“What do you mean?”
“Iron. . . . We’re chock full of Government work for South Africa: gun-carriages and rifle barrels. You’re doing medicine, aren’t you?”
“Lucky devil. You’re learning to cure people, while I’m learning to make things to kill them.”
He stared out of the window towards a patch of sky in which the glow of his father’s furnaces pulsated as though it registered the beatings of a savage, fiery heart, and relapsed into gloomy silence. The tunnel swallowed them, and in a moment they pulled up at Mawne Hall. Willis prepared to go. “I say,” he said, “we’re giving a dance next week—” and hesitated.
“What for?” said Edwin, for want of something better.
“I don’t know . . . unless it’s to celebrate the Colenso casualties. I believe you’re invited. I hope you’ll come.”
“Thanks,” said Edwin. But Willis was gone.