“And you think we’ll get beyond it?”
“I don’t doubt it for a moment. Do you?”
“I don’t know. I always think that mankind looks its best under the microscope, so to speak, and that it’s rather horrible when you see it in the mass.”
“Like mold?” he suggested. “Ferns and flowers and lovely shapes when you magnify it, but very nasty indeed when you look at it on a damp wall.”
“Yes. Just like that.”
Her eyes smiled back at his eyes. It was at this moment that something greater than interest awoke in her. She knew it was there; she was aware of the very instant of its coming, and she meant, later, to examine it at her leisure.
Noel and Major Stroud were engaged in studying a map of the Somme, and were oblivious to them.
“You really must meet my grandmother, Lady Gregory—or Madame Claire, as Noel and I call her. She’s the most wonderful person. When you’re better you must come and have tea with us at her hotel.”
“I should like that very much,” he said. “I get on quite well with old ladies. I find young ones rather alarming nowadays, but perhaps it’s because I don’t see much of them.”
Judy laughed at this.