I was looking at her; I saw that marvellous, that red rose blush of which Malory had spoken, come up under her skin till her cheek was like the rounded beauty of a nectarine. And I wondered, as I had wondered before; I wondered....
“And what news have you of Mr. Malory?” she asked.
“None,” I said. “I thought perhaps you might have heard.”
“I? If Mr. Malory was to write at all, would he not have written to you? Why should he write to me?”
“I hope,” I said, “that nothing has happened to him.”
She had answered me before I had finished speaking.
“Nothing has happened to him.”
“Why,” I said surprised, “how are you so certain?”
She looked suddenly trapped and angry.
“It’s an odd name,” she said at last, “one would notice it in a casualty list.” She rushed on. “We poor women, you know, have to keep our eye on the lists; there’s few officers, but many men, a mistake’s soon made, and my husband is there in France. This is my husband.” She lifted a photograph and showed me the keen, Arab face I had expected.