He began, at once, to joke.
It was bad luck, he said, to be laid out like this, just at the very end.
‘I might have been in at the death,’ he said, ‘when I had kept going so long! Hugo has beaten me, good old Hugo!’
I talked about Hugo, and the letters I had had from him lately, and of the war ending, and how every one was saying that it must end very soon.
Then Diana came in. She was a V.A.D. Her eyes danced and sparkled under her white coif; she was so tall and strong and full of life, and she moved as though all movement were delight. She came to bring Guy tea, in a feeding cup, on a tray.
Guy introduced her to me, and she smiled at me, and at him. She put her arm under his head to raise him up; she gave him his tea to drink like a little child. She arranged his pillows deftly, with her strong white hands, and I watched Guy’s eyes as they followed her about the room, and I thought:
‘Guy is going to marry that girl . . .’
And I thought of Mollie, at Salonika, with George dead.
And I thought:
‘What chance has Mollie, against that joy and youth?’