“It is from your noble heart that you speak,” cried La llorraine. And embraced her friend.
II
“Aren’t they luscious?” David chuckled, as he and Richard walked down Edgware Road.
“’Um. You like these rum people, don’t you? It struck me the two old women kicked up a lot of silly fuss about the veal, that’s all.”
“And what sort of people does your Unappreciative Highness consider an improvement on La llorraine and the Comtesse?”
“The sensible sort—like the Dunnes. I’m going to stay with ’em next week. Grev’s home, training for the R.N.A.S. And young Frank’s just out of Osborne.”
“Here—get on this Oxford Circus bus—I want to buy presents for everybody this afternoon, to love me by when I’m gone. You can help me choose—you have such taste and originality, dear Richard!”
“Feeling lively, aren’t you?” grunted Richard, as they climbed to the top of the bus. A shower of rain had washed the two rows of seats empty for them.
“So would you be, if you’d got rid of a nightmare like mine....”
“’M yes—I know something about getting rid of nightmares.” This was the black September of his eighteenth birthday, but Deb had saved him.... At any moment now, he might expect to hear from Samson that he was exempt from internment, and eligible to enlist. So Richard was in high spirits as well, though they did not leap and exult and fling themselves about and glitter into speech as uncontrollably as did David’s. David was in quicksilver mood on the eve of his embarkation for Palestine.