She told the incident to Godfrey, having reached the point of confiding to him such domestic bickerings. He set his teeth and damned the fellow. How could this incomparable angel dwell in the same house with him? She sighed. If it were not for the war. . . . But during the war the house was the centre of her manifold activities on behalf of the country. As for the social side of it, she would throw that up to-morrow only too gladly. Heavens, how weary she was of it all!
“I wish to God I could take you away with me!” said the young man fiercely.
“I wish you could, dear,” she said in her caressing tone. “But in the meantime we have these happy little hours. We mustn’t ask too much of fate.”
“I only ask what fate gives to any man—that bus driver and that policeman—the woman he loves.”
“I’m afraid,” she laughed, “if you heard the history of their vie amoureuse, you would be dreadfully disillusioned. It seems to me that everybody marries the wrong person in this muddle-pairing world. We must make the best of it.”
At this period, infatuated though she was, she had no idea of breaking away from convention, even to the extent of setting up a household separate from her husband’s. Social life was dear to her, for all her asseverations to the contrary, and dearer still the influence that she could command. Yet, as the days went on she noticed signs of restiveness in Godfrey. An hour thrice a week in an open car, when half his attention had to be devoted to the preservation of their own and other people’s lives, scarcely satisfied his young ardour. The times when he could lounge free in her boudoir from four to six were over. As an officer on the staff of the Director-General of Operations, he knew no hours. The intricate arrangements for the mobility of the British Army did not depend on the convenience of young gentlemen at the War Office. Such had to scorn delight and live laborious days, which on the occasions of especial military activity were apt to run into the nights. Now and then, of course, Godfrey could assure himself an hour or so for lunch, but never could he foretell it on the day before. Only once, by hasty telephoning, did they manage to meet for lunch at the Carlton. In the evenings they were a little more successful. Now and again a theatre together. But Godfrey, suddenly become sensitive on the point of honour, refused opportunities of dining at Belgrave Square.
“If I love a man’s wife, I can’t sit at his table and drink his wine and smile at him,” he proclaimed bluntly.
“It seems,” she said, at last, “there’s nothing left but for me to run away with you.”
“Why not?” he asked, laughing, for her tone was light.
“What about the British Army?”