“Yes. But it’s not so bad as when you don’t come down one stair enough.”
“Yes, it is. It’s worse. Your way only makes one fall and hurt oneself ... it’s quite ordinary. But the other way gives you a—an inside feeling ... oh, I don’t know—like a shock!”
“Well, anyway,” said Tim, trying to regain forfeited ground, “I wasn’t pretending. Of course the idea is wonderful about being pioneers, and not minding—and—and going first to clear away the rubbish for the others. And of course I think it no end plucky of Gillian to go and live with the fellow she loves, nor bother a cuss about being married or anything. But—need we?” He added: “You’re different, Nell ... that’s what I mean.”
It was not quite all he meant. But how could he express his sense of her harebell frailty; and his great desire—heritage of two thousand years and more years behind—to act the male, and protect her, and mightily build her round with protection that not a whistleful of cold air could pierce one chink of his protection on to one inch of her sensitive soul.
Nell loved Timothy. On the second of April (she remembered the day) he had kissed her slowly and reverently—and then suddenly, with queer eyes, and cherub’s mouth grimly puckered and set, had strangled her body in his arms till she wondered.... Be sure a girl loves the boy in whose eyes she first sees that special queer look called up by her.
But Gillian still claimed her worship. Gillian she still idealized from footstool vantage. Gillian was a genius, and Gillian was brave, and Gillian had taken careless notice of her, and sometimes even been whimsically tender; Gillian had never laughed at her—the least she could do in gratitude was to regulate her conduct by Gillian’s; to trust and follow her chosen pilot; not let the sacrifice be in vain.... Why, supposing after Gillian had risked her very soul in daring initiative, all her disciples had scuttled backwards from her example ... and ... and got married! Nell’s face burnt with the shame of it; she pressed her hot cheek down among the cool stems.... Funny, how enormous the thicket of buttercups looked above her, viewed right down here amongst their beginnings ... flicker of green and shadow of gold and minute fragments of notched fern and leaf, of weed and moss and wee scurrying insects ... the polished petals bulged close to her eyelids, a bright blue beetle swung like a jewel from the tip of a blade of grass ... below all this stir and hurry and colour—what else was there? Could she get deeper down into it? Deeper and deeper? If she lay quite, quite still, would the earth-life fold her up and cover her over with its smell and its hum ... drowse—that was an earth-word.... Nell repeated it softly ... “drowse ... drowse....”
“Billy Dawson’s number has gone up,” Timothy’s voice, startlingly near and loud, split the little circle of hush she had woven about her. “Saw it in the paper to-day. Poor old Billy—he was one of the best. Brought down three Boches first and then Archie got him. Rotten luck—I liked old Bill. This was his second time out there....”
And all not quite as irrelevant as it appeared. Timothy felt urgently the need of now or never making some special appeal to Nell, a thrust to penetrate all her spiritual mufflers. Because it so literally might be never—after to-day. But he could not say this—there was the bother of it! It simply wasn’t done in the Flying Corps—of course not. But maybe if he just insinuated into her perception that airmen do occasionally get killed—other airmen—especially when for the second time out there—well, no harm in that, surely? Timothy, whose natural blunt honesty did not often lead him into strategy, now viewed himself as a very Machiavelli of subtle craft. He watched her closely for a wash of deeper colour in her neck and cheeks. But Nell rarely flushed ... and he could not see her eyes....
A wind trembled over the top of the buttercups, swayed them from misty gold to a brilliant shining sea of light....
“Oh!” and Nell sprang upright, “I want to get closer to them—oh, how does one get closer and closer.... I thought to lie in among them, but it doesn’t help a bit....” She began to gather up whole masses of buttercups, not picking each one singly from the stem, but tearing riotously, indiscriminately, an armful at a time, as though she were quenching a thirst.... Timothy, his gaze round with amazement, wondered what was the secret spring of this outburst of passion, venting itself on buttercups, millions of buttercups ... already she had wrenched away more than she could carry; they tumbled from her fingers, and unheeding she stepped on them and grasped for more ... the long stems clung about her ankles—tripped her to her knees. Timothy leapt forward and clutched her as she fell against him—saw her and held her and kissed her through the sharp-edged little petals—brushed them impatiently away.... “Closer—and closer!” he sobbed—