Laura murmured congratulations. She wished Aunt Adela would be merciful enough to stop talking, or at any rate needing answers.... It was so difficult to think of the right answers with that insistent tune ringing in one’s ears....
It wavered and sank to a sigh as she listened against her will—
Time and chance are but a tide;
Ha, ha, the wooing o’t;
Slighted love is sair to bide——
It slackened and jarred as Gran’papa’s hand—she knew that pathetic, involuntary relaxation of his stiff fingers—mumbled the strings. But the half learnt words ran on in her head, perverted into absurd appositeness—
She may gae to—France for me!
But it was Justin who had gone to France.... They were killing three hundred men a day in France—in the trenches ... where Justin was....
For long minutes her terrible phantasy made it all very clear to her, while the tune jangled on again to its happy ending—
Now they’re crouse and canty baith——