Antonia was temporarily freed from service by an attack of malaria on the part of her General. And Deb explained that since a couple of weeks Nell was working as her fag at the station canteen whence they had just come.
“Winifred, I wish you’d try for all our sakes to get a little thinner; the mere sight of you in weather like this is trying—especially since you spell your name with such a lot of extra letters.”
“Why, what difference can that make?” from Winnie, quite happy on the divan.
Gillian demanded sympathy from the company: “It’s that Camellia woman puts morbid ideas into her head. She’s told her that Winifred is a degeneration of a beautiful old Saxon name, and we’re gradually Saxonizing it back again to its original condition. We spell it W y n n e f r w d d e now.”
“It’s unrecognizable,” Deb laughed. “I’ll take to the divan on the strength of it.... I’m exhausted—we had an awful hustle up at the canteen.” She carelessly rolled the astonished Winifred on to the floor, and took her place among Theo’s treasured purple and peacock cushions—“Don’t you know, Winnie, that if we were in Germany, you, as an unimportant spinster, would have no right at all to the sofa, which is strictly reserved for the matron?”
“Well, but you’re not married either,” the victim of the evacuation argued slowly. “We none of us are except Gillian, and she isn’t really.”
Gillian twinkled across at Deb: “Well, how would the Germans cope with the problem of somebody who isn’t married really? Would they give me the sofa?”
“They’d give you the boot; and me too. There are no fine semi-shades abroad. A girl is good till she is slightly bad, and then she’s accepted as completely bad and damned everlastingly. Here, a girl can be badder and badder, if she doesn’t break the last rule of all—and then be accepted as completely good again at any time she wants to—like Manon. She’s engaged to Dolph Carew, you know. He’s been left pots of money by his uncle....”
Antonia said contemptuously: “Manon is the epitome of the saying; ‘If you can’t be good, be careful!’ She’s been careful and she’s got her reward....”