K. I should ascribe it to the harvest moon,
That wakes romance in Metropolitan breasts,
Drawing our young war-workers out of town
To seek the glamour of the country lanes
Under the silvery beams to lovers dear. O.S.
FORCE OF HABIT.
The fact that George had been eighteen months in Gallipoli, Egypt and France, without leave home till now, should have warned me. As it was I merely found myself gasping "Shell-shock!"
We were walking in a crowded thoroughfare, and George was giving all the officers he met the cheeriest of "Good mornings." It took people in two ways. Those on leave, blushing to think they had so far forgotten their B.E.F. habits as to pass a brother-officer without some recognition, replied hastily by murmuring the conventional "How are you?" into some innocent civilian's face some yards behind us. Mere stay-at-homes, on the other hand, surprised into believing that they ought to know him, stopped and became quite effusive. As far as I can remember George accepted three invitations to dinner from total strangers rather than explain, and I was included in one of them.
We were for the play that night and I foresaw difficulties at the public telephone, and George's first remark of "Hullo, hullo, is that Signals? Put me through to His Majesty's," confirmed my apprehensions.