| [14] | Royal Army Medical Corps. |
§ 3
“. . . And what perfectly-appointed country residences do we inspect today, Pat?” asked “poor Master Francis” as they threaded the traffic of Tottenham Court Road.
“Look at them if you like. They’re in that pocket.”
Francis lifted the leather flap in the door, which she indicated; pulled out and opened a long envelope; began to study the house-agent’s slips.
“Berkshire,” he read out. “Berkshire again. Oxfordshire, border of Berkshire. Berkshire, border of Oxfordshire. . . . None of them sound very promising, Pat.”
“No,” she admitted, “but I like the idea of living in that part of the world. My mother was Oxfordshire, you know. Besides, we might find something.”
“I don’t know why you’re so keen about the country all of a sudden, Pat,” went on Francis. “What about your lonely leave-men. Who’ll motor them home to their wives?”
Patricia drove on in silence for a few minutes; then she said: “A woman with six hundred a year and two children to educate, can’t indulge in the luxury of unpaid war-work, Francis. And besides there are heaps of people meeting the leave-trains now: it’s become quite fashionable.”