“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he answered. “We used to talk like that. I’m trying to grope back.”
He put his hand over his forehead wearily.
“God!” he said. “How terrible was war in a Nissen hut! I cannot even now forget that I was every yard a soldier!”
He began to hum his well-remembered anthem, “Blear-eyed Bill, the Butcher of the Boche,” and then checked himself.
“Nay, let us forget that melody of blood. Let us rather sing of fragrant things of peace.” He hummed the nursery ballad of “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are!”
Susy Whincop seized him by the wrist.
“So the Fat Boy has escaped the massacre? Come and make us laugh. We are getting too serious at the piano end of the room.”
“Lady,” said Fortune, “tempt me not to mirth-making. My irony is terrible when roused.”
As he went to the piano I caught sight of Brand just making his way through a group by the door.