The boy bared his foot obediently, and held it out while Pamela tried on a sock she had just finished knitting on a new pattern.
'I'm not very good at it,' sighed Pamela. 'Are you sure you can wear them, Dezzy?'
'Wear them? Ripping!' said the boy, surveying his foot at different angles. 'But you know, Pam, I can't take half the things you want me to take. What on earth did you get me a Gieve waistcoat for?'
'How do you know you won't be going to Mesopotamia?'
'Well, I don't know; but I don't somehow think it's very likely. They get their drafts from Egypt, and there's lots of artillery there.'
Pamela remembered with annoyance that Miss Bremerton had gently hinted the same thing when the Gieve waistcoat had been unpacked in her presence. It was true, of course, that she had a brother fighting under General Maude. That, no doubt, did give her a modest right to speak.
'How old do you think she is?' said Desmond, nodding in the direction of the library.
'Well, she's over thirty.'
'She doesn't look it.'
'Oh, Desmond, she does!'