"But then, properly behaved ladies don't ask you direct personal questions, do they?"
"Well—no—not often."
And they exchanged one of those smiles that ripen intimacy more speedily than a month of talk.
"I'm quite unrepentant, all the same!" she said. "And I'm rather wanting to ask you another. It's about Captain Desmond this time. May I?"
"Ask away!"
"Well, I want to know more of how he won his V.C. Evelyn could give me no details when I asked her; and it struck me just now that you were probably there at the time."
"Yes, indeed, I was," he said, with a new ring in his voice. "There were a few bad minutes when we in the valley felt morally certain we had seen the last of him."
She turned on him with kindling eyes.
"Oh, tell me—please! Tell me everything. I am soldier enough to understand."