"Can't you have both?"
"Not in war-time. Your chivalry is to keep back and not make yourself a danger and a nuisance."
"Come," she said, "what about Joan of Arc?" And that was too much for Jimmy. He jumped up off the bed and walked away from her and sat on the table as if it gave him some advantage.
"No, no," he said. "I can't stand that rot. When you're a saint—or I'm a saint—you can talk about Joan of Arc. If you want to be Joan of Arc go and be it with some man who isn't your husband—who isn't in love with you. Perhaps he won't mind. Go with Furny if you like, though it's rather hard on him."
I said I thought he was rather hard on Viola—if he'd seen the poor child at Baerlere, flinging herself out of the car and proposing to climb over the ruins of several houses and walk by herself—under shell-fire—to Zele, because she thought he was there—
Jimmy looked at her; and he did what he had done that night when he saw her coming towards him in the lounge. He sighed a long sigh of complicated anguish and satisfaction.
She heard it and she understood it, and she said, "I can't help it if I am like that. You'll have to take the risk of me. Please go away, Furny."
And I went.
* * * * *
Norah has been reading what I've just written, and she tells me that there's a great deal about Jimmy's "joy" and his "adventure" and all that; and not one word about his duty and devotion and self-sacrifice. She says I don't give a serious impression of him. He might have gone out to the war just for fun, and that it isn't fair to him.