"In I hopped into that side-car; and off we buzzed to Harrods', and we were just in time before they closed for her to buy half a dozen pair of the best quality brown silk stockings for herself. (I'd seen she was a lady, you know, and all that.) She said she hadn't a stocking left to her foot——Tiny feet she's got, Miss Olwen! Reminded me of yours, honest, they did. Same sort of hands, too. Coming out of her great gauntlets like snowdrops, growing in a drift of brown leaves——No, I didn't make that up, that's what she told me some ass of an old Colonel that she used to drive the cars for said to her once. I think it's neck, the way some of those old Johnnies with one foot in the grave go on giving the Glad to any pretty young girl that's near them....
"Well, after Harrods' shut, we went on to some place where she could get a wash and brush up, and we had a spot of lunch together. She was a real jolly little thing to go about with, I thought. We sat talking—you know the way ones does—until it was nearly tea-time.
"Tea we had out, too. She would stand me tea, said it was her shout, and because I was wounded. Seemed to think that because a fellow had been pipped once he was helpless for evermore. Generally I loathe women fussing over one for that, but she was different.... Struck one as so comic, you know, that tiny little thing with those hands and feet to be got up like any old mechanic, and to do all that hefty work in all weathers——and for her to get frightened that I might be tired!
"Well, so we went to Rumplemayer's.
"Afterwards I went with her to take her bike back to the Park. You know she's attached to the Royal Flying Corps there; yes, that's what she does now. Carries their letters and messages for them all over the show, to your people at the Honeycomb too, sometimes. Sometimes she drives out officers to the various training schools for flying, all about. Has to clean her own bike, too! Wouldn't let me give her a hand, said it didn't look well. Extraordinary, the lot she gets through!... And I used to hate girls being 'independent,' too.
"I asked her what put it into her head to do all this, and she said it was because one had to do one's bit somehow, and the harder the better, so that it sent one to bed tired enough to sleep.
"Dashed sporting little girl I thought her.
"It was dinner-time before I knew, and I asked her if she'd come out. (I had got just one pound note left on me!)
"She said, as naturally as if we always fed together, 'Shall I go up to my rooms and get into respectable clothes, or d'you mind if I came in my uniform?'
"I said, 'Oh, come along!' And we went off to a quiet little place at the back of the Palace.