COLONEL, as his eyes wander to the garden, ‘I remember walking back with my wife and bringing her in here through the window. She kissed some of the furniture.’
BILLY. ‘I suppose you would like a grander affair, Barbara?’
BARBARA. ‘No, just the same.’
BILLY. ‘I hoped you would say that.’
BARBARA. ‘But, Billy, I’m to have such a dream of a wedding gown. Granny is going with me to London to choose it’—laying her head on the Colonel’s shoulder—‘if you can do without her for a day, dear.’
COLONEL, gallantly, ‘I shall go with you. I couldn’t trust you and granny to choose the gown.’
KARL. ‘You must often be pretty lonely, sir, when we are all out and about enjoying ourselves.’
COLONEL. ‘They all say that. But that is the time when I’m not lonely, Karl. It’s then I see things most clearly—the past, I suppose. It all comes crowding back to me—India, the Crimea, India again—and it’s so real, especially the people. They come and talk to me. I seem to see them; I don’t know they haven’t been here, Billy, till your granny tells me afterwards.’
BILLY. ‘Yes, I know. I wonder where granny is.’
BARBARA. ‘It isn’t often she leaves you for so long, dear.’