“In ’fifteen and ’sixteen,” said Quentillian briefly.
He wished to remember neither his two years on the Western front, nor his many months in Hospital with shell-shock.
“Where did you and David meet, in Mesopotamia?” inquired Lucilla.
Quentillian had forgotten her presence, if not her existence, but he felt grateful to her for sparing him the tentative category of his soldiering capabilities which he suspected the Canon of having in readiness.
He was not, however, given time to answer Lucilla’s question.
The Canon’s hand was uplifted.
“Ah, Lucilla my dear—please! My little talk with Owen there, is to come later. There is so much that I want to hear about our David—much, indeed. And you shall have your share of news about your brother, my child, but wait—at least wait—until we have had our little private talk together.”
Lucilla bent her head a little under the rebuke either in acquiescence or to conceal some slight confusion; but Valeria blushed hotly and unmistakably, and everyone looked constrained except the Canon, who looked rather severe, rather grieved, and at the same time perfectly serene. When he spoke again, it was with marked suavity.
“Tell us something of your literary work, dear fellow,” he requested Quentillian. “I am ashamed to say that I have read nothing of yours, as yet. My time is so little my own. Lucilla here is our literary critic.”
He placed his thin, beautiful hand, for a fleeting moment upon his eldest daughter’s hand.