There was half an appeal in her voice. Sidney looked at her quickly. "I'm quite sure he will," she said. "He's not so very old, after all—just as old as I am, in fact, and I'm not a bit too old to appreciate it."
"Ah, but the war may have made a great difference in him."
"It doesn't make as much as you'd think." She hesitated for a moment, and said: "I know a man who has been through it all from the beginning. He enlisted as Harry did, and had a rough time of it at first. He's been wounded too—rather badly. But he's much the same as he was before."
Jane looked at her. "You knew Harry when he was little, didn't you?" she asked. "We only knew him first three years ago. He seemed old then to me and my brother, but he was only sixteen."
"Let's sit down somewhere and I'll tell you all about it," said Sidney. "I don't think I want to walk any more, unless you do."
They sat down on the bench under the eaves, and Sidney told her about that summer when she and Harry had played together as children. Jane kept her large eyes fixed upon her all the time, and they seemed to be searching her and adding her up. By and by her solemnity relaxed and she smiled when Sidney did, and asked her questions here and there. When the story came to an end it was plain that she had made up her mind about her, and that her opinion was favourable.
This was made more evident still when she said calmly: "I expect Harry will fall in love with you, if you're here when he comes home."
Sidney looked at her in surprise, and then laughed. "What an extraordinary girl you are!" she said. "You think of everything."
Jane laughed too. She was feeling more and more at home with Sidney, who did not treat her as a child. "Would you like him to?" she asked.
Sidney was unexpectedly silent and serious, and when she did speak, she did not answer Jane's question. "Would you like to be friends?" she asked. "Real friends, I mean, so that we could tell each other things."