He went down to his early breakfast; came back again; kissed her good-bye.
“Take care of yourself, Peter,” she smiled at him. And again he answered “Trust me, old thing. . . .”
But as she listened to the taxi purring down Harley Street, to the slam of the closing front-door, it seemed to Patricia as though there were no Power, either heavenly or earthly, in whom a woman of those days might put her trust.
PART NINETEEN
THE CITY OF FEAR
§ 1
Had Peter Jameson been an Irishman, a Gaul, or an Italian, his mind—as he taxied to Victoria Station—would have pictured to himself the physical charms of the wife he was leaving: her dark eyes framed in the golden aureole of hair, her smooth loving hands, the tones of her low voice. . . . But Peter, in his attitude towards women, was very much the Anglo-Saxon; and his thoughts of Pat, if he could have voiced them, would not have exceeded: “Dear old Pat, she’s a jolly good sort.”
Still, it needed effort not to think of her overmuch during the long journey back to his Brigade!
Three mornings after they had said good-bye, he lit a cigar; pulled tight the belt of his mackintosh; drew on his gauntlets; and set out on his first journey from Poperinghe to “Wipers.”
Little Willie, skittish after long inactivity, lashed out as his master mounted; danced erratically over the cobbles: Queen Bess and Jelks jogged soberly in rear.
It had been snowing. Under-foot the streets were still starred and sodden; and when they came to the great Square, they found men at work, shovelling dirty brown heaps to the side of the road. Gloomy, the place looked: gray-housed under its gray skies, inhospitable, a vision of discomfort. . . .