“I wonder, Joan, how many miles you have pranced tonight!” said Aunt Phyllis, kissing her good night.
“Joan,” said Adela, “you are The Loveliest.”...
For a minute or so Joan stood in front of her looking-glass, studying a flushed, candle-lit figure....
“Pah!” she said at last. “Hetty!” and flung her scanty clothes aside.
She caught the reflection of herself in the mirror again. She spread out her hands in a gesture to the pretty shape she saw there, and stood.
“What’s the Good of it?” she said at last.
As soon as Joan’s head touched the pillow that night she fell asleep, and she slept as soundly as a child that had been thoroughly naughty and all at sixes and sevens, and that has been well slapped and had a good cry to wind up with, and put to bed. In all the world there is no sounder sleep than that.
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH
THE WORLD ON THE EVE OF WAR
§ 1
Oswald sat in the March sunshine that filled and warmed his little summerhouse, and thought about Joan and Peter....