THE MAN IN UNIFORM
STAGGERED BACK WITH
ONE HAND TO HIS HEAD.
At a bend in the road there was a wayside seat already partially occupied by a young couple. William, feeling slightly shaken by the events of the last hour, sat down beside them. He sat there for some minutes, listening idly to their conversation, before he realised with horror who they were. He decided to get up and unostentatiously shuffle away. They did not seem to have noticed him so far. But Miss Flower was demanding a bunch of the catkin palm that grew a little farther down the road. Robert, William’s elder brother, with the air of a knight setting off upon a dangerous quest for his ladye, went to get it for her. Miss Flower turned to William.
“Good afternoon,” she said.
William shaded the side of his face from her with his hand and uttered a sound, which was suggestive of violent pain or grief, but whose real and only object was to disguise his natural voice.
Miss Flower moved nearer to him on the seat.
“Are you in trouble?” she said sweetly.
William, at a loss, repeated the sound.
She tried to peer into his face.
“Could—could I help at all?” she said, in a voice whose womanly sympathy was entirely wasted on William.
William covered his face with both his hands and emitted a bellow of rage and desperation.