You are London's prize fool. You admit that At the age of thirty-four you have had, to put it very conservatively, some slight experience. Your conduct is not made more supportable by those people, two or three friends at the Savage Club, who know about it
"My dear old boy," one of them had said, "all you need is thus-and-so. With so many willing dames about…"
Or old Hook, with his touch of grey side-whisker and his twinkling eyeglass, who always quoted Leigh Hunt:
Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in—
And this, though you had to smile, touched a raw spot It was, in so many ways, expressive of Jenny, Jenny, blonde and, slender, in the blue uniform and hat which at first glance made her seem unapproachable. Jenny's eagerness, her sincerity, almost her naivete.
"A station-buffet at Edinburgh?' Ruth had said. "A station platform. A train tearing through the blackout, with you two kissing and swearing you loved each other."
Hell!
When such things happened to other people, Martin reflected, or even happened in stories, they had at least a trace of dignity. This hadn't
In the hush just before dawn on a summer morning, the express from Edinburgh stops at Rugby. Heavy boots clump and bumble along the wooden platform. Misshapen shadows, interweaving, loom up against the dim blue station lights and the faint glow from the services' tea-canteen. Captain Drake of the Gloucesters, and (rank and unit unknown) Jenny, hand in hand, stumble out to get a cup of vile tea. In the confusion and milling on that dark platform — every private's kit seems to swing and bang for a yard in each direction — you lose Jenny's hand.
That was all.