“What’s wrong, Harding?”
I touched him on the elbow, for I did not like him to give himself away before the other company in the window-seat.
He rose at once, and walked, in a stumbling way, across the room, while I followed. The room was empty where we stood.
“Aren’t you well?” I asked.
He laughed in a most tragic way.
“Did you see those two in the car? Pierrot and Columbine?”
I nodded.
“Columbine was my wife. Pierrot is now her husband. Funny, isn’t it?”
My memory went back to that night in Cologne less than six months before, when Harding had asked me to use my influence to get him demobilised, and as an explanation of his motive opened his pocket-book and showed me the photograph of a pretty girl, and said, “That’s my wife ... she is hipped because I have been away so long.” I felt enormously sorry for him.