“Dicky, darling, I don’t think you have seen Captain Hatton,” her mother suggested. Teresa turned unconcernedly.
“I am sorry,” she apologised. “How do you do? I remember my sister did tell me you were here, but I happened to be thinking at the time and I forgot.”
“Please don’t bother,” he said. He was recovering his temper under the influence of breakfast and the sense of safety that his host brought. “You’ll see so much of me, I’m afraid, that I’d rather you did not notice it.”
“Don’t hope for that, Hatton,” put in the General. “They’ll see everything you do. It’s a damned noticing family; except Evangeline and she’ll fall over you in the dark every time.”
Captain Hatton looked embarrassed and changed the subject. “Are you going to like being here, do you think?” he asked Susie.
“Oh, I think so,” she replied. “Of course it is quite different from London, but there must be some nice people. Do you know many people here yet?”
“I have got some friends who live a few miles out,” he said. “I have stayed with them for hunting, but I’ve been out of England for the last three years. We were sent to Germany after the armistice and I came back to go into hospital.”
“Oh, dear me, those hospitals!” she sighed. “Shall I ever forget them! I couldn’t do any actual nursing, of course, though I should have loved it; but I don’t think it was right the way women left their children. But I used to visit the poor boys and wash up. I get such touching letters from them even now. Do you remember young Digby, Cyril?”
“No, I don’t, but I could make a fair guess at him. You forget that I was in my little wooden hut at the time and couldn’t leave it even for you. I wonder if that beastly woman is out of my room. Dicky—oblige your father. Go and see if she is there, will you? I want to get dressed.”
“She is making toast, dear,” Mrs. Fulton explained. “You might ask her for it; she won’t hear the bell.”