"Ladies and gentlemen," said Katherine, "I ask you to give three cheers for Lieutenant Millwood."
It is possible the Aldeburgh people thought we were slightly off our heads. If so, the Aldeburgh people were correct.
I travelled to town that evening in a crowded compartment of the class named on my ticket, and whilst my fellow passengers slept, I kept awake and enjoyed my dreams. Young Langford, in seeing me off at the station, had explained to me that although his aunt and her husband had regarded himself and Katherine with approval, he felt by no means certain that this view would be shared by his father; to avoid a row and to escape anything like a dispute with a parent whom he had always obeyed, he proposed, in the case of being ordered out, to come up to London and take Katherine to a registrar's office. Langford hoped he might count upon me, both for help and for discretion.
"You know she is only a clerk in a bank?" I suggested. "Not sure whether you have been told. We don't want misunderstandings."
"The dear girl has told me everything," he declared, earnestly. "And it will be a most tremendous comfort to me when I'm out there, to know that her days are occupied, and that she has a rare, good friend in you!"
My open-eyed dreams regarded my nephew Herbert. The war had, so far as he was concerned, shuffled the cards afresh, and by the hour the train reached Liverpool Street, I had settled comfortably in my mind how the new hand was to be played.
"Miss Muriel shan't have him!" I promised myself.