In this she was perfectly right. But nothing is so difficult to a Sentimentalist as to believe in the existence of an incurable Egotist.
CHAPTER VIII
TWO or three days later Jack called to say good-bye.
“I’m off to France this week,” he explained, “and I shan’t have another chance. I wanted to see you once more before—before crossing Channel.”
The Sentimentalist was in her own little morning-room busy with the week’s household accounts. She pushed aside all the tradesmen’s books and bills, and rose from her chair.
“Oh, Jack!” she said half whisperingly, and again, “Oh, Jack!” Then suddenly: “Let us go out in the garden! We can’t talk here!”
She took up her hat which had been lying on a table near her, and threw a fleecy wool scarf over her shoulders. It was a brilliant day, despite the wintry season, and a few red leaves still clinging to the trees made flashes of colour against the clear grey-blue of the sky.
“How’s Dad?” Jack asked, with a show of interest. “And ‘The Deterioration of Language Invariably Perceived’?”
She laughed rather tremulously. “Oh, just the same! Dad is not very well, I’m afraid. He says the war worries him so.”