In a week Winn had learned that Maurice and Claire were orphans, that they lived with an aunt who didn't get on with Claire and an uncle who didn't get on with Maurice, and that there were several cousins too stodgy for words. Claire was waiting for Maurice to get through Sandhurst—he'd been horribly interrupted by pleurisy—and then she could keep house for him somewhere—wherever he was sent—unless she took up a profession. She rather thought she was going to do that in any case, because they would have awfully little money; and besides, not doing things was a bore, and every girl ought to make her way in the world, didn't Major Staines think so?
Major Staines didn't, and emphatically said that he didn't.
"Good God, no! What on earth for?" was how he expressed it. Claire stopped short, outside the office door, just as she was going to pay her bill.
"We shall have to talk about this," she said gravely. "I'm awfully afraid you're a reactionary."
"I dare say I am," said Winn, who hadn't the faintest idea what a reactionary was, but rather liked the sound of it. "We'll talk about it as much as you like. How about lunch at the Schatz Alp?"
That was how they went to the Schatz Alp and had their first real talk.
CHAPTER XIII
Claire was not perfectly sure of life—it occurred to her at nineteen that it might have in store for her certain surprises—but she was perfectly sure of herself. She knew that she ought to have been a boy, and that if she had been a boy she would have tried to be like General Gordon. Balked of this ambition by the fact of her sex, she turned her attention to Maurice.
It seemed to her essential that he should be like General Gordon in her place, and by dint of persuasion, concentration of purpose, and sheer indomitable will power she infected Maurice with the same idea. He had made her no promises, but he had agreed to enter the army.