"In that case," said Marjorie, "we must fall back on our second plan."
"We?"
"I mean Joe and I."
"Oh, sorry. I was hoping you meant you and me! What is the plan?"
"It's a secret just now," said Marjorie. "Perhaps I'll tell you about it, when I write."
Roy looked up eagerly.
"You will write to me?" he said. "Often?"
"Of course I will!" said the girl. "It will be wonderful!"
What she meant was that it would be wonderful to have, in future, a personal interest in the British Expeditionary Force. As already indicated, the circle in which Marjorie had been born and bred was not very heavily represented in France—nor would be until conscription came. But now Roy would be there. She would have a personal outlet for her imagination, and a peg to hang her prayers on. Women hate abstract patriotism, as they hate all abstractions. Roy would supply the human, personal element, upon which a woman's visions must always be founded. Male orators might volley and thunder about the common cause and the redemption of civilization; but to most women the Great War and its issues were usually embodied in the person of a single undistinguished individual in a tin bowler.
Roy, of course, did not understand.