"Yes," she murmured slowly. She thought, "Actually, 'there's nothing to talk about' in what's between him and me. But it's there all the time."
And then, gradually, that presentiment of War began to fade in the reality of her joy at being with him now, with him still....
They turned up the Hampstead Road, flaring with naphtha-lights above the stalls, noisy with shouts of costers, crowded with the humble shoppers of Saturday night.
"Well, and what about to-morrow?" Dampier took up.
"I was going with Leslie to——"
"So you said. With Leslie, indeed! D'you think you're going to be allowed to go anywhere again, except with me?" he muttered as he put his arms about her.
He held her as close as he had done on the scaffolding, that afternoon when he had arranged with himself never to see the Little Thing again; close as he'd done next time he did see her, at the Factory.
"Oh, you don't know!" he said quite resentfully (while she laughed softly and happily in his hold), "you don't know how I've wanted you with me. I—I haven't been able to think of anything—You have got a fellow fond of you in a jolly short time, haven't you? How've you done it? M'm? I—Here!" he broke off savagely, "what is this dashed idiot stopping the taxi for?"
"Because I get out here. It's the Club," Gwenna explained to him gravely, opening the door of the cab for herself. "Good-night."
"What? No, you don't," protested the boy. "We're going up the Spaniards Road and down by the Whitestone Pond, and round by Hendon first. I must take you for a drive. It's not so late. Hang it, I haven't seen you to speak to——"