1
After supper Kate got out the good coffee cups, and they waited for the Vinneys. Kate was rather pink, and wore a severe blouse, in which she looked plain; it was a mortification she thought she ought to practise when the Vinneys came. Evie was skilfully altering a hat. Alix made a pen-and-ink sketch of her as she bent over it.
Mrs. Frampton knitted a sock. The Evening Thrill came in, and Kate opened it, for Mrs. Frampton liked to hear tit-bits of news while she worked.
'Stories impossible to doubt,' read Kate, in her prim, precise voice, 'reach us continually of atrocities practised by the enemy....' She read several, unsuitable for these pages. Mrs. Frampton clicked horror with her tongue. The papers she took in were rich in such stories. As it was impossible to doubt them, she did not try. Possibly they gave life a certain dreadful savour.
'To think of the march of civilisation, and this still going on,' Mrs. Frampton commented. 'I'm sure any one would think they'd be ashamed.'
Kate said, with playful acidity (Kate had reached what with many is a playful age), 'Thank you, Alix. Thank you ever so much, Alix, for getting between me and the lamp.'
Alix moved, her attempt foiled.
Kate read next the letter of a private soldier at the front. 'The Boches are all cowards. They can't stand against our boys. They fly like rabbits when we charge with the bayonet. You should hear them squeal, like so many pigs. There's not a German private in the army that wants to fight. The officers have to keep flogging them on the whole time.'
'Poor things, I'm sure one can't but be sorry for them,' said Mrs. Frampton. 'Knit two and make one, purl two, slip one, pass the slipped one over, drop four and knit six.' (Or anyhow, something of that sort, for she had got to the heel, as one unfortunately at last must.)
'It's wonderful how long the war goes on, since all the Germans are like that,' said Kate, without conscious irony, as she took up her own knitting. Hers was a body-belt. 'I believe this new wool is different from the last. Somewhat stringier, it seems. Brown will have to take it back, if it is.'