you’ve gone so far? Or do you think there’s little place for flying in time of peace?”
Bob in his earnestness leaned forward to answer, “How could I think that, Arthur? You don’t think it either, nor your War Office, which is planning the greatest air force in the world. If our government would do as much! Why, flying has hardly started! It’s an art of peace as much as of war. I could talk hours about it. Larry, you won’t give it up?”