"Does Vera Brennan know that I call you Little Yeogh Wough and that you call me Big Yeogh Wough?"
"No. She knows a lot about me, but she doesn't know things like that."
"That's right. And now it's time you went to bed, or you will make me so very late in coming to say good night to you."
"All right." He got up at once. "But you're not going to sit up working, are you? I don't think you ought to in this East Coast house. What's the good of their putting out the lighthouse light if you keep the light in your turret blazing away? You see, we're as nearly opposite Germany as we can be."
"Very well. I'll be good and go to bed by a candle hidden away behind a curtain. It will be all the better for your father. There won't be any fear of the light waking him up. He says he would have been in his grave long ago if he kept the hours I keep. That may be, but I never find that the people who go to bed at nine and get up at half-past eight are any the healthier for it. I rather agree with that old financier who used to see a good deal of us and used to say sometimes in the morning: 'I feel quite out of sorts to-day. I always do whenever I go to bed earlier than usual.'"
I went to his room half an hour later to say good night to him. He was already in bed. Before I switched off his light I saw something in his eyes which made me say:
"Roland, what are you thinking of? Is this the last time I shall come and say good night to you before you go out to the Front—if you succeed in getting out there?"
"Yes." He answered me in a very tender voice which no one else knew. "You see, if you come up with me to London to-morrow we shall be sleeping in different places—you at the hotel and I at Uncle Jack's—and after that I shall be going straight to my rooms at Norwich. And even if my battalion gets accidentally ordered to this town, I shall have to sleep at headquarters. This place would be too far off. And I don't suppose there'll be much leave going, because the battalion is so raw and wants such a lot of training."
"What a splendid thing your five years' O.T.C. training has been for you!"