Nell and Timothy lay among thick buttercups. Here and there the shimmering, glazed yellow lifted to circles of pale cowslips. Nell’s russet silk jersey was a splash of deeper colour in all the gold; the spilt pollen trembled on her loosened plaits of hair, the lustreless heavy brown of water densely overhung. Timothy thought he had never seen anyone more beautiful ... and he was flying over to France the next day.
“Nell——”
“Wait a minute, Tim.... I’m thinking.” She dared order him to wait, this fair young hero of hers. Because she had learnt to believe, through a year of wonder, and hesitation, and ignorance shaken into discernment, that he was indeed hers. And with belief came power—oh, what strange new power in her deep look ... young Nell knew everything now—all about feelings and life and colour ... she knew what feelings were when Timothy’s hand lay on her bare arm; and life was—Oh, but she mustn’t tell ... not yet ... you wouldn’t understand, because it’s all got to do with Timothy. And colour was what happened to Timothy if near to him she stirred or brushed his khaki sleeve....
She lay on her back among the buttercups; staring into the sky, and thinking.
“You see,” at last, “it’s such a Great Responsibility.”
He nodded, and echoed her phrase: “Yes—it’s No End of a Responsibility!”
He said this whenever they discussed the subject, and with a more profound air of worry each time. And they had discussed it so often. That New Generation! it really gave a fellow a terrific lot to think about.
“It isn’t as if it were just you and me, Tim. That would be so easy to settle. But—it’s all the others. Just think, Timothy, how many are being beaten down to be miserable just because they dare not walk away, be happy—like Gillian!”
“It’s awful!” Timothy’s eyes were round and solemn.... He was not frightfully keen on the New Generation. Had he been a rollicking youngster, he would have puffed it away in a laugh. But he followed laboriously where Nell led ... and thus got his answer, from the lips of the acolyte and the disciple, to the question he had once put to Blair Stevenson: “Yes, but what’s it all about? What are they up to, these girls?”