"We do, dear. Only you put it in five words where I use five hundred. An overwhelming shake-up and shake-together!"
They were both erect; each looking at the other with a tremulous half-fearful stir of hope that there was yet salvage to be effected among the shipwreck of their joint adventure. Patricia, nimbler to reverse emotions than the man, was silently administering harsh rebuke to her own arbitrary judgment, that had allowed faith in his innate fineness to lapse into intolerance. Perhaps after all there was that in him—her divine failure—which would justify all her one-time beliefs. She had let instinct be misled by his little irritating surface faults....
Well—neither time nor place for private adjustments and reconciliations, while the Germans were barely turned back from the walls of Paris. She had little patience with those people who used the war, instead of being used by it. When the crisis was over ... then maybe she and Gareth, comparing their tiny shares in what was past, might thus discover a generous new comradeship in mutual respect. Or even the old glamour might break again, like luminous sunset between black stripes of cloud. Meanwhile, she would leave it to Gareth's awakened understanding, that for now silence between them was enough....
"There's a mighty lot to be done," she repeated in her most matter-of-fact tones; "you might make a creditable start by finding my waterproof boots."
"Pat—don't go to the Front on Thursday. Please don't. Let's do something together for the war."
"What?"
"Something...."
"Rather silly for me to give up a definite job, for the sake of something——"
"For the sake of doing it together."
"Je n'en vois pas la nécessité." She turned away from him, and with quick restless movements began to throw back the scattered articles into the portmanteau.