“Jameson’s c-coming along very well with his gun-drill, sir”—Charlie Straker, by virtue of knowledge, acted as unofficial instructor to the Brigade—“and he’s r-rather good with horses.”
“I’ve got other plans for P.J. Between you and me, Straker, Torrington’s fed-up with being indoors. And I can’t very well have a V.C. for Adjutant. He wants to go back to a Battery. My opinion is that he’s too ill to command one: still, I’m going to try P.J. in the Orderly Room. He’s been running offices all his life, and he ought to be able to pick up the work. . . .”
Arrived at No. 6 Brunswick Terrace, the flat which Peter and Patricia had taken when they gave up the house in Lowndes Square, the Weasel led way up the one flight of stairs; and pushed open the front-door into a rather ornate hall. They peeled off their mackintoshes; hung caps and riding-canes on the crowded hat-stand; and walked into the drawing-room.
Alice Stark and Patricia were sitting on the sofa under the rose-curtained window. In front of a small fire, stood Peter—miraculously without a cigar. Jack Baynet, a little aged by ten months of active service, lounged in a big armchair, glass at his side, talking to Bromley.
“Filthy stuff that new Boche gas,” he was saying. . . . “Hello, Straker. Congratulations on getting your commission. . . .” He got up and the two shook hands. . . . “Lucky devil not to be in that last show up at Wipers. The Zouaves sneaked most of our horses when they panicked. . . .”
The five men began talking “gas”—which had just been employed for the first time. Soon, Alice joined them, leaving Patricia alone.
Looking at the five in khaki, listening to the military “shop,” she could not help contrasting that evening with one, over a year ago, when she had entertained Jack and her father in the big drawing-room at Lowndes Square. Peter, she remembered, had been in Hamburg! And now, Peter was a soldier. They lived in a different world: a world of new values. Somehow, she felt years younger. . . .
“If it hadn’t have been for the Canadians, the Boche. . . .” she heard her brother’s voice calmly detailing undreamed of heroisms.
A world of new values, of wider horizons! And for sign of it she, Patricia Jameson, the most reasonable of young women, had fallen in love with her own husband. She wanted to—to surrender herself to him, just once, body and soul, utterly, absolutely, to tell him that she was his—his—his woman to do with as he would. . . .
Patricia reined in imagination as a rough-rider reins back a pulling horse.