‘If Guy can bear to⸺’
He said:
‘Oh, Guy!’ and stopped short.
‘I think it is abominable,’ he said.
Afterwards he was sorry. Walter was always sorry afterwards, when he had been cross, but I could not forget the things he said. He broke his glasses soon after this, the rimless ones that he had bought to please me. He would not buy any more. He went back to the old spectacles with the black steel frames. I could not bear him in those spectacles.
XXIV
The children had whooping cough that summer. When it was better we went to the seaside. We took lodgings on the Norfolk coast; it was cheap to go there because of the War; people were afraid of the German Navy, and bombardments from the sea, and Zeppelins.
There was no bombardment, nothing while we were there, but it was very dreary. There were soldiers there as everywhere, and barbed wire along the cliffs. It was cold too and rainy.
Walter came down for a fortnight. The children still coughed a great deal, they coughed especially at night. Maud came for a bit too, and helped me with the children.
I thought: