She leaned towards her neighbour on the other side and Major Thomson was able to resume the role of attentive observer, a role which seemed somehow his by destiny. He listened without apparent interest to the conversation between Geraldine Conyers and the young man whom they had been discussing.
“I think,” Geraldine complained, “that you are rather overdoing your diplomatic reticence, Captain Granet. You haven’t told me a single thing. Why, some of the Tommies I have been to see in the hospitals have been far more interesting than you.”
He smiled.
“I can assure you,” he protested, “it isn’t my fault. You can’t imagine how fed up one gets with things out there, and the newspapers can tell you ever so much more than we can. One soldier only sees a little bit of his own corner of the fight, you know.”
“But can’t you tell me some of your own personal experiences?” she persisted. “They are so much more interesting than what one reads in print.”
“I never had any,” he assured her. “Fearfully slow time we had for months.”
“Of course, I don’t believe a word you say,” she declared, laughing.
“You’re not taking me for a war correspondent, by any chance, are you?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Your language isn’t sufficiently picturesque! Tell me, when are you going back?”