He said nothing this time, and I said nothing. I felt very tired now, and then, I was frightened. It was as though I had been asleep, and dreaming, and contented, and now suddenly I had woken up; as though everything had become intense, and alive, and somehow emotional. I felt as though tremendous things were happening, all round us, everywhere; as though we were a tiny island in a great space.

I put out my hand and touched Walter’s arm; it was dark in the taxi and I could hardly see him.

‘Walter,’ I said, ‘do you feel as if something dreadful were going to happen?’

He turned sharply.

‘No,’ he said. ‘What do you mean? What should happen?’

I said:

‘Oh, I don’t know exactly; I suppose it is silly; I feel as though this couldn’t last, as though something were going to break.’

‘It is that silly talk about a war that has upset you,’ he said. ‘People ought not to talk like that.’

I said:

‘No; I wasn’t thinking about a war; I had forgotten that; but I feel afraid of something, I don’t know what. I believe George felt it too.’