"I know. Perhaps it's best not to. Besides, you don't want to hear about the war."
Dodo waved her hands wildly.
"But get on," she said. "You speak as if there's something good to be heard. What do you mean? As if I wouldn't give my—my shell-like ears to hear something good. My dear, the number of times I've chucked the paper away because the headlines only said, 'New German offensive. Slight loss of ground near Parlez-vous.' Go on, Jack, or I shall burst."
"Well, do you know anything about the position on the west front?" asked he.
"Nothing whatever. I only know it's a beastly front."
Jack took his stick and drew a long line with two bulges in it on the short turf.
"That lower bulge is the Marne," he said, "and the upper one is round about Amiens."
"Where one has coffee on the way to Paris," said Dodo breathlessly.
"Yes. They battered away at the Marne bulge, and have now had to go back. Then they battered alternately at the Amiens bulge, and it isn't bulging any worse. There was no earthly reason why the Huns shouldn't have walked straight through to Abbeville, which is there, last week. They meant to give us a knock-out in one place or the other. But—how shall I explain it?"
"Anyhow," said Dodo.