"Does he know?" persisted Gwenna, paling. "About the war coming, I mean?"
"More likely to know than I am, those people. Not that they'd give it away if they did. It won't be to-morrow, anyway. To-morrow; that's Sunday. Our holiday. Another day we shall have all to ourselves. Tell me what time I'm to call for you at the Club."
Not to be put off, she retorted, timid, persistent, "Tell me when you think it would come. Soon?"
Half laughing, half impatient, he said, "I don't know. Soon enough for it to be in my time, I hope."
"But—" she said, with a little catch in her voice, "you're not a soldier?"
He said quietly, "I'm an aviator."
An aviator; yes. That was what she meant. He belonged to the most daring and romantic of professions; the most dangerous, but not that danger. An inventor, part of his time; the rest of his time an airman at Hendon who made flights above what the man with the megaphone called the "Aer-rio-drome" above the khaki-green ground with the pylons and the border of summer-frocked spectators. Her boy! An aviator.... Would that mean presently a man flying above enemy country, to shoot and be shot at? ("Fired at by both friend and foe."). She said quiveringly: "You wouldn't have to fight?"
He said: "Hope so, I'm sure."
"Oh, Paul!" she cried, aghast, her hands on his arm. "Just when—when I've only just got you! To lose you again so soon——! Oh, no——!"
"Oh, I say, darling, don't be so silly," he said briskly and reassuringly. He patted the little hands. "We're not going to talk about this sort of thing, d'you hear? There's nothing to talk about. Actually, there's nothing. Understand?"