“Frankly, I don’t believe it. If anything comes I think it will be a German attack. I don’t look for the Allies to do much before spring—”
“When our aeroplanes get here?” she interjected. “My! but our boys have grumbled about aeroplanes. It makes them irritable to see German planes buzzing around.”
“Don’t blame them. There are rumors about aeroplanes, too. A poilu asked me the other day if it was true that we had twenty thousand of them over here.”
The conversation was following a matter-of-fact, commonplace, impersonal lane—just such a way as Ken had determined it should follow. Yet he was dissatisfied with it. He felt that it lacked something, and that, consequently, Maude and himself were not getting the most out of each other’s company. He had resolved not to talk about himself nor about Maude nor about the sentiments they inspired in each other, but he found himself wanting to do so. The staple, as well as the most absorbing, topic for any young person is himself. It becomes doubly absorbing if two young persons can join and discuss themselves and their reactions to each other.... Maude seemed a trifle bored, he thought. Then, suddenly and with a touch of impatience, she said:
“What has been happening to you?... And that pretty little girl? What was her name?”
She, too, seemed to desire to alter the character of the conversation.
Nothing had been happening to him—at least that he could tell her about. He insisted that life had been a dull affair of work and sleep for him.
“Nonsense! I’m interested.... Oh, I remember her name—it was Andree. Tell me about Andree.”
“She’s a mighty nice little girl. I see her every now and then.”
“Every now and then,” she mocked. “When did you see her last?”