"The enemy?" said little Gwenna, doubtfully.
"Yes. The Man. The opposing force, if you like. You can think and think and wish and wish about him then until the whole air about you goes shivery-quivery with it. 'Creating an atmosphere' is what they call it, I believe. And get him well into the zone of that," advised Leslie. "For it's no use the magnet being a magnet if it doesn't allow itself to get within miles of a needle, is it? Might as well be any old bit of scrap-iron. Plenty of girls—nice girls, I mean—not like that deplorably vulgar Miss Long. What she's doing in a Club that's supposed to be for ladies I don't know. The horrid things she says! Bad! Bad form! And I'm sure if she says those here, she must have heaps of other worse things she could say, and probably does, to some people! Er—oh, where was I? Ah, yes!" rattled on Leslie, with her black head flung against the striped canvas back of the chair, her eyes on her surprisingly neat darning. "I was going to say—plenty of nice girls muff everything by putting too much distance that doesn't lend enchantment to the view between themselves and the men that aren't often sharp enough to deserve being called 'the needle.' Don't you make the mistake of those nice girls, Taffy."
"Well, do I want to? But how can I help it? How can I even try to 'be' anything, if he isn't there to know anything at all about it? I don't see him! I don't meet him!" mourned the Welsh girl in the soft accent that was very unmistakable to-day. "It's a whole fortnight, Leslie, since that lovely day in the fields. It seems years. He hasn't written or anything. I've waited and waited.... And sometimes I feel as if perhaps I shouldn't ever see him again. After all, I never did see him properly before we went to your sister's that night. Oh, isn't it awful to think what little chances make all the difference to who one sees or doesn't see? I can't know for certain that I shall ever see him again. Oh, Leslie!"
Leslie cut her last needleful of lilac silk and answered in the most reassuringly matter-of-fact tone:
"But of course you will. If you want to enough. For instance—should you like to see him at this dance?"
"Dance?" inquired Gwenna, dazed.
"Yes. This fancy-dress affair that I'm doing these stockings for. (I won these in a bet from one of my Woolwich cadets.) This tamasha next week?"
"But—he isn't going, is he? And I'm not even asked."
"And can't these things ever be arranged?" demanded her chum, laughing. "Can do, Taffy. Leslie will manage."
"Oh—but that's so kind!" murmured the younger girl, overcome.