“Nothing, really! But that’s just why he worries!”
They were now in the leafless rosery, walking side by side under intertwined boughs of thorns. Jack gave a quick comprehensive glance around him.
“Looks rather different to what it did in summer,” he said.
The fair woman at his side looked up quickly.
“Ah, yes!” she murmured. “Everything is changed!”
“No, it isn’t!” he replied briskly. “You’re not changed—and I’m not changed! You’ve got a touch of the ‘blues,’ dear little lady! It’s that old V.A.D. commandant, I bet!”
“Oh, no! No, indeed; I don’t mind her snappy ways a bit! The wounded boys make up to me for all her tantrums!”
“I should hope they did!” said Jack, approvingly. “I say! If I get wounded I’ll try and get sent here, and you’ll nurse me!”
She smiled, but there was a rising of tears in her throat and she could not speak. Jack saw just how she felt, and bravely repressed his own emotion.
“You won’t mind seeing my father now and then?” he went on. “He said the other day that he would take it kindly if you’d look in at the cottage sometimes—”