You cannot kiss a man good night suddenly when he is fifteen yards away....
She closed the door behind her softly, put down her candle, and began to walk about her room and swear in an entirely unladylike fashion. Then she went over to the open window, wringing her hands. “How am I to do it?” she said. “How am I to do it? The situation’s preposterous. He’s mine. And I might be his sister!”
“Shall I make a declaration?”
“I suppose Hetty did.”
But all the cunning of Joan was unavailing against the invisible barriers to passion between herself and Peter. They spent a long Sunday of comradeship, and courage and opportunity alike failed. The dawn on Monday morning found a white and haggard Joan pacing her floor, half minded to attempt a desperate explanation forthwith in Peter’s bedroom with a suddenly awakened Peter. Only her fear of shocking him and failing restrained her. She raved. She indulged in absurd soliloquies and still absurder prayers. “Oh, God, give me my Peter,” she prayed. “Give me my Peter!”
§ 21
Monday broke clear and fine, with a September freshness in the sunshine. Breakfast was an awkward meal; Peter was constrained, Oswald was worried by a sense of advice and counsels not given; Joan felt the situation slipping from her helpless grasp. It was with a sense of relief that at last she put on her khaki overcoat to drive Peter to the station. “This is the end,” sang in Joan’s mind. “This is the end.” She glanced at the mirror in the hall and saw that the fur collar was not unfriendly to her white neck and throat. She was in despair, but she did not mean to let it become an unbecoming despair—at least until Peter had departed. The end was still incomplete. She had something stern and unpleasant to say to Peter before they parted, but she did not mean to look stern or unpleasant while she said it. Peter, she noted with a gleam of satisfaction, was in low spirits. He was sorry to go. He was ashamed of himself, but also he was sorry. That was something, at any rate, to have achieved. But he was going—nevertheless.
She brought round the little Singer to the door. She started the engine with a competent swing and got in. The maids came with Peter’s portmanteau and belongings. “This is the end,” said Joan to herself, touching her accelerator and with her hand ready to release the brake. “All aboard?” said Joan aloud.
Peter shook hands with Oswald over the side of the car, and glanced from him to the house and back at him. “I wish I could stay longer, sir,” said Peter.
“There’s many days to come yet,” said Oswald. For we never mention death before death in war time; we never let ourselves think of it before it comes or after it has come.