Longton shook his head.
"I should think it's long odds he's dead. All the way back to Boulogne he was raving ... oh, Lord! Here comes the sister! It's all right Sister; I'm not getting excited!"
Sonia bade him good-bye and clutched my arm until we got out into the street.
III
As soon as Longton was well enough to be allowed out of the hospital, I arranged one or two small parties to keep him amused till the time came for his next medical board. Sonia would not dine in public so soon after her brother's death, but we all met on one occasion at the flat, on another I took Longton to the Carlton, and on yet another Bertrand insisted on our both dining with him at the Club and spending the evening at a music-hall.
Longton enjoyed everything and was only disappointed because I sent him home to bed each night at eleven-thirty instead of going on to a night club. I cannot say that a trying day's work at the Admiralty in the middle of a war is the best or even a good preparation for appreciating the lighter relaxations of London. Frankly, I was not sorry when Longton, with a wry face, departed to the parental vicarage in Worcestershire.
It was Bertrand who seemed to derive the most lasting, if also the grimmest, satisfaction from our bout of mild dissipation.
"When the Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be," he murmured, as we put Longton into a taxi on the last night and dispatched him to Paddington. "August to April. The war's only been going on eight months, George."
"'Only'?"
"The Devil's almost well again. I don't see him ordering his cowl and sandals."