"Beastly, isn't it? Still, I'm not worrying. Daddy's frightfully healthy, thank Heaven. He'll live to be eighty at the very least. Why—I should be fifty."
"You're all right," said Anne. "But it's awful for me. Grandpapa might die any day. He's seventy-five now. It'll be ages before you're fifty."
"And I may never be it. India may polish me off long before that." He laughed his happy laugh. The idea of his own death seemed to Jerrold irresistibly funny.
"India?"
He laughed again at her dismay.
"Rather. I'm going in for the Indian Civil."
"Oh Jerrold—you'll be away years and years, nearly all the time, like
Daddy, and I shan't ever see you."
"I shan't start for ages. Not for five years. Lots of time to see each other in."
"Lots of time for not seeing each other ever again."
She sat staring mournfully, seeing before her the agony of separation.