"Ninety-nine point eight."
"Call that a temperature? I've gone about with a hundred and three."
"When was that?"
"When I first went out to Canada. I'm English, you know—only left the Old Country in Nineteen thirteen. But, when the war broke out, I joined up with the first batch of Canadians—lucky to start with a commission. Lord, it was hell's delight!"
"So I've been given to understand," said Camilla. "But what about your temperature of a hundred and three?"
"I was a young fool," said he, "and I didn't care what happened to me."
"Why?" she asked.
For a while he did not answer. He bit his lower lip, showing just a fine line of white teeth. Memory again clutched her. She was also struck by his unconscious realization of the aging quality of the war in that he spoke of his Nineteen-thirteen self as "a young fool." So far as that went, they thought in common.
Presently he said,
"Your voice reminds me of some one I used to know."